One of my favorite open-sourced tools HAS to be mutt. In my opinion, it is the single greatest mail client that has ever existed. It’s small, super fast, and so configurable that it makes my head hurt. If you need something done, mutt can do it.

I’ve since moved all of my mail to my colo server. All my personal mail has already been delivered there for years, and recently I started POPs-ing my mail from work using fetchmail. I refuse to use MS Exchange’s webmail. It’s just awful to use no matter what anyone else says.

Anyway. The last thing I needed to make work was remote printing. There is a separate muttprint package that will take the generic text mutt output, pretty it up, and send it to a printer. The problem used to be that I don’t obviously have a printer connected to my colo server. Even if I did, it would be a pain to drive to the facility to retrieve documents. After a bit of Google work along with some ssh magic, I’ve come up with the solution:


set print_command="muttprint -p -| ssh me@my_work_desktop_hostname \"lpr -P techlaser\""

That’s right, the power of the | (pipe for you window’s n00bs). Encryped printing from my colo to my office laser printer. Nice.

Not only can you play music directly from last.fm, but you can also scrobble your own tracks. Unfortunately, most of the software is (without surprise) windows based.

Nuh uh!

Download, compile, and install cmus and grab post.fm. Yes, it is perl, but it works anyway. Make the script executable and add your last.fm username and password. Next, start up cmus and type:

set status_display_program=/path/to/post.fm

Start playing tunes. Super simple and it works in the background. However, the cmus interface is a little wonky and takes some time to get used to. Again, it works and there is no need for yet another clunky gui!