Remember a few months ago there was an apparent stampede of people, headed by Mark Pilgrim, who were abandoning Macs for Ubuntu? (Although some later came back.)

Java podcaster Tim Shadel is going the other way , dumping Ubuntu after using Linux for years and stretching his legs into Mac OS X.

Since Mail.app was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Mark Pilgrim, it’s extra interesting to read Tim’s experience with Mail, compared to Evolution, his Linux mail client:

Mail.app is great. Evolution almost works. I have to use exchange at work (I have Ubuntu installed there, too). Evolution has a module to integrate with Exchange, and it sorta thinks about working. It’s slow, and frequently it hangs. So much so that I got sick of typing

ps -ef | grep evolu | grep -v grep | awk ‘{ print $2 }’ | xargs kill

that I put it in a batch file shell script. I ran it no less than twice a day, sometimes more. Calendaring almost worked, except when it didn’t. Frequently I’d send out an appointment only to figure out that my colleagues version of the appointment didn’t repeat over the right interval. I don’t blame anyone for having trouble integrating with a Microsoft product. But at the end of the day, it was still annoyingly brittle. On Mac, there’s Entourage — an M$ product to work with the M$ server. As it is, Mail.app rocks for processing my personal email really efficiently. Oh, and it can export your mail to mbox. Duh. On Ubuntu, mail almost works.

He goes on to list many more ways in which Mac OS X simply provides a superior user experience—searching, wireless, GUI, audio effects, bluetooth and more.

In the end, it’s all about an OS that (wait for it…) “just works”:

My reasons for choosing to dump Ubuntu for a Mac are almost entirely about the experience. After years of Linux work, I’m tired of fiddling. I’m tired of things that almost work. I’m ready for a change. I’m sick of the war to get things to work. I’m ready to simply Get Things Done.

mail.app, apple mail, switching, Mac osx, linux, ubuntu, apple, open-source

David Carpe of Gmail Pro and passingnotes emails to say what an excellent app Eudora Mailbox Cleaner is, and how easily it helped him to move from Eudora for Windows to Mail.app on his new Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro.

In short, he says, Andreas Amann’s app is “flawless, perfect”, although he takes the opportunity to point out a few things.

In particular, he recommends patience:

The first part—dragging it all, setting up folders, etc, and then dragging the whole ‘Eudora folder’ onto the cleaner only took about an hour or so, but the script to rebuild boxes can take longer. It took me a couple of hours. Do NOT interrupt it. My advice is to turn off all other programs and just walk away and let it do it’s thing.

Secondly, he notes something specific to Eudora for Windows switchers:

For nicknames: Many Eudora for Windows users will be scratching their heads about ‘nndbase.txt’ in the instructions as it doesn’t exist in the new version. It’s actually a different file type. I pinged Andreas about this. What I did (and yes, this worked flawlessly) was drag the entire Eudora for Windows into the folder that I had created called ‘eudora folder’ (as per Andreas’ instructions). Then when I dragged that whole thing onto the cleaner the dialogue box popped up. I simply deselected everything except ‘import nicknames’ and voila, they were all inside my address book within about two minutes. I did this last, after doing all of my mail and attachments.

Anyone reading this and teetering on the edge, might like to know that Eudora Mailbox Cleaner also does a terrific job for people coming over from Thunderbird.

I’m not going to make any snide remarks about someone who runs a Gmail site switching to Mail.app. No, not one.

I’ll just join with him and many others in thanking the developers who make such great plugins and utilities available to normal users like me. Mail.app wouldn’t be half the app it is without them, and they don’t get thanked enough.

Soppy, but true.

“Thank you a million times over, Andreas,” David says.eudora for windows, thunderbird, mail.app, apple mail, gmail, email, switching, nicknames, kiss a developer day

KMail users looking to switch to Apple Mail now have a smarter tool to help make the transition.

Last year a poster on macOSXHints provided a script for importing KMail mailboxes into Mail.

Now another poster has produced an updated script that preserves the time stamp on the original emails.mail.app, apple mail, kmail, linux, switching, mailboxes, importing

Mark McElroy has written an ebook which catalogues 101 reasons why anyone is their right mind should be using a Mac.

It covers a wide range of pretty persuasive arguments, from the obligatory “it just works” to the best apps for Mac, web sites, useful blogs and how to get the most out of your Mac for education, finance management and work. He also presents a great rebuttal of myths about the lack of inter-operability and the much debated question of “value for money”.

Of course, this would make excellent reading for those teetering on the brink of switching. Buy half-a-dozen for family and friends whom you would most like to rescue from themselves.

But it also contains plenty of good info for seasoned Mac users. For example, I didn’t know about the Mac modification site MacMod until I read about it in 101 Reasons.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that Hawk Wings gets a listing (which is nice) and that Mark gave me a free copy to review (which is extra nice — I’ve only had six freebies before).

So, you can also read Mark’s kind words about Hawk Wings (and its helpful, knowledgeable readers), which comes in at number 92, just under 43folders.com and just above iPod mecca iLounge.com

More to the point, you can read about 100 even better reasons why will be/are glad to be a Mac user.

It’s a steal at just USD 3.49, which works out at slightly over 6 cents a page. My wife tells me that’s the price of half a salad sandwich at the deli near her chambers.

The book is produced by the IT and technical book specialists QUE Publishing in its Shortcuts to Knowledge series and is available from Mark’s web site mail.app, apple mail, tips, switching, apple, resources, book

Matthew Russell at MacDevCenter has produced a magnificent walkthrough with lavish screenshots for switching your online life from .Mac to Google’s many free apps.

He covers moving and forwarding email from .Mac to Gmail, getting your contacts into Gmail with Address Book to CSV converter and how to extract the Mail.app’s Previous Recipients list from the Envelope Index file in your ~/Library/Mail folder.

Using Google Calendar is next up, including exporting calendars from iCal, Google Calendar’s features and using Google Notifier.

Finally, he talks a bit about gDisk which provides a nice way to use some of your Gmail quota space as file storage.

Whether switching your life from .Mac to Google is a good idea is something that he doesn’t answer. mail.app, apple mail, ical, gmail, google calendar, switching

In a comment on another Hawk Wings post, Dave asks how to switch his email over from Eudora for Windows to Mail.app.

The answer is easy (especially as Andreas Amann, the developer of Eudora Mailbox Cleaner has already written out the answer):

1. Copy your Windows Eudora data folder onto a USB stick or something similar so that you can move it to your Mac.
2. [UPDATE: It emerges that there is an imtermediate step in here, too complicated to make into a bullet point but not complicated enough to make the process difficult. Details in EMC's readme file - Thanks, Dave].
3. Drop the complete Eudora data folder onto Eudora Mailbox Cleaner and wait for the conversion to finish.

Eudora Mailbox Cleaner also offers easy transitions from Thunderbird (Mac, Windows or Linux):

It’s freeware (donations from grateful users not turned away) and available from Andreas’ web site .

[Thanks, Andreas :)]mail.app, apple mail, eudora, switching, conversion, mailboxes, email, thunderbird

Khoi Vinh has had enough . Although he is a long-time Entourage user and finds that the app is “a class act” that “frequently showcased the very best of what Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit had to offer”, he’s dumped it. It was just too slow and the new Intel Mac version too far away.

He’s liking his new email client, Mail.app, a lot:

There may be a fantastic new iteration of Entourage in the works, but I need a fast, nimble and Intel-friendly email client today. So I’ve switched over entirely to Apple’s Mail; there’s just no arguing with its lightning fast search performance, its Mac OS X native fit and finish, and the fact that it’s available right now.

Of course, there are some things that he doesn’t like. The perfect email client is yet to appear. In particular Mail’s Smart Mailboxes don’t seem so smart to him.

But it has proved the right move. Most of all, he’s loving the improvement with IMAP accounts:

Mail is very responsive with IMAP, to the point where it’s a nearly seamless experience, more or less exactly how IMAP was intended to work. This allows me to move easily between work and home computers while keeping my mail database in sync, and without effort. Brilliant.

mail.app, apple mail, entourage, microsoft, imap, junk, switcher, email, smart mailboxes