Google Blogoscoped asks the question :

what if Microsoft, not Google, had created Gmail? What would be the differences in that web mail client for users today? What if we apply some of the same design rules that brought us Hotmail, for instance?

The answer is entertaining.

Here is a teaser, but as the post unfolds the mock-up screenshots get better and better:

Head on over and have a look for yourself. microsoft, windows live, gmail, google, interface design, humour

If you regularly move your laptop from one place to another, you are going to love this app. John C Welch , never one to pass on a colourful phrase, says “Dude, this is the shit! I’m…I think I’m in love! Seriously, you just made a lot of people really happy.”

I am one of them. NetworkLocation is a smart network location-switcher. It not only senses automatically whether you are at work or home and switches you Mac’s accordingly, it offers a shedload of other location-specific actions.

For example, every morning when I arrive at work, it not only automatically switches to my work location, it sets my work network printer as the default, turns off Airport, swaps in work’s SMTP server, mounts my network share, and sets my iChat status to away (it is _work_ after all).

When I get home, everything is reversed, and Tunnelblick , a VPN client, is launched so that I can get at my work files from home.

The developers, Centrix.ca, provide a full listing of all the tricks that NetworkLocation can perform:

It can be set to switch locations automatically. Otherwise, when it senses a change in the network environment, it pops up a nice smoked glass Chooser (other skins are included):

The app’s Preferences provide options to adding specific actions to particular locations, skinning the interface and more:

The company has also created a SDK for other developers to create their own plugins. Heck, there is even one for Entourage!

Certainly, this is the cat’s pyjamas.

NetworkLocation is shareware (USD 25) and available from the developers’ web site . not apple mail, not mail.app, productivity, network, roadwarriors, location

Andreas Amann has pushed out two quick updates to his Mail Scripts applescript collection.

Now at version 2.8.2, changes include a fix to make the Schedule Delivery script work in 10.4 and 10.5, a workaround to fix a possible error in the Schedule Delivery and Send all Drafts scripts caused by the way Leopard Mail fails to report the account of draft message, and a smarter Export Addresses script, which is no longer stumped if a contact has no work address.

Mail Scripts is freeware (donations not refused) and is available from Andreas’ web site .mail.app, apple mail, leopard mail, applescript, address book, plugins, scripts

The OmniGroup has announced the public beta of OmniFocus, its much talked-about “Getting Things Done” (GTD) app.

In short, it looks good. The press release promises that OmniFocus will help “you work smarter by giving you powerful tools for staying on track of all the things you need to do.” And it lives up to its promise, even in beta form.

GTD Old-timers will immediately recognise OmniFocus’s roots in KinklessGTD , Ethan Schoonover’s collection of applescripts for Getting Things Done with OmniGroup’s OmniOutliner. (Ethan has been a key colloborator on the project and is now OmniGroup’s Head of Marketing.)

For a while, it was the market-leader for its comprehensiveness, its Quicksilver integration and ability to sync smoothly with iCal.

These strengths are carried over into OmniFocus.

The interface has that reassuring Kinkless look:

Depending on whether it is running in Planning or Contexts mode, it lists your projects or your contexts in the lefthand-side column, and the matching content on the righthand-side.

It aims to provide “a big bucket” or comprehensive features for gathering actions or tasks that you need to get done. There’s no point having a GTD app if it can’t easily capture the totality of your tasks, however they come in or occur to you.

To this end, while Quicksilver provided much of the gathering grunt in Kinkless, OminFocus has its own, built-in, system-wide Quick entry tool, with a keyboard shortcut that can be customised in the app’s Preferences:

It also offers a clipping service, that is the ability to clip information from apps like Safari, NetNewsWire and Mail.app when creating a task:

It will even copy across the MailTags project for a clipping if a matching one exists in OmniFocus.

Tabbing across the name of the task, the project, the context and the due date is quick and easy. It even knows that tomorrow is Monday, 19 November. (UPDATE: In order to see the Due Date field in the Quick Entry pane, you will need first to Check the View > Columns > Due Date option in OmniFocus.)

It is also possible to email tasks to yourself, using the Mail rule that OmniFocus installs for you, which automatically shunts any email with a subject line starting with “– ” (or whatever you set in the preferences) into its Inbox for processing later, then archiving the email into the folder you choose.

The collecting process has been carefully thought through, and it shows. Nice.

Processing tasks, sorting them into projects and the contexts in which they can be done, is done in the app’s Inbox. It’s all tab-friendly and it’s smart — auto-matching of existing projects and contexts and smart parsing of dates makes the processing quick and consistent.

Syncing with iCal is even smarter than I remember it in Kinkless. OmniFocus now allows you to decide which iCal calendar to use for which contexts, reducing the clutter in iCal and making for better “synergy” between my Omnifocus office context and iCal work calendar:

And of course it makes use of the new Leopard Mail.app-iCal to-do syncing, which brings OmniFocus to-dos through into Mail.app’s to-do list, each one optionally prefixed with its Omnifocus context:

Thanks to the magic of iPhone, I then have my to-dos with me wherever I go (although not the clipped information which is unhelpfully wrapped up in a mime attachment).

(UPDATE: There is a trick here though. By default, to-dos piped into Mail.app are stored in the “On My Mac” to-do folder. It’s a pain, but you can drag them into the to-do mailbox of an account that your iPhone checks. Obviously, it would be better if this was automated but I don’t think that you can apply rules to to-dos.)

Still, if you take care in writing the names of your to-dos, the iPhone will even highlight the phone number of the person you need to call:

Unfortunately, my iPhone can’t take a photo of itself. Apologies for the quality.

I am liking this app very much, much better than other GTD solutions for Mac users. I took advantage of the special pre-release offer about fifteen minutes after installing the beta.

OmniFocus is available for a limited time at the pre-release price of USD 39.95 (and 25% cheaper than that for people who have a OmniOutliner 3.0 licence. So, it only cost me USD 29.95).

When released on 8 January it will sell for USD 79.95. Expensive, you say? You’re right. Good value, you ask? It depends what your time is worth.

You can also watch Ethan showing off OmniFocus at length in a new fifteen minute video tour or download the “At-a-glance” Quick Reference Chart. Links on OmniGroup’s OmniFocus web page .omnifocus, gtd, getting things done, mail.app, apple mail, ical, productivity, kinkless, iphone, sweet as a nut

Hmmm…. Late to the party on this one, but still worth posting.

Derek Punsalan has posted a comprehensive guide to getting Gmail’s new IMAP service, Apple Mail and the iPhone’s Mail.app working together in perfect harmony.

He explains how to mail the special folders in Mail.app (Sent, Draft, Trash) to the correct ones in your Gmail account, and then how to match them in the Gmail account on your iPhone.

He also provides a summary of several clever tips that were left in the 212 comments to the post, including how to use Gmail without all the Gmail folder hierarchy, and how Mail.app flags and Gmail stars are the same thing.

Curiously, he doesn’t mention a tip for email hoarders. If you like to keep everything, select Gmail’s all mail folder and under Mail.app’s Mailbox > Use this mailbox for… menu option, select Trash.

Then your delete key becomes a quick archive shortcut.

Of course, there are many reasons why this might be a bad idea — See an earlier Hawk Wings post on Why the delete key is your best friend.

[Via just about everyone]mail.app, apple mail, gmail, google, imap, iphone, folders, tips

10.5.1 is out! You can find it in Software Update and on the Apple web site .

It brings – as it needs to – a raft of fixes and patches for everything from Disk Utility to the Finder “data loss bug” to Time Machine. You can read the full list in the Apple tech note that accompanies the update.

What interests us most, perhaps, are the changes to Mail.app and iCal:

It promises more reliable iCal email alarms, that is, they should work now.

UPDATE: And they do! Excellent. Am I becoming hard to please, or is it a little annoying how the alert brings up a new message window and fills it in front of your eyes, interrupting whatever you happen to be doing? I seem to remember in Tiger that these email alerts were created “behind the scenes”.

Let me know how it goes for you. apple, ical, mail.app, apple mail, alarms, update, smart mailboxes

Daniel Parnell has released an initial Leopard-friendly version of HTTPMail (1.50), a plugin for Mail.app that fools Hotmail and MSN web-based email accounts into downloading POP emails into Mail.

It basically does the same thing as MacFreePOPs, now also released for Leopard.

The plugin comes in a disk image with an installer and a detailed PDF on how to use it.

Daniel provides a handy list of how far the Leopard development has come:

He also outlines how to set up a Hotmail account in Mail.app using the plugin. He reminds users that older free Hotmail and MSN accounts will probably work but that newer one may need to be upgraded to Hotmail Plus .

HHTPMail is freeware and available from Daniel’s web site (but not yet from its sourceforge page ). microsoft, httpmail, hotmail, msn, plugins, mail.app, apple mail, email, leopard