Hawk Wings » not apple mail

Un-skinning Lion’s iCal

Tim Gaden — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 07:04:15 +0000

One of the unpleasant surprises in Lion (for me) was the new look given to iCal and Address Book. What were they thinking?

Luckily, lots of other people feel the same way, and it didn’t long for hacks to appear which return them to their pristine, pre-Lion state.

Two for iCal, in particular, caught my eye.

First, a tweak to remove the torn page (how twee!) from the top of iCal.

Following the instructions provided makes for a slightly cleaner-looking interface:

If that’s not minimalist enough for you, a second tweak takes the interface all the way back to familiar aluminium:

Both posts provide the images required, clear instructions for the tweak and for returning things to their original state if you change your mind. Nice.

The new look Address Book is harder to unravel, but one tweak offers at least to replace the leather cover with an aluminum one. Similar Posts:

AddToGoogle: Quickly add RSS feeds from Safari

Tim Gaden — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 09:18:44 +0000

Safari allows you to specify a news aggregator app of your choice to which it pipes RSS subscriptions, but not an online service like Google Reader. Rob Wilkerson has written an extension for Safari 5.0 that plugs the gap.

Using his AddToGoogle extension, users can click on Safari’s RSS button and find that the feed is sent straight to Google Reader. Sweet!

Installation is a little more tricky than one might think. Two things to watch:

Make sure that you have the Develop menu enabled in Safari 5.0. You will find the option to turn it on in the Advanced tab of Safari’s Preferences.
Make sure that Safari is listed as the default RSS reader in Safari’s Preferences. If you have mail.app or some other aggregator selected as the default application, that choice will override the extension.

Download the extension and click on it to install it. You will see this slightly alarming warning:

Check that it is installed by opening the Extension tab of Safari’s Preferences:

The latest revision of the extension, released today, provides the option to subscribe to feeds in either Google Reader or directly as a widget on your iGoogle page.

Checking this option offers a choice every time you subscribe to a feed:

AddToGoogle is freeware and available from Rob’s wiki page at Codaset.Similar Posts:

Eudora lives! First OSE release candidate is out

Tim Gaden — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 08:02:19 +0000

The first release candidate for Eudora OSE (“Open Source Edition”) has been released , after a gap of several months since the last beta.

Described as “an email client that combines Mozilla’s Thunderbird with code, features, and GUI elements from Qualcomm’s Eudora”, Eudora OSE is the end result of Qualcomm’s decision in October 2006 (Remember that?) to get out of the email market and to open source the code for its email client, once the most popular email app on the Mac platform.

Firing it up for a quick look-see is very nostalgic. First the freestanding mailbox pane appears, and then that unforgettable “bob-bob-a-bob-a-bob” sound of new mail arriving.

Old hands might still cherish a secret flame for Eudora, and find this release an interesting thing to play around with.

It’s not the old Eudora, that’s for sure; feels more like a skinned version of Thunderbird to me.Similar Posts:

Hawk Wings gets iPhone-friendly

Tim Gaden — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 00:04:35 +0000

Hawk Wings looks as good on an iPhone as it does on a Mac.

Thanks to the magic of WordPress plugin WPtouch Pro , you can now use your iPhone to read, browse and search Hawk Wings with ease.

The new layout also works with Palm, Android, Blackberry and other smart phones.

You can access the search function via the icon in the top righthand corner of the title bar.

There you will find options to search the site, or browse it by tag, keyword and category.

The new layout also helps Hawk Wings to look nice when accessed from an iPhone RSS reader app like Reeder . Which is nice.

Now all Hawk Wings needs is some new content to read!

[Hat tip to Mr Bell. Thanks.]hawkwings, iphone, wordpress, not apple mail, not mail.appSimilar Posts:

UK Survey proves “death of email” premature

Tim Gaden — Thu, 20 May 2010 11:48:47 +0000

A recent report by British company UK Online Management reveals that occasional reports about the imminent death of email are much exaggerated.

As one might expect, the data in the report (collected and processed by Nielson) shows a 65 percent increase since 2007 in the average amount of time each participant spent online.

Social networking and blogs were the fastest-growing sector. Almost a quarter of all online time was spent on these as the pie chart below, which represents the average online hour, makes clear:

On average participants spent 13.5 minutes out of every hour on blogs and social networks.

Instant messaging, regarded by some (like Business Week) as the “email of the future”, was the biggest casualty. Three years ago it accounted for 14 percent of internet time, now it is only 5 percent.

Email, on the other hand, is rising. As the UKOM press release puts it:

In contrast, personal Email, which many predicted to be another casualty of the social networking phenomenon, has actually increased its share of online time from 6.5 percent to 7.2 percent – a relative rise of 11 percent. In absolute terms, Britons now spend 88 percent more time on Email sites than they did three years ago but 42 percent less time Instant Messaging

The full press release can be downloaded from the UKOM web site.

A video clip on the BBC web site explains the significance of the findings in more depth.

[The survey is based on data collected from at least 35,000 people -- 31,000 of them at home and 4,000 at work.] email, not apple mail, not mail.app, web 2.0, social networkingSimilar Posts:

Snippets plugin for Google Quick Search Box

Tim Gaden — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:47:15 +0000

QuickSnippets is a new plugin for Google Quick Search Box (QSB) that adds basic snippet management to the utility’s toolbox.

It is easy to use and quite clever.

First get the plugin from the developer’s Github site.

Copy the plugin file to your ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Quick Search Box/PlugIns/ directory, and restart QSB.

Then to add a snippet, all you need to do is activate QSB and type quicks and select the QuickSnippet Regist option:

Enter the trigger and the snippet itself into the dialog box:

I’ve found that cutting and pasting blocks of texts into the snippet box preserves the line breaks when they are activated later.

When you’ve entered all the snippet you want, dumping them into an email message or other document is easy.

Just activate QSB, and type the snippet’s trigger. The snippet appears in the list below:

Select it and hit Enter. All done!

Obviously it’s not TextExpander, but for a lot of people it might be all the snippet management you need.

QuickSnippets is freeware and comes with more copious instructions in English and Japanese. google, google quick search box, plugins, snippets, text, productivity, not apple mail, not mail.appSimilar Posts:

Mailplane lifts licence ceiling

Tim Gaden — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:00:59 +0000

Ruben Bakker, the developer of Mailplane (a very clever app that “brings Gmail to your Desktop”) has responded to customer requests by raising the number of Macs on which you can use the app with a single licence.

In a post on the Mailplane Google Group he explains:

Until recently, a Mailplane single user license was limited to two Macs. Because many users needed Mailplane on more Macs, I’ve decided to lift this limitation:

Single-user license: *Install on all Macs you personally use.* Use it at home, school, work: just anywhere. *Limitation:* Make sure you’re the only user. Please do not share your license with anyone else.

Family license: Allow up to five (5) family members *living in the same household* to use Mailplane on their Macs. As with the single user license, there is no machine limitation for any of the five users.

Site license: For a number of users working at the same organization. Again, each user may use it anywhere.

As a result individuals will pay only USD 24.95 to use it on as many Macs as they own. The family licence costs USD 39.95. For a site licence covering 20 users or more, the price per licence drops to USD 17.95.

Mailplane is not just a slick way into Gmail’s web interface. It adds additional features like “drag and drop” attachments, the ability to integrate multiple Gmail accounts, enabling new mail notifications, sending screenshots and integration with the productivity app OmniFocus through a bespoke plugin.

If you are tempted to be unfaithful to mail.app and start an affair in the Cloud with Gmail (as I am from time to time), Mailplane is a very good investment.

It was good value for money before. Now, for people with more than two macs (like me), it is even better.gmail, not apple mail, not mail.app, mailplane, the cloud, emailSimilar Posts:

Sumer is icumen in

Tim Gaden — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:51:43 +0000

The season for marking assignments, essays and theses is so very, very nearly over.

If you listen carefully on any university campus across the Southern Hemisphere, you can catch a hint of choruses of joy breaking out in the heart of every academic.not apple mail, oh yes!Similar Posts:

EventSync: Sync iCal and facebook events

Tim Gaden — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:37:05 +0000

James Frye has written a small app that syncs facebook events into iCal, so that you can integrate your facebook invitations with the rest of your calendars in one view.

Packaged up as a stand-alone app, it first authenticates into your facebook account, and then retrieves a list of your events.

Its Preferences allow you to determine whether or not it lists events that you have accepted, declined, are unsure about or have not yet replied to.

You are then presented with a dialog containing the events:

Hit the sync button, and the app creates a new local calendar in iCal called “facebook events”, displaying all your “facebook dates”.

Because it is all listed in one new calendar, it’s easy to delete them again—say, hypothetically, you have a student who has (by mistake?) created a 21st birthday party that lasts for a month. It’s easy to undo the sync again.

James is working on EventSync 2.0 which will display the flyers and images associated with the facebook events as well.

EventSync is donation-ware and can be downloaded from its own web site.facebook, ical, events, syncing, social networking, not apple mail, not mail.appSimilar Posts:

Battery Life: The dilemma of a 3G iPhone owner

Tim Gaden — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:05:54 +0000

A short and glorious life, or a long and dull one?

Owners of the new 3G iPhone face the same dilemma put to the Greek hero Achilles by the gods of Olympus. In the end, he chose glory. But iPhone users might take a different view.

The new phone has a more power-hungry chipset. Walt Mossberg is not the only one who has found “the battery indicator on the new 3G model slipping below 20% by early afternoon or midafternoon on some days, and it entirely ran out of juice on one day”.

I take and make much fewer calls than he does, and I notice it too.

Apple has published a page of tips to help users manage this Achilles’ heel.

Much of the advice is common sense: reduce the brightness of the screen, minimise or turn off the phone’s “push” features, turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth if you don’t need them, don’t play games on it, and so on.

But three of the suggestions were news to me.

First, you can turn off 3G and still receive calls and data via GPRS and EDGE. Makes sense, but it never occurred to me. You will find the option in the Network section of General Preferences.

Secondly, “applying an equalizer setting to song playback on your iPhone can decrease battery life.” You can switch that off, or set it to “flat” in the phone’s iPod settings.

Lastly, Location Services chews a lot of power. Switching it on only when you need it will prolong the life of your battery.

Finally, it surprised me with its advice on cycling the battery:

For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).

I have always thought—following someone’s sage advice when I was a gullible new Switcher—that it was important never to let the battery level fall too low. Now I know.

Luckily, just like Achilles my iPhone thirsts for a short and glorious life, so there will be no problem getting the battery charge down.

[Via InformationWeek ]iphone, 3G, battery life, tips, apple, achilles, Similar Posts: