Ryos has written an AppleScript that will move emails from a dedicated mailbox in Mail.app onto an iPod.

When you run the script for the first time, it creates a “MailPod” mailbox in Apple Mail. Move any emails that you want to take with you into that folder, run the script again and it will move them into a “MailPod” folder under the iPod’s Extras menu.

Works great.

Ryos’ script is a freeware alternative to shareware apps like iPDA and MailToPod (not for 10.4) which offer greater automation and features, but cost money.

You can get the script from Ryo’s web site .ipod, mail.app, apple mail, email to go, productivity, mobility

Yesterday Apple Australia kindly flew me up to Sydney for a look around its corporate headquarters and for a very interesting two-hour press presentation from Mr iPod and Mr Hardware. (Mr Software is at WWDC, so I didn’t hear from him.)

In the course of the day, I discovered four new things about Apple that I didn’t know before.

1. The black MacBook is intended to be a 12″ PowerBook replacement

I had the chance to ask Mr Hardware as he was presenting the now complete range of Intel Macs whether anything was coming to replace the 12″ PowerBook.

He told me that Apple has received a lot of feedback from users about the need for a small notebook with a “more professional look”. Apple made a conscious decision to meet that demand with the black MacBook, giving those users the look they wanted at the cost of a slight hit in performance and features. Is that why they cost more?

2. Only 26% of Mac users do backups, 4% use automated solutions.

Of course, you know at one level that the numbers are low, but it is still a shock to see just how low they are.

Those who have watched the keynote will know that Leopard’s Time Machine is designed to increase these numbers dramatically.

Will it work? I don’t think so. The current ability to automate backups with Backup 3.0 and the plethora of third-party automated backup options haven’t brought large numbers of users to the party. This won’t either. It’s not the technical ability that’s missing; it’s the personal habit.

Dear reader, for the love of God get yourself into that 4%. Don’t read the other two things I didn’t know about Apple. Go now and check out Dejà Vu or BackityMac or SuperDuper! or, if you have a .Mac account, Apple’s own Backup.

3. iTunes prints really nice CD covers.

I use iTunes a lot, but it never occurred to me to visit its Print menu. Mr iPod demonstrated how easy it is to make jewel case covers in iTunes and how nice the final result looks:

4. Steve Jobs doesn’t trust people who use words as a tool of their trade

At the airport I picked up a copy of Jeffrey Young and William Simon’s iCon: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2005) (Amazon ) to read on the plane.

On the homeward flight I discovered an answer to the mystery about the lack of communication between engineers and development teams at Apple and journalists, bloggers and third-party developers (after all, code is words).

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple and became Interim CEO in 1997, he

…quickly saw things that he didn’t like. His predecessors in the CEO’s office has never figured out how to take the reins in a commanding manner…. He set about changing the culture of Apple. Some of the changes were small (no dogs at work, no smoking), and some where whoppers, such as the absolute ban on talking to anyone outside the company who uses words as a tool of his trade. (The one exception: it was okay as long as you has a public relations dog-watcher sitting at your side and yanking your leash whenever she wanted you to stop talking.)

apple, steve jobs, itunes, not apple mail, macbook, words, culture change, backup, thanks Fiona, iPod

Take Control’s latest offering is an ebook that covers all aspects of syncing in 10.4.

It covers every conceivable combination of devices from syncing between Macs to mobile/cell phones, Palm OS handhelds and iPods.

Of course, Apple’s built-in iSync app gets the full treatment, but syncing software from third party developers also gets a look in.

Even those who are old hands at syncing will learn from the chapter which explains how syncing works and from the troubleshooting section, especially useful the press release says for “anyone who has experienced a syncing feeling upon realizing that the wrong data was overwritten”.

The ebook costs USD 10 and comes with a 50% discount voucher for PocketMac’s syncing software.

You can read more about the book and sample a free 24 page preview on the Take Conrol web site .

In another new development (at least, new to me), Take Control Books now offers a “print on demand” service for this title and for “Running Windows on a Mac”. The price for this service is USD 10-15 and the end result looks good:

syncing, isync, take control, mobile, cell phone, palm device, ipod, tips, productivity

Life2Go lets you sync your mail, news feeds, iCal and Address Book info, weather forecasts, petrol prices, travel directions, movie screening and more to your iPod.

It can turn your iPod into a PDA, although of course the communication is all one way. You can’t enter information like new appointments or phone numbers, but it does put all the information you have at your finger tips on the road and out of the office.

In particular, syncing iCal, Address Book and Mail.app messages, safari bookmarks and documents in a variety of formats (RTF, PDF, Word .doc, plan text) makes your iPod a productivity tool.

Syncing these is done on an app by app basis:

You can select which mailboxes, calendars and Address Book Groups to sync, or sync them all. A new version (1.6.4) released today brings significant improvements to the speed and efficiency of syncing Mail.app messages.

As an added bonus, syncing your info like this, turns your iPod into a backup device for some of the most important information you have.

If I owned an iPod I would be most attracted by the idea of using it as a news feed reader. It automatically mirrors your NetNewsWire subscriptions and you can add extra ones directly within Life2Go:

You can read more about the other kinds of information that Life2Go brings to your iPod on the developer’s web site . Life2Go is shareware (USD 12.99).ipod, mail.app, apple mail, ical, address book, syncing, RSS, news feeds, productivity

I keep track of To Dos with iCal (and MailTags). That’s good enough for me, especially as I try hard not to have too much to do.

If you are very busy person or a hardcore ToDo list maker, you are going to love ToDo X. It is the fully-tooled-up Rolls Royce of To Do lists, with dedicated features that leave iCal’s comfy Corolla in the shade.

Read on after the jump to see the screenshots and read the rest of this review.

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Two quick Thunderbird things:

1. FreeSMUG has posted a portable build of Thunderbird 1.5 that you can put on a memory stick or any other portable medium.

   You will need at least 33 MB of free space, but you can then take your Thunderbird with you (complete with emails and contacts) and use it on any Mac.

2. The Mozilla Wiki carries news of progress towards a version of Thunderbird that will run on the new Intel Macs.

   The article describes what needs to be done, how they are going to do it, and also links to the latest Intel Mac builds of Thunderbird, Firefox and Camino.

Now Mozilla users can enjoy portable browsing and email.

It would be very cool to see something similar for Mail.app.

You can put your Mail folder on an iPod or memory stick and use Apple Mail on whatever Mac you have to hand, but that’s nowhere near as elegant a solution.

A new version of iPDA (formerly iPod It) has been released. This app allows you to sync your email, Stickies, RSS feeds, iCal and Address Book data to your iPod.

“Who needs a PDA“, the developer asks, “when you have an iPod?”

The new version features support for a variety of document formats (Word, RTF and text files) and allows for smarter, more selective syncing of messages in Mail.app.

The main interface gives an indication of the variety of things you can copy to your iPod:

The window of options for Apple Mail shows the new options for selecting particular mailboxes, and various settings for filtering the messages to be copied:

I don’t own an iPod (or a PDA), but if I did I would definitely be interested in this, or in one of its sync-to-iPod competitors like Pod2Go or MailToPod (when a Tiger version is released).

iPDA is shareware (USD 19.95) and available from the developer’s web site.