Charles on… anything that comes along

This might be the only time I’m going to appear on a roll of honour with Steve Wozniak. He’s there at No.40 on the list of people who’ve paid for the very natty Postfix Enabler program. (I’m down at number 165.)

It’s a simple program that gives you a GUI to the very powerful Postfix program lurking in OSX 10.3’s innards. It can send mail, act as a POP server, allow people who are authorised to route mail through your machine… but configuring Postfix is for command-line jockeys.

Enter Postfix Enabler, which gives you a soothing interface with things that slide in and out, plus contextual help, that can let you set up your machine’s Postfix in seconds. Then, you don’t have to rely on your ISP’s creaky outbound mail server. Now you can email from hotspots. (OK, some mail will bounce because you’re on a floating IP. It happens.)

PFE isn’t shareware; it’s donationware. So far, 231 people have paid and consented to have their names listed. (Perhaps more have paid but didn’t want to be named.) Even at $10 per throw, that’s $2,310 - not at all bad as a return. Sure, you stick to the day job, but this is a nice illustration of how writing software need not be for the priesthood.

As long, that is, as you understand what the hell it is you’re trying to get Postfix to do. That’s the bit that’s worth a few thousand dollars…

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Software patents: funny how it's only big business that likes it (23 March 2005; score: 26.26%)
• Suggestions for CSS welcome (7 July 2004; score: 24.46%)
• Some companies understand writing drivers. Some, like Canon, don't (8 March 2008; score: 23.18%)

Just got the latest edition of BusinessWeek, which includes a photo to illustrate a piece about jobs and employment (”The Lull Will Linger”, it’s called).

There are “job postings” from, I suppose, a US employment office. “Tax Payer Representative, approximate salary $23K” is the only one that’s visible. Under the job description is stuck a white label, as on all the postings. You can make it out in the photo:

IMPORTANT
Please be sure to send your resume in MS Word format and be sure to include your Social Security Number on your E-mail.
With identity theft running at - what sort of level? - in the US, why does the resume need the SSN? What use is it there? Are they going to hire people on the spot? Or does it link to some sort of criminal database, in which case you’d be mad to send the right one. But for anyone who can grab those emails (perhaps sent over an open wireless link, who knows) there’s enough, with the SSN, to get someone’s ID very neatly. I think UK employers wouldn’t demand that.

Nor, I think, would they demand that the resume was in Word format. Again, why? It’s a great way to collect all the macro viruses your applicants have. And it adds nothing. Why not in plain text format? I’m sure there are historical reasons for it. But this seems like a case where history is bunk.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• If you don't know antitrust law, why write a long article suggesting Apple has broken it? (20 September 2006; score: 48.07%)
• Still waiting for IMAP on Gmail? You might already have it... (15 November 2007; score: 35.25%)
• The thing about anonymity is that there's always someone behind it (24 May 2006; score: 32.46%)

Google has rather beaten Microsoft to the punch with the launch of its local search product (Windows only, Explorer-only at present). Although Andrew Brown isn’t thrilled, and points out that you can do much the same with the open-source alternative DocSearcher which uses Java etc so might be Mac-friendly. (I might try it, though OSX has its own content indexing function.)

Let’s leave aside not being on Mac (which is understandable) or non-IE browsers (rather harder). What’s bugging me and other British hacks is that this got launched and annoucned in the US, and spread through the blogosphere very quickly; Dave Winer was ecstatic at 8am his time, 1pm ours, yesterday. (Though reality has now begun to intrude - see his post a few hours later.)

Google has a UK arm. People in the UK can read stuff from the US, especially technology news. Next Wednesday Google has an event launching (apparently) its “Google Search Appliance”. I really hope they’re not waiting a week to show us the same thing again. No, it’s not evil to do that, but it is not smart either. Even Netscape, launching the dire version 6, managed a global, pretty much simultaneous launch.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• I'm with Tosh on this one: no, Google won't do VoIP for you and me (25 January 2005; score: 60.66%)
• When OSX loses its mind, pt 2: because lookupd has gone mad (3 January 2007; score: 49.47%)
• How the Google hack was done (26 July 2004; score: 48.86%)