Export Address Book is an app which (unsurprisingly) exports all the data in your Address Book into an independent data file that you can archive, use with a Microsoft Word Merge or FileMaker database or import into your favourite web-based email service.

It is a universal binary and comes with an Automator action to automate repeated exports.

The app overs considerable control over the export process, allowing you to select which records to export, which fields from those records, how to order them and whether to give the exported data customised labels:

A new version (1.1) released today includes two new formats, CSV and HTML tables, for the exported data and more options for handling line breaks, as you can see from the new options pane:

Export Address Book is shareware (10 Euros = USD 12.50) and is available from the developer’s web site.address book, exporting, contacts, csv, tsv, html, helpful apps

Goodness knows Spotlight is powerful enough.

It’s almost too powerful for its own good. For example, it loves to get going as soon as you type in the first few letters of your search, which can be frustrating. And it loves to find everything it can, smothering you in an avalanche of hits from your hard drive.

Productivity takes a hit from the waiting and from the extra sifting of results.

Two apps can help. HoudahSpot helps you to control Spotlight’s power for more focussed searches and Searchlight extends Spotlight’s reach to files on a network’s server.

HoudahSpot: Sharper focus for Spotlight’s muscle

HoudahSpot is a “front-end” for Spotlight. It offers an easy way to create complicated Boolean searches in Spotlight and to restrict results easily to a particular class of object (image, document, PDF, etc).

It comes tooled up with pre-defined templates for “long lost” documents and recent documents, and with hotkeys for saved searches.

The interface consists of a series of familiar fields for constructing your search:

Say, for example, I wanted to find a paper I began two years ago, which seemed like a good idea at the time but ran out of steam unfinished. I know that it was about Tertullian, but I don’t want to wade through the 450+ hits Spotlight will produce by itself.

I remember that it mentions Tertullian and Augustine and that it was a Word Document.

A HoudahSpot search quickly finds the most likely matches and even gives me a preview of the selected one so that I can double-check that it’s right:

HoudahSpot is shareware (USD 14.95) is available from the developer’s web site .

Searchlight: Spotlight searching for servers

Searchlight brings Apple’s Spotlight to the network.

Searchlight brings Spotlight searching to a Mac OS X server, allowing all the clients on the network to search it for files. The recently released version 1.1 also supports SMB, so that Spotlight can also search mounted Windows volumes.

It provides a web interface to its searches, built with Ruby on Rails and accessible to Mac, Windows and Linux users.

Document subscription via RSS keeps users informed when documents change or new ones are created.

Searchlight is shareware (USD 29.90) and is available from the developer’s web site .spotlight, productivity, searches, tips, helpful apps, server, network, not apple mail

Rui Carmo at Tao of Mac has been thinking about Yojimbo .

First, he takes a peek under the hood, considers its underlying SQLite database and how the app fits into the current debate over open formats.

Secondly, he concludes that the things Yojimbo does well -

it’s pretty damn simple to use, lets you tag and encrypt items, and lets you find things pretty fast (as well as arbitrarily slicing and dicing your data in views of your own choosing).

- are exactly the kinds of things that Mail.app coupled with an IMAP account was born to do. “Why use another wheel?” he asks.

Hawk Wings has posted about people consciously using Mail.app as a Personal Information Manager before, but Rui takes the idea one step further.

As the ponders the various ways of getting his information into Mail.app, he covers Quicksilver actions, reading your RSS/Atom feeds as email, tagging and more.

An excellent read.IMAP, mail.app, apple mail, information manager, productivity, yojimbo, open format, tips

Jussar Interactive has created an AppleScript that will retrieve messages from a Hotmail account into Mail.app.

It does this using the open source MrPostman software to drag down the mail.

Unlike some other utilities for retrieving email from web-based services, Mail to Fetch promises to work with Intel Macs.

The script is available from MacUpdate and installation instructions from the developer’s web site .

I haven’t tested this. I’d be glad to hear if it works.

UPDATE: The author has updated this script to fix a significant problem that could occur after reoot. (28 June 2006)hotmail, webmail, pop, mail.app, apple mail, applescript, plugins, Microsoft, MSN

Some enterprising staff member in the IT Department at McGill University has produced an illustrated guide (PDF) on setting up Thunderbird to use an Exchange Server account.

Although written and illustrated with screenshots from the Windows version of Thunderbird, the author says that it applies equally to Macs.Thunderbird, IMAP, microsoft, exchange, howto, tips, screenshots

Logan Design’s Mail Unread Menu notification utility for Mail.app has been updated.

The new version is now packaged as a mailbundle, which allows for real-time updating of the unread message count.

The new format also allows Mail Unread Menu’s options to be moved to a pane within Mail’s Preferences.

The developer is actively working on new features, including the ability to move the icon in the Menubar and, possibly, multiple mail counts (e.g. one count for work-realted emails, one for a home account, one for a mailing list and so on).

You can get the updated version from the developer’s web site .mail.app, apple mail, notification, plugins, menubar

The newest version of Quicksilver – β49 (Borzoi) 3771 – has a new tab in the Preferences pane labelled Guide.

At the moment, the four boxes on the left merely jump you to the relevant section of the Preferences, although (I am guessing) in time they will offer specific help files for each option.

The other links offer some good stuff though:

The Documentation link takes you to further sections on Tips and Tricks, a FAQ, tutorials, an overview and more. There is also an Application and plugins reference, offering easy access to the documentation on the Quicksilver site.

I can’t find a link in the new feature to Howard Melman’s user manual, but hopefully that will also appear in the future.productivity, quicksilver, help, documentation, tips, not apple mail