2007-10-05 11:34
Dear Mail.app
… that emails with “viagra” in the subject are most definitely spam? I think I’ve told you enough times already.
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2007-03-05 22:34
SyncTogether syncs Macs without .Mac
Mark/Space has released SyncTogether, which syncs Address Books, Mail settings, iCal and other SyncServices data between multiple Macs.
Personally I’m on three different Macs all the time: Work, G5 at home and iBook G4 on the road/rails. But I’ve never used iCal, Mail, Address Book or Safari to any sort of extent, because I use Entourage (work email), Thunderbird (private email) and Firefox (for almost everything).
SyncTogether looks like such a promising concept that I’m seriously considering switching to Sync Services enabled application. There are several problems with this, however.
Safari won’t ever take over for Firefox on any of my Macs, but then again, there’s Foxmarks, which works flawlessly for me. And I don’t use bookmarks for much other than the Personal Toolbar Folder. For other bookmarks I use del.icio.us.
For work email, with their huge attachments, Entourage really is the best available Mac email client. Thunderbird sucks when it comes to emails with big attachments, but I like it in most other respects, especially because its good junk mail filtering (props to my workplace’s firewall — I never get junk at work), so I use that for private email accounts. At least I like it better than Mail, which never hit home with me.
Might it be worth switching from Entourage and Thunderbird to a one-stop solution in Mail, which would sync across all my Macs? How does Mail handle big attachments? From what I understand, Mail’s junk filters should also be pretty good. And then there are interesting Mail plugins like MailTags, integration with applications like Actiontastic and so on (for Getting Things Done).
The other day I just realized that all my three Macs were running Thunderbird 1.0.something, and that I hadn’t been wondering why I hadn’t seen any automatic updates happening with it. So I had to upgrade all three copies. And just yesterday I spent some time reordering of my email accounts by manually editing Thunderbird’s prefs.js file on my G5, a task that was not very easy and not something I want to repeat two more times.
And so I come to realize that Thunderbird, even at version 1.5, isn’t a very streamlined application yet, and that I might be better off running Mail. I’m running Imap exclusively anyhow, so it’s not like it’s a big problem switching back if it shouldn’t work out.
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2007-02-28 10:28
GTD application Actiontastic updated
What is 'GTD'?
GTD stands for "Getting Things Done", and is a "work-life management system" and a book by David Allen.
Get the book here, while also helping me out (affiliate link)
Other GTD resources
43 Folders: Getting started with ‘Getting Things Done’
Tracks is a free GTD web app written in Ruby on Rails.
Mac OS X GTD application Actiontastic is at version 0.9.2 as of today.
I have yet to try it, because of—among other things—its lack of online access. It still lacks that, but as today’s post says, the next release will be version 1.0, and will include syncing with Actionatr, which I mentioned in a recent blog post. At that point I will be willing to give it a try.
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2007-02-20 22:48
My new phone: Treo 680—and a positive user service experience
Today I ordered a Palm Treo 680, after also joining the Owners Buy organization — or, more correctly their corporate alternative, Owners Bedrift via my workplace’s contract with them. Haven’t gotten it yet, though, but in the mean time I’ll tell you about a nice customer service experience.
“Owners Buy” is genious, really (although their company names could be better, I guess): Tens of thousands of private persons and company employees have banded together to negotiate better deals with various providers of services and products. Among those providers is NetCom, my phone service provider. By joining Owners Buy, I can talk with all the other members for free (after the small startup fee for each call).
In addition, their Treos are much cheaper than any other I’ve been able to find. One online store sells them for 4000 NOK (about $650) with a possible 800 NOK subsidization rebate, while through Owners Buy I got it for 1840 ($300) with subsidization.
But they didn’t have any Treos in their store. So I called them today, and they actually added them to their web shop while I was talking to them! Very nice people delivering very good service. As one of them told me, they’re not allowed to advertise (word of mouth only, or NetCom will drop the deal, I guess, which I can understand), so they have to spend their efforts on service instead. And it works, too. I’m definitely recommending them to as many of my family and friends I can.
And maybe I’ll save enough money through Owners Buy that I can afford an iPhone v2 …
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2007-01-09 22:51
My next phone
Lately the signal strength of my Treo 600 has diminished. I fear the external antenna has gotten a blow at some point. Living out here in the farmland, where mobile phone coverage isn’t as great as in denser populated areas doesn’t help the situation.
So I’ve been thinking of getting a new one, although I wasn’t quite sure which way to go. Of course, the Treo 680 would be an option, albeit an expensive one. I’d started thinking of getting a phone running something other than Palm OS, since it’s possible to get sponsored phones for next to nothing.
Well, I guess I’ll be dropping Palm OS in about a year’s time.
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