Troels Bay has just released a menubar notification utility for Google’s RSS Reader which matches the other Google app menubar notification apps for Gmail and Google Calendar.

The drop-down menu offers the ability to jump into the Reader, to preview the subject lines of articles in your Google Reader feed, or to check for updates manually.

Clicking on a previewed subject line takes you to the original web page rather into Google Reader. A nice touch.

A Preference pane lets you set the period for automatic updates and to restrict notification to articles with a particular label.

You can also choose the level of security you are comfortable with:

Google Reader Notifier is a universal binary, freeware and available from Troel’s web site .google reader, RSS, menubar, notification, not apple mail, productivity

Inspired by the tips on creating sound files at celsius1414 , Carla has written an excellent step-by-step tutorial on setting up spoken notifications in Mail.app using one of Mac OS X’s built-in speech capabilities.

She walks through creating the aiff files using the say command, where to store them and how to attach them to rules to pick out the emails that you especially need to know about.

For her it’s all about staying attentive to the important things at work:

I need to be hyperaware of instant activity in Jabber, email, and in many different web locations. If I’m not, I’m not helping our customers to their full due, nor immediately attentive of co-workers’ needs and questions.

The main issue is email — I need to know when email’s work-related, and when such email is from supervisors.

Check out the tutorial on her web site or on MacGeekery .email, mail.app, apple mail, notification, alerts, spoken word, aiff, speech, tips

Over the weekend I updated the Hawk Wings Add-on and Plug-in List.

Ten new entries were added, making a total of 130+ add-ons, plugins, scripts and helpful apps to make working with Mail.app, iCal and Address Book quicker, smarter and more productive:

1. AddressX (Get Exchange contacts in Address Book) was added to the Address Book section.
2. Next Unread Message (Applescript to move to next unread message) was added to the Added Functionality section.
3. Export Address Book (easy merges of Address Book data with Word, FileMaker) was added to the Address Book section.
4. Note to Self (quick notes to yourself in Mail.app à la Leopard Mail) was added to the Added Functionality section.
5. Email Backup (quick, one-step back up for mail.app, thunderbird and more) was added to the Archiving section.
6. OMiC (plugin wrapper for tnef.sourceforge.net to extract winmail.dat files) was added to the Added Functionality section.
7. Mail to Yojimbo (script to pipe emails from Mail.app to Yojimbo) was added to the Integration with other apps section.
8. Mail Unread Menu (discreet menubar notification for Mail.app) was added to the Notification section.
9. Return Receipts AppleScript (request return receipts from email clients that support them) was added to the Added Functionality section.
10. MailPod (script to copy emails to any iPod) was added to the Added Functionality section.

mail.app, apple mail, applescript, plugins, addons, productivity, backup, notification, ipod, address book, exchange server

Logan Rockmore’s notification utility Mail Unread Menu has been updated (again).

Now at version 2.0, it been repackaged as an application with an assisting mail bundle, which adds greater stability.

The font size and colour of the message count can now be set in the preferences and an option to Compose a new message has been added to the app’s drop-down menu.

Best of all, the drop-down menu now lists the new messages by individual mailboxes. Clicking on the one you want jumps you directly to that mailbox, saving time and mouse-clicks. Nice.

It’s safe to say that this is now the best of the menubar notification utilities.

Mail Unread Menu is freeware (donations not refused) and is available from Logan’s web site . mail.app, apple mail, notification, plugins, bundles, unread messages, mailboxes

Logan Rockmore has updated his Mail Unread Menu app, a menubar utility that offers discreet notifications for your Mail.app messages.

A count of new mail in the menubar treads the thin line between over-bearing notification and no notification at all.

Logan has added a drop-down menu with options to jump to the readme file or the app’s preferences.

In addition since I last looked, it can now count new messages in either your Inbox or all your folders, making it much more flexible:

Mail Unread Menu is freeware (donations not refused) and is available from Logan’s web site .notification, plugins, mail.app, apple mail, new mail, alerts

Robert Blum has released a new version of his alarm-enhancement plugin for iCal, which is much easier to configure.

iCalFix 0.5 is a universal binary and a bona fide input manager. SIMBL is no longer required.

It now also has its own Preferences pane within iCal after installation:

Editing plist files, a feature of previous versions, is no more. All the setting for the default alarm are easily accessible in the Preferences pane.

Lastly, Robert has set up an announcements mailing list to keep users informed of new versions.

He is on the look-out for someone to design an icon for the plugin.

Contact email address, announcement list subscription details and the new plugin itself are available at Robert’s web site . iCalFix is donation-ware.ical, alarms, default, notification, plugins, productivity

A year ago today Bronson Beta released an updated fourth beta of its Mail.appetizer notification plugin.

When I first wrote this post a few days ago, I misread the 2005 for 2006 (Whoops!). But my laziness is your gain, as it gives this excellent plugin a much deserved run, even if nothing has changed. That’s my line, and I’m sticking to it :)

This version hides itself better when Mail.app is the active app.

Since I first blogged about Mail.appetizer , it’s got better in other ways. It is now a universal binary and 10.4.x compatible.

Its notifications are still as beautiful as ever:

I read in my earlier post that in September last year, I was mad for this app. Since then, I have learnt to wean myself off “instant email notification gratification”.

But if you like to know about your new mail right away, you can’t go past this. GrowlMail doesn’t have half the flexibility and smoothness of Mail.Appetizer.

Mail.Appetizer is donation-ware and is available from the developer’s web site .

UPDATE: Italics mark a revision on 11 July 2006.mail.app, apple mail, notification, plugins, in your face, universal