So I decided to make a signature that would include a random Latin phrase in every e-mail I send. Thankfully, Evolution makes this easy.

First, I make a text file which I call sigquotes.txt , and stash it in my home directory, under a folder for personal items. I put one quote per line.

Next, I have to write a little ditty to grab a random line from that file and output the results. I used PHP for this, but almost anything could have worked. I dump the following into sigrand.php :
<?
$quoteFile = "/home/icanhaslinux/personal/sigquotes.txt";

$fp = fopen($quoteFile, "r");
$content = fread($fp, filesize($quoteFile));
$quotes = explode("\n",$content);
fclose($fp);

srand((double)microtime()*1000000);
$index = (rand(1, sizeof($quotes)) - 1);

echo "________<br>LightningCrash<br>Resident Unix Witchdoctor<br><br>";
echo $quotes[$index] . "<br>";
?>

Easy enough. I had problems getting the php itself to run as a script, so I had to make another short script to launch the PHP file. I put the following into sigrand.sh :

/usr/bin/php5-cgi -q /home/icanhaslinux/personal/sigrand.php


I chmod +x sigrand.sh and go on my way to the next step.

I fire up Evolution, go to Edit->Preferences. I go to Composer Preferences and click on Signatures. Then I click on the “Add Script” button, name it Random Latin, navigate to /home/icanhaslinux/personal, and select sigrand.sh as my signature script.

That part is done. Now to make it default for my outgoing e-mail. From the Preferences page, I click edit on my e-mail account. On this page, I have a drop-down box where I can select my signature for this account. I select Random Latin, of course. I then click OK and Close.

Now, to test it out, just fire up a new e-mail.

Until next time!
-LightningCrash

EDIT:   It’s been requested that I make clear what license this code is issued under. I consider the code snippets on this article to be public domain and not subject to licensing. Use the code in this article as you see fit.

However, I was posed with a problem: I had almost 2 years worth of e-mail in Evolution. How do I get my Evolution Inbox to the land of Gmail? (Oddly enough, a lot of this e-mail went from Outlook 2003 -> Thunderbird for Windows -> Evolution)

Fortunately, Evolution makes this easy for sysadmin types. Evolution will export e-mail in mbox format.

In Evolution, you’ll want to dump all of your e-mail back into one folder, if you had filters that sorted it to hell and back. Then, you’ll want to hit Select All, and then File->Save Message. Name it something meaningful, and add .mbox on the end if you wish. I compressed the little booger into a tarball and then gzipped it.

Now on my e-mail server, which runs Qpopper and Exim, I made a new e-mail account. I uploaded the mbox archive to my home directory on my mail server, extracted it, and shoved it over to the /var/spool/mail directory in place of the original spool file for the new account I made.

Then I just pointed Gmail at the new account. Presto! I have all of my old e-mail in Gmail.

I really can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.

I’m considering offering a free service where you can upload an mbox file into a webapp, and then a temporary POP account from that mbox will be made just so you can pull the e-mail in to Gmail or etc.

Leave me your thoughts in the comments!