Juan Ignacio Leon’s excellent iPhoto2Gmail plugin has been updated and now offers even smarter ways for Gmail users to email photos from iPhoto.

Basically, it adds a pane to iPhoto’s “Export…” dialog:

The updated version offers a Contacts button that pulls down your Gmail contacts so that you pick the recipient(s) from that list.

Other new features include:

- A bugfix for RAW and other non-jpeg files that were not properly renamed when scaled.
- A fix for some situations in which the plugin would try to send message without recipients.
- Re-written code to be Object Oriented and Modular for maintainability.

You can get the revised version from Juan’s web site .iphoto, gmail, photos, webmail, plugin, web 2.0, integration, email

The BBC will shut the “minority of consumers who either do not use Microsoft or do not have an up-to-date Microsoft operating system” out of its new on-line, on-demand services, according to proposals put up for public comment by the British broadcaster.

The restriction is driven by DRM concerns as the BBC outlines in a weighty (652KB) PDF of its new plans. It intends to place all content on the net for seven days after the initial broadcast, so that users can “catch-up” on shows they have missed.

But it won’t be a free-for-all:

In respect of the seven-day catch-up over the internet service, the files would require DRM to ensure that they were appropriately restricted in terms of time and geographic consumption. The only system that currently provides this security is Windows Media 10 and above. Further, the only comprehensively deployed operating system that currently supports Windows Media Player 10 and above is the Windows XP operating system. As a result of these DRM requirements the proposed BBC iPlayer download manager element therefore requires Windows Media Player 10 and Windows XP. This means the service would be unavailable to a minority of consumers who either do not use Microsoft or do not have an up-to-date Microsoft operating system.

Mac users (and others) will take some comfort from hopes of a less proprietary future:

However, over time, technology improvements are likely to enable even more efficient methods of delivery. Further, it is our understanding the BBC Executive are working towards the iPlayer download manager being able to function on other operating systems.

If you have strong views about these things or simply like your media free of proprietary constrictions, the BBC welcomes comments .

[Via Boing-Boing -- Thanks, Conrad]

UPDATE: According to fifthdecade, who posts in the comments below,

Microsoft are getting a 2 year exclusivity deal which they haven’t paid for. It’s a scandal! That alone must be worth millions to Microsoft if next year’s Premier League football TV coverage is worth £600 million!

Read more on his blog.microsoft, DRM, BBC, cross-platform, media player, data security, apple, linux

Two and a half years ago Microsoft executives were privately green with envy over the features soon to be released in Mac OS 10.4 Tiger.

According to a report on UK web site PCPro , Microsoft’s envy was revealed in a series of emails, submitted as evidence in the Iowa antitrust lawsuit.

Mail.app and Spotlight particularly impressed Lenn Pryor, former Director of Platform Evangelism:

Tonight I got on corpnet, hooked up Mail.app to my Exchange server and then downloaded all of my mail into the local file store. I did system wide queries against docs, contacts, apps, photos, music, and … my Microsoft email on a Mac. It was fucking amazing. It is like I just got a free pass to Longhorn land today.

Top Microsoft executive Jim Allchin was also impressed: “I don’t believe we will have search this fast,” he wrote.

The most recent batch of emails are available as a PDF file online:

In a nice tribute to Apple, the emails also reveal that Microsoft’s top executives were so taken with Tiger that they refused to share their installation discs for fear they might never get them back.

Previous emails from Allchin in the same case told how he would buy a Mac if he didn’t work for Microsoft and that Microsoft’s attempts in 2003 to come up with an iPod rival were very, very depressing.

All of this and more is available on the Comes vs Microsoft lawsuit web site. apple, microsoft, allchin, windows, searching ,spotlight, mail.appm apple mail, green eyed monster

Florian Beer has posted two tips which stop Mail.app syncing Exchange’s public folders.

One of them has been covered on Hawk Wings before, but the other one brings the list of possible work-arounds to four:

1. Reorganise your Exchange folder tree. Create a new top-level subfolder and set an IMAP path to match.
2. Tweak the settings in Windows Active Directory . If you have administrator rights, you can switch the syncing off at Exchange’s end.
3. Perl it out of your life . Lars Eggert has written a Perl script which allows some control over which folders (if any) are synced.
4. Lock the local cache. Florian’s second tip explains how to lock your local cache folders so that Exchange can’t sync with them.

Caveat Lector — I have absolutely no experience with Microsoft Exchange Server and no interest in acquiring some. mail.app, apple mail, microsoft, exchange server, imap, public folders, perl, local cache, email

Murphy at Murphy Mac has created a few screencasts that walk viewers through the process of using an applescript Folder Action to email files quickly and painlessly to a predetermined email address.

He suggests that it could be used to configure a folder that shoots off any file dragged into it to someone you frequently send files to.

Another option is to configure a Folder Action so that any file dragged onto a particular folder is automatically send to your Gmail address for archiving.

Other possibilities are not hard to imagine — emailing photos to your Backpack account or whatever.

One screencast shows the Folder Action at work , as Murphy emails some iPhone graphics (very topical) to his Gmail account.

After the Folder Action is set up, all you have to do is drag the file over the enabled folder:

Enter a subject line when prompted, and whoosh!–Mail.app sends off the file–which arrives at Gmail, ready for archiving and storage:

A second screencast describes how to edit the applescript he provides so that this will work for you:

It’s a clever solution for people who are always emailing attachments to particular people or who are looking for a simple way to archive files online. mail.app, apple mail, gmail, finder, folder actions, applescript, archiving, storage, productivity, tips, google

Hawk Wings reader and iLounge writer Jesse David Hollington got to play with an iPhone briefly at MWSF and to ask Apple a few direct questions about the email client on the iPhone.

He emails to say that it was a brief encounter (five minutes with the people from Apple and a 45 second play with the device), but still:

I had noticed your entry on Hawk Wings about 30 minutes before we went in, so we were able to pose the question to Apple specifically as to whether rich-text e-mail was supported, and the answer I posted was basically their answer. When asked whether the Mail application on the iPhone was a “pared-down” version of Apple Mail, they basically responded in somewhat non-committal PR-speak.

Apple confirmed that composing in true HTML is not possible. It looks more and more like “Mail.app Mobile” to me.

You read the full write-up of the iLounge team’s impressions on the iLounge site .mail.app, apple mail, iphone, apple, rich html, html, mobile, cell phone, PR spin

The launch of the iPhone was not the biggest news yesterday.

The big story was tucked away towards the end of the Keynote, underlining a shift of which the iPhone is only a part. Apple Computer, Inc became Apple, Inc.

I don’t know how I feel about this; my heart and mind are pulled in two different directions. One the one hand, I have always been wary of iPods and the whole “digital lifestyle” thing. It seems instinctively an enormous distraction from what is really important about Apple (for me)–innovative, beautiful computers that are simply streets ahead of anything else on offer.

So, as you can imagine, I was already feeling grumpy that there was nothing about Leopard or new computer hardware or anything that I fondly imagine to be Apple’s core business in the Keynote. Then this came up, feeding all my worst fears.

On the other hand, I understand the argument that iPods, TV and iPhones are all good for Apple’s bottom line, garner it extra market share and clout and end up benefiting the part of Apple’s product line that I really care about. A kind of “trickle up” effect.

How did you feel when you saw this?

Image nicked from Engadget without permission but with thanks

I was speaking to a couple of Apple gurus via iChat today who both told me not to worry so much. The computer side of the business is ticking along nicely, the engineers are churning out the same amount of great software at the same rate and so forth. Just because Steve Jobs is so energised by the digital gadgets doesn’t mean that he is not interested in hard-core computing.

I know they must be right. But it’s so hard not to worry… apple, computers, apple inc, name change, digital lifestyle, steve jobs