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

Claire Rottenberg has started up a new directory of “quality Mac web sites”.

As she explains :

Sifting through the hundreds or even thousands of websites with Mac information is a time-intensive effort, so I decided to create this blog to help other Mac users with that task. I’ll be continually adding reviews of Mac websites that meet certain quality criteria.

Hawk Wings was lucky enough to get a work over in her one of her first posts.

She judges that “the writing is in clear, non-technical language that is easily understood, even when the topic is an advanced one” but points out (correctly) that “some entries have typographical errors”.

Sadly even with the best intentions, typos do creep in, a sure sign perhaps that the writer is an “established journalist”.

I’m guilty as charged (apologies), but couldn’t resist pointing out a delicious little irony in the review:

[Thanks, Scott!]mail.app, apple mail, reviews, plugins, typos, not saved by grammar alone, hawkwings, humour

Time Magazine has published a humourous graphical essay by Evan Eisen on God’s Inbox.

The picture is full of visual gags (of varying quality).

They range from the files and folders on the Desktop (Jesus Baby pics, etc) to the subject lines and senders in God’s Inbox (surfrgrl@myspace.com “Can you, like, clear up my skin before the prom?”):

Download a PDF of the image from the Time Magazine web site and enjoy the joke at a higher resolution.

Personally, I think it is a fake. Using Mail.app adds initial credibility to the story, but I just can’t believe God doesn’t use Quicksilver.

[Thanks to Aaron , the developer of the Letterbox widescreen plugin for Mail.app for tipping me off about this.]mail.app, apple mail, God, inbox, humour, humor, time magazine

Every now and then you run across something in NetNewsWire that makes you chuckle.

I love Mail.app to death, but I am willing to admit that its IMAP support is less robust than it could be.

So the clever irony of this Freudian slip in a blogger’s headline struck me at once:

Sometimes Mail does frantically spin its wheels without getting anywhere. It needs a thrash folder.

However, the post he references on setting up Mail’s special IMAP folders for Sent, Drafts, Trash and Junk mail is excellent. Not knowing about this is a source of frustration to a lot of people on the Apple Discussion Boards and elsewhere.humour, mail.app, apple mail, imap, special folders, sent, drafts, junk, trash, IMAP

I haven’t seen a piece of screen art this good since Easter .

A fine piece of satirical screenshotting on current events.

And a little sliver of Mail.app there to add distinction.

[Via Daring Fireball ]rumsfeld, screenshot, Dock, Apple, mail.app, apple mail, humour, satire, news

“For Apple to make fun of Microsoft copying the idea of their “widgets” into “gadgets” is so unbelievably hippocratic that it makes me sick.”

[Spotted in the Dashboard section here ]howler, apple, dashboard, hippocrates, widget, humour, not apple mail

As everyone knows, few things in life are more annoying than people who email you those daily funnies that come their way. (See further, “How the delete key is your friend”).

Having said that, if you ever find yourself doing things at the command-line, you may enjoy what follows the jump. Terminal-heads only, this way please…

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