TidBITS#924/14-Apr-08
=====================
Issue link: <http://db.tidbits.com/issue/924>
Do you find dialing the phone to be an unnecessary hassle,
considering that all your phone numbers are stored somewhere on your
Mac? Matt Neuburg does too, so read on for his review of the slick
new phone dialing tool Dialectic. Also this week, Tonya makes the
difficult (and not entirely successful) jump from Eudora to Apple
Mail, Jeff explains how to configure Mail to avoid iCal spam, and
Adam looks at the new Apple Enthusiast site and VMware Fusion video
contest. We also note that the audio edition of TidBITS is now
available in the iTunes Store's podcast directory for easy
subscriptions. On the release front, we point to a slew of firmware
updates from Apple, a major upgrade for the macro utility Keyboard
Maestro, the long-promised Final Cut Server, and the "Macworld Mac
OS X Hints Superguide." Lastly, in the TidBITS Watchlist, we note
the releases of Airfoil Speakers for Linux, Apple's Aluminum
Keyboard Firmware Update and Pro Applications Update 2008-01,
iGlasses 2.1, OmniWeb 5.7, and Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom 1.4.1 and
Camera Raw 4.4.1.
Articles
Apple Releases Various Firmware Updates
Keyboard Maestro 3.0 Adds New Triggers and Actions
Final Cut Now Ready to Serve
TidBITS Podcast Now in iTunes Store
Configure Mail to Prevent iCal Spam
VMware Fusion Video Contest
Apple Enthusiast Offers New Take on News Aggregation
Take Control News: Find 200+ Tips in the Mac OS X Hints Superguide
Dialectic Simplifies Dialing Any Type of Phone
Reluctantly Switching from Eudora to Apple Mail
TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 14-Apr-08
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/14-Apr-08
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Apple Releases Various Firmware Updates
---------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9554>
Apple has released firmware updates for a number of Macintosh
models, including the MacBook Air (2.3 MB), MacBook (1.8 MB),
MacBook Pro (3.1 MB), and iMac (1.6 MB). In each case, all Apple
will admit to is that the update "fixes several issues to improve
the stability" of each Mac. Otherwise, I've seen one report that the
update fixes problems with the MacBook Pro's closed lid mode. Late
in the week, Apple also released the MacBook Air Bluetooth Firmware
Update 1.0 (1.2 MB).
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macbookairefifirmwareupdate10.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macbookefifirmwareupdate12.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macbookproefifirmwareupdate15.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/imacefifirmwareupdate13.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macbookairbluetoothfirmwareupdate10.html>
It doesn't appear as though these firmware updates apply to all
models of the MacBook, MacBook Pro, and iMac; the updates don't
appear in Software Update and refuse to install manually on at least
my MacBook and Tonya's MacBook Pro - both early versions of those
models. Apple says nothing online about which models need these
updates, so I recommend relying on Software Update; if a firmware
update appears in Software Update, install it, but if not, don't
bother trying a manual installation.
To complete the firmware update process, follow the instructions in
the updater application that launches automatically after the
installer finishes. And, though this should be obvious, don't do
anything that could interrupt the process. If you do, you'll need a
Firmware Restoration CD to restore your Mac's firmware. Apple just
released Firmware Restoration CD 1.6 (30 MB), which supports the
Xserve (Early 2008), MacBook (13-inch Late 2007), iMac (20-inch Mid
2007), and the iMac (24-inch Mid 2007). Previous versions of
Firmware Restoration CD support other models, although it's not
clear if all models are supported.
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/firmwarerestorationcd16.html>
Keyboard Maestro 3.0 Adds New Triggers and Actions
--------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9553>
Peter Lewis of Stairways Software has released Keyboard Maestro 3.0,
a major upgrade to the macro utility, which also helps users switch
among programs and windows, and store and retrieve multiple
clipboards. New ways of creating and working with macros in Keyboard
Maestro 3.0 include the capability to record macros, enabling and
disabling of individual macros and macro groups, and the capability
to test macros and individual actions as you're creating them. In
addition to existing triggers (modified hot keys, application
events, time, and palette clicks), macros can now be triggered via
AppleScript, via a built-in Web server, and by unmodified letter
keys (which is occasionally useful). Keyboard Maestro also adds or
improves on a number of actions, such as executing an inline Unix or
AppleScript script, brief display of results from Unix and
AppleScript scripts, executing Automator actions, logging out,
recording macros, simulating a horizontal scroll wheel, and resizing
windows. Of particular interest is a new PC Switcher Pack from
Rakesh Kumar that provides macros to simulate the keyboard shortcuts
people switching from Windows to the Mac would be accustomed to on
the PC.
<http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/>
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2008-04/Keyboard-Maestro.png>
<http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/documentation/3/whatsnew>
<http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/documentation/3/macroexamples.html#macroexamples_switcherpack>
One tip for anyone trying Keyboard Maestro - some of the sample
macros may use keys you're used to performing other actions. I was
quite surprised to discover that Keyboard Maestro had remapped
Option-Delete to act like Forward Delete (instead of the delete
backward by word function that I like in many applications), and
even more surprised when F1 played a random song from iTunes instead
of launching BBEdit. Of course, the sample macros are easily deleted
or adjusted.
Keyboard Maestro 3.0 requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and is a
universal binary. New copies cost $36, with upgrades priced at $18
for anyone who purchased Keyboard Maestro 2 between July 2004 and
October 2007; anyone who purchased after 01-Nov-07 is entitled to a
free upgrade.
<http://enquiry.stairways.com/>
Final Cut Now Ready to Serve
----------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9560>
With most Apple products, the wait between the announcement and
shipping can seem unending (see the iPhone, Apple TV, and Leopard
for recent examples). It's rare to forget about something new from
Apple, but that's exactly what I did with Final Cut Server, which
started shipping this week. Apple announced the software along with
Final Cut Studio 2 in April 2007, at which point availability was
expected during the third quarter last year (see "Apple Announces
Final Cut Studio 2, Final Cut Server," 2007-09-07).
<http://www.apple.com/finalcutserver/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8953>
No doubt it fell off my radar because it's not geared toward most
consumers. Final Cut Server is an industrial-strength asset
management tool, designed to keep track of terabytes of video,
audio, photos, and other materials that need to be at hand for film
and video pros. It can catalog assets, generate low-resolution
thumbnails and proxies, allow multiple editors to check materials in
and out (with version control), output projects using Compressor,
and more. A Java-based client program enables cross-platform access
to the server.
Final Cut Server requires a Mac running an Intel Core Duo or later,
or a 1.8 GHz or faster PowerPC G5 processor, AGP or PCI Express
Quartz Extreme graphics card, Mac OS X 10.5 or later, QuickTime
7.4.1 or later, and Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 or later for Final Cut Pro
integration. Two pricing configurations are available: one server
and 10 concurrent client licenses costs $999; one server and
unlimited client licenses runs $1,999.
TidBITS Podcast Now in iTunes Store
-----------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9552>
At long last we've worked through all the picky little details so
the audio versions of our articles are now listed in the podcast
directory of the iTunes Store. Nothing much changes otherwise -
we've been producing audio versions of our articles for quite a few
months, but subscribing to them in iTunes is now merely a matter of
following this link and clicking the Subscribe button in iTunes.
Clicking the Podcast link on our site's navigation bar will also
take you to iTunes, and you can of course also search for TidBITS in
the iTunes Store; we hope being listed will bring more people to our
podcast.
<http://www.itunes.com/podcast?id=276986548>
Because these are audio versions of individual articles (so they can
be listened to directly on our Web site as well), they're generally
quite short, with most lasting between 3 and 5 minutes and one
paragraph news items around 1 minute. Longer articles generally top
out at 10 to 15 minutes. I mention this because if you have a 30
minute commute, you might find it awkward to keep fiddling with your
iPod to move to the next article after one finishes.
To work around this problem (making it possible to drive more safely
- see "Use iPods Cautiously While Driving," 2007-04-09), simply
create a smart playlist in iTunes that selects all the tracks whose
album matches "TidBITS". Then sync that smart playlist to the iPod
and access it via the Playlists menu rather than the Podcasts menu.
You could also do this on the fly: select the TidBITS podcast in the
Podcasts menu and press and hold the center button for a second to
create an On-The-Go playlist, from which you can play all the
articles in the order listed. You may wish to turn off the shuffle
setting on your iPod as well.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8939>
We're not trying to do a fancy-pants podcast with snazzy music and
professional-level editing that would require time and money we'd
rather spend elsewhere, but I hope you enjoy being able to get your
TidBITS fix audibly while you're driving, doing yard work, or at the
gym.
Configure Mail to Prevent iCal Spam
-----------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9561>
Checking my schedule in iCal, I found an unexpected morning event
called "Hello Dear." Did my wife send me a geeky greeting?
Double-clicking the event to learn more (because iCal under Leopard
now requires a double-click, a frustration I keep meaning to write
about but haven't had the time) revealed that the event was most
certainly not from my wife, but from some spammer promising that a
large sum of cash is ready to be couriered to me.
What, now there's spam in my iCal calendars?
Yes, courtesy of a preference in Apple's Mail application that is no
doubt intended to be a "feature." Instead, it's a vector for
unwanted intrusion. Here's what happened:
Yesterday I received a spam message that included an .ics file - a
calendar event generated in this case by Google Calendar. The
message was flagged as Junk and banished to the proper folder, but
not before the .ics file was automatically passed to iCal, where the
event was created.
For people who set up meetings and send reminders, this feature is
clever. In iCal under Leopard, you double-click an event, click the
Edit button, and then click the Add Attendees link to include the
email addresses of people who should be notified of the event. When
they receive the email message, Mail (or other software that can
handle .ics attachments) sends the meeting information to iCal where
the event is added. That way, for example, even if I missed the memo
that TidBITS was having a staff meeting, it would still appear on my
calendar.
But just as it's a bad idea to allow Safari to open downloaded files
automatically (see "Significant Safari Exploit Discovered,"
2007-09-07), this capability to create iCal events automatically is
an invitation to wrongdoing. I don't have the scripting chops to
tell if such an event could do damage to your data, but at the very
least it's a nuisance and if lots of spammers started using this
technique, all the spurious events could overwhelm your calendar.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8436>
Fortunately, there's an easy fix: In Mail, go to Mail > Preferences
and click the General icon (if it's not already selected). From the
"Add invitations to iCal" pop-up menu, choose Never. When a message
containing an .ics attachment arrives, it won't automatically be
added to your calendar; you'll need to double-click the attached
file to do that.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2008-04/mail_auto_ical.jpg>
Note, too, that iCal can subvert this choice. In iCal's preferences,
click the Advanced icon and make sure that "Automatically retrieve
invitations from Mail" is also unchecked.
Although this wasn't the case with the message I received, some
events require a reply when you attempt to delete them. According to
an Apple support discussion, you can disable Internet access and
then delete the event, or install John Maisey's freeware iCal Reply
Checker.
<http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6991955>
<http://www.nhoj.co.uk/icalreplychecker/>
I can see how automatic data handling can be convenient, but we're
at a point on the Internet where there's no reason to leave open
doors that shouldn't be. At the very least, any event passed to iCal
should be intercepted and presented to the user as a confirmation
dialog.
VMware Fusion Video Contest
---------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9556>
The Fusion team at VMware is aiming to have some fun in their
ongoing virtualization competition with Parallels. Through
15-May-08, they're running a contest in which people who have
switched to VMware Fusion from Parallels Desktop or Virtual PC can
create 60-second videos about the experience. Everyone who submits a
video will receive a VMware Fusion t-shirt and bumper sticker, and
the winner will walk away with a MacBook Air and a copy of VMware
Fusion. All the videos will be shown on the Switch to Fusion
mini-site after the close of the contest.
<http://www.vmware.com/landing_pages/switchtofusion/video-contest.html>
<http://www.vmware.com/landing_pages/switchtofusion/>
Although VMware has put together a PDF with necessary instructions
and tips for making a good video, if you're intimidated by the task,
you can also write up a blog post about the switch and post that to
get a free VMware Fusion bumper sticker and a chance to win an iPod
touch. Another PDF explains what's necessary for the blog post
entries.
<http://www.vmware.com/files/images/landing/mac/switchtofusion-video-contest-instructions.pdf>
<http://www.vmware.com/files/images/landing/mac/switchtofusion-blog-post-instructions.pdf>
Be sure to read the contest terms and conditions carefully, since
they lay out the judging criteria for both videos and blog posts.
Apple Enthusiast Offers New Take on News Aggregation
----------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9557>
Frank Cioffi's MWV News Portals has raised the curtain on another
news headline aggregation site, called Apple Enthusiast. Following
in the footsteps of the company's Apple Investor News, Apple
Enthusiast scours the RSS feeds of numerous Macintosh publications
and sites, including TidBITS, to present headlines and links to
original articles. What sets Apple Enthusiast apart from other
aggregation sites is that it performs content analysis on articles
and sorts them into categories, separating out Mac news from iPhone
news, and homing in on product reviews, tips and tricks, developer
news, iPhone and iPod touch software, games, Steve Jobs, and much
more. Interestingly, there's relatively little overlap with Apple
Investor News, showing just how much information is out there for
people interested in Apple.
<http://www.appleenthusiast.com/>
<http://www.appleinvestornews.com/>
Take Control News: Find 200+ Tips in the Mac OS X Hints Superguide
------------------------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9555>
The most useful pieces of advice about using your Mac are often
short, focused tips that solve a particular problem or make a
specific program work just the way you want. That's what you'll find
in the "Macworld Mac OS X Hints Superguide, Leopard Edition," the
latest ebook from our friends at Macworld. Written by the undisputed
king of tips, Rob Griffiths, the ebook presents a cornucopia of over
200 tips to help you get the most out of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
Culled from Rob's MacOSXHints.com site, and with contributions from
other Macworld experts, the book's advice covers a wide range of
topics and experience levels, from basic tips any Mac user can
easily implement to power user tweaks that go way beyond the basics,
employing Terminal, Automator, and AppleScript to maximize your
Mac's mileage. The 70-page ebook is now available for $12.95 from
the Take Control Books Web site, and a print version is also
available for $19.95.
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/mw-macosx-hints-leopard.html?14@@!pt=TB924>
Rob covers a lot of territory, with tips relating to new Leopard
features like Screen Sharing and Spaces, others that cover existing
features like screen savers and keyboard shortcuts, and
hardware-related tips for printing and working with discs. He also
helps you get the most out of standard Apple applications, including
Mail (find and remove large attachments from your mail store), iCal
(learn how to add and work with URLs easily in events), Safari (want
to invoke bookmarks with voice commands?), and iTunes (check out the
AppleScript to update podcasts manually), as well as iChat, Preview,
and Dashboard.
If you've wondered about using Unix commands in Terminal to
customize your Mac beyond what the graphical interface offers, or if
you've wanted to get more comfortable with Terminal, the book
provides a nice foundation. It covers the basics of using Terminal
and has a generous collection of tips sprinkled throughout that will
get you typing (or pasting) simple command strings in order to tweak
your Mac in useful and interesting ways. It also has info for those
who are already comfortable with Terminal, covering new commands in
Leopard, searching from the command line, and more.
Dialectic Simplifies Dialing Any Type of Phone
----------------------------------------------
by Matt Neuburg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9559>
From the metaphorical pen of the pleonastically named Jonathan
Nathan comes Dialectic, an application that dares to ask the
question: "Dialing the phone? How much fun can _that_ be?"
<http://www.jonn8.com/>
<http://www.jonn8.com/dialectic/>
With Dialectic, it can be fun. A lot of fun. Or at least it can be
non-painful. Which, if you find dialing the phone as painfully
difficult as I do, is just as good. Yes, dear reader, in this
degenerate age of instant messaging and Twitter, phones do still
exist. In fact, there are more phones than ever (as anyone trying to
get a little peace and quiet in the aisles of Trader Joe's can
readily attest; is there no one besides myself left on this earth
who knows how to shop without shouting?). And there are more _kinds_
of phone than ever. Your "phone" these days might be a VoIP
application, such as Skype or Vonage. You might be phoning through
an Asterisk software PBX, or a Cisco IP Phone. You might have
Bluetooth-enabled cell phone. You might have a good old-fashioned
landline. Whatever it is, Dialectic can dial through it.
<http://www.traderjoes.com/>
<http://skype.com/useskype/>
<http://www.vonage.com>
<http://www.asterisk.org/>
<http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6788/Products_Sub_Category_Home.html>
(How can a computer dial a landline phone? Well, you might have a
modem in your computer, unused and forgotten since the day you
installed broadband Internet access. So whip out that old RJ-12
cable and let the modem dial the phone for you! Or, in a pinch, you
could hold the phone's handset up to your computer's speakers.)
But it isn't just _how_ you can dial; it's _what_ you can dial.
Dialectic includes a terrific lookup feature that sees and parses
your Address Book and any of a number of other contact lists you may
have, such as Entourage's internal address book, Now Contact, and so
on. So if all I remember is someone's name, just typing that name is
enough to present me with the known phone numbers for that person,
and I can click one to dial it. Dialectic also includes an amazing
menu that presents your entire Address Book in hierarchical form
(this feature alone, effectively subsuming the author's JABMenu
utility, could be worth the whole price of the application).
Recently and frequently dialed numbers reside in menus of their own.
And of course there is a service and a contextual menu item, so that
in any application, if you can see and select a phone number, you
can dial it.
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/entourage2008/>
<http://www.nowsoftware.com/products/nudc5/learn.asp>
<http://www.jonn8.com/jabm/>
Dialectic comes with too many additional extras for me to describe
here. You can dial manually by clicking on a number-pad window; you
can convert mnemonic letters (1-800-MY-IPHONE) to numbers; you can
time your calls; you can take notes on a call; and of course calls
are automatically logged. It integrates in cool ways with LaunchBar
and similar launchers. Plus, Dialectic is scriptable with
AppleScript and provides numerous hooks so that an AppleScripter can
both drive and customize it heavily. You can even dial a number by
speaking, thanks to the system's Speech Recognition technology.
<http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/>
The one thing to be wary of is getting started. Dialectic comes with
about a zillion preferences, and it won't behave completely
coherently unless you set them up appropriately before dialing your
first number. This is not at all difficult, but in this age of
congenital resistance to reading manuals, those expecting Dialectic
to work automatically out of the box are in for a surprise. (For
example, you really should tell Dialectic your local area code, so
that phone numbers starting with your area code are dialed as local
numbers; and of course you really should tell it how you want to
dial, if you don't want it to use your computer's speakers.)
Speaking of preferences, I can't resist mentioning how slick,
beautiful, and ingeniously compact Dialectic's interface is. This
includes not only the Preferences window, which readily and easily
accommodates all zillion preferences, but also its main window,
which is intended to float unobtrusively in some obscure corner of
your screen while at the same time accessing nearly all of the
application's functionality. When I first saw this interface, my
immediate reaction was: "Wow! This should be a contender for the
next Apple Design Awards!"
<http://guide.apple.com/ada/>
(Conflict-of-Interest Warning: When I first saw this interface, I
was in the employ of Jon Nathan, assigned to draft Dialectic's
online help. I did not write the application's current online help,
but some of my draft text is incorporated in it, and I was paid for
this work. I also helped catch bugs, and made numerous interface and
functionality suggestions. So when I praise Dialectic, I am praising
both an erstwhile employer and myself. Nevertheless, I assure you
that I truly do admire Dialectic, and I use it every day.)
Dialectic is the successor to Jon's Phone Tool (JPT). It is
rewritten from the ground up; for one thing, JPT was an AppleScript
Studio application, whereas Dialectic is Cocoa/Objective-C, so it's
much faster and slicker. Dialectic requires Mac OS 10.4 Tiger or
10.5 Leopard. It is available as a 14-day free trial (a 5.4MB
download). It costs $25, or $10 to registered JPT users.
<http://www.jonn8.com/jpt/>
<http://www.jonn8.com/dialectic/Dialectic.dmg>
<http://www.jonn8.com/dialectic/html/jptupgrade.html>
Reluctantly Switching from Eudora to Apple Mail
-----------------------------------------------
by Tonya Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9564>
After months of hemming and hawing, I recently took the plunge and
switched from Eudora to Apple Mail. I had thought that - as Eudora
users go - I was a relative lightweight, but now I'm not so sure. I
followed Adam's wake into Eudora, letting him set the software up
for me and then serving as his editor for "Eudora 4.2: Visual
QuickStart Guide" from Peachpit Press. However, I seem to have
picked up more power-user procedures along the way than I had
realized, and I've found that Mail thinks about filtering in exactly
the opposite of how I'd set up Eudora, and that it requires far more
effort for complex searches, which it turns out that I do often.
On the plus side, I'm liking Mail's spam filtering, I'm ending up
with far fewer email windows open at once, and I do enjoy some of
Mail's "trendy 3-D junk."
Based on plaintive email I'm receiving, it seems that many people
are reluctantly contemplating a switch away from Eudora to an email
client that's more actively supported or that has a more modern
interface. I wrote this article to share my difficulties in making
the switch in hopes of improving the experience for those who may
follow (or choose not to follow) in my path.
**Clean Up First** -- The standard geek advice on the switch is that
you shouldn't use Mail's tools to import your old data from Eudora.
Instead, you should use Andreas Amamn's donationware Eudora Mailbox
Cleaner. To be fair, one geek I know, John Baxter, suggested via
Twitter that I just start afresh, and that might, frankly, have been
simpler.
<http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/Eudora_Mailbox_Cleaner.html>
My first step was to clean and organize my Eudora mailboxes and
delete some old mail I didn't need. I should have taken this step
further, and especially concatenated older mailboxes that no longer
needed to be individual, since Mail works better with fewer
mailboxes and a more shallow hierarchy. I next made a copy of
~/Documents/Eudora Folder, just in case. I also sorted my
~/Documents/Eudora Folder/Attachments Folder by size and removed all
attachments that looked like I didn't want them and were over 5 MB
in size. [Editor's note: Also, either delete the contents of your
Junk folder in Eudora, or create a manually activated filter to move
to the Trash attachments for all messages, select the contents of
Junk, and choose Special > Filter Messages. -Adam]
Running Eudora Mailbox Cleaner is a simple matter of dropping your
Eudora Folder on the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner icon and then indicating
what you want converted: email messages and mailboxes, nicknames,
and filters. I selected all three. I mistakenly thought that Eudora
Mailbox Cleaner would run through my Eudora data and then, when it
finished, give me some sort of "Import to Mail" option, or give me a
file that I would then import into Mail. Big mistake.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2008-04/Eudora_Mailbox_Cleaner.png>
In fact, Eudora Mailbox Cleaner whacks your data right into Mail and
into Address Book. Your messages and mailboxes go into Mail, your
filters go into Mail as rules, and your nicknames (and nickname
groups) pop into Address Book. Automatically moving Eudora stuff
into Mail and Address Book isn't a bad thing, if Eudora Mailbox
Cleaner works on the first try. However, it took me four tries
before it worked properly. Each time Eudora Mailbox Cleaner got
stuck, I used the status info shown above its progress bar to delete
the problematic nickname or mailbox from Eudora. Nothing that I
deleted was particularly important. (On the final pass, Eudora
Mailbox Cleaner took about 45 minutes on my 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
MacBook Pro to convert my 2 GB Eudora Folder.)
I thus ended up with four copies of mailboxes and rules in Mail,
plus four copies of every Eudora nickname in Address Book. Sigh. It
was easy to delete the extra imported mailboxes, and easy to delete
the extra rules, except that - and I realized this later - I
retained the wrong set of rules, so they didn't match my retained
mailboxes. This led to Mail creating new duplicate mailboxes on the
fly and some late-night begging on my part to Adam to make my email
work. I found it extremely unsettling to be without email not
because I'd chosen to go offline, or because a server is flaking
out, but because I, myself, had made a user error. Had I realized
that Eudora Mailbox Cleaner worked this way, I would have deleted
everything from Mail after each of the first three failed imports. I
also might have tried exporting my nicknames to vCard format first
and then imported them into Address Book, using Eudora vCard Export,
also by Andreas Amann.
<http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/Eudora_vCard_Export.html>
Next, I had to rebuild each mailbox in Mail to make its messages
appear. I found that I couldn't select multiple mailboxes to apply
the Mailbox > Rebuild command: each one had to be selected
individually, although I could start rebuilding one before the
previous one finished. You could make a keyboard shortcut to speed
this up, as I did, but fortunately, Eudora Mailbox Cleaner comes
with a script that automates this task, and learning about this
script is just one of the many reasons why, ahem, I wish I had read
all of the somewhat lengthy Read Me first and more fully thought out
my switching procedure before I jumped in.
My advice is this: if you need to get a few mailboxes working,
rebuild them by hand. Otherwise, let the script run while you go out
for a meal or even overnight. The script frequently switches Mail to
be the active application, so it's not practical to work on your Mac
while it runs. As a point of reference, it took about 15 minutes for
Eudora Mailbox Cleaner to rebuild the 166 mailboxes that I did not
rebuild by hand. Once your mailboxes are rebuilt, note that you have
In and Out boxes from Eudora that are separate from Mail's In,
Draft, and Sent boxes.
It was also easy to delete the extra Address Book entries; Address
Book has a command for removing duplicates. But because I hadn't
cleaned up my nicknames first, I now have a number of wacky Address
Book entries, including some remnants of what I think is Eudora's
recently used addresses feature. Fortunately, I hadn't much used
Address Book before (I currently use Now Contact), so I can slowly
weed these out as Mail suggests odd options for auto-filling email
addresses. In fact, avoiding Address Book as my primary contact
manager is now especially appealing, since I can use it only for
desired Mail nicknames. If I used it for everyone I know, it would
offer too many unwanted options when autofilling an email address in
Mail. This seems like a misstep on Apple's part.
**Work Flow** -- The next big problem is that I had set up Eudora to
show me only the new messages I wanted to read. This technique,
known as a "saved search" in Eudora, has prolonged Eudora's life for
me and many others, since it is so handy (Adam first promoted this
technique in "A New Way to Use Eudora," 2004-12-20). To accomplish
this, I created a filter for each person (and mailing list) from
whom I routinely receive mail - about 100 filters all told. In each
case, the filter puts matching messages into a mailbox associated
with that person (or mailing list). I then put each of those
mailboxes into one of three folders - People (who I work with),
Family, or Friends. Next, I set up a saved search that would show me
unread mail from mailboxes in those three folders, and depending on
my available time, I'd sometimes change the criteria to concentrate
on mail from colleagues in the past 5 days, or if it was the
weekend, I could see only mail from family and friends. An advantage
to this strategy was that after I'd read a message, if I wanted to
keep it, it was likely already filed into an appropriate mailbox, so
I didn't have to take any further action.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/7934>
I also made a point of checking my raw In mailbox regularly for
messages from strangers, and to delete wayward spam that made it
past the two spam filters - our server-side Postini filter and
Eudora's local SpamWatch filter. These two filters were working
increasingly poorly, and the spam I was receiving was increasingly
crude and upsetting. Although I know I could have solved that
problem in other ways, this awful spam was the final straw that
caused me to decide to switch. So far, Mail's spam filter is working
far better than Eudora's was.
Unfortunately, Mail's rules and smart mailboxes assume a different
approach, and it has taken me about a week of working with Mail to
get my head around it. If Mail supported searching on "folders" that
hold groups of mailboxes, I could stick with my current strategy,
but since Mail doesn't offer this feature, I had to reconfigure
everything. In Mail, if you want to go with the flow, you let
everything pour into your Inbox, filtering out only mailing lists
whose messages you wouldn't want to mix in with others in a smart
mailbox. You then use smart mailboxes to look at different groups'
messages in your Inbox.
That sounds pretty easy to set up, and it took only one session in
Address Book to make reasonably good groups and get those smart
mailboxes working - I ended up with four mailboxes for four discrete
groups of people who I frequently exchange email with. However, I
was then faced with the problem that after I read my messages in my
smart mailbox, they were still, in fact, in my Inbox. If I wanted to
file them for archival purposes or to indicate some future action
that I should take, I had to move them manually in some way to
another location. For a while, I thought I'd try Mail Act-On 1.3.3,
which is intended to help with this problem, but whose Leopard
compatibility is still in beta.
<http://www.indev.ca/MailActOn.html>
However, I felt reluctant to base my entire email strategy on
third-party software that might make it difficult to upgrade to the
next major version of Mail as quickly as I might need to.
So, I tried enabling my rules (from the old filters that came in
from Eudora) that filter incoming email from individual people into
their individual mailboxes, instead of into the Inbox, which takes
care of a lot of my post-reading filing. The messages still show up
in my smart mailboxes, but when I consider them read, I can either
delete them or do nothing, and if I do nothing, they remain in their
appropriate person-specific mailbox. I know that some people are
comfortable with a huge Inbox of read messages that are unfiled, but
I prefer a more finely grained organizational system.
I've found it valuable to check each rule to be sure it does what I
want, so I turn on five or so in a session, reconfiguring them as
needed, and then watch what comes in to see if it's going to the
right place. This didn't work well when I had Mail set to check for
messages every 5 minutes and I was getting a high volume of
messages, because Mail didn't like having to display messages in my
smart mailboxes while it was checking and filtering. This is akin to
Eudora, where sometimes incoming messages would appear shortly after
it would seem that they should have, but Eudora would let me
continue working without a fuss. [Editor's note: In Eudora, bring
the Task Progress window to the front to make it filter right away;
otherwise it waits until it senses idle time. -Adam] I recently set
Mail to check for new email every 30 minutes, and that seems to
help, since I'm less likely to be trying to work with a smart
mailbox when Mail is also trying to work with it. However, my email
volume has been light recently, so the jury is still out on how well
all this will work.
Manual filing is still more difficult in Mail than it was in Eudora.
The contextual menu is awkward to use, and the dragging method is
hard because I have so many mailboxes to use as potential targets. I
have been slowly reorganizing my mailboxes to put frequent targets
at the top. Mail insists on alphabetizing mailboxes, so I renamed
some mailboxes to begin with an asterisk in order to group them at
the top without nesting them. I expect that my entire mailbox
organization strategy will evolve over time so that the strongest
organizational criterion becomes frequency of use instead of topics
or relationships.
What I know now, after a week of using Mail, is that some of my
initial troubles with filing related to my overall mousing speed and
my lack of having scheduled enough time to settle into Mail. For
example, it took me a few days to realize that, when dragging a
message out of the viewing pane and into a different mailbox to file
it manually, I was dragging downward too much and not enough to the
left toward the sidebar. Dragging more slowly and making an effort
to drag to the left helped enormously. If you drag down too quickly,
Mail thinks you want to select multiple messages in the viewing
pane. I still mis-drag about 20 percent of the time. Another problem
directly related to my impatience was that I never hovered over a
top-level mailbox long enough to realize that it was spring loaded,
so I was often adjusting my sidebar before I filed a message just to
bring the target mailbox into view. It is much easier to just wait a
moment for a spring-loaded mailbox to pop open!
I'm still having trouble with ad-hoc searching in Mail. The basic
search functionality is easy to use, but doesn't allow the kind of
boolean searching I do often. Nested smart mailboxes can help with
this, but they perform slowly on my system and are annoying to set
up for a quick ad-hoc search. And, I miss Eudora's Option-click
feature where you could Option-click any bit of metadata on a
message - such as the Sender or the Subject - in a mailbox listing,
and immediately see all other messages with that metadata grouped
together. Joe Kissell, author of various editions of "Take Control
of Apple Mail" (the Leopard edition is slated for early May; I'm
acting as guinea pig and editor), suggested that I learn how to type
important bits of search syntax directly, that I search in Spotlight
in the Finder, or that I look into the $29.95 MailTags plug-in.
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/leopard-apple-mail.html>
<http://www.indev.ca/MailTags.html>
**Two Specific Fixes** -- My first few days in Mail were especially
disconcerting due to a few special problems that I encountered. You
might run into similar ones, so I've noted them here.
The first problem was that each time I launched Mail, I had to enter
two passwords for my incoming email accounts and two passwords for
those same accounts' outgoing servers. My keychain seemingly could
not remember them. This was a drag, but, again, Joe's draft came to
the rescue, advising me to launch Keychain Access, choose Keychain
Access > Keychain First Aid, and then repair my keychain (honestly,
if I didn't edit these ebooks, I'd never be able to get my Mac to do
anything).
The second problem that I had to figure out on my own was that Mail
wouldn't let me move messages out of one of my inboxes - the
messages kept bouncing back as though the destination mailboxes were
locked, or radioactive, or something. The fix related to a setting
for the account where I was having messages also kept on the server
for a week after delivery. Apparently that was a no-no.
Change can be painful, and changing to Mail so far has been more
time-consuming and more frustrating than I'd anticipated. My biggest
mistakes were not preparing enough in advance and not giving myself
more time to get comfortable before I needed to be up and running
effectively. Although I'm starting to settle in, I sense that I am
pushing Mail with the volume of email that I receive and the amount
of work that I want it to do for me, so although I don't think I'm
moving back to Eudora, I'll be keeping my eye out for other options,
such as the new Outspring Mail, covered in "Outspring Mail Promises
Intelligent Filing" (2008-03-31).
<http://www.outspring.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=64>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/9540>
TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 14-Apr-08
---------------------------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9551>
* Pro Applications Update 2008-01 from Apple updates Final Cut Studio
2, bringing Final Cut Pro up to version 6.0.3 and Compressor to
version 3.0.3. According to Apple, the update "addresses specific
customer issues, installation issues, compatibility updates, general
performance issues and improves overall stability." A valid Final
Cut Studio 2 serial number is required to download the update.
(Free, 63.7 MB)
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/proapplicationsupdate200801.html>
* Photoshop Lightroom 1.4.1 and Camera Raw 4.4.1 fix a set of problems
that prompted Adobe to pull the 1.4 and 4.4 updates of the software
a few weeks ago. Those earlier updates incorrectly modified EXIF
time and date information on photos and prevented Olympus JPEG files
from rendering correctly. The import performance was also degraded
in Lightroom 1.4 compared to version 1.3. The updates also add
support for Canon EOS 450D (Digital Rebel XSi/EOS Kiss X2), Nikon
D60, Sony A350, and others, and update printer driver compatibility
under Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Windows versions of the updates are
also available. (Free; Lightroom 1.4.1, 42.9 MB; Camera Raw 4.4.1,
12.5 MB)
<http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3891>
<http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3893>
* OmniWeb 5.7 from The Omni Group is a fairly major release to the
company's feature-packed Web browser. OmniWeb 5.7 improves ad
blocking, adds a "Mail Contents of This Page" command to the File
menu, gives the option to display PDFs inline or download them,
improves PDF handling, and reduces the CPU usage and memory
footprint. A number of nagging crashes were also resolved. ($14.95
new, free upgrade, 12.9 MB)
<http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb/>
* iGlasses 2.1 from Ecamm Network adds digital zoom to the video
utility, along with support for seven additional video applications:
Skitch, Pixelmator, Cha-Ching, WebEx Meeting Center, Arkaos VJ,
Acorn, and ooVoo. Other changes include support for using a CamTwist
video source and bug fixes to work with iMovie '08 properly and to
fix problems with pan and zoom using the Apple Remote in Leopard.
iGlasses 2.1 also resets the demo period, so those who have
previously tried the program can try it again. ($9.95 new, free
upgrade, 875K)
<http://www.ecamm.com/mac/iglasses/>
* Aluminum Keyboard Firmware Update 1.0 from Apple updates the
firmware of both the wired and wireless versions of the aluminum
Apple Keyboard to put a stop to unexpected key repeats. Apple claims
the update also addresses other issues. The update requires Mac OS X
10.5.2, and if you're installing from a MacBook or MacBook Pro, be
sure to plug in your computer's power cord before installing. (Free,
1.5 MB)
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/aluminumkeyboardfirmwareupdate10.html>
* Airfoil Speakers for Linux 1.0 from Rogue Amoeba allows Airfoil for
Mac 3 or Airfoil for Windows 2.5 to stream music over a network to a
system running a supported version of Linux. This software doesn't
include any other Airfoil functionality, and is labeled
"unsupported" by Rogue Amoeba. (Free, 187K)
<http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/speakers.php>
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/14-Apr-08
------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9565>
**Printer-Friendly Mode Returns to TidBITS** -- Readers respond to the
addition of a printer-friendly version of TidBITS articles (and we
respond by adding support for images!). (9 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1939>
**Is the net killing any of us?** A New York Times article about the
supposed health dangers of blogging makes readers cry foul. (3
messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1940>
**Problems with Eudora on OS X 10.5 (Leopard)?** Running Eudora under
Leopard seems to affect readers differently, prompting one person to
suggest that a stable Eudora under Tiger is better than the features
offered by Leopard. (8 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1941>
**Are There Any OS X Viruses in the Wild?** While we acknowledge that
the Mac isn't immune to malware, are there any active viruses out
there? (16 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1942>
**Time Machine via AirPort Disk Is Unsupported, Apple Says** -- This
much-requested feature, which appeared in the last AirPort update,
turns out to have been a mistake. But will it remain, or be
improved? (3 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1943>
**AT&T Lowers Cancellation Fee** -- Is the new policy a result of
newfound good will toward customers, or just a way to comply with
laws? This discussion also brings up the question of how much money
AT&T is actually making from iPhone sales and contracts. (7
messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1944>
**How to Fix Corrupt Eudora Mailboxes** -- Adam's direct experience
with Eudora corruption brings up stories of other data failures and
how people manage their email. (8 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1945>
**Audio Processing Software** -- A reader inquires about audio
processing programs such as Peak LE, Sound Studio, and others. (7
messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1946>
**Disappearing movies on iTunes Store and Apple TV Store** -- The
iTunes Store's movie selection appears to be ever-shifting, based on
the studio's demands, with movies such as Spider-Man 3 now absent.
(2 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1947>
**Central storage of common files** -- Is it possible to store shared
data such as bookmarks, contacts, and music on a drive attached to a
Time Capsule and make it available across the network? (1 message)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1948>
**Any questions for George Carlo PhD?** Readers debate the works of a
researcher with strong opinions on the effects of wireless
technology. (5 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1950>
$$
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