Email - The Persistent King

Normally for such a post, you start with a quick history lesson of the subject and the birth of it. This is quite complicated here. In 1973 a standard was introduced, but electronic mails were written earlier. In 1981, when Berkeley included in BSD V4.1, it was quite a milestone for the early Internet [1].

Whenever you call it the birthday, the storm of how this form of communication took the lead was amazing. Today most of the business world [2] relies on email corresponding in one form or another.
Amazingly, the private communication is also very much influenced by it. While lately, with the rise of mobile, instant messaging is getting a huge push, it's not there to replace email. Email is still undisputed king of the communication. Here is why:

• Email is compatible. No matter what system, os, mobile, tablet, computer or other devices, almost all of them are able to send and receive email. Web-based (like Gmail or Yahoo mail) or on your device directly (Apple Mail, Outlook, KMail, Evolution)
• Email is present. Everyone has an email-address. No other medium, except the telephone, is more widely spread. No matter if in business or private, you can reach someone via email.
• Email is versatile. No matter what you want to sent, you can do it via mail. Many people use it to send photos, or links to photos or files. You can sent plan text or beautiful arranged HTML-Mails with inline images and links. Like a webpage. You can send greeting cards or embed videos. Try it, you can send your business correspondence or your love letter via email (did you ever try to combine these two? :) ). Richard M. Stallman uses email even for reading websites [3]. The website will be captured and sent to his mail account for improved security.
• Email is fast. Normally it's blazing fast. With push-mail on the phone, there is no problem to even chat with someone. Sometimes I do that. The messages comes in near real-time.
• Email is secure (if you want it to be). You may wonder about this. But yes, you can secure an email with PGP/GPG. The metadata are still a problem. The possibility to get anonymous mail accounts helps for that.

Now there are more things to do with email, that you may not know.

• Blogging via email. Blogger.com e.g. let you set-up a secret mail-address where you can send blog articles directly to your blog being published instantly. Very nice. You can blog from virtually anywhere.
• Store files in the cloud with email. Amazon e.g. let you send files for your kindle device via emails and even converts them if needed.
• Take quick notes with email. Who is preventing you from sending a mail to yourself? No one. Set Up a Filter in you mail program or webmail. Make a folder and redirect any mail with the subject "note to self" or something like that, into it. Now you can take a note from anywhere by just sending it to your account with the subject "note to self".
• Store a website in your email account. For saving a page HTML (no images, text and links only) you can use wget URL with GNU+Linux or just save "WebPage only" from your browser. That saves an index.html that can be sent via mail inline or as an attachment. If you want the whole site, you could Print to PDF and attach the pdf-file to the email.There is your personal site archive.

And there is so much more. Check that article comments on Lifehacker.
Email is King.

Sources:

[1] Book: Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution

[2] Wikipedia: Email Business

[3] Richard M. Stallman: How I do my computing

TTIP Is Bad For Europe's Consumers

Yes, I tried not to do a post about that. But to see politician going for TTIP is alarming.

I thought it was a lame duck. Americans didn't like that treatment. But now it seems that Obama put pressure on that topic, and more and more companies from the US chimes in. Of course some European companies like it, too. No wonder, the quality and security standards will be much lowered, leaving the German consumers as the victim of TTIP for profit of big corporations. I found a great article recently (in German) that shows the problem.

Want to have over thousand banned chemicals over that treatment in your cosmetic products?
Or even more poison in your food? Strange "chemical waste" chickens? No? Well then act against TTIP quickly. There is not much time left.

Article from blog.campact.de: [Es war einmal … die schönsten Märchen über TTIP]

Re:publica Or Re:plicate?

So, the German Re:publica 2014 is almost over.
The result is the prediction for me. The so called "net community" is divided. Divided in those who think they speak for all, and the majority of bloggers and net users which are not recognized by the "speakers". A replication of the last events in 2012 and 2013.

Imprint your privacy, not your imprint

Maybe some points are valid to point out. Talking about the NSA scandal, like +Sascha Lobo did, is very important. Because privacy is important. Personal data is important. But again, the Re:publica has failed to turn the discussion on the Imprint. As a private blogger, you need to openly give your name and private address to the public. Well, no wonder blogging has to go a long way in Europe. Especially if you chose to write about political topics, e.g. about this NSA stuff. Not because you think they won't have your data anyway, but to make it harder for private persons and spooky Shysters, to keep away from you. This needs to be addressed as it puts blogging in the EU on the same level than in suspicious countries where bloggers needs to be registered. To be honest, it's even better to be registered only for government purposes than putting your private address for everyone visible on the site.
But you can't call for privacy and not acting against a law that kicks your privacy away. Be quiet or be exposed? That is not privacy.

The scene is not you

The other point is the representation of a wider range of blogger, citizen journalists and social media activists.
Not everyone outside the Top 10 bloggers are trolls. The remarkable thing in the Internet as a media is that everyone can be a citizen journalist, a writer, an activist or an author. These people needs to be represented when talking about the "net community". Oh sure, everybody can participate. Oh rly? Everybody? Maybe visiting and watching. Not everybody is a talented show star, but maybe that same person is a good blogger. Stop talking about "net community" if you keep ignoring the community. The community is not represented by a few A-Bloggers or populist activists. We already have this in the old media. We don't need that here. And we do not need a flood of hipsters showing their fruit logo in the camera every time a photo is taken.

I, Nerd

Oh and can we stop putting the "Geeks & Nerds" as a stereotype for a member of the "net community". Please.
Yes, I'm writing this article in Emacs and copy 'n paste it to the blog web-interface, but that has no meaning for the average reader. It is not relevant how you do something, it's relevant what you're doing. Or to be precise, what you are intending to do. And your fancy equipment should not be important, neither for you nor for the readers. If you think you are cool, because you are just holding your "tools" logo in the camera of a journalist, let me tell you, you are more of a fool than being cool.
It looks like we must ask ourselves what we want to archive. A place in the hall of fame of the artificial scene that has no meaning for the average reader, or someone that has to say something and want it to be read by real people. It's possible. If events like, the only recognized show outside the "community", is actually doing something for the real net community.