John Maisley has updated his YAI (You Are Invited!) plugin for Leopard.

YAI converts invitations from MS Exchange, Google Calendar and Zimbra users into something that iCal can better understand.

It fixes annoying problems with shifting time zones, messages saying “you are not invited” and other blips that making working in a mixed-platform so annoying.

The utility comes packaged as an installer which unpacks its files into a folder in the Scripts folder in your user directory. When it’s installed, invitations are transferred straight into iCal as if they were created in iCal itself.

Further options in the installer allow you to set the background colour of a processed email invitation, mark it as flagged or not or to move it to another folder:

The updated version is not only available to Leopard users, it also improves the modification and deletion of duplicates, fixes a quirk in the way invites from some time zones without daylight saving are handled and improves the app’s option for subsequently moving the invitation to another folder.

YAI is similar to another plugin, OMiC , although the feature sets of the two plugins do not overlap completely. OMiC does more, and costs more (USD 29.95). For the extra money you get the ability to browse the inscrutable winmail.dat file in which attachments from Outlook users are sometimes packaged and more.

YAI is shareware (£3 per computer — c. USD 5.85) and has a fourteen day free trial period. You can get it from John’s web site .applescript, ical, mail.app, apple mail, invites, meetings, invitations, productivity, outlook, windows, zimbra, ms exchange

Tags: Apple Mail, applescript, iCal, invitations, invites, mail.app, meetings, ms exchange, outlook, Productivity, windows, Zimbra

It’s ironic but true. You can now find such an enormous collection of productivity tips and philosophies on the Internet that carefully shifting them to find what works best for you will bring your productivity to a complete halt.

Nonetheless, a refreshing and challenging post from Matt Raible deserves a mention.

Despite the fact (or, perhaps, because of it) that the author “grew up in the back woods of Montana with no electricity” and is “mostly Irish”, it is one of the best lists of nine productivity tips and six life tips that I’ve read in a long while.

It’s refreshing because Matt is not pushing any particular barrow. The advice reads like it has been distilled simply from his own experience as a successful (and mostly happy) self-employed programmer.

It’s challenging because reading about how someone else does stuff always makes you think about how you do stuff yourself. Why, all these years, have I not been opening a beer for focus at 11 pm as Matt suggests?

Lifehacking (as they say) at its best.productivity, GTD, happiness, life, meetings, beer, tips, getting things done

Tags: Apple Mail Tips, beer, getting things done, gtd, happiness, life, meetings, Productivity