Tired of the sixteen terabytes of spam that confront you everymorning? Looking for a way to automatically manage and filter youremail? Say hello to procmail, automated message processing that's socool, it makes you want to believe in magic again.
I love the way the email system works. I love the thought of all those messages whizzing around the Internet, jumping from one host to another until they reach their destination. I love the fact that it lets me get in touch with anyone on the planet for less than the cost of a postcard. In short, I think it's the coolest thing since sliced bread.
Managing it, however, really wipes the sunshine from my day.
You see, when I first got hooked up to the Internet, my mail flow was limited to a couple messages per week. No one in cyberspace even knew I existed - and I liked it that way. Then I discovered mailing lists like the Internet Oracle and the Internet Tourbus, and my mailbox started getting bigger. Once people figured out I had email access, I started receiving messages from employers, family and friends in far-off places. I got on the radar of the friendly neighbourhood spammer, who though I might be interested in everything from pet food to oil-pumping machinery and graciously added me to his database...
I'm sure this picture is familiar to you. Before long, the trickle turned into a torrent, and I started spending a good fifty minutes a day wading through the previous night's email. I needed a solution, and I needed it fast.