Speaking of console nuts

Console apps get a bad rap. Things like, “What kind of geek idiot would want to remember all of those keyboard commands?” and “Oh, how very 70’s of you.”

I use Mutt for email and am trying Raggle for RSS feeds, and you know what, even though there are a couple of drawbacks, I can manage my email faster than you. I get a lot of email, usually around 1500 messages a day, not including spam. Most of these are mailing list messages. I actually try browsing most of them, and Mutt makes quick and easy work of it. Better threading, faster response time and “Look Ma, no mouse!” I’ve been using Thunderbird for a few days, just to make sure I’m not missing something. It did make using GnuPG easier, even though Mutt has great GPG support. And attachments are admittedly much easier to deal with with a nice GUI interface. But, when it comes to down-and-dirty crunching through mailing lists, modifying headers and such based on the recipient/folder/subject/whatever, there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned terminal and Mutt