iPhone IMAP Tip

Apple, Tech, , , , ,

Hopefully this will help some future searchers. After the last iPhone update all the folders in my cPanel / Courier IMAP account started showing up in the Mail app, but I could not select them or move mail to them. I’d get an error like “mailbox does not exist” even though some part of the iPhone knew it did because it could see them. I Googled around and found that if you go to Settings > Mail > you@example.com > Advanced you could set an IMAP prefix to get everything working.

So I did, but nothing changed. However I deleted the account, reset it (hold down the top button), added the account back, set the prefix, reset again, and then all the folders started working. The advice I found worked, but there was some setting stuck somewhere that needed to be flushed out. Being able to file messages and read other folders from my iPhone is amazing. I was on the fence about the utility of the iPhone before, now I’m completely sold. It’s actually more fun than doing it in Thunderbird.

Because They’re Watching

Meta, Travel

This is just post to let everyone know that you can now browse PhotoMatt securely. The secure site is functionally equivalent except it doesn’t display the Wanderlust code because it will pop an annoying error since it’s loading remotely. It uses a self-signed 1024 bit SSL certificate which will pop up as not being from a trusted authority the first time you visit but if you add it to your trusted certificates (usually just a button click away) it won’t bug you anymore. Why do this? Because I can.

This will appeal to exactly 2 people.

IBM Goes Non-Remote

Future of Work, Tech

Like Yahoo a few years ago, IBM, an early pioneer of distributed work, is calling workers back to the office.

The shift is particularly surprising since the Armonk, N.Y., company has been among the business world’s staunchest boosters of remote work, both for itself and its customers. IBM markets software and services for what it calls “the anytime, anywhere workforce,” and its researchers have published numerous studies on the merits of remote work.

If “IBM has boasted that more than 40% of employees worked outside traditional company offices” and they currently have 380,000 employees (wow), then that’s 152k people on the market.

As I said when Yahoo did the same, it’s hard to judge this from the outside. A company that was happy about how they’re doing wouldn’t make a shift this big or this suddenly. It’s very possible the way distributed folks were interacting with their in-office teams wasn’t satisfactory, especially if they were forced to use subpar in-house tools like SameTime instead of Zoom or Skype. Yahoo didn’t have the best trajectory after they made a similar move, and hopefully IBM isn’t going to follow the same path.

In the meantime, Automattic and many other companies are hiring. If you aren’t going to work in a company’s headquarters, it is probably safest to work at a company that is fully distributed (no second tier for people not at HQ) rather than be one of a few “remote” people at a centralized company.

Pun-A-Day #9

Humor

These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close; they ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to “persuade” them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he’d be back if they didn’t close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.