It’s not quite as attractive (for me) as getting Scully into Mail.app’s Inbox, but it’s close.

A new set of alternative Mail stamp icons posted on deviantART contains images of Adriana Lima, Angelina Jolie, four of Christina Aguilera, C.J. Rogers, Elisha Cuthbert, two Jessica Albas and Tila Tequila (Is that a real person? UPDATE: Oh, my goodness.)

Another icon features a woman doing something with a snake, but I can’t work out what and I am ill-equipped to make a guess:

These are PNG image files not icons. You will need to convert them using a tool like the excellent and free img2icns utility.

Changing Mail.app’s Dock icon is easy.

I’ve added them to the Hawk Wings Alternative Mail Stamps Icon list, which now contains 314 different icons. Knock yourself out.mail.app, apple mail, icons, dock icon, hack, tips, jessica alba, christine aguilera, elisha cuthbert, angelina jolie

Mac OS X Tips UK has written up a list of tips to wring the most out of the menubar helper for Google services like Gmail and Google Calendar.

It shows you how to set the default number of messages displayed using the hidden Defaults Editor.

You can also set the Notifier to display only email matching a particular label in the same way.

Of course, the Defaults Editor just a fancy GUI to Notifier’s preferences file — com.google.GmailNotifier — stored in your ~/Library/Preferences folder, which you can edit directly with Proprty List Editor or any text editor.

The list also mentions Gmail+Growl , a plugin for Google Notifier that passes notification of new messages to the Growl alert system .Gmail, google, calendar, menubar, notification, not apple mail, not mail.app, email, tips

The latest public beta of MailTags 2.0 has been released.

It’s unlikely but possible that some Apple Mail users don’t know what MailTags is. It’s a plugin for Mail.app that brings powerful tagging and management to your email, smarter integration with iCal and forms the cornerstone of Getting Things Done with Apple Mail.

Improvements over the previous public beta are most visible in speed, stability and a tweaked interface.

Tagging and opening large mailboxes are both now markedly quicker. Scott has optimized that way rules are applied, postponing IMAP updates to end of rule application.

Stability is also improved. Messages are no longer sometimes deleted when tags are rapidly applied to a large number of messages and the number of temporary duplicates has been reduced. In addition, MailTags now more reliably deletes iCal events attached to the message when clearing all tags via the MailTags pane or menu.

Tabbing through the to-do and event pop-up windows no longer crashes Mail on occasions.

In the kind of nice touch that belongs to an app nearing its final polish, the MailTags tag icon no longer appears printed messages.

In the main MailTags pane, the same polish is noticeable.

The widgets and buttons have been redrawn to match better the overall look and feel of Mac OS X. An Action button on each to-do or events gives quick access to editing/viewing/deleting options.

The pop-up windows have also been reworked a little. Copy and Paste functions now work in the text fields, which also accept non-English characters.

The pp-up windows look good and are easy to work with:

Some niggling problems remain. MailTags and PGP signatures don’t agree with each other. And some beta-testers find that MailTags will sometimes make .Mac accounts reject the account’s password (although a restart fixes that) and sporadic crashes sometimes occur when printing.

Overall, MailTags 2.0 now looks and feels like a plugin that is almost ready to be released in final form.

The prince of Mail.app plugins hovers on the verge of even greater greatness.

You can read more about MailTags 2.0 and download the new public beta from Scott’s web site , where you will also find a forum for any questions. mail.app, apple mail, productivity, mailtags, public beta, ical, applescript, events

Ghost Park Software has released a simple, slick and polished app “for keeping track of your to-dos using the simple and stress-free Getting Things Done method”.

It comes from the “lean and mean” end of the GTD app market and looks more like Actiontastic than Midnight Inbox and other “eye-candy heavy” apps:

Context, Project and Action views provide powerful and flexible ways to carry your to-dos forward.

The developers give a lot of attention to syncing, which is good. Ghost Action has full two-way synchronization with iCal. It can also synchronize with any iSync-compatible device — a PDA, an iPod or a phone.

Syncing options are provided in the app’s Preferences:

One user provides Ghost Park with a full praise for its clever syncing:

I love the fact that Ghost Action recognizes the
project name in the to-dos imported from iCal (like “some task [Project 
X]”). Very handy, that means I can enter to-dos on my Palm and and they will be properly synchronized to Ghost Action through iCal. Cool! — Ksenia Marasan

Ghost Action is an universal binary and shareware (USD 19.95). You can get a free 14-day demo from the developer’s web site.

It seems like just yesterday that I wrote up “Ten Mac Tools for Getting Things Done“. Now it could easy be twenty Mac tools, all of them high quality solutions.

Ghost Action has the edge in sync options. Actiontastic gets brownie points for Quicksilver integration.not apple mail, getting things done, GTD, productivity, to-do, task management, getting organised, ical, syncing, isync

Jaron Brass is dumping his .Mac account , having been a loyal user since the iTools days.

It’s just not worth it, he says:

With rival free services providing gigabytes of e-mail storage for free, and companies offering Mac OS X SyncServices-compatible solutions for a one-time fee, there’s no reason to continue paying for the service.

As part of his address switch plan, he tells readers of his blog:

If you currently use my .Mac e-mail address to communicate with me, please take a few moments to update your address books. Send me an e-mail here and I can provide you my new addresses and vCard.

For one reason or another, everyone has to change email addresses at some point.

Nikolena at The Crafted Webmaster provides a neat checklist of six steps to make sure that the process goes smoothly.

She covers things like starting early, making a conscious list of all the places the address needs to be changed, announcing the new address and continuing to monitor the old one.

It’s all common sense, of course, but common sense often fails at the critical point. As Nikolena says,

A few weeks ago I decided to switch my personal email account from .Mac to Gmail. This would be about the third or fourth time since 1997 I’ve switched my personal email address. The first time I switched my email address was a huge pain in the butt. I had subscribed to a lot of newsletters and when I changed my email address, I lost about half of my subscriptions and missed a number of emails from friends and family. With each switch, I’ve gotten a lot better about going about it in an organized manner. If you need to change emails sometime in the future, learn from my mistakes by following these tips.

not apple mail, not mail.app, email in general, changing email addresses, forward planning, moving, dotmac, .Mac

The next best thing to Mail.app is a copy of Thunderbird skinned to look like Mail. At least, that was clearly the case until GyazMail got IMAP support.

Another Apple Mail skin has appeared for Thunderbird, bringing the total to three.

This one, called “Apple Mail”, offers the Tiger Mail look.

The developer says it “makes your TB look and feel like the native Apple Mail software, that comes along wiht your shiny and flashy new Mac.”

Things start to fall apart a bit in the Compose window though:

The “Tiger Mail” theme offers Thunderbird users the same look.

CrossOver provides a Panther Mail look.

Take a look at both of them in an earlier Hawk Wings post and/or go grab Apple Mail from the Thunderbird Add-ons site.thunderbird, Mail.app, apple mail, skins, themes, panther mail, tiger mail, the sincerest form of flattery

Many people will tell you that a mother-in-law is nothing but trouble.

But it’s not true.

Last night my mother-in-law sent me an engaging picture that is just begging to be included in a productivity photo caption competition:

Perhaps, “A first look at Vista”? Or “Worker gets the wrong end of the ‘Inbox Zero’ concept“?

This kind of humour might appeal more to British readers, but I’m open to better offers from any quarter.productivity, not apple mail, laptop, vista, install, inbox zero, caption