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DeskStat: How many files are on your Desktop?

Data
Introduction
Geeky Details
SVG Information

Data

Introduction

People (esp. journalists) constantly chime in about the wonders of the information age—new-found capabilities in every aspect of our lives. While this is true as compared to decades past, I am little impressed with the versatility of this technology. We have information distributed in hard-to-reach places and in arcane formats that most software cannot understand without some user intervention. The future is in open formats and easy-to-access information from wherever you are. This project is an attempt to bring information to the table.

Clearly, this project lacks the broad overtones necessary to quell my stated desires (i.e. highly , but the ability to view information, statistics, current or otherwise is a first step. This endeavor aims to bring more information about my Mac OS X Mail.app inbox (currently seven email accounts).

Geeky Details

I have a couple of computers, but only one—my trusty iBook—is currently set to be my primary email repository (thanks to a mixture of POP and IMAP accounts). Using Mac OS X’s built-in e-mail application, Mail.app, I setup two AppleScripts. The first AppleScript takes information from every email received and calls a command-line PHP script to send a summary of each message to a local MySQL database. A second AppleScript is called when Junk mail is found by Mail.app’s built-in spam filters, also calling a PHP script to alter the database record for that email to note that it is spam. (Due to the manner in which Mail applies its rules, I was unable to create a script that would make a single database call. As such, spam requires two database queries: an insert and an update.)

DeskStat data collection schematic

With a local database of mail information, I am able to create summaries, graphs, etc. In order to post this information to the World Wide Web, I use a cron job that calls another PHP script that creates a .txt file and sFTPs the information to my web server. Eventually, I want to move to an XML format for this data or simply replicate the mailstats database/tables to the web server. Obviously my iBook is not always connected to the Internet, so local storage was a no-brainer.

SVG Information

Although SVG, as a standard, has been around since 1999, browser makers are just getting around to implementing it natively. Currently, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Camino, and Opera are the only browsers with shipping SVG support. Safari (nightly builds) for Mac OS X is the midst of gaining SVG support, but it is not clear how soon production release of an SVG-capable version will occur.

The following browser setups are recommended for SVG viewing: