Max Manders

Rude People

January 3, 2012

Some people are unnecessarily rude and passive-aggressive, one of my neighbours for example. When I got home from work, my wife Jo showed me a note that had been pushed through our letter box while she was in the bath.

2011 A Year In Review

December 31, 2011

2011 has truly been a fantastic year!

Without a doubt, the highlight of my year has to be marrying my darling wife Jo. It was a perfect, wonderful day, and we all enjoyed a brilliant reception in the evening. That was followed by an amazing honeymoon in the gorgeous French capital of Paris; and after 27 years, my first trip abroad!

SSMTP Local MTA Using Google Apps Account

September 22, 2011

While there are plenty of MTAs out there, I find it quite handy to have SSMTP installed locally; it’s quick to install and configure and lacks some of the overhead of a more enterprise MTA such as Sendmail, Postfix, Exim etc. The following assumes you have a “Google Apps for Domains” user account — ssmtp_user@domain.com — through which you will relay all email. Additionally, the steps below work on Ubuntu 10.10, similar steps should work on other distributions.

Install SSMTP

sudo apt-get install ssmtp

Edit configuration in /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf

# Backup the original first
sudo cp /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf.out
# Truncate the file and add the following
mailhub=smtp.gmail.com:587
hostname=ssmtp_user@domain.com
root=ssmtp_user@domain.com
AuthUser=ssmtp_user@domain.com
AuthPass=
UseSTARTTLS=yes
UseTLS=yes
FromLineOverride=yes

Edit revaliases map in /etc/ssmtp/revaliases.conf

# Add a line for each local user who should be able to send email
root:smtp_user@domain.com:smtp.gmail.com:587
max:smtp_user@domain.com:smtp.gmail.com:587

Send Email!
You should now be able to send email, e.g. from the shell using

echo "Testing" | mail -s "Test Email" someone@example.com

The Highland Fling 2011 – Web Standard In Scotland

July 13, 2011

July 8th 2011 saw the welcome and eagerly anticipated return of “The Highland Fling — Web Standards in Scotland”. Set up and organised by Alan White in 2007 to increase awareness of web standards and best practice, it’s the only conference of it’s kind in Scotland. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been able to attend each conference, although there was a hiatus in 2009/2010. The inaugural event really set the bar high for what could be achieved by a dedicated developer passionate about his work.

Parisian Honeymoon

July 11, 2011

Monday 30 May 2011

Our flight was scheduled to leave Edinburgh at 13:50 BST, arriving at Paris Charles de Gaulle at 16:40 GMT+1. It was my first flight abroad, and Jo hadn’t been abroad since she was a lot younger. We were a little nervous about getting things right at the airports, and unfortunately things didn’t go quite as smoothly as we had hoped; neither the airport signs nor staff were particularly helpful for the first-time traveller. We’d gone through security: I had a rucksack and a small wheeled suitcase; Jo had her handbag and a small wheeled suitcase.