Chatalog - Integrating iChat logs into Mail
A new plug-in for Mail that stores and indexes iChat logs within Mail, so that you can search them together with your emails. It offers two definite advantages over trying to find your chat logs with Spotlight:
(i) Spotlight can find your chats, but lists them in the results window under the “Other” category, along with all your iCal appointments, plist files, .info files and other miscellaneous things that it can’t find another home for. You can spend a lot of time scanning through the results to find what you need. Chatalog finds only chats. Installing it brings all your communications with others, by email or iChat, under one roof.
(ii) Chatalog also indexes separately all the links and images that you have sent or received in your chats. You know that you sent a really interesting link to a friend your were iChatting with in London, but now you can’t find it. Chatalog can. And quite quickly too.
It also compiles statistics on your chat logs, how many words sent and received (are you a talker or a listener?), average number of words per chat, total number of swearwords, and so on. If you agree with Aristotle that “an unexamined life is not worth living”, then Chatalog is for you!
Among other improvements, the new version (1.2) features a widget and an archiver to help with the importing of existing iChat logs.
I don’t chat enough to make this one of my “always on” plug-ins, like Mail Act-on or MailUnreadStatusBar. But if I did, it would be a favourite. Good idea. Nicely executed. It’s shareware (USD 12.95 for personal use, USD 24.95 for businesses) and you can download it from the FreeVerse web site.
Updated 29 September 2005
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