This is a great solution to Gmail's lack of retention policy features that I've been using for a while now. I set up a label for regular notification emails and this script moves them to the trash after 7 days or so. I was tired of Google trying to sell me more space. So I did a big purge and now emails are flowing to the Trash regularly.
Substack Blog
Substack BlogSo it turns out I subscribe to ~30 Substack newsletters and their new inbox tool is helpful. You can also add arbitrary RSS feeds into the mix if you want, but with no organization tools you probably aren't going to use this as a full-time feed reader. Neat though!
Fast Company
I've been using this Simplify Gmail chrome plugin for a week now and I highly recommend it. I've been accidentally clicking compose ever since Gmail added the fly-in-on-hover navigation on the left. This plugin removes that and adds a floating compose button in the lower right. It removes several distractions around the edges and lets you focus on reading email—which is what you're there to do.
Craig Mod
"...email has stayed, and has largely stayed decentralized, and from that — its ubiquity and lack of central authority — email has become one of the most boringly powerful publishing platforms around." Newsletters, amirite?! I agree that it feels like an exciting time for email and I really need to get back to posting my favorites. Are you thinking about starting your own newsletter? There's a guide for that: Newsletter Guide. And here's the obligatory Simpsons reference.
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Good description of a handy tool that helps test mail server settings.
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The annual state of the world.
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"Admit it. You stereotype people by their email addresses." How Hunch user demographics break down by email domain. [via swissmiss]
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"I've argued that the ultimate endpoint for Digital Rights Management (DRM) is the pay-per-swing hammer." MetaFilter member adipocere takes DRM to its logical end.
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"A single meta tag to control prefetching reduced our DNS queries by 350 million per month." Wow, if you use subdomains extensively this is something to watch out for.
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yep, has comedy potential.
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"Without a Steve Jobs, Facebook is going to become the new Google. A technical powerhouse that can't build usable software, because the super-smart engineers have lost touch with real user problems."
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Good primer on getting email for web applications set up.
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Jesse and Adam are back, shoe talkin'.
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Linda Stone: "Email apnea - a temporary absence or suspension of breathing, or shallow breathing, while doing email." [via anil]
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MetaFilter is #1 on a list of companies that don't get Oregon cred. Not only is Matt Portland-ish, but I'm Corvallish, and Josh is smack-dab Portlandy.
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"...increasingly, we're seeing people with similar levels of access engage in fundamentally different ways. And we're seeing a social media landscape where participation 'choice' leads to a digital reproduction of social divisions."
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A disposable email service for single-use, throwaway accounts. [via nelson]
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"Different things work for different people but I thought I'd share what worked for me in the hopes that maybe one or more of these tips will help your own weight loss as well." Good tips and motivation for healthy eating.
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"...asking users to input their email address and password from a third-party site like GMail or Yahoo Mail is completely unacceptable." This is still so true, and I'm surprised sites like Facebook haven't been shamed into changing their "Find People" features.
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More photography in unusual environments: "When it thinks it's falling, the hard drive heads park themselves to prevent damage upon impact. Unfortunately, in zero gravity, the camcorder always thinks it's falling." [via waxy]
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The hazards of commercial photography: "The doorway was about 12 feet away from the unit, so although I would be in the magnetic field, it wasn't strong enough to pull the camera off of my tripod."
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Easy-to-install version of GPG for Mac folk.
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I just tried Enigmail again after a couple years, and it actually works well. This plugin handles encrypting/decrypting email on the fly. (If you have GnuPG installed.)
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"Marine scientists say archaeological remains discovered 36 metres (120 feet) underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India could be over 9,000 years old." [via sterling]
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rael and michael's startup has a blog now.