This php class lets you attach multiple files and send emails via Postfix without digging into the messy headers

<?php
class Mailer {
    function __construct($to="",$from="",$sub="",$msg="",$files=array()) {
        $this->to = $to;
        $this->from = $from;
        $this->sub = $sub;
        $this->msg = $msg;
        $this->files = $files;
    }
 
    function attachFile($file) {
        if(!empty($file)) {
            $this->files[] = $file;
        }
    }
 
 
    function setMessage($msg) {
        if(!empty($msg)) {
            $this->msg = $msg;
        }
    }
 
 
    function setTo($to) {
        if(!empty($to)) {
            $this->to = $to;
        }
    }
 
 
    function setFrom($from) {
        if(!empty($from)) {
            $this->from = $from;
        }
    }
 
 
    function setSubject($sub) {
        if(!empty($sub)) {
            $this->sub = $sub;
        }
    }
 
 
    function sendMail() {
 
        $files = $this->files;
 
// email fields: to, from, subject, and so on
        $to = $this->to;
        $from = $this->from;
        $subject = $this->sub;
        $message = $this->msg;
 
        $headers = "From: $from ";
 
// boundary
        $semi_rand = md5(time());
        $mime_boundary = "==Multipart_Boundary_x{$semi_rand}x";
 
// headers for attachment
        $headers .= "\nMIME-Version: 1.0\n" . "Content-Type: multipart/mixed;\n" . " boundary=\"{$mime_boundary}\"";
 
// multipart boundary
        $message = "This is a multi-part message in MIME format.\n\n" . "--{$mime_boundary}\n" . "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\n" . "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\n\n" . $message . "\n\n";
        $message .= "--{$mime_boundary}\n";
 
// preparing attachments
        for($x=0;$x<count($files);$x++) {
            $file = fopen($files[$x],"rb");
            $data = fread($file,filesize($files[$x]));
            fclose($file);
            $data = chunk_split(base64_encode($data));
            $message .= "Content-Type: {\"application/octet-stream\"};\n" . " name=\"$files[$x]\"\n" .
                    "Content-Disposition: attachment;\n" . " filename=\"".basename($files[$x])."\"\n" .
                    "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64\n\n" . $data . "\n\n";
            $message .= "--{$mime_boundary}\n";
        }
 
// send
 
        $ok = @mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
        return $ok;
    }
}
?>

Example USE:

<?php
include("mailer.php");
$m = new Mailer();
$m->setTo("maSnun <masnun@gmail.com>");
$m->setFrom("phpGeek <masnun@leevio.com>");
$m->setSubject("A bunch of files");
$m->setMessage("Hello buddy! Files attached!");
$m->attachFile("images/Screenshot.png");
 
if($m->sendMail()) { echo "Sent \n"; } else { echo "failed \n"; }
?>

Happy Mailing!

#!/usr/bin/python
 
import smtplib,glob,os
from email.mime.image import MIMEImage
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
 
COMMASPACE = ', '
 
 
msg = MIMEMultipart()
msg['Subject'] = 'Our family reunion'
me = "masnun@leevio.com"
family = ['masnun@gmail.com','jotil21@gmail.com']
msg['From'] = me
msg['To'] = COMMASPACE.join(family)
msg.preamble = 'Our family reunion'
 
path = "images/"
pngfiles = glob.glob( os.path.join(path, "*.png") )
for file in pngfiles:
    # Open the files in binary mode.  Let the MIMEImage class automatically
    # guess the specific image type.
    fp = open(file, 'rb')
    img = MIMEImage(fp.read())
    fp.close()
    msg.attach(img)
 
# Send the email via our own SMTP server.
s = smtplib.SMTP("localhost")
s.sendmail(me, family, msg.as_string())
s.quit()

It currently reads the “images” directory and mails out the png files. But if you look at the codes, you’ll see that the codes can be easily changed to send other files as well

I love Python!

PS: I am looking for a good way to attach files using PHP. The way I found was messy! I know the huge PHP community certainly has something better to offer. I will post it as soon as I find it

To setup a mail server on Ubuntu, just install the “postfix” package:

sudo apt-get install postfix

Now you can send emails with php, python or even by typing codes on the terminal.

It was simple. Wasn’t it?

So what the fuss is about this RIA thing?

• RIA = Rich Internet Application.
• RIA uses Microsoft’s Silver Light technology to deliver highly interactive web content.
• You need to load the RIA application only once for every machine. You will be able to log in lightning fast afterwards. This is a big win over other web mail services.
• The Interface is eye candy. Currently there are three themes.
• The search engine implements a “client side” search to perform really fast searches of the email headers.
• It works fine on my 5kbps internet connection.
• They have promised to consider conversation, labels and many other improvements over time.

Things you won’t like:

• The search engine only searches the headers of the email in the current folder. No searching in the message body. AOL has assured me that introducing the full email search is being given high priority on their current roadmap.
• You will miss conversation view if you’re a regular Gmail user. AOL says they are looking forward to adding it too.
• No labels. Promised to have a look into this.
• Incomplete settings ? No offense, they are still in beta.
• New tab won’t open in Firefox 2 ? Known bug to the AOL RIA team. They’re trying to implement a workaround.

I made the Switch, YOU?

I finally made the switch, by now it’s partial. I am going to keep both my Gmail and AOL Mail side by side. I can’t forward and transfer my emails from Gmail until I get conversation view in AOL mail. Otherwise, my inbox will be a mess. But I am using AOL as my primary contact address. My friend Alvee has switched too. There are a good number of reasons to make a switch from Gmail to AOL. Here’s some of them:

• Gmail’s storage is not unlimited. You can’t freely share files every now and then. Though now I am using only 2% of my Gmail storage, the number of inbound email messages has increased. I think it’s time I should go for an unlimited storage. I was ready to pay for unlimited storage. But even if you pay, Gmail doesn’t offer you unlimited storage. AOL gives you free on the other side.
• Ever visited http://gmail-is-too-creepy.com ? I hardly care about what is written on that page yet, why should you have to bear confusion in mind if you can avoid it?
• AOL’s POP3 and IMAP config is very simple. At least 2 times simpler than Gmail.
• The RIA interface is thousands time better than Gmail v2. Loads faster too.

Even after all these, I would say that AOL RIA still has a long way to go before they can be as popular as Gmail. But it doesn’t hurt to try a new service. Why don’t you join and have a go?

AOL Mail RIA: http://ria.aol.com J

Gmail adds 4 bytes, that is 4e-3 kb and 4e-6 mb per second. The JavaScript just checks your system’s time and performs a calculation to determine the current quota for a gmail mailbox.

Here’s a test: While the counter is being displayed on your browser, change your PC’s time. Return to the counter and you’ll see what I have told you so far.

So, what does that mean? That means nothing but still it’s a critical reason for choosing Gmail over other webmails. Storage is the only thing that pushes Gmail behind AOL, Yahoo! and others who provide unlimited storage for free. Google does not provide unlimited, but storage increases every second. It’s almost like having an unlimited storage.

Gmail adds 4bytes per second to your mailbox. 1kb (1024bytes) every 256 seconds (4.26 minutes). 1 MB every 71 hours.

Do you recieve more than 1MB emails every 3 days constantly ? Then you should buy additional storage if you want to continue using Gmail or choose another webmail service that provides better storage.

But, I believe most of us won’t cross that limit. And unless you have an alternative to quit Gmail, don’t leave it. They have free pop and imap, labels, integrated chat without flash, integrated video and voice chat, unlimited filters, cool mobile access and all those you might need to meet your emailing needs. Specially, I love Gmail because they don’t send ads at the bottom of my outgoing email messages and conversations save me a lot of time everyday. The only issue might be storage if you are a power user. In that case buy a google storage plan or create a AOL / Yahoo! account for storage. Forward your heavy messages to that account while saving the light messages inside Gmail.

PS. My friend says “Google knows their business. They want to make money by forcing people to upgrade storage after they have got used to the innovative service and felt relaxed about the storage believing that’d increase whenever they need.”. I don’t disagree. google knows their business, perhaps better than others. But that doesn’t hurt neither me, nor the millions of other Gmail fans. Still, it would be better if Gmail could get us rid of the storage “tension”.

But the positive side is that AOL Mail can load and operate fairly well even if you’re using their standard version with a 5kbps internet connection like me. And that’s a great win over Gmail. I can not use Gmail’s latest (standard) version with this slow internet connection.

ICQ Mail and Goowy Inc has already migrated to AOL Mail. And now, AOL has introduced a new offer to it’s users. With TunoMe service you can choose an email address over a huge numbers of domains. I recently chose masnun@mcom.com from them. But this service is still limited to USA and Canada residents since it still is in beta.

Alongside the basic version, there is another “Accesible version”.

Like Gmail and unlike Yahoo! Mail, AOL mail has free IMAP and POP3 access.

There’s a nice mobile version as well.

But they give tagline ads on outgoing emails.

In a quick look, the all new AOL mail seems to be a mixture of Yahoo! Mail and Gmail. I am just testing how fine it works. They are still in beta but I believe they can do a good job if they extend their services to more and more countries.