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RelatedMail: The Semantic Web comes to Mail

Tim Gaden — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:06:58 +0000

Remember the “Semantic Web” (Wikipedia if not)? It sprang out of Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of a web that was smarter about sifting, analysing and relating the explosion of information fostered by the Internet. It sounds full of almost mystical promise (as Berners-Lee puts it):

I think maybe when you’ve got an overlay of scalable vector graphics – everything rippling and folding and looking misty – on Web 2.0 and access to a semantic Web integrated across a huge space of data, you’ll have access to an unbelievable data resource.

While we are waiting for this to arrive in all its fullness, Scott Ziegler is working on a nifty little plug-in for Mail.app that analyses the headers and body of emails in order to list emails related to any selected message.

It lists them in a pane on the side of Mail.app’s interface:

Messages are listed by relevance. Clicking on the subject line of each one opens the email in a new window. In the screenshot above you can see RelatedMail listing other emails I have received on the topic of the email highlighted in the Message List — converting paragraphs into bullet lists in Mail.app. It does a pretty good job.

Related mail does this by creating a database all of its own inside your Mail folder (which takes a bit of time and uses up a bit of disk space):

The pane can be opened and closed by selecting its “Show/Hide Related Messages” option in Mail’s View menu.

Scott says upfront that the plugin is still in development and lists a series of known issues with the current build on his web site which also contains handy instructions on installing and removing the plugin and explains the colour-coding and formatting used in the pane to indicate various categories of relatedness.

It’s fun to play around with. It’s useful too. And it’s freeware (at the moment). Get it from Scott’s web site and get a small glimpse into the future of the Semantic Web. mail.app. apple mail, semantic web, related email, plugins, productivity, berners-leeSimilar Posts:

MailTags for Leopard: Public Beta

Tim Gaden — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 10:45:47 +0000

MailTags, the prince of Mail.app plugins, is now available in a Leopard-friendly public beta.

Scott outlines in a post on his web site how MailTags retains its productivity edge for Leopard Mail users. Although Leopard Mail includes notes and to-dos, MailTags still does it better. Its notes are smarter, its to-dos more flexible and its project features unmatched.

For example, tagging emails and RSS feeds with the same MailTags project makes it possible to see both sorts of data in one hit in Mail’s search window.

A list of Leopard Mail’s abilities without and with MailTags makes the advantages clear:

The beta has been hassle-free for me since upgrading to Leopard last Friday. Now in its fifth version, most of the kinks have been ironed out by Scott’s squad of beta-test commandos. MailTags to-dos don’t work for the moment, neither does the option to “view the originating message”. But they will.

Download and enjoy.

It’s all good for me, but heed Scott’s warning nonetheless: “We strongly recommend you maintain backups of your mail data or avoid using MailTags in critical situations.” mailtags, mail.app. apple mail, productivity, plugins, projects, notes, to-dos, public betaSimilar Posts:

What did you say? I’ve got a blog?

Tim Gaden — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 12:20:50 +0000

After taking a little break from Hawk Wings due to a rush of Real Life, I now find myself in the eye of the storm.

So I am going to post some stuff.

Thanks to all the people who emailed wondering if I had fallen under a bus or been burnt at the stake. It’s nice to be missed. hawkwings, mail.app. apple mail, personal, hibernationSimilar Posts:

SpamSieve gets Thunderbird support

Tim Gaden — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:33:31 +0000

Michael Tsai has released an updated version of his spam-catching utility, SpamSieve, which adds support for Thunderbird and many other improvements.

Each update brings improvements to the way SpamSieve detects junk mail, and 2.6 is no exception, promising better detection of image spam, phishing scams and more accurate operation of the app’s Bayesian filter.

In addition, it now enables Growl notifications by default, has “improved compatibility with pre-release versions of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard” and features a “more robust” Apple Mail plugin.

Michael lists many other improvements in the full changelog.

SpamSieve is shareware (USD 30) and is available from Michael’s web site .

[via MacNN ]mail.app. apple mail, junk, spam, thunderbird, email, leopardSimilar Posts:

A list of scandalous problems with Mail.app

Tim Gaden — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 00:20:08 +0000

The owner of rtfa.net has posted a list of the things that are annoying, broken or just plain scandalous about Mail.app.

He is an unhappy Apple Mail user: “Well, if Thunderbird integrated with spotlight and OSX address book, itâ€™d be a no-brainer. However, Iâ€™m entrenched.”

And life in the trenches with Mail.app is not good.

Three problems score the highest scandal rating — incorrect treatment of IMAP’s “seen flag”, the “lost message” problem and the â€œinvalid pointerâ€ problem.mail.app apple mail, bugs, problems, IMAP, flags, attachments, SSL, encryption, lost messagesSimilar Posts: