According to some user reports , it looks like Gmail Notifier is no longer correctly reporting new mail in Gmail accounts.

Neither the old version or the recently updated one are working for me.

If notification is important to you, it might be worth switching to GmailStatus (which is working fine) until the problem is sorted out.

UPDATE: The crisis must be over. Gmail Notifier just sputtered into life again.gmail, notification, email, problems

Pierre Igot at Betalogue is frustrated by the not-very-smart algorithm that controls the way Mail threads messages. It doesn’t have to be as dumb as it is, he reckons:

As far as I know, Mail also uses unique e-mail message identifiers in the message headers to follow threads even when subject lines are changed. So it obviously can be smart in some cases. Why does it have to be so dumb in other cases?

He wishes that Mail had some kind of manual command to separate emails that Mail has mistakenly dumped together.

Kevin Bjorke, a Shading Engineer at NVIDIA, wonders why Mail.app won’t tell him what messages have been moved by its rules as Eudora does. “The program hides information from me and puts the burden of organization onto me to keep in my head — the opposite of what “productivity software” is supposed to do,” he says.

Rob Hyndman has just switched to Macs, buying a shiny new MacBook Pro. He is liking the whole experience , especially using Apple Mail:

Apple Mail is a joy to use on this box. Very simple, elegant, clean. I’m forgetting Outlook already :). But I do need to figure out proper archiving of emails. I have 5 years worth +, to about 5 gigs of email that I need to have handy and searchable.

mail.app, apple mail, unhappy users, rules, threading, switcher

” Kinkless GTD” is a set of templates, applescripts and a Quicksilver action for OmniOutliner Pro.

It allows users to organise their life and work after the fashion of David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” time-management philosophy. Most importantly, perhaps, kGTD syncs its tasks with iCal as to dos which creates an even more powerful and useful tool.

It is Ethan Schoonover‘s lovechild and an absolutely excellent thing.

The new version (0.83.0) has a list of improvements and new features as long as your arm.

Automatically-aging tasks, “singleton” tasks unrelated to any project, a smarter Quicksilver action and next actions that “bubble” to the top of project lists are just some of the things that I am looking forward to.

Merlin Mann, who did hard-core beta-testing on this version has written a nice detailed review of the new release.

KGTD requires the latest OmniOutliner 3.6 beta . It is freeware and you can download it from Ethan’s web site .kgtd, gtd, getting things done, ical, productivity, quicksilver

I’ve finally given up all hope that Steve Jobs will ever answer my emails, so it’s time to close off the “Talking Mail.app” series that ran on Hawk Wings through February and early March.

A number of developers and iCelebrities cheerfully gave up their time to conduct “email interviews”, sharing their views on what’s good about Mail and what’s not so good, what plugins they use to make their Mail experience better and how Mail.app could be improved.

Here is the full list of interviews:

Scott Morrison – MailTags and Mail Act-on developer.
Joe Kissell – Mac writer and journalist.
Daniel Jalkut – Rising Tech blogger, developer of FastScripts.
Fraser Speirs – Connected Flow, developer of FlickrExport, XJournal.
Leander Kahney – Managing Editor of Wired News, Cult of Mac.
drunkenbatman – “Some guy with a website”.
Pierre Igot – Betalogue, writer, translator, Mac tech support person.
John Gruber – Daring Fireball. Blog superstar.
Andreas Amann – Mail Scripts developer.
Giles Turnbull – Writer, Mac journalist.
Rui Carmo – Tao of Mac.
Peter Maurer – Textpander, Witch, Butler, Service Scrubber, etc, etc.
Andrew Escobar – Developer of Mail Stamps.
Brady J Frey – Design Company Creative Director.
Rob Griffiths – macOSXHints, MacWorld.
Matt Haughey – A Whole Lotta Nothing, MetaFilter, PVRBlog.
Ethan Schoonover – kGTD, photographer.
Merlin Mann – Productivity god. (*swoon*).
Brent Simmons – NetNewsWire, MarsEdit.
Michael Tsai – SpamSieve, DropDMG, ATPM.

Thanks, guys. Hang on a minute…. Yes, they are all guys. How did that happen?Talking Mail.app, mail.app, apple mail, likes, dislikes, plugins

Google has updated its Gmail Notifier for Mac OS X app.

The new version (1.8.2) is a universal binary. It is also smarter about looking for updates and downloading them.

An additional tweak that restricts notifications to a particular Gmail label works fine with the new version.

A clever plugin for Gmail Notifier, Gmail+Growl , has also been updated to match the new release of the parent app.

Gmail+Growl works with Gmail Notifier to send notifications to Growl .

The new version (1.6.5) gets a new icon to match. It also offers a new feature. According to the release notes ,

holding shift and clicking notifications will dismiss them instead of opening their link (if you have them set to open normally; otherwise it *will* actually open them, since it inverts that setting). Handy for dismissing sticky notifications or just opening select messages.

(This news is slightly stale. Sorry about that. It happened while I was away.)gmail, Google, growl, notification, hacks, plugins

When Windows Vista is released, the default email program Outlook Express will be rebranded as “Windows Mail”. (You can read in an earlier post how the similarities with Apple Mail, its main competitor in the default OS email client stakes, are more significant than the name alone).

The latest beta of Vista (version 5342) was released on 24 March. Screenshots of the OS in general can be found on x64bit.net.

As well as “the glass look” and innovative features like windows that “flip” in 3D, the new beta offers a “sidebar”, into which you can drop things that look like widgets.

A screenshot of Windows Mail from this latest beta has been posted on the German site winfuture.de. Here it is:

Click the picture for a full-sized image

Unfortunately the “About Windows Mail” dialog obscures some of the interface, but I think you can get the general idea of the way in which the new look Outlook Express is developing. Spooky.

It looks a lot better than recent screenshots of the next Outlook at any rate.windows vista, windows mail, apple mail, mail.app, email, screenshot, sidebar

Apple has revised its technote on “printing Mail messages, wrapping text, and font sizing”.

The technote describes the three options available when printing Mail.app messages (just choose “Print” from the File menu, then change the third pop-up menu’s choice from “Copies & Pages” to “Mail”):

In short, the three options are:

1. Scale message to fit: This option prints the message exactly as it is displayed on the screen, without re-wrapping. If the message is wider than the paper size, the message is resized to fit.
2. Rewrap message to fit: This keeps the specified font size of the message and rewraps the text to fit the paper size, producing a printout that is some cases looks different to the screen view. The printout may appear smaller than its looks on the screen.
3. Keep the same apparent font size: Here Mail tries to strike a balance between screen and print points per inch and may rewrap the printout if needed. The technote suggest that “if you’re not sure which option might be best for you, try this one first.”

It’s also worth noting that this print option it “sticky” and your choice is retained until you change it again. apple technote, mail.app, apple mail, printing, font size, rewrapping, tips