I have had the same issue, email archives that are complete from the mid-90s and sporadic emails from the 1980s. What I've been doing is archiving most of the messages in text files in mbox format , one file per month, and I gzip them after a certain period of time to conserve space.
Unfortunately 'grep' and similar utilities have been insufficient to do decent searches on them. What I ended up doing is building my own search utility in python. It allows me to specify multiple search terms, regular expressions or strings, search blocks of files (e.g. in this case finding blocks that are delimited by a starting '^From ' line), as well as automatically descending into directories, tar files, gzipped files, etc. With this I can easily run a search across any set of files that I desire (even if I've tarred and compressed them) and get out resulting output that I can read with a mail reader program such as Mutt. I've found it to be extremely useful for this, as well as almost all other search tasks that I do.
Don't worry about browsers or any specific applications; just use iptables to not allow networking except to a small set of IP addresses that are whitelisted (the site to submit results, for example, and anything else you want to allow). Make sure that no sites that allow pass-throughs are on that list (e.g. no SSH servers).
This still doesn't prevent having a parallel machine with network access (a laptop, tablet, or smartphone), but kiosk mode wouldn't prevent that anyway.
FYI; In Thrice Upon A Time, http://www.amazon.com/Thrice-Upon-Time-James-Hogan/dp/0671319485, a scientist discovers the ability to sent particles back through time, affording the ability to send messages. At the same time, a giant fusion reactor starts to create mini-blackholes, and he needs to use this ability to send information back to correct things before disaster strikes. Published in 1980, it appears to predict and foreshadow much of the LHC issues, fears and discussions. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrice_Upon_a_Time for more info.
Depending on the functionality you are trying to implement, this can be a hard problem. This has been addressed seriously in the AI and expert systems arena, where attempting to reproduce processes performed by an expert in some domain or endeavor can be very challenging.
A number of techniques have been developed to address this problem of acquiring the proper knowledge of a domain expert. These include things like watching people do the task while thinking out loud and analyzing their actions, as well as structured and less structured interview techniques.
Your problem may not be as detailed or complex as an expert systems implementation, but the issue of acqquiring good requirements is universal, and if you can't get it specified at requirements time, then you need to get it interactively from people that understand the problem.
Look at the literature in the area of "Knowledge Acquisition Techniques" for more information.
It stands for 'Extra Terrestrial Configure'. There are a few different schools of thought as to the origin of the term. Some people believe that it stems from when Dennis Ritchie was abducted by space aliens and returned with instructions to make it configurable. Others believe that when Steven Spielberg couldn't get his system set up properly, he turned to his little alien friend, who tried to set it up so that he could initially 'telnet home', before he gave up on the process and had to settle for using the more ancient technology of the telephone. In any case, it's commonly accepted that one of those two origins appears to be correct.
Next week I'll explain to you how light sabers resulted in the listing of directory files.
OK, I'm convinced. As a long-time Linux user, I am concerned about security, so I'm going to switch from using OSS software to go totally Microsoft as a proprietary solution so that I don't have to worry about security concerns.
Take that, you poor losers who are subject to MyDoom, Blaster, Slammer, and ,... , uhhhhhhhhh
Slashdot Mirror
I have had the same issue, email archives that are complete from the mid-90s and sporadic emails from the 1980s. What I've been doing is archiving most of the messages in text files in mbox format , one file per month, and I gzip them after a certain period of time to conserve space.
Unfortunately 'grep' and similar utilities have been insufficient to do decent searches on them. What I ended up doing is building my own search utility in python. It allows me to specify multiple search terms, regular expressions or strings, search blocks of files (e.g. in this case finding blocks that are delimited by a starting '^From ' line), as well as automatically descending into directories, tar files, gzipped files, etc. With this I can easily run a search across any set of files that I desire (even if I've tarred and compressed them) and get out resulting output that I can read with a mail reader program such as Mutt. I've found it to be extremely useful for this, as well as almost all other search tasks that I do.
If you are interested in using it, I've made it available on github. It's at https://github.com/bruceisrael/search
Don't worry about browsers or any specific applications; just use iptables to not allow networking except to a small set of IP addresses that are whitelisted (the site to submit results, for example, and anything else you want to allow). Make sure that no sites that allow pass-throughs are on that list (e.g. no SSH servers).
This still doesn't prevent having a parallel machine with network access (a laptop, tablet, or smartphone), but kiosk mode wouldn't prevent that anyway.
FYI; In Thrice Upon A Time, http://www.amazon.com/Thrice-Upon-Time-James-Hogan/dp/0671319485, a scientist discovers the ability to sent particles back through time, affording the ability to send messages. At the same time, a giant fusion reactor starts to create mini-blackholes, and he needs to use this ability to send information back to correct things before disaster strikes. Published in 1980, it appears to predict and foreshadow much of the LHC issues, fears and discussions.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrice_Upon_a_Time for more info.
Free as in speech, or free as in beer?
Here on slashdot there are lots of folks who are waiting with bated breath for you to tell them how to build a trap to catch real boobies.
That's why there so many professional athletes who are nobel prize winners.
Depending on the functionality you are trying to implement, this can be a hard problem. This has been addressed seriously in the AI and expert systems arena, where attempting to reproduce processes performed by an expert in some domain or endeavor can be very challenging.
A number of techniques have been developed to address this problem of acquiring the proper knowledge of a domain expert. These include things like watching people do the task while thinking out loud and analyzing their actions, as well as structured and less structured interview techniques.
Your problem may not be as detailed or complex as an expert systems implementation, but the issue of acqquiring good requirements is universal, and if you can't get it specified at requirements time, then you need to get it interactively from people that understand the problem.
Look at the literature in the area of "Knowledge Acquisition Techniques" for more information.
It stands for 'Extra Terrestrial Configure'. There are a few different schools of thought as to the origin of the term. Some people believe that it stems from when Dennis Ritchie was abducted by space aliens and returned with instructions to make it configurable. Others believe that when Steven Spielberg couldn't get his system set up properly, he turned to his little alien friend, who tried to set it up so that he could initially 'telnet home', before he gave up on the process and had to settle for using the more ancient technology of the telephone. In any case, it's commonly accepted that one of those two origins appears to be correct.
Next week I'll explain to you how light sabers resulted in the listing of directory files.
I thought the country was Elbonia.
OK, I'm convinced. As a long-time Linux user, I am concerned about security, so I'm going to switch from using OSS software to go totally Microsoft as a proprietary solution so that I don't have to worry about security concerns.
... , uhhhhhhhhh
Take that, you poor losers who are subject to MyDoom, Blaster, Slammer, and ,
Never mind.