Simon Jacquier’s iPhoto Mailer Patcher is been updated so that it will work with any version of iPhoto 4.0 to 6.0.4.

By default, iPhoto’s “Send photos by email” feature only supports AOL, Eudora, Mail.app and Microsoft’s Entourage. iPhoto Mailer Patcher adds support for Claris Emailer, GyazMail, Mailsmith, Outlook Express, PowerMail and QuickMail Pro. Only Thunderbird misses out, due to its “unscriptability”.

Getting Simon’s hack to work with iPhoto 5 or 6 used to involve manually editing the ClientAppSignatures.plist file in iPhoto’s package. It was messy. Now it is all automated by the Patcher’s installer.

iPhoto Mailer Patcher is donation-ware and is available from Simon’s web site .iphoto, mail.app, apple mail, thunderbird, GyazMail, mailsmith, powermail, quickmail pro, email in general, photos, email, apple

Dave Hamilton from the Mac Observer is thinking about switching to Mail.app.

He has had a gutful of his old mail client:

Mailsmith, by most rights, has stagnated. It pains me to write this, because as I said, I’m a really big fan of BareBones, and enjoy a great working relationship with their head-honcho, Rich Siegel. But it’s true… Mailsmith hasn’t had a public release/update since March of 2005. Now some folks may argue that it doesn’t need an update, and for those folks, I’m sure that’s correct. My big problem is that I manage a LOT of e-mail… I have almost 1400 mailboxes within which are nearly 200,000 e-mail messages. I pretty much save everything, and it’s saved my ass in HUGE ways over the years, so I ain’t gonna stop.

So, he wonders, does Mail.app have what it takes to manage a large number of mailboxes and bucketloads of email? Or is he better off archiving off a large slab of the emails and staying with Mailsmith?

My advice is not much good. I only have about 35,000 emails spread over four IMAP accounts and about ten mailboxes (see further, “How the delete key is your best friend”). That’s chicken feed by Dave’s standards.

Justin Blanton once ran a challenge to find the largest Mail mailbox, putting up his own inbox of 22,000 as a candidate.

What’s your experience? What’s your biggest mailbox? How many mailboxes does your Mail.app handle without working up a sweat?

Can Mail.app take the load? Does size matter?mail.app, apple mail, mailboxes, email volume, biggest mailbox, switching, Mailsmith, email in general

Chronos released an update to its SOHO Notes Information Manager (formerly StickyBrain) over the weekend.

The new version features improvements to the app’s blogging and clipboard features as well as a raft of bugfixes, including a fix for handling URLs from Firefox.

Users will benefit most from the new clipboard functions in the DockNote.

Clippings can now be opened, edited and deleted from the clipboard recorder.

A clipping can be saved into Notes as a new note or be replaced with a selection from the current application.

In addition, when the clipboard recorder is turned off, it now stays off.

This means the the DockNote now contains a viable clipboard recorder, which could potentially replace apps like JumpCut or CuteClips.

Other improvements include the option to specify which folder the “Print to PDF” service will save to, better remembering of column width and position between launches (still a problem for me), better explanation of the SOHO sync service, and imrpvoements to Sync’s tolerance of sync faults.

Blogging features have also been improved. A bug preventing notes from being published to TypePad accounts has been fixed.

The app’s Preferences now include a new pane for its blogging features.

It can handle multiple blogging accounts and authentications:

SOHO Notes is shareware (USD 39.99) and is available from the Chronos web site .StickyBrain, productivity, SOHO Notes, information manager, clipboard, blogging, PIM, not Apple Mail

The Dashboard widget xCuts is a keyboard shortcuts reference that lets you easily browse the shortcuts for Mac OS X, Quicksilver and more.

A recent update adds a section for switchers, which gives them easy access to the Mac OS X equivalents for the Windows shortcuts they already know.

To save space, the widget can be collapsed to the small size of the graphic in the top right of this post. When you need it, click on it to expand to the full interface:

Searches can be focussed by category, scope and object. The magic is powered by a MySQL database, accessed over the web with Ajax.

xCuts is freeware and is available from the developer’s web site .

[Thanks, Adrian]keyboard shortcuts, mac osx, productivity, quicksilver, widget, dashboard, not apple mail, apple, switching

Google has expanded and renamed its Gmail Notifier app so that it includes alerts and reminders from Google Calendar.

The revised app, now called Google Notifier, adds two icons to your menubar:

In the Preferences you can set which email client to use for composing messages, whether to display an unread message count and to receive pop-up alerts.

The Gcal pane offers similar options for your calendar events.

The email alerts are elegant and give you the sender, subject and a brief excerpt from each incoming email:

UPDATE: As Arsen points out in the comments, the new app has some rough edges. The endless loop of authentication requests can be short-circuited by turning the Gcal notifications off. Not ideal. Rather defeats the point of the updated app. No doubt a fix is on the way.

Google Notifier is freeware and is available from the Google site .

[Thanks for the prompt, Sander.]gmail, Google, email in general, gcal, notifier, notifications, alerts, menubar

It’s a great day for Mail.app users. The public beta of MailTags 2.0 has been released, bringing with it full IMAP tag support, tagging of outgoing messages, tag sharing, a revamped, more flexible MailTags pane, the display of keywords, projects and other MailTags info in the ListView and more.

In some ways it offers better productivity features than Leopard Mail and it’s here now.

IMAP tag support

Probably the most anticipated new feature is full support for tagging emails in IMAP accounts.

This is achieved by storing the keywords, projects and other metadata in encoded X-MailTags headers in the email itself. When new MailTags information is added, MailTags writes a new copy of the message to the server. The metadata is stored server-side, making it available on any Mac you use which has MailTags 2.0 installed. Synchronised tagging has arrived whether you are in the office, at home or on the road.

You can also choose to save the metadata in clear text so that other email clients like Thunderbird will be able to read it.

The MailTags Pane

Many of the new features in this beta are best understood from the new-look MailTags pane.

Individual sections of the pane can be hidden or shown as you prefer by clicking on the disclosure triangle in the top left of its header.

Interaction with iCal continues to improve. Support for to-dos allows you to set priorities, due dates and to add comments in the Notes field. You can set a default calendar for MailTags to use in the MailTags Preferences.

The linkage between Mail.app and iCal has been improved through the use of a new URL format (message://mymessage-id @ server.com) which will find the relevant email regardless of the actual file location.

The Notes field now automatically expands with the size of the window, so that verbose people like me can see all the info for a particular email more easily.

In another much-hoped improvement, the Notes field can be used to replace the subject line of the email (see the subject line in italics in the screenshot below). Neat!

In the Compose window MailTags pane, additional options allow you to tag your outgoing message and/or tag the original message with the same tags as the reply. You can also create a rule to accept reject tags based on any criteria (such as member ship in a specific address book group).

This is a real bonus for work groups. Tagging outgoing messages gives people working on shared projects the ability to accept and share tags with other collaborators.

Of course, you may run into a nutcase using MailTags 2.0, so the option to refuse attached tags is also included.

Seeing your tags in the ListView

One of my favourite new features is the ability to see your projects and tags in the Message ListView, which provides additional and immediate visual cues about what you need to get done.

Command-clicking on any column header to add or remove the project, keyword, priority and due date columns.

When matched to the project-related colour coding of messages, you know at once what needs to be done in what sphere of your life:

The expanded Preferences now contain a number of separate panes to manage the plugin’s options. These options and MailTags 2.0′s other new features are set out in an expanded and comprehensive readme file.

How does it compare with Leopard Mail, or at least, with as much of Leopard Mail as we have seen? As Scott says,

While Mail 3.0 brings some MailTags-like features to Mail, MailTags continues to add many features not included with Mail 3.0, including keywords, project and priority tagging, saving notes directly with message, changing subject lines, dynamic coloring of messages, full integration with rules and smart mailboxes, and more.

Upgrade Warning!!

Installing MailTags 2.0 will erase the settings for MailTags 1.2.2. This is set out at the top of the plugin’s new readme file, but is worth repeating. However, MailTags 2.0 saves a backup of your info so that can go back to MailTags 1.2.2 if you decide that the beauty and power of MailTags 2.0 is not for you.

Registration and Special Offer

MailTags 2.0 is not donation-ware. It is shareware (USD 29.95). After a trial 30 day period, unregistered users will be unable to tag messages.

During the beta test period, you can purchase MailTags 2.0 for a reduced price of USD 25 by following the links in MailTags preferences.

MailTags has more than quadrupled the productivity grunt of Mail.app for me. It is money very well spent.

You can get the public beta from Scott’s site where you will also find a support forum for all your MailTags queries.

Of course, MailTags 1.2.2 will continue to be available too under the same donation-ware conditions as before. MailTags 1.2.2 users can look forward to an update with minor bug fixes later this week.mailtags, mail.app, apple mail, productivity, tagging, to-dos, ical, workgroups, collaboration, IMAP

FlexTime is a productivity timer, an app that helps you to pace your work and get things through disciplined time management.

It can time simple events like your break between one task and the next or measure more complicated routines and sequences.

In fact, it can do any job that requires measurement of time intervals. Among the routines that come pre-packaged with the app are one to simulate a metronome and another that keeps the appropriate time through a extensive sequence of yoga exercises. The developer Daniel Jalkut (of Red Sweater Blog fame) suggests further uses:

Schedule regular breaks. Practice yoga, tai chi, or dance. Combat attention disorders. Improve your rhythm. Follow a recipe. Meditate. Remember the laundry! About the only thing FlexTime can’t help you do is list the possibilities.

The interface is simple but allows you to build routines quickly:

Here one of the pre-packaged routines, Merlin Mann’s (10+2)*5 productivity hack , is loaded. It will cycle through an hour’s worth of ten minute focussed work periods and two minute breaks for mucking around.

As it comes to the start of each event, it presents an alert (or plays a sound or speaks, your choice):

You can keep it on the screen to remind you what you are supposed to be doing or dismiss it and get on with it until the next alert, depending on what works best for you.

FlexTime is shareware (USD 18.95) and is available from Daniel’s web site .productivity, timer, schedule, time intervals, metronome, being honest with time, apple