Hawk Wings could post stories about people who switch over from Windows and are gob-smacked by the power and elegance of Mail.app over and over and over again.

Aki at Aki’s Blog has given up on the Mac dream after four years as a PowerBook user, and is moving back to Windows. And not just back to Windows, back to Windows on Dell.

He mentions price, Java-support and battery life among his reasons, not least “Reasonable tools exist in Windows… such that many of the productivity gains I got on my Mac are now possible in Windows.”

What does he miss? His old 12″ PowerBook has Unix and was sexy, two words that you don’t often see close together. switching, mac, windows, dell, productivity, not apple mail

I almost don’t believe it myself, but I have scored a proper job, posting about Macs for real money.

APC Magazine, one of Australia’s premier IT titles, has launched a swish, revamped web site featuring a number of individually themed blogs. And one of them is mine!

On X Factor , the site’s Apple blog, I’ll be able to get all the non-Mail.app stuff out of my system. There is an X Factor-specific RSS feed .

I have a much wider brief, allowing me to cover “hot new software and hardware, quality freeware and Mac OS X tips and tricks”. I am even allowed to have some opinions. Everything gets done over by a ferocious subeditor, so the quality will be better too.

The site soft-launched today, and you can already find posts there on Gmail tricks with Firefox , a great Take Control book that demystifies running Windows on your Mac with Bootcamp, Q or Parallel Workstation, finding Australian maps to use with Address Book and more.

Of course, it’s exciting for me. But it is also an innovative move in the Australian market.

X Factor is the first substantial and regular commitment to Apple by a mainstream IT publication, which like all the rest is otherwise dominated by Windows and Linux.

I like to think that it is a recognition of Apple’s growing market share and continuing importance as a trend-setter (Check out Mac OS X for a foretaste of Windows Vista, etc, etc). I hope too that it will make a few new friends for Apple as storm troopers from the Dark Side wander into X Factor by mistake.

Best of all, unlike some other offers I’ve had, Hawk Wings is able to continue as usual. This development brings you no relief from the usual torrent of posts about Mail.app, iCal and Address Book and email in general :)personal, hawkwings, apc magazine, apple, windows, X Factor, mail.app, apple mail

This is not really news, but I missed it when it first broke.

Brandon LeBlanc at Longhorn Blogs is excited. Windows Vista will feature “an exciting new application” called Windows Calendar. Users will be able to set up multiple calendars designated by different colors with different events for each calendar. (Cf. Microsoft’s innovative new Windows Mail app.)

The new application will support the .ics file standard, which will allow Mac users to send event invitations to the rest of the world. Outlook 12 will also have full .ics support, apparently. No more hacking away at iCal‘s mail.scpt.

For those times when the spirit of “live and let live” is not enough, Hawk Wings presents a Special Limited Edition “Hasta la Vista” Junk and Trash icon replacement set.

The set’s large Junk icon features a well-known email client and browser peeking out in a jaunty manner over the top of Junk’s brown paper bag.

On its large Trash icon a future operating system release nestles in the bin at peace like a rudderless ship that has found safe harbour at last.

The small trash icon throws all pretence at subtlety to the wind.

In fact, while it may seem like gloating, the Hasta la Vista icon set is perfect for those Mac users who are tempted to arrogance by their enjoyment of a computer that “just works”.

Through its gentle visual reminders of those who are less fortunate, it promotes compassion and staves off hubris of any kind, helping to make the world a better place.

The set contains five icons – junkmail.tiff, junkMailFlag.tiff, TB_Junk.tiff, TrashMailbox.tiff. TrashMailboxLarge.tiff – to replace the defaults in the Resources folder of Mail.app.

Probably the best thing here is to enjoy the idea for a minute and then move on. But if you want to try it out… Make copies of the original files first. Then follow the same instructions for replacing Apple Mail’s new mail badges.

Or better still, if you (unlike me) actually know what you are doing in Photoshop, knock out a decent set and share it.

You can download these exceptional artworks here for a limited time, until I think better of it.mail.app, apple gui, apple mail, tips, hacks, humour, tips, windows, vista, outlook

Oh, Apple Mail, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways….

First, I love the look of it. You buy an Apple partly for the way that it makes doing your work easier and quicker, but also for its good looks. Apple Mail fits right in there with its clean, functional interface and its integration with other Apple apps like iCal, Address Book and iPhoto.

Secondly, I love the way Apple Mail places pictures from my Address Book into the emails I receive. It might seem like a minor point, but it has real value for me. I spend a lot of the day answering emails or shunting them from one place to another. It can be a dehumanising experience. With the pictures, it’s easier for me to remember that the posters are real people and that this is real interaction (even if it’s happening in the rather thin, ethereal realm of the internet). I finish the day with a better feeling of having dealt with real people with real problems. I love that.

Thirdly, I love the way that it just does mail. It doesn’t have the bloat of some other applications. Sure, it interacts well with other Apple apps, but it does not try to include them. It just does mail, and it does mail really well.

Fourthly, I love the many plug-ins and options that extend its functionality. Mail Act-on and MailUnreadStausBar are favourites. There are many more listed on Robin Benson’s Apple Mail Plug-ins and Tools web page and I have started a list of plug-ins and add-ons that I like.

Lastly, I love the way that a .Mac account lets me synchronise many of its settings between multiple Macs. I don’t have to frig around with the Mac at work and my Mac at home, trying manually to synchronise them. And moving my email to IMAP has made the co-ordination even more complete.

When I first switched to Apple Macs almost two years ago, I fell in love with Apple Mail at first sight. Like any relationship, we have our little spats, but the love is still going strong.mail.app, apple mail, email, windows, mac, plugins, syncing,