Hawk Wings » Zimbra

YAI (Outlook meeting plugin) updated for Leopard

Tim Gaden — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:48:23 +0000

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 exchangeSimilar Posts:

Zimbra’s Mobile Phone interface on an iPhone

Tim Gaden — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:32:18 +0000

After complaining that the IT Department has more important things to do than upgrade our Zimbra installation, I am forced to eat my words.

It was updated this morning, and the new features (see Zimbra’s press release ) are just as sweet as they promised to be (Thanks, Mark. You IT guys are the cat’s pajamas.)

I no longer have to dive into Firefox to use its web interface, and it does feel blisteringly fast in Safari 3.0.

Dialling up the Zimbra 5.0 web interface in Safari on the iPhone now automatically launches its “mobile” interface. It looks good:

It lets you select emails by folder, via Zimbra’s saved searches or by tag. In a nice touch for MailTags users, you can set a Zimbra filter which will pick up a particular plain-text MailTags tag in the x-mailtags header and label it with a corresponding Zimbra tag.

The only downside I can find is no auto-completion of email addresses, which is a pain if you need to compose a new email or forward an existing one.

The calendar on the iPhone is even better than the built-in one.

It respects the colour choices of each calendar so that it is easier at a glance to see if the event is home-related (blue) or work-related (green). In iPhone’s default calendar everything is steely-blue. Stylish but not as informative.

No auto-completion puts iPhone’s mail client ahead for email, but Zimbra’s calendar is now my first port of call for seeing what’s coming up next.

[Hawk Wings readers who are unfamiliar with Zimbra's power, reliability and general open-source goodness can read about it on Zimbra's Product Page .] zimbra, mail.app, apple mail, mailtags, iphone, safari, firefox, productivitySimilar Posts:

Zimbra gets friendly with Safari 3.0, CalDAV, iPhone

Tim Gaden — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:49:45 +0000

A new version of the Zimbra collaboration suite has been released, which will make Leopard users smile with its support for Safari 3.0, integration of Leopard’s CalDAV features and an optimised iPhone interface.

The update was announced on the same day as Steve’s MWSF keynote, so it seems to have sunk without a trace. That’s a shame, as Zimbra is not only the closet thing that I have ever used to a Microsoft Exchange killer, but also works seamlessly with mail.app. It even plays nicely with MailTags.

I use it at work and it is rock solid. With its iCal-syncing Preference Pane, it also provides the platform-independent email and calendaring interface between me and my PC-using PA.

According to the press release , the Zimbra Team are cock-a-hoop about Leopard. CEO and co-founder of Zimbra, Satish Dharmaraj, says that, â€œThe amazing speed of Safari 3 has blown the Zimbra team away and we are excited to be the first major collaboration platform to support the calendaring standard CalDAV.â€

I will admit that I began to drool (a little) at the mention of the iPhone interface:

Additionally, ZCS is now available to iPhone users via the Zimbra Mobile HTML client. The iPhoneâ€™s Safari browser enables fast access to the full-featured AJAX interface, and the Zimbra Connector for Apple iSync allows users to sync not only their email but also their address books and calendars to their iPhones.

Unfortunately, the IT Department where I work is currently enjoying some personnel restructuring and doesn’t have the resources to commit to upgrading our installation to the new version anytime soon. Perhaps you will have more luck.

Although it is now owned by Yahoo!, Zimbra retains its open-source roots. An Open Source Edition is available for free. Other, more expensive options including product support are also available. All of them can be explored at the Zimbra web site .

The company is also hiring .zimbra, mail.app, apple mail, leopard, caldav, iphone, safari, opensource, collaboration, microsoft exchange, productivitySimilar Posts:

Zimbra launches Desktop client

Tim Gaden — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 14:24:22 +0000

Zimbra has launched an alpha version of the Desktop client in Mac, Linux and Windows flavours for its open-source “Exchange-killer” collaboration platform.

The Mac version weighs in at 20 MB and requires Java Runtime Environment 1.5.x to run.

Once installed and connected to a Zimbra server, the client loads into a browser (Firefox, Safari) through local port 7633. It then downloads a local cache of your entire Zimbra account, allowing you to process your mail and calendar whether you’re online or not.

Next time a connection is established, any changes are synched up to the server.

It also comes with a menubar new mail notification utility — “Zimbra Toaster” — which will check for new mail every minute and lists the new mail in a drop-down menu.

I would love to show you some screenshots of the client in action, but work’s Zimbra test server is down. Frustrating but true.

I can, however, show you a screenshot of what happens when the Desktop client can’t establish a connection:

Edifying, eh? (TechCrunch’s server is up. It looks pretty much like the web interface.)

Download the Mac client and give it a whirl yourself.not mail.app, not apple mail, zimbra, desktop client, email, productivitySimilar Posts:

Using Webmailer to set Zimbra as the default mail client

Tim Gaden — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:02:30 +0000

One reason for the latest pause on Hawk Wings is the new Zimbra test server at work.

Finally, work’s steam-powered SquirrelMail web interface is set for replacement with Zimbra, ushering in a Brave New World of Blazing Collaborative Productivity.

As a “fairly knowledgeable amateur” the IT Department has given me the job of trying to break it by doing stupid things. I haven’t succeeded yet.

Webmailer offers a way to remove one of the annoyances in using a web-based email service. It lets you set Zimbra (or Joyent’s webmail or Yahoo! or Roundcube or whatever) as the default email client, so that clicking on an email address opens a new message in the web-based interface of your choice.

After installing it, you need to add Zimbra to its list of options.

The string that works for me is:

https://SERVER/zimbra/mail?view=compose&to=[to]

Click a mailto: link and, as if my magic, Zimbra makes you a new message:

Nice.

Also nice are Zimbra’s new filing and tagging keyboard shortcuts, which make leaving Mail.app (temporarily) less of a wrench. By allocating numbers to the most-used tags and folders, it is possible to get close to the Nirvana that only a Mail.app GTD nut truly knows. mail.app, apple mail, GTD, Zimbra, webmail, default email client, productivitySimilar Posts:

Dreaming of a smarter Mail.app in Leopard

Tim Gaden — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 14:11:52 +0000

Web designer and self-confessed standards fanatic Jeff Croft is not dreaming of a white Christmas. He is dreaming of the best imaginable Mail.app that might come his way in Leopard.

Of course, he is also dreaming of a better Safari, a faster Spotlight and other things that have no place on this blog.

But when he gets around to Mail, iCal and Address Book, he pulls out all the stops:

Better integration of the personal productivity and communication apps. It is, frankly, appalling that iCal, Mail.app, Address Book and iChat know very little about each other in the current Mac OS X environment. I want Google-like recognition of phrases and other natural-language idioms in e-mail. If Matt e-mails me and says, â€œwe need to have the weather page working by noon tomorrow,â€ Mail.app should prompt me to create a to-do item in iCal with a due date of 12:00pm tomorrow, a summary of â€œHave weather page workingâ€), with Matt included as an attendee and a link to his Address Book card. If I get an e-mail from Dan that says, â€œLetâ€™s chat about this tomorrow around 3pm,â€ I want a pop-up on my screen tomorrow at three that says, â€œDan is currently online. Would like to start a video chat?â€

I’ve been getting a taste for this greater integration by playing around on Zimbra at work. It cleverly displays a pop-up with your existing appointments when you mouse over text that it has parsed a date. Nice.

Much improved Mail.app. I love the overall UI of Mail.app and I havenâ€™t found anything I like better. But, still, there are several improvements that can be made, especially in terms of performance. Mail.app sucks with large IMAP folders, and Iâ€™ve got several of them. Could I break them into smaller folders? Sure. Should I have to? Hell no. Smart Mailboxes, a true gem of Mail.app, are a little underpowered. Compared to iTunes, there just arenâ€™t enough filtering attributes. Many people want a widescreen version of Mail.app, so it seems like a worthy addition, even though Iâ€™m not sure itâ€™s something I could get used to personally. And yeah, we could stand to loose the gel-cap icons (although I donâ€™t find them nearly as offensive as some folks do).

(In a spirit of seasonal goodwill towards the Mail Team, I tried to run Mail.app with the lozenge buttons again a week ago. But I… just… couldn’t… bear… it. If you feel the same, help is at hand.)mail.app, apple mail, leopard, ical, address book, ical, zimbra, imap, GTD, Getting things doneSimilar Posts:

Zimbra goes universal, adds resources feature

Tim Gaden — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 13:34:55 +0000

Zimbra is “a rich, full-featured, AJAX-based Web client that brings e-mail and calendar items to life through Web mash-ups on the front endâ€.

Today the developers announced the release of support for Intel Macs. According to the company’s press release,

ZCS for Mac OS X is an open-source, enterprise-grade email and collaboration server and application that includes support for iCal, Apple Mail clients and Apple Xsan storage. In testing ZCS for Mac OS X, Zimbra has achieved speeds up to five times faster on the Intel-based Mac clients.

The latest version also introduces support for calendar resources (conferences rooms, etc) and reminders.

[Via PRNewsWire ]zimbra, ajax, web 2.0, email, universal, calendar, ical, mail.appSimilar Posts:

In praise of IT departments

Tim Gaden — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 22:30:28 +0000

This afternoon my powerbrick exploded.

Well, not quite. But it suddenly started smoking, crackling, fizzing, flaring and popping, before emitting a five inch burst of flame from the place where the cord to the laptop joins the transformer.

Unsettling.

Fifteen minutes later I had a new one thanks to the guys in the IT Department, where they have a few “just laying around”.

This is just a short post to thank IT people in general and the guys at Trinity College within the University of Melbourne in particular. They don’t just slouch around in the office, endlessly tweaking their mutt installations, swapping torrents and playing Half Life. No sir!

So thanks to Herman the Magnificent who fixed my IP phone this week, to Nice Guy Nick who coughed up the power adaptor and to IT GruppenfÃ¼hrer Tim who is toying with Zimbra to replace Squirrelmail and who let me in on the pre-production, testing fun. Youse guys — you’re great!IT guys, powerbrick, apple, Zimbra, not just a life of torrent-swapping and network shoot-’em-upsSimilar Posts:

Zimbra iSync beta released

Tim Gaden — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 13:49:21 +0000

Zimbra , “a rich, full-featured, AJAX-based Web client that brings e-mail and calendar items to life through Web mash-ups on the front end” (kewl!), has announced a beta test of its Apple iSync utility.

This will allow Mac users to sync their calendar and contact data with Zimbra’s web-based interface. It seems to offer a solution for those who fear too great a gulf in Web 2.0 services between server-side data-storage and users’ computers.

The screenshots featured in the announcement show that the beta is already well-developed and offers significant user control over the synchronisation:

The beta test is only open to Zimbra Network Edition or Network trial users. The Open Source Edition is not supported.

Users who qualify can contact their Zimbra sales rep to register their interest.

[Thanks, sjk]Zimbra, ical, address book, mail.app, apple mail, web 2.0, synchronization, beta, emailSimilar Posts:

Windows Live Mail: Hotmail revamped

Tim Gaden — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 13:24:54 +0000

User reports on the beta version of Microsoft‘s Hotmail replacement, Windows Live Mail, are beginning to filter out. It is part of a wider online revamp by Microsoft called Windows Live.

You can see some pictures of the interface on Vinny Carpenter’s blog and at Tipmonkies.

Reviews range from “awesome” to “pretty good” to cautiously welcoming and mixed to damning (There must be one. I just can’t find it).

Two Mad Geeks compare it to Yahoo! Mail and Zimbra.Similar Posts: