US mobile phone operator Cingular Wireless has lodged a application to patent emoticons on cell phones.

According to Cellular News :

The USA based mobile operator, Cingular Wireless has managed to get a patent on the concept of using emoticon on mobile phones. While the aim of the patent is to enable the displaying of MSN style graphics on handsets, they also managed to patent the delivery of text based emoticon – so presumably sending :) via an SMS – if selected via a dedicated or softkey, would be a breach of the patent in future.

There is a division of opinion on news sites about whether the application is pending or has been granted.

I presume sending emoticons in emails remains patent-free. For the moment.

See further:
Engadget
Consumeraffairs.com

AddressBookToCSV is a utility that converts Address Book contacts into a form that Gmail can understand.

Version 1.1 handles company contacts better and pays more attention to Address Book’s name ordering properties.

In the release notes, the developer Ken Ferry makes two interesting points:

(i) Gmail’s contact interface now works with all browsers.

(ii) Running the app won’t cause problems:

If you’ve already imported your contacts into gmail but want to do it again, go ahead. You won’t get duplicates.

Perhaps now is a good time to try again, if you have had problems with Gmail contacts in the past.

AddressBookToCSV is freeware and available from Ken’s web site. The source code is included in the disk image.

High Priority is a System Preference Pane that brings the management of your iCal ToDos to the menubar.

An updated version, released today, contains some significant improvements and bugfixes.

The display of ToDos has been improved. It can now display the Due Date in the menu title and show only ToDo items due within a specified number of days. URLs can now be launched from a ToDo dialog.

You can now assign a global hot key to open the menu and choose to display the menu in a small font size.

The update also features new and improved status labels – Cancelled, In Process, Needs Action – for your ToDos, which are now displayed in the tooltip information.

Some bugfixes make it more stable.

High Priority is shareware (USD 6) and is available from the developer?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s web site.

anentry is an AppleScript that will email a selected headline from NetNewsWire in Mail.app.

It’s a little bit unpolished, but it does the job.

You can get it from the developer’s web site.

(See also FeedMailer.)

Apple has updated its tech note about syncing URLs in Address Book via .Mac.

It warns that only three URLs of any one type (home, home page, work or custom) in any one Address Book card can be synced in OS X 10.4.3 or later.

Not only will any extras not sync, they will be erased. In Mac OS X 10.4 to 10.4.2, all URLs are ignored. (Put them in the Notes field).

So, if you have lots of contacts with more than twelve URLs, you have been warned.

User reports on the beta version of Microsoft‘s Hotmail replacement, Windows Live Mail, are beginning to filter out. It is part of a wider online revamp by Microsoft called Windows Live.

You can see some pictures of the interface on Vinny Carpenter’s blog and at Tipmonkies.

Reviews range from “awesome” to “pretty good” to cautiously welcoming and mixed to damning (There must be one. I just can’t find it).

Two Mad Geeks compare it to Yahoo! Mail and Zimbra.

I was recently upbraided by a friend for writing this blog as if I were an American. (Man, was I pissed. That was like so harsh).

What better way to celebrate Australia Day and inject local colo(u)r than with a set of Address Book plugins that deliver maps and travel directions for Australian addresses?

AusAB is a set of four plugins that offers Whereis maps of your contacts, public transport times to locations in Sydney, the option of setting a primary address for a contact and directions from one of the addresses on your own card to a selected address of another contact.

Like the StreetMaps plugin for the UK and the Google Maps plugin, the new options are available in a drop down menu when you click on a contact’s address tab.

It can only parse the most standard address formats at the moment, but the developer hopes to extend its range and add other features. He welcomes feedback – details are in the readme file on the disk image.

The Directions option will open a dialogue box asking for more details, like this:

In this case I am wondering how to get to work.

It’s clever too. It shows me exactly the route that I do drive:

AusAB is freeware and available from the developer’s web site (along with temperature widgets and other goodies for Australian Mac users).

It’s a bloody little ripper, mate!