Category: General

In 2008 I have published a similar post. Wow, that’s six years ago – or 28 Internet years – that post is basically a classic already.

Today I decided to post an update. Interestingly, there are not that many changes – which probably shows how well that system is working for me:
The most noticeable addition is that I’m using mosh instead of ssh more and more, especially on the smartphone, through the Mosh-enabled Irssi ConnectBot App, which I launch directly from the IrssiNotifier App that brings up a notification when someone sends a message to me. IrssiNotifier leverages Google’s Push notification system, which makes it resource efficient – and the messages are end-to-end encrypted from my server to my phone. The mosh protocol makes it fun to work in a terminal, even if the server is far away and you’re changing between WLAN, 3G and back frequently through its roaming ability and the local echo.

Here is an updated Overview graphic (OpenDocument format).

Rendered as PNG:

That said, I also use WhatsApp more and more, for the same reason why I used to use ICQ many years back: Everyone has it. Let’s see how this will have evolved in another six years! 😉

With the new year and all, I decided to change the way I use e-mail:

Important change number one: Formatting
As of today I decided that I don’t hate HTML in mails anymore – and that I’ll even send HTML mails myself if the mail can benefit from formatting. It’s 2013, and HTML rendering is about as commonplace as gravity – with the thing called the Web and all. And let’s face it – being able to create proper bullet lists, having universally working proper line wrapping*, and being able to have links where they belong is something that makes communicating by mail just a little bit easier. I’ll make an exception for some mailing lists though, for the sake of harmony – since I know those people hate HTML mail, just as I used to 😉

*) I recently saw a plain-text e-mail sent by me (with Thunderbird) on a friend’s Android phone, opened in the GMail app: the line breaks were all over the place. What a disgusting mess!

Important change number two: PGP signing
I am no longer signing my mails with PGP/GnuPG from now on, and I removed my signature containing my PGP key ID and fingerprint (0x86E346D4, 7745 E1BE FA8B FBAD 76AB 2BFC C981 E686 86E3 46D4), and a link to my key. I can count the times when somebody sent me an encrypted and/or signed e-mail on the fingers of one hand (excluding one regular contact). The whole encryption and signing thing just hasn’t picked up as I had wished / expected, when I started signing (and encouraging people to do the same) back in 2005. I will of course keep GnuPG around, and be able to verify signed mails and decrypt encoded mails, and I welcome encrypted e-mails just as I always did – I just don’t want to have the geeky stuff at the bottom of every e-mail anymore, for only a handful of people to care. Those who really want to write me an encrypted e-mail can find my key on the key servers.