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For the past few years, I’ve been going back and forth on what to do about an email client. I’ve tried mutt, Thunderbird, straight up Gmail and webmail for my domain emails, Mail.app with IMAP, and I find myself coming back to one solution, which I think is what I’m going to stick with, which is Gmail + Fluid. First, mostly everyone knows what Gmail is: Google’s webmail. Fluid is a Mac application along the lines of Mozilla’s Prism, in that it allows you to create an “application” from a web page. I’ve used this functionality to create a Gmail app. Added bonus? The dock icon will show an unread count if you have any new email, which is a nice little bonus feature. As far as the mail itself goes, Gmail collects my (obviously) gmail.com email, and I also have it collecting my endperform.org mail and adding a tag to it for sorting purposes. Gmail allows you to send as an email address you own, so no one would really know I’m using Gmail for my domain mail unless they are looking at headers.

Fluid is free, and is available at fluidapp.com.

This past Sunday I saw first-hand what the floods have done to portions of the Atlanta suburban areas as I answered a call for assistance from some friends of mine whom had family affected by the flooding. I ventured into Austell, about 6 miles from my home and right into the flood zone. The waters had since receeded, however, you could tell where the water level was just by the brown coating on the trees. I arrived to the house to find a pair of dumpsters and a whole lot of volunteers working their collective butts off to get this place gutted and cleaned up. When I arrived I was put to work cleaning up some insulation and other related things, dumping them into the dumpster. The day rolled on, and throughout the day other people stopped by with food for the workers, and Red Cross vehicles would pass by once in a while. Thankfully the weather was sunny, if a little hot, but it’s better than the downpour of rain the day before.

You never really know how a natural disaster can affect someone until you see first-hand what happens. I’ve seen some devistation in my time due to my involvement with the local fire department back in Pennsylvania, but nothing to this level. I’m just happy I could help out. If you get the chance to help someone out, I say take it. You might get sore from the work, but it will make you feel better knowing you’re helping out someone in need.