Mail.app: the exorcism

As reported in previous posts, I was becoming desperate about Mail.app. I considered changing mail client but I really like the good things about it, namely

• the search mechanism
• integration with other applications (although the integration with iCal is failing miserably as well)

But, then, I found some discussion on this problem, which led me to a solution provided by Apple. I followed the instructions (and copied the old files back to the Mail directory instead of recreating the mail rules). Although it is a bit early to be sure, apparently this exorcized Mail.app.

What’s new: more Mail.app problems

My problems with Mail.app continue. The latest is that it somehow, the configuration changed to deleting trash and junk mail on quitting. So, I did quit… (actually, to be honest, I had to kill it again…).

Tweet, tweet and (finally!) away…

My second attempt to installing a dashboard widget to tweet, twidget, was a success. It is also simple to install: just provide your login data. Then you can tweet and read your tweets and those of your friends. Really cool!

Tweet, tweet and away… (2nd attempt)

I installed twiterlex as recently discussed and I’m quite happy. Installation was terribly simple. I just had to provide login data. But then, it didn’t work. I looked in the homepage of the widget and decided to follow the instructions carefully. The problem is that it is not fully functional. It posts but it doesn’t fetch the latest 30 posts as it is supposed to. Apparently, I’m not the only one with this problem.

So, I’ll try number two in the list, twidget.

Tweet, tweet and away…

As I mentioned already, I’m using twitter. I still don’t really know what to post there. Although you can find some cool tips.

BM, I started with an extension in Firefox. Then, I moved on to an extension of Pidgin which allows reading and posting tweets.

AM, I started lookin for plugins to Safari and chat clients that enabled tweets, without much success. Then I stumbled upon this dashboard widgets that can be used to tweet. Once you think of it, the dashboard may be just the right place for tweeting…

I suspected that there are more than one widget for that purpose and soon realized that this is true. As usual, I googled “A vs B” and found an interesting post that recommends twitterlex. So, I will install it now and get back to this later.

And I might just investigate other dashboard applications too…

BM and AM

I was wondering recently how much my computing habits have changed after I bought my macbook. Not every change has been an improvement and I’m still learning a lot.

But the change was significant, so I think I must divide my life into BM (Before Mac) and AM (After Mac). 

Not sure that there will be somebody that will be happy to learn about this,  though.

tinyurl & safari: and lived happily ever after…

I’ve started using twittershy. One starts shyly and then, suddenly you’re logging your every move into it (scary, besides absolutely boring for everyone else). One thing I’m doing is posting some links I find interesting. One problem is related to the size of the links which is often too large, especially if you want to add some comments. 

TinyURL is an excellent solution for this. It provides you with a very short http://www.tinyurl.com/SOMETHING version of  any URL which, when accessed, is translated into the true URL. You can translate URLs from their site, but this is not very appealing, especially if you do it frequently.

To be able to do it directly from Safari you can use tinyme.  Installation is really simple:

1. download the zip file
2. make sure that the AppleScript menu is activated
3. copy two files to the directories indicated in the readme file 

And it’s working.

To use it, in the Safari window, you have to

1. go to the AppleScript menu
2. click on the Safari Scripts option and 
3. then on the TineMe option. 

This will copy the tinyurl version of the URL of the current page in Safari to the clipboard and you can paste it in your Twitter or elsewhere. 

Now, this is not as simple as I would like. I will check if it possible to simplify it later.

Preview vs A.nnotate.com

In a previous post I mentioned that I found about the hidden powers of Preview.

I started to process a document using Preview. It is still early to tell, but one very convenient feature of A.nnotate.com is missing, which is to associate a comment with every graphical element (e.g., highlight, strikethrough). In Preview, you have to create the graphical element first and then add a note.

A.nnotate.com: 1 – Preview: 0

Mail.app hang-ups: no simple solution?

Unfortunately, the simple solution I referred to earlier, didn’t work. I should state that I wasn’t able to follow the instructions given accurately. As the Mail.app didn’t quit, I had to kill it.

So, what I did was:

1. Quit Mail.app
2. As that didn’t work, I killed it
3. Safe-booted the macbook
4. Restarted

But, unfortunately, that didn’t work. And Mail.app goes happily on “updating cache directory”. Is there no hope for Mail.app?

Mail.app hangovers^H^H^H^H-ups: a simple solution?

Mail.app is hanged again. This time it is “Updating cache directory”. I’ve found a simple solution in Gordon’s Tech blog. It simply consists of safe-booting the macbook. I’ll try it now…