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TUAW Tip: An easier way to email your logs
Since we play around with a lot of pre-release and beta software in the name of you readers, we often have to email logs to developers to help them iron out quirks that help an app get all growed up from alpha to beta and to the big release version. As any of you who have gone through this kind of testing will know, it aint always the easiest process to deal with. Typically, all this emailing involves lots of copy/pasting, file - saving or juggling at least a few files. Fortunately, I just stumbled upon an easy trick that will hopefully make some of our beta testing lives easier. It turns out you can add a Mail button to the Console app, allowing for a one-click process to embed all the text of the current log you're viewing in a new Apple Mail message (not as a file attachment), ripe for firing off to a developer. Either right-click the toolbar, or go to the View menu, and chose Customize Toolbar to find this button.Unfortunately, this appears to only work with Apple Mail; I tried setting both Entourage as my default email app (I know, I cringed when writing that myself) and even the Google Notifier to see if this would work with Gmail. Entourage created a new message, but the log gets fubarred when automatically pasted into the message, and Gmail simply returns a 'Bad Request' error without creating a message at all. I guess I picked a good time to switch back to using the wonderful Mac OS X integratedness of Apple Mail.
GameZnFlix rental service drops PSP support
Movie and game rental service GameZnFlix has recently dropped all support for PSP. The company, which used to provide UMD games and movies to about 100 customers, has called it quits due to changes in postal regulations. "The bad news is that these changes to the mailing standards are forcing us to discontinue offering games and movies for the PlayStation Portable device. Because of both the disc weight and thickness, we would have to use a more expensive shipping method and slower side of the postal system since these discs are no longer eligible to be shipped as 1st class letters."Currently, it appears that GameFly, a competitor, will continue supporting PSP systems with game and movie rentals.[Via Aeropause]
43Folders: Using smart folders in Mail
Merlin Mann over at productivity blog 43Folders is taking a look at the Smart Folders feature of Apple's Mail today. His favorites include a folder to hold "flagged" messages, a recently sent folder (within the last two days) and recently viewed (same criteria).The one I thought was clever was a collaborative effort between Address Book and Mail. In Address Book, he created a group based on geographic location (particularly, San Francisco). Back in Mail, he created a smart folder to group messages received from contacts in the "San Francisco" group. That's a pretty good idea.I'm sure you see the question coming: What are your favorite smart folders setups? I actually don't use any, as I want an empty mailbox. Any message that I think requires me to somehow do something I forward to my Backpack "Inbox" page, where it waits for me to decide what it is and act accordingly. But that's me.
Best practices for a banker alt
Lately, I've really been pushing hard to get the 5k gold for my epic riding skill-- as I said on Friday, that Netherwing mount is calling my name. And so, on the advice of a rich guildie, I've finally made it a point to get a fulltime auction house alt. I chose one of my younger, less-played alts, stuck him between an Auction House and a mailbox (it happened to be in Thunder Bluff, but it could have been in any capital city), and made it a point to start scanning the AH every day, posting auctions when I start playing, and sending items to the alt when I'm done playing. That way, the next day when I log in with my bank alt, all those items are sitting in the mailbox, waiting for me to put them on AH-- right after I scan it again.That's what Amanna at Adventures in Azeroth does as well-- though she goes even farther and looks for deals on gear she has in mind to buy. It would be great to have that kind of know-how, and I'm sure it makes money, but I don't have time to know the approximate costs of every little thing-- I leave that to Auctioneer. (Auctioneer does come with a mod called Bottomscanner (used to be called Bottomfeeder) that is supposed to find deals on high-priced items for you, but I'm not sure that I can get it to work right-- I'm worried that I'll spend a bunch of money on an item I can't sell).But if nothing else, I do have to agree that the formula works-- check the AH with your alt when you log on, and mail items back to that alt when you're done playing for the night. It's a basic thing to do (and anyone who's been interested in making money before has probably already started doing it). But making money seemed like such a chore before (I'd rather be killing stuff or grouping up then worrying about prices and checking the mail), but it's actually become fun for me to log in every day and check what's sold and how much gold I've earned.
ThinkSecret posts new Leopard gallery
Leopard has been delayed, we know, so let's pretend it's October with this gallery at ThinkSecret of build 9A410 (while we're at it, Hackint0sh has a gallery as well). This time around we see a number of UI improvements (like the screenshot of Automator at right) and lots of shots of Mail's new "Stationery" feature. Personally, I find image-heavy HTML email annoying, but what do I know?Sit back, browse the gallery and tell yourself, "It's almost October...It's almost October..."
The Little Things: Drag and drop
TUAW reader Chris Roberts was right: it's been far too long since our last post in The Little Things series, so I figured I'd pick up the slack with a really handy feature of Mac OS X: drag and drop. Sure, most OSes these days can drag and drop at least some things, but Apple has gone to great lengths to build this workflow-enhancing feature into so many facets of Mac OS X's experience, I don't really have time to cover them all (and there's no doubt that I don't even know about them all). Take my screenshot for example: I'm dragging an image of our puppy out of iPhoto on the left into iChat's icon well on the right. A simple gesture, sure, but a tiny example of how powerful this functionality can become. Try a few of these other drag and drop operations on for size: Drag a file onto an app's icon in the Finder or Dock; its icon should darken, signifying that it can handle whatever you're throwing at it. Hold the Command key to force an app to open a file if it isn't initially cooperating. Drag images from a browser (except Firefox and Camino) into a Mail message or iChat window to easily share them; no clunky 'right-click, Save, Open' workflows here. Pause a QuickTime movie, click on the video and drag out to the desktop to create an instant snapshot of the frame you paused on (this might only work in QuickTime Pro - can anyone verify?). Drag a file onto a Terminal window to instantly create a path. Highlight text in most apps, then click and drag it to the desktop to create a text snippet, or into another window (Mail, iChat and Yojimbo are great examples) for a drag 'n drop take on copy/paste. I'm sure there's a ton more where this came from, so try it on for size or stay tuned to the comments on this post where readers can share their own tricks and tips for dragging and dropping one's way to productive bliss.
iGTD - yet another powerful, integrated GTD app
I know, I know - we've been blogging so many GTD apps lately that you probably needed to create a new task list just to look through them and make a decision. iGTD, however, packs one heckuva punch, so I thought it would be worth mentioning. While it includes all the typical features one probably expects from a GTD implementation these days, iGTD brings a lot of power to the table with features like Address Book integration, drag and drop task creation from files, URLs and Mail.app messages, task tagging, 'maybe' tasks, flagging, a unique 'wait for' task class, keyboard shortcuts, Quicksilver integration, phone/PDA syncing, a menubar helper, searching... and even more.With all these features, iGTD is amazingly donationware, and I highly recommend showing the developer some love after all this work.
Emoze push mail "outberries" Blackbery at CTIA
Emoze, the Emblaze spin off, had another high noon showdown of sorts versus a Blackberry (we aren't making this up, peep the poster over yonder) at CTIA. Standing back to back -- one was armed with a run of the mill mobile, the other a Blackberry -- the mailslingers took three steps away from each other and then fired blank emails to Gmail, a large screen displaying the mail account clearly showed Emoze as the winner. OK, so we know this isn't going to convince the Blackberry-toting masses to abandon the device, but what Emoze was actually doing was demonstrating its new push mail service. The first generation Emoze client had a desktop connector that had to be running on your PC in order for the push to work; but this new release does away with all that in favor of a built in Exchange Outlook Web Access component. The Emoze client will securely sync email, calendar, contacts, and tasks from every major handset maker to just about every type of mail server. But the best part is that it doesn't cost one red cent, so hit the read link and go get some.
Mailboxer : Generate Smart Mailboxes for your contacts
Mailboxer is a simple little program (it doesn't even have a proper icon) that automatically generates a Smart Mailbox within Mail.app for each contact in your Address Book (or you can set it only to generate Smart Mailboxes for the contacts which appear in a Group you've named "Mailboxer"). The idea is to give "you convenient access to all conversations you had with each of your contacts." As you can see here it has made a folder "AB" within which is a separate Mailbox for each of the contacts I put in the "Mailboxer" Group in my Address Book. This looks like it could be a very convenient way of keeping on top of email conversations with specific people without always having to go to the search field. And of course this should be combined with our Mail new window tip from yesterday, thus taking you to ever higher flights of email productivity![Via Hawk Wings]
TUAW Tip: open a second Mail window to stay productive
This whole 'electronic mail' really seems to have taken off with the internets, and we need to rely on it for an increasing amount of communication with email lists, coworkers, friends and more. While many Mail.app users have at least some sort of Rules system for filing messages into folders (or tagging them with Scott Morrison's spectacular MailTags plugin), I have recently been getting cozy with a lesser-known feature that can save a lot of time with hopping between folders. Under Mail.app's File menu is a New Viewer Window option (opt-cmd-n) that opens - drum roll please - a second window in which you can browse through your messages. This is particularly useful if you have a folder (or perhaps a Smart Folder) which you keep checking throughout the day; this way, you can simply keep one viewer open to your inbox (or whatever default location that suits you), with the second viewer set on that other folder. Go up to View > Hide Mailboxes (cmd-shift-m) for either window to give you some extra room to stretch out those From or Subject headings, and you just took another step up the ladder of email zen. Finally: have no fear if you need to quit Mail or restart - Mail remembers your multi-viewer setup and will put everything right back where it belongs the next time your get your email on.
Ask TUAW: Trash in the Sidebar, Mail problems, Books, and More
It's time yet again for Ask TUAW, our weekly questions and answers column. This week we'll be tackling questions from last week about putting the Trash in the Finder sidebar, problems with Mail, keeping track of Books, and more. As always, please leave your own comments, and ask more questions for next week either in the comments to this post or using the tip form. Now let's turn to this week's questions.
Emailing entire Webpages (not just links)
Here's a little-promoted Safari function that you might find useful. Safari offers the ability to send entire webpages via email. This is a nice feature to have on hand when you want to create a web archive using your gmail acccount or when you know the person receiving your mail won't necessarily click on a link. By selecting File -> Mail Contents of the Page (Command-I), Safari copies the page to Apple Mail and allow you to post it to the recipient of your choice. The always excellent how-to site Murphy Mac offers a detailed video tutorial on using this feature, going beyond the menu selection into how to configure options in mail so that the the media attachments can be viewed. I'm also particularly impressed by his excellent choice of webpage material while demonstrating this trick's functionality.
Speed Up Your Mail.app
The guru of all things Mail.app, Tim Gaden at Hawk Wings, has posted a tip that seems to offer a considerable speed boost to Mail. Basically performing the tip strips the "bloat out of [Mail's] Envelope index, an SQLite database Mail uses to store senders, recipients, subjects and so on." It requires a little bit of terminal jockeying, but this is limited to running one command using sqlite3. Tim himself reports considerable speed gains, as do many in the comments. As always, backing up before attempting such things seems like a good idea, but quite a few people have performed the trick without adverse results. Check it out for yourself over at Hawk Wings.
Ask TUAW: Cookies, Mail.app vs Outlook, Party Shuffle and more
We got a lot of great questions following last week's Ask TUAW. This means, unfortunately, we won't be able to address all of them this week, but we still have managed answers for several more than usual. This week we'll be tackling questions about Mail.app, cookies in Safari, iTunes, Spotlight, and more. As always, please leave your own comments, and ask more questions for next week either in the comments to this post or using the tip form. Now let's turn to this week's questions.
Stealthing while clinking: Rogues in chainmail
Way back when, I found a post on the forum that suggested that Shaman should get temporary, summoned pets to use, and when I said it'd be a great idea, you guys laughed at me. And yet, come the expansion, we get those fun little Elemental Totems to play around with. So while you might laugh at this suggestion at first, think about it for a second before you say I'm crazy: Let's give Rogues mail!Guize on Skullcrusher has come up with what I think is a very interesting solution to the problem of endgame survivability for Rogues (we'll put PvP aside for a second and just talk about PvE for now). Currently, as players have said before, Rogues are a liability in most endgame raids-- yes, they can dish out damage, but considering how many endgame bosses pour out AoE, Rogues often end up to be more of a drain on the healers than anything else. I'm sure Cloak of Shadows has helped that a little bit (I haven't got too much experience with it yet, as my Rogue is only 61), but the fact is that while tanks can take it, Rogues take a beating more than any other class (ok, maybe healers take a worse beating, but that's only in a bad party).Enter Guize's suggestion of a 31-point Combat talent that allows Rogues to wear mail armor (alternately, to avoid having to add tons of new agility mail gear, he says it could just be a talent that bumps up armor from items). That would let PvE Rogues not be so squishy when asked to be right up there on the front lines of melee, and it would help out healers a whole lot, especially on the 25 and even 40 man instances.Now, in terms of PvP, I have to admit it seems a little unbalanced at first, considering that rogues are basically killing machines. But remember, too, that magic ignores armor-- Warlocks and Priests will still be able to DoT and fear just as much as they did before (and Cloak of Shadows is more of a problem for them anyway, and it's already in the game). There is, of course, the problem that it's really hard to be stealthy when all that mail armor would be clinking around, but if you want to finally give rogues a chance against the endgame AoE bosses, giving them the option to wear mail would definitely do it.
The Argent Dawn does not love you
Specifically, the Argent Dawn does not love you enough to send you a gift-wrapped item via in-game mail. This is an old scam, where an enterprising scumbag will roll a character named "Argentdwn" or something, gift-wrap any old arbitrary item (water, say), and send it via Cash on Delivery to anyone whose name they can get their hands on. Apparently this con has come back in a big way right now (though I haven't seen it on Shadow Council-A), so be on the look-out for it. You should probably not accept any CoD wrapped items, since you never know what's in them; and the Argent Dawn is certainly not going to be sending you any. Just delete the mails, but be sure to report the offending character's name via GM ticket (I write them up for verbal harassment); this'll get these things shut down faster.Fortunately, it looks like we won't have to watch out for this too much longer. Tseric says: Coming soon in a patch near you, we will be disabling the ability to send wrapped packages by C.O.D., which should stem this particular trend we've been seeing lately. This is good news; I can't think of any legit reason why someone would want to CoD a wrapped item, since the only reason I can think of to use wrapping in the first place is if you're giving a gift.Have you had any experiences with this or other scams? What should we be on guard for?
Script to archive Mail.app messages by month
For pro-email users and organization aficionados, Mail.app's archiving abilities leave just a tad to be desired. There are of course a few 3rd party options for archiving and/or exporting messages from Mail.app, and Tim Gaden's excellent Plug-ins and add-ons list at Hawk Wings is a great resource to track down a solution that works for you. Fortunately, in his never-ending quest to find all things Mail.app, Tim found yet another solution in the form of an AppleScript called MailArchiveByDate written by Doug Hellmann. As its name suggests, this script will archive selected messages into a mailbox structure based on year and month the message was sent. You'll get a structure like so: 2006 01 02 etc. Doug also includes instructions for setting up this script to work with Mail Act-On, the excellent plugin from Scott Morrison (developer of MailTags) that allows you to execute rules via keyboard shortcuts. Altogether, this is one powerful (and relatively cheap, considering Mail Act-On is donationware) system for archiving Mail.app messages while at the same time keeping them accessible right inside of Mail.
Resize photos within Mail
Here's a nifty tip from Apple that I was completely unaware of. Whenever I email a photo, I do so via iPhoto, which takes care of resizing for me. Apparently you can resize photos that you drop into Mail messages from the Finder just as easily. Once you've got the photo into the body of your message, a drop down menu will appear in the window's lower right hand corner. Click it to reveal several options: Small, Medium, Large and Full Size. Make your selection and your image is resized for you.Perhaps you've been doing this for ages now, but as someone who uses iPhoto for this procedure, it was news to me.
AddOn Spotlight: CT_MailMod
This is a venerable piece of code, having been around WoW at least as long as I have. In general, the sprawling CT universe of AddOns has been remarkably persistent in staying around and staying updated. CT_RaidAssist gets all the glory, but other CT mods can be really handy. I find it crucial to keep an alt to mail things off to, and it would be a huge pain without CT_MailMod. It allows me to send off multiple items with one click, as shown in the screenshot: enter the recipient's name, alt-click all the items you want to send, hit "send", and you're done.
Apple posts Mail stationery templates galleries
We're all excited about Leopard, Apple's next major release of OS X. Steve has shown us some of the features, but Apple is keeping a pretty tight lid on everything that will be included in 10.5.One of the features that made Steve's WWDC keynote is Stationery Templates in Mail. Basically, this makes it very easy to create snazzy HTML emails right within Mail. You can live preview templates, and drag and drop images from iPhoto. Tim Gaden points out that Apple, at some point, put up a little gallery with a bunch of the templates that will soon be unleashed upon the world.I don't know about you, but HTML email is the bane of my existence. The first thing I do when I am configuring any email client is figure out how to convert all incoming emails to plain text. I might be a little extreme in my dislike of HTML emails, but I seriously hope that when Leopard is released I don't start receiving a deluge of HTML emails.
