Apple has updated its tech note about syncing URLs in Address Book via .Mac.

It warns that only three URLs of any one type (home, home page, work or custom) in any one Address Book card can be synced in OS X 10.4.3 or later.

Not only will any extras not sync, they will be erased. In Mac OS X 10.4 to 10.4.2, all URLs are ignored. (Put them in the Notes field).

So, if you have lots of contacts with more than twelve URLs, you have been warned.

The 10.4.3 upgrade broke the httpmail plug-in for some people. A new version of the plug-in, which allows users to download their MSN and Hotmail emails into Apple Mail, has been released which fixes the problems some people were reporting.

And even if it doesn’t, a user has posted a work-around on httpmail’s Sourceforge bugs report page:

If 10.4.3 isn’t letting you install the plugin fill in all the details as usual but when you get to the incoming server box (normally where it freezes up) just enter hotmail and NOT hotmail.com click continue a warning will come up disregard and continue. When you have filled out all the details go into the preferences in mail to edit your hotmail account an just change the incoming server to hotmail.com and that’s it.

You can get the new version from its Sourceforge page.

MacFixIt is running a special edition covering fixes and work-arounds for a host of problems some users have experienced since the update to 10.4.3.

One of them is a possible solution to the alarming disappearance of all the contact information from Address Book.

Apparently the data hasn’t really gone, it is just hiding. Toggling the column view on and off often restores things to normal.

Full details in the MacFixIt article.

Nothing to do with Apple Mail at all, but TransparentDock 2.3.5 is out. It is fully compatible with 10.4.3.

(TransparentDock is an app that can modify the appearance of your Dock in a number of ways, including the ability to make it transparent).

A blog round-up of sorts….

1. Domenico Bettinelli Jr found that Entourage was “giving him fits” and is switching to Apple Mail. Benj is thinking about it for a “lighter, simpler experience”. Bill Kinnon will switch too if he can find the energy and remembers.
2. Rui Carmo at Tao of Mac is (justifiably?) underwhelmed by the improvements to Mail.app in 10.4.3.
3. The many reasons “why you should use Mozilla Thunderbird as your mail and news client”. Interesting.
4. A few months ago, Norman Richards mentioned that his friends keep telling him to ditch Mail.app for Entourage. But he can’t:
   

   I can’t give up Mail. People tell me to try Entourage. I can’t yet. It’s the one sacred Apple application I’m not emotionally ready to part with. I’m getting close, though.

   A kindred spirit. I wonder what happened.

   Justin at computarmachine had a crash. Although Apple Mail is “slick and full of features”, he will be using emacs for his emals from now on.

Me, I’m loving Mail at the moment.

Rather like Andy Hume at The Dredge who feels that everything is rosy with the world after his Apple Mail sailed through the upgrade.

Or Darien who is happy to say that Mail.app is the first email client he has used that does “what I expect how I expect”.

Or Chris who says that Mail.app is “this close to being perfect for him” except that it occasionally goes AWOL on a “synchronization rant”. (That can be annoying).

How’s it treating you?

Michael Tsai, developer of the spam-catching app SpamSieve, has posted two tips about Tiger compatibility on his blog.

One concerns conflicts between SpamSieve and other plug-ins, and the second describes what to do if Apple Mail can’t find SpamSieve after the upgrade to 10.4.3.

OK, everyone can have a bad day, right?

Yesterday, I had one, finding a “new” old spotlight feature in the Context menu of Mail and completely misunderstanding what was happening with digital signatures in Apple Mail.

The greyed out boxes appeared — this is what I am thinking in the cool rational air of the new day — because Mail.app knew that I had a certificate for one email account but not for the .Mac one. It has absolutely nothing to do with iChat and its new certificate.

Although the .Mac/iChat certificate is interesting in a number of ways. See the comments and the entry on “More on the .Mac/iChat certificate”.

It seems that the new encrypted iChat feature in 10.4.3 adds a digital signature to .Mac emails as an extra bonus.

David Dunham emailed with something he noticed:

I just noticed that a digital signing and an encryption gadget show up when I choose a .Mac account in Mail.app. (Encryption isn’t enabled unless I send only to people for whom I have a certificate, which is essentially nobody.)

I tried this out, by replying to him.

Sure enough, the digital signature boxes appeared. His .Mac certificate was visible in my Keychain, but the digital signature options in the Compose window were greyed out and stuck on “unsigned” mode:

What does it all mean?

An explanation from Apple of how the iChat certificates work and more general ignorance from me about encryption follows the jump.

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