The Linux command line can be very powerful once you know how to use it. You can parse data, monitor processes, and do a lot of other useful and cool things using it. There often comes a need to generate a report and mail it out. It could be as simple a requirement as a notification that the day’s backup went through fine, or did not. I’ll help you get started with sending mails from the Linux command line and in shell scripts. We will also cover sending attachments from the command line. We will begin with the “mail” command.

MAIL

First run a quick test to make sure the “sendmail” application is installed and working correctly. Execute the following command, replacing “you@youremailid.com” with your e-mail address.

# mail -s “Hello world” you@youremailid.com

Hit the return key and you will come to a new line. Enter the text “This is a test from my server”. Follow up the text by hitting the return key again. Then hit the key combination of Control+D to continue. The command prompt will ask you if you want to mark a copy of the mail to any other address, hit Control+D again. Check your mailbox. This command will send out a mail to the email id mentioned with the subject, “Hello world”.

To add content to the body of the mail while running the command you can use the following options. If you want to add text on your own:

# echo “This will go into the body of the mail.” | mail -s “Hello world” you@youremailid.com

And if you want mail to read the content from a file:

# mail -s “Hello world” you@youremailid.com < /home/calvin/application.log

Some other useful options in the mail command are:

-s subject (The subject of the mail)
-c email-address (Mark a copy to this “email-address”, or CC)
-b email-address (Mark a blind carbon copy to this “email-address”, or BCC)

Here’s how you might use these options:

# echo “Welcome to the world of Calvin n Hobbes” | mail -s “Hello world” calvin@cnh.com -c hobbes@cnh.com -b susie.derkins@cnh.com

MUTT

One of major drawbacks of using the mail command is that it does not support the sending of attachments. mutt, on the other hand, does support it. I’ve found this feature particularly useful for scripts that generate non-textual reports or backups which are relatively small in size which I’d like to backup elsewhere. Of course, mutt allows you to do a lot more than just send attachments. It is a much more complete command line mail client than the “mail” command. Right now we’ll just explore the basic stuff we might need often. Here’s how you would attach a file to a mail:

# echo “Sending an attachment.” | mutt -a backup.zip -s “attachment” calvin@cnh.com

This command will send a mail to calvin@cnh.com with the subject (-s) “attachment”, the body text “Sending an attachment.”, containing the attachment (-a) backup.zip. Like with the mail command you can use the “-c” option to mark a copy to another mail id.

SENDING MAIL FROM A SHELL SCRIPT

Now, with the basics covered you can send mails from your shell scripts. Here’s a simple shell script that gives you a reading of the usage of space on your partitions and mails the data to you.

#!/bin/bash
df -h | mail -s “disk space report” calvin@cnh.com

Save these lines in a file on your Linux server and run it. You should receive a mail containing the results of the command. If, however, you need to send more data than just this you will need to write the data to a text file and enter it into the mail body while composing the mail. Here’s and example of a shell script that gets the disk usage as well as the memory usage, writes the data into a temporary file, and then enters it all into the body of the mail being sent out:

#!/bin/bash
df -h > /tmp/mail_report.log
free -m >> /tmp/mail_report.log
mail -s “disk and RAM report” calvin@cnh.com < /tmp/mail_report.log

Now here’s a more complicated problem. You have to take a backup of a few files and mail then out. First the directory to be mailed out is archived. Then it is sent as an email attachment using mutt. Here’s a script to do just that:

#!/bin/bash
tar -zcf /tmp/backup.tar.gz /home/calvin/files
echo | mutt -a -s /tmp/backup.tar.gz “daily backup of data” calvin@cnh.com

The echo at the start of the last line adds a blank into the body of the mail being set out.

This should get you started with sending mails form the Linux command line and from shell scripts. Read up the “man page” for both mail and mutt for more options.

---
Related Articles at Simple Help:

• How to set up Evolution for email
• Simple Help Contest - Win $25, twice!
• Why you get so many “Returned mail: User unknown” emails
• How to reset a lost MySQL root password
• How to set up Thunderbird 2.0 for email

How to send email from the Linux command line - Simple Help

The most common use of csv files is data export and import. Many applications provide an export to csv option which will store the selected data in a csv file which can then be imported into another application that supports csv import.

Problems can arise if the generated csv file becomes very large as some applications or computer systems might run into limits. That’s where CSV Splitter (via Technospot) would come into play. The portable application can split large csv files into multiple files limiting the newly created csv files by the number of lines.

The new csv files will be created in a subdirectory in the same location. It will be named after the original csv file. The application requires the Microsoft .net Framework 1.1.

Split CSV Files

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Our fearless co-lead Dave Caolo will be aboard the USS Talkcast this evening with me, and we'll be talking turkey -- cooking them, chasing them down, plucking them, and how to get the most stuffing in there. Oh wait, wait? Thanksgiving is over? Oh well then I guess we'll just be talking Mac and iPhone news as usual.

On the menu: Black Friday and the deals we may or may not have been suckered into, new releases from Boxee (read the interview yet?) and uTorrent for the Mac, and since we've got to get our requisite iPhone talk in there, we'll hit on the Linux install, and the tough subject of App Store pricing. Join us, won't you?

Recording support for the TUAW Talkcast provided by Ecamm Network's CallRecorder for Skype.

TUAWTalkcast live tonight at 10pm ET originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 30 Nov 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

January 2008

With the start of 2008 came a handy “how-to” guide for moving Netscape 9 users to Firefox 2. Recall, AOL had announced they would discontinue support for Netscape 9 (based off of Firefox 2) in February 2008.

While the below “We Remove Vista…” photo was taken back in October 2007 at A&D Computer in Milford, NH it appeared in Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog (now The Microsoft Blog) in late January.

Included in January were three Add-Ons Reviews.

• Organize Search Engines, allowed Firefox users with lots of search engines a better management system to keep their search engines organized. Think of the Manage Bookmarks functionality, except for search engines. 
• Tab Effect, was a bit of a ‘novelty’ extension that I didn’t keep loaded for very long.
• URL Link, a powerful and highly customizable add-on which allows you to add options to the context (right-click) menu for handling URL links

January 22, 2008 marked Ten Years of Mozilla, a celebration that would last most of the year.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (January 22, 1998 ) — Netscape Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: NSCP) today announced bold plans to make the source code for the next generation of its highly popular Netscape Communicator client software available for free licensing on the Internet. The company plans to post the source code beginning with the first Netscape Communicator 5.0 developer release, expected by the end of the first quarter of 1998.

Also in Mozilla news, John Lily was announced as New Mozilla Corp CEO succeeding Mitchell Baker. Mitchell would remain as Mozilla Foundation’s Chairman.

2008 also brought some much needed good news about Thunderbird. David Ascher head of MaiCo (now Mozilla Messaging) had posted an extensive article Thoughts on Thunderbird’s Evolution on his blog. At the end of January came Thunderbird 3 Plans for 2008. The plan included both purposed features and time lines.

Due to the increasing popularity of the Get a Mac ads we added a Get a Mac Category. Released during the NFL playoffs and in response to a Wall Street Journal report, Get a Mac: Referee. Also this month was a the slightly annoying Get a Mac: Time Machine ad.

A great photo of Canadian Firefoxen by Rick MacWilliam/Edmonton Journal:

February 2008

The Future of Yahoo! was being questioned with an unsolicited offer from Microsoft at the end of January. Little did we know that this would become a wild and confusing roller-coaster ride that even today has yet to end (though Steve Ballmer thinks it has).

Big news for Add-ons this month with 600-Million Add-Ons Downloaded. A sneak preview of the new AMO 3.0 gave us a glimpse of the new and improved AMO engine. Also came news FoxyTunes was Acquired by Yahoo Music.

Firefox hit the 500 Million Downloads milestone on February 22nd. During the month of February, Firefox 2.0.0.12 and Firefox 3.0b3 were released.

On February 7th, the Mozilla CEO John Lilly was interviewed on The GigaOM Show. Part of the year long 10-years of Mozilla celebration was the Launch of mozilla.org on February 23, 1998.

On February 19th, David Ascher announced the official creation of Mozilla Messaging (has unofficially been called MailCo for the past few months). This is a new subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, focused on email and internet communications. While on Thunderbird news, Febuary 26th, Thunderbird 2.0.0.12 was Released.

March 2008

Lots of Firefox news in March. Firefox 3 Beta 5 Announced and later on the release was delayed. Meanwhile on March 10th, Firefox 3 Beta 4 Released. On March 27th came news Firefox 3 to be Released In June:

Mozilla VP of Engineering, Mike Schroepfer, has confirmed that the final release of Firefox 3, currently in Beta 4 stage, is expected for June, a full quarter later than the latest estimate and some nine months past the original.

The Guru made his intentions know he was going to be making the Switch to Fx 3.0 later that month. Finally, on March 25th Mozilla released Firefox 2.0.0.13.

Also in March was some much needed news about Thunderbird. Starting March 4th and every Tuesday thereafter are the new Thunderbird Status Meeting. Notes from this first meeting include an updated list of Thunderbird 3 Features. In mid March David Ascher announced New Thunderbird Engineers had joined the Mozilla Messaging team.

The end of March marked the New AMO Launch. An alert reader pointed out a couple things I had managed to overlook which I touched on in a quick addendum post.

Mozilla’s 10th Birthday was celebrated on March 31st, 10-years from the date when Mozilla (then Netscape Communication Corp) released the first developer release of Netscape Communication 5.0.

Microsoft is no stranger to legal action, usually against them. Back in May 2007, publicly claimed Free Software Violates Patents! Nearly a year later Microsoft Mum on Alleged Patents Violated, meaning they will not disclose which patents they claim free software violates. Only Microsoft…

While on the topic of Illegal Operations, installing Safari For Windows is an Illegal Operation. At least according to the Safari EULA:

While on the subject of Apple, how about some QuickTime Quirkiness! My dealings, frustration and general disapproval with the install and resulting mess left by Apple QucikTime and iTunes.

Then there was the Get a Mac: Bad Vista reviews ad. This was another website based ad and also was called misleading as the ‘reviews’ were article titles and the articles were not entirely about Vista.

Resolutions

You may get different information on the screen than what’s printed because of settings on the printer itself. If you change the margin settings on your printer, Microsoft Office Project 2007 may not override those settings. For example, if you set the margins on the printer at 1 inch and the margins in Office Project 2007 at 0.5 inch, then part of each page may be cut off when you print your project.
If you have borders on the screen but they don’t print, try increasing the page margins to 0.5 inch or more (on the File menu, click Page Setup, and then click the Margins tab).
When you preview a view (click Print Preview on the File menu), you may see blank pages that are unavailable. To print blank pages, click Page Setup on the File menu, click the View tab, and then select the Print blank pages check box.
If Gantt bars (Gantt bar: A graphical element on the chart portion of the Gantt Chart view representing the duration of a task.) or Network Diagram (Network Diagram: A diagram that shows dependencies between project tasks. Tasks are represented by boxes, or nodes, and task dependencies are represented by lines that connect the boxes. In Project, the Network Diagram view is a network diagram.) boxes do not print the way they appear on the screen, check the printer’s properties.
If the legend does not print as it appears on the screen, check the printer or plotter drivers.

It takes too long to print my project

Symptoms
Printing your project takes longer than you want it to.

Cause
The amount of time it takes for a project to print depends on two basic factors: the speed of the printer and the size (and complexity) of your project. Printer speed is not solely a factor of how many pages a printer prints per minute. The number of people using the printer (if it is on a network), the amount of RAM in the printer and your computer, and the network settings for the printer all factor into printer speed.

Large and complex projects take longer to print. Even a small project can take a long time to print if you insert graphics into the workspace (workspace: Files and settings you can save and reopen by opening a single workspace file. Workspace files have the .mpw extension. When you create a workspace file, Project creates lists of the current settings, open projects, views, and so on.), header (header: Text that appears at the top of a printed page. A header typically contains information such as the project or company name and the project start and finish dates.), or footer (footer: Text that appears at the bottom of a printed page. A footer typically contains information such as page number, total page count, and date.).

Our final 10 sites in the music category of the Open Web Awards feature some familiar names, such as Last.fm, Pandora, Imeem, and AmieStreet. So far though, a number of up-and-comers are also seeing plenty of votes, making this one of the more competitive categories. Vote for the site you’d like to see make it to the finals after checking out all of the nominees:

8tracks - social music networking site that lets you create 30 minutes of music, which roughly translates to 8 tracks.

Amie Street - music discovery site with recommendations and the ability to view your friends’ playlists through an easy-to-read interface. Amie Street was recently redesigned.

Fairtilizer - music search and discovery site with tools for artists and labels to share their music with the rest of the world.

imeem - social music network with free streaming from all four major labels. Also recently introduced a mobile application.

JamsBio - allows you to share music and discuss it with the community. Over 5 million songs have been added to the site and Mashable took a deep look under the hood in October.

Last.fm - social sharing site that recommends music based on your listening habits. Last.fm has a iPhone application and is owned by CBS.

MixMatchMusic - social music community for both artists and listeners. Artists profit from collaboration and can communicate directly with their fans.

NoiseTrade - connects artists with fans to raise awareness of music and profits.

Pandora - lets you create your own radio station and recommends music based on your personal preferences.

Sellaband - tool for artists to promote themselves and to receive funding from their very own fans.

VOTE OFTEN: One Vote Per Category Per Day

Now it’s time to vote for your favorite music site in the first of two voting rounds. You can vote for one company per day until midnight on November 30th.

Feel free to embed this widget on your own blog or website by clicking the “Grab This” button! For a timeline, rules and information on our 100 blog partners, please visit the Open Web Awards site.

Top Tip For Nominees

You got through? Congratulations! Did you know you can create a custom version of our voting widget above to post to your company blog or website? Just visit the Open Web Awards Widget Creator and check the box to preset a category or company. This means your fans only need to enter an email address to vote - simple!

Start Canvassing for YOUR Candidate!

Want others to vote for your favorite site? Of course you do! Why not leave a comment here and on any of our international partner blogs encouraging other readers to add their support? The more you promote your candidate across these blogs, the more likely it is for your site to proceed to the finals!

OWA Sponsors Love The Web

The Open Web Awards is made possible by our sponsors. By supporting the Open Web Awards, these companies reward and encourage innovative web technologies. We can’t thank them enough for sharing our passion: building great web companies.

Platinum Partner

“PartnerUp brings small business and social networking together to create a community where entrepreneurs find the people, resources and information to grow their businesses.”

Gold Sponsors

“iStockphoto is the world’s leading image market and a revenue-sharing social network. Browse 3.5 million images and videos starting at $1 or become a contributor.”

“With Quintura’s advanced visual-based search and analytics solution, content publishers can increase site usage while creating new ad revenues”

Prize Sponsor

“Infinite and Instant, Zazzle is the only on-demand retail platform for consumers and major brands, offering billions of retail quality, one-of-a-kind products, most of which are produced within 24 hours.”

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

MP3.com Meets Digg: Find New Music on Sixtyone
Social Networking Awards - Vote for Your Favorite Music Site
Animoto Mashups Promote Artists with New Program
Twitter Vote Report Will Track Election Day Shadiness (and Long Lines)
Social Networking Awards - Vote for Your Favorite Social Bookmarking Site
DropTom: Campaign to “Unfriend” MySpace’s Tom
Social Networking Awards - Vote for Your Favorite Photo-Sharing Site

The Web has changed the way people travel – before, during, and even after a trip. Among the tools nominated for The Open Web Award in the travel category are sites for doing everything from price comparison to video tours to finding a couch to crash on for the most budget of travelers. Here’s a quick look at all of the nominees:

CouchSurfing - allows travelers to get free board in more than 200 countries by connecting with locals who have available couches.

EuroCheapo - finds the best budget hotels in Europe with price comparison features.

GeckoGo - travel guide planner with reviews of hotels and attractions.

GoPlanIt - offers travel planning help to the adventure-seeker. GoPlanIt recenty launched two games for the iPhone.

ResortQuest - lets you locate vacation rentals. ResortQuest features rentals in over 100 locations in North America and Europe.

Spotted By Locals - lets you experience a city as if you were actually a resident. Spotters (users who know about their city) have been selected to give deep insights into each featured city.

TravelMuse - relatively new site that features high-quality reviews and tools to plan your next trip.

Tripfilms - showcases hundreds of travel videos uploaded by actual travelers.

TripIt - automates your upcoming trip, tells you when your friends are in town, and features heavy mobile integration with event synchronization.

WanderingEducators - global community for educators to share their travel experiences. WanderingEducators features blog postings and photographs.

yapta - gives you some peace of mind as it tracks airfares for discounts before (or after) you buy that plane ticket. Yapta maintains your budget and preferences as it monitors for discounts that may not be available as you’re shopping for that ticket.

Yellowstone Park - the official site for the historical national park with map and travel routes so that you don’t get lost.

VOTE OFTEN: One Vote Per Category Per Day

Now it’s time to vote for your favorite travel site in the first of two voting rounds. You can vote for one company per day until midnight on November 30th.

Feel free to embed this widget on your own blog or website by clicking the “Grab This” button! For a timeline, rules and information on our 100 blog partners, please visit the Open Web Awards site.

Top Tip For Nominees

You got through? Congratulations! Did you know you can create a custom version of our voting widget above to post to your company blog or website? Just visit the Open Web Awards Widget Creator and check the box to preset a category or company. This means your fans only need to enter an email address to vote - simple!

Start Canvassing for YOUR Candidate!

Want others to vote for your favorite site? Of course you do! Why not leave a comment here and on any of our international partner blogs encouraging other readers to add their support? The more you promote your candidate across these blogs, the more likely it is for your site to proceed to the finals!

OWA Sponsors Love The Web

The Open Web Awards is made possible by our sponsors. By supporting the Open Web Awards, these companies reward and encourage innovative web technologies. We can’t thank them enough for sharing our passion: building great web companies.

Platinum Partner

“PartnerUp brings small business and social networking together to create a community where entrepreneurs find the people, resources and information to grow their businesses.”

Gold Sponsors

“iStockphoto is the world’s leading image market and a revenue-sharing social network. Browse 3.5 million images and videos starting at $1 or become a contributor.”

“With Quintura’s advanced visual-based search and analytics solution, content publishers can increase site usage while creating new ad revenues”

Prize Sponsor

“Infinite and Instant, Zazzle is the only on-demand retail platform for consumers and major brands, offering billions of retail quality, one-of-a-kind products, most of which are produced within 24 hours.”

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

My Life of Travel is Now a “Real” Site
RoadTrip Wizard to Offer Personalized Travel Tools
TravBuddy Reaches One Million Registered Users
STA Travel Launches Widgets Suite
MyTripz, Yet Another “MySpace for Travel”
Social Networking Awards - Vote for Your Favorite Event-Based Social Network
Twitter Vote Report Will Track Election Day Shadiness (and Long Lines)

Places and event websites specialize in letting you use the Web to find things to do in the real world (imagine that!). With GPS increasingly a standard feature on mobile devices, some of these services now let you find friends that are physically near you, or get information about a very precise location when on-the-go. There are also several services on our list of finalists that take the concept of web-based event management to a whole new level with options for sending invites, selling tickets, and providing supplemental information to event-goers. Vote for your favorite after checking out the 11 finalists:

Center’d - a relatively new site that combines reviews and event listings.

City Data - provides profiles of thousand of cities in the United States. City Data shows photos, real estate trends and statistics, and a plethora of information for those interested in learning more about a specific geographic region.

Doodle - a collaborative scheduling web application.

Eventbrite - one of the biggest online event registration services with over 3.8 million tickets sold thus far.

Going - an event-based social network, allowing you to buy tickets for charity events, launch parties, and nightlife.

Muchmor - a Canadian publication that includes a social network for readers to meet and greet.

MyPunchbowl - an Evite rival with customized invitation templates for event organizers and invitees. MyPunchbowl also has added functionality to allow users to search for tickets and hotels when planning to attend an event.

Tupalo - gives you information about upcoming events in your very own neighborhood. Share your favorite events and connect with friends.

Whrrl - a location-aware social network that enables you to see different information based on where you’re located.

Yelp - a popular business review site that covers just about every topic from eateries to contractor services. Yelp also gives business owners tools to communicate with customers.

VOTE OFTEN: One Vote Per Category Per Day

Now it’s time to vote for your favorite places and events website in the first of two voting rounds. You can vote for one company per day until midnight on November 30th.

Feel free to embed this widget on your own blog or website by clicking the “Grab This” button! For a timeline, rules and information on our 100 blog partners, please visit the Open Web Awards site.

Top Tip For Nominees

You got through? Congratulations! Did you know you can create a custom version of our voting widget above to post to your company blog or website? Just visit the Open Web Awards Widget Creator and check the box to preset a category or company. This means your fans only need to enter an email address to vote - simple!

Start Canvassing for YOUR Candidate!

Want others to vote for your favorite site? Of course you do! Why not leave a comment here and on any of our international partner blogs encouraging other readers to add their support? The more you promote your candidate across these blogs, the more likely it is for your site to proceed to the finals!

OWA Sponsors Love The Web

The Open Web Awards is made possible by our sponsors. By supporting the Open Web Awards, these companies reward and encourage innovative web technologies. We can’t thank them enough for sharing our passion: building great web companies.

Platinum Partner

“PartnerUp brings small business and social networking together to create a community where entrepreneurs find the people, resources and information to grow their businesses.”

Gold Sponsors

“iStockphoto is the world’s leading image market and a revenue-sharing social network. Browse 3.5 million images and videos starting at $1 or become a contributor.”

“With Quintura’s advanced visual-based search and analytics solution, content publishers can increase site usage while creating new ad revenues”

Prize Sponsor

“Infinite and Instant, Zazzle is the only on-demand retail platform for consumers and major brands, offering billions of retail quality, one-of-a-kind products, most of which are produced within 24 hours.”

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Riffs - Your Social Recommender
Open Web Awards Finalists: Places and Events
Twitter Vote Report Will Track Election Day Shadiness (and Long Lines)
Social Networking Awards - Vote for Your Favorite Event-Based Social Network
Open Web Awards - Vote for Your Favorite Events Site
Nearbie - Social Networking Through Time
Yumondo Is an Urban Style-Sharing Site