Apple has just updated the .Mac status page with the date/time of the .Mac to MobileMe switch. So, for those of you wondering when Apple might start the switch will not have to wonder any longer. July 9th from 6 p.m. until 12 a.m. PT is the scheduled date and time.
Apple says that during the switch, users will be "unable to access www.mac.com or any .Mac services ... with the exception of .Mac Mail accessed via a desktop application, iPhone, or iPod touch."
According to Apple, "MobileMe will be available as soon as possible during this maintenance window." Be sure to stay tuned to TUAW for the latest on the .Mac to MobileMe switch.
Macrumors.com is reporting that for some .Mac users, using a me.com email address seems to be working. For instance, if your .Mac account name is username, sending an email to username@me.com works the same as sending one to username@mac.com.
Your mileage may vary -- as of 8:35 PM EDT on Saturday, June 28, 2008, it wasn't working for me. Update: About four hours later, it's working for me.
Gizmodo and GearLive are reporting that the iPhone 2.0 firmware will go golden master (locked for shipping) this week. Golden master does not necessarily mean that Apple will ship the firmware this week (after all, Steve said that it would ship in "early July") but it does mean that the firmware and all the features are complete and ready to head out the door.
Both sites seem to agree with the build number on the new firmware: 345. Gizmodo is reporting that 2.0 will boast code signing and a new encryption feature. The iPhone firmware 2.0 is definitely something on every iPhone owner's wishlist, and here's mine (you have one of these, right?):
Super Monkey Ball (did I mention this one already?)
Scientific Calculator (would it be too hard to add a graphing calculator? c'mon, Apple!)
While we wait around the virtual campfire for the next version of the iPhone software, what are you most looking forward to in the new firmware? I think everyone can guess what my favorite feature will be; although I am still waiting for Final Cut Studio 2 for iPhone (we've been hearing rumors that it will be in the 10th generation device).
RelatedMail is a free plugin for Mail.app which "shows messages related to the currently viewed message" in a panel next to the preview pane. It does this by building an index based on message headers and content which it then uses to guess what other messages are relevant to the one you're viewing. In some ways this is similar to threading, but more sophisticated.
At present the plugin is very much in beta and has a variety of known problems, including a serious performance hit as it does its indexing. Nonetheless, it's an interesting idea that shows a lot of promise.
I've talked about getting your Mac to shutdown via an e-mail (or even take a picture from your iSight and e-mail it back to you), but I have received some comments and e-mails about using this script to send a snap of your computer screen when you want to "check up." So, in this Automator tutorial, I am going to show how to get a screenshot of your Mac no matter where you are -- via e-mail.
Continue reading to learn how to generate screenshots via Mail.
If you're looking to automate the sending of emails with attachments quickly and easily (and aren't too concerned with having some glamorous stationery), Terminal is once again your friend. It's possible with Mail.app and AppleScript, but there are a few pitfalls and, for most purposes, a simple shell command will do the trick:
(echo "This is the message body";uuencode Desktop/yourDoc.doc yourDoc.doc)|mail -s "Test attachment" someone@adomain.com
The magical command in this one is uuencode, which is used to encode and decode binary files and can be used on just about any file type. The two arguments in the command above define the name and location of the source file and the name the file should have when it's received. The parenthetical statement at the beginning combines the results of the echo and uuencode commands which are then piped (|) to the mail command. The mail command, having received the body text and attachment, is told to append a subject (-s "Subject") and send it to the address specified. If you wanted to send a longer text file – with line breaks, perhaps – as the body, you could save the text in an external file and replace the echo statement with cat myfile.txt.
By adding a little complexity you could make a shell script that takes arguments, making the automation a little more flexible. But TUAW reader Adam was wondering how to send a photo he'd taken automatically using AppleScript (triggered by a Mail Rule). So here's an AppleScript implementation that doesn't require opening Terminal or dealing with Mail.app scripting:
set msgBody to "This is the body of the message" set msgSubj to "Message subject" set mailDest to "someone@adomain.com" do shell script "(echo '" & msgBody & "'; uuencode /Users/you/Desktop/pictosend.jpg pictosend.jpg) | mail -s '" & msgSubj & "' " & mailDest
Make sure you remove any line breaks from that last line. This obviously requires a predetermined image name, but that could be made a variable as well and used as part of a larger script. We hope this helps, Adam!
If you use any applications with Cocoa-based text editors (TextEdit, Mail.app, and many more), you may have noticed that some of them, like Mail.app, recognize URLs and automatically turn them into links. The links are in Rich Text Format (RTF) and can be copied and pasted into other RTF-compatible text fields. To the best of my knowledge, though, there's no easy way to automate the creation of an RTF hyperlink, via AppleScript or other means. In programs that don't detect URLs, or if you want to link text to a URL, you generally have to select text, go to a menu item (Link..., Link Add..., etc.) that's a few submenus down, and then enter the url. Me? I'm always looking for the easy way out...
Last week I talked about controlling your Mac with an e-mail; this week, as promised, I am going to show you how to apply this same idea to iTunes. So, without further ado, let's get started with writing some AppleScripts.
Have you ever been away from your Mac and wanted to shut down, restart, or needed to open an application remotely, but didn't have access to anything except your iPhone? Well, I am going to show you how to do these tasks with AppleScript and Mail.
This process is fairly easy and involves creating a simple AppleScript and some Mail rules. Note that since these rules will cause your Mac to perform the listed action when they run, be careful when testing!
Continue reading to learn how to build this AppleScript.
Exchange support works as smoothly as Scott and Mike had hoped, but there's still no two-pane Mail client. The multiple mail message selection works, however, and we finally found out why the Calculator button has changed -- apparently there are a ton of new features in there, including a sideways scientific calcalculator. There are a number of other fun features and improvements as well, although the main event, the App Store, only functions enough to give an error that it can't connect.
June can't come any faster, as far as we're concerned. Bring on the iPhone version 2.0!
I have no idea just how big this intersection might be (in terms of sheer numbers, it has to be pretty big, I guess), but if you're a Yahoo! Mail user and a Safari 3 user, prepare to smile, because Yahoo! says that you can now get in on the "All-New Yahoo! Mail" fun. "All-New Yahoo! Mail" is apparently an AJAX-based, slick piece of webmail software built on the Oddpost engine -- I wouldn't really know all the features because Gmail has wrapped its simple-to-use tendrils completely around my life, from iPhone to all the different browsers I use.
But if you've been dedicated to Safari 3 since it came out, and chomping at the bit to use this "All-New Yahoo! Mail," now's your chance. Yahoo! does specifically say "Safari 3 on the Mac," but I'd assume it would work for the Windows version of Safari 3 as well -- if you have any problems, they'll probably fix it, and then they'll have to call it "The Newer All-New Yahoo! Mail." God forbid they come up with something newer than that.
I am sure that everyone has forgotten other peoples birthday's from time-to-time (*raises hand*). Luckily, with Mac OS X's built-in Address Book and Automator, you can automate the remembering and sending of greeting cards by e-mail -- thus eliminating the awkwardness of forgetting. In this how-to I will show you how to create a birthday field in your Address Book contacts, and how to send an e-mail birthday greeting when the time is right.
I use Thunderbird for email on my laptop running Ubuntu. It works great, but the default skin isn't to my liking. I've tried skinning it with mixed results, but today I've found The Skin I've Been Looking For (but not in a creepy, Buffalo Bill kind of way).
Deviant Art user ~Rio-2007 has posted a very convincing Mail for Leopard skin. After download, simply apply the skin via Thunderbird's Add-Ons option (Thunderbird 2.0 is required).
MailTags, what some would consider to be the ultimate Mail.app enhancement, has hit public beta 4. Seems like we were just blogging about beta 3 earlier this month. Oh yeah, we were. And I have to admit that seeing a speedy development pace on one of my favorite plugins has me feeling warm right down to my extra-thick winter socks.
There isn't much in the way of new features, but there's an abundance of bugfixes and interface improvements. Beta 4 includes a workaround to compensate for incompatibilities with GMail's IMAP implementation, and updates for regular IMAP users to improve tag handling. There are improvements to the Spotlight import, a slew of changes in the preferences department, improvements to Notes handling and a few interface fixes. A "Clear color when clearing all Mailtags" option has also been added for the new Message Color Extra and fixes have been implemented for Rules and Smart Mailbox handling.
I've updated and tested with great results, and now I'm one beta release happier than I was yesterday. Visit the MailTags page to read about and download the latest release.
MailTags has received some attention at TUAW. If you're already a fan, you'll be very excited about the MailTags 2.2 Public Beta 3 that was released today. If you're not a current user, this might be a great time to check out a plugin that improves on Mail.app by allowing comments, tags, projects and other metadata to be attached to any message (among other perks).
Version 2.2pb3 introduces "MailTags Extras", which appears to be a plugin architecture for MailTags. It comes bundled with a first round of these extras, which include functionality for iCal Events and Todos and a quick way to color messages with a swatch palette in the sidebar. And as extras, these features can be individually disabled or uninstalled. Throw in some fixes for things like tagging issues, working with preferences and conflicts with other plugins and this is a release worth talking about.
With a final release scheduled for this month, this beta is maturing an already great plugin. MailTags 2.2 (Leopard) will be a free upgrade for registered 2.0 and 2.1 users, and the beta is available now.
Apple has just updated the .Mac status page with the date/time of the .Mac to MobileMe switch. So, for those of you wondering when Apple might start the switch will not have to wonder any longer. July 9th from 6 p.m. until 12 a.m. PT is the scheduled date and time.
I've talked about getting your 
If you use any applications with Cocoa-based text editors (TextEdit, Mail.app, and many more), you may have noticed that some of them, like Mail.app, recognize URLs and automatically turn them into links. The links are in Rich Text Format (RTF) and can be copied and pasted into other RTF-compatible text fields. To the best of my knowledge, though, there's no easy way to automate the creation of an RTF hyperlink, via AppleScript or other means. In programs that don't detect URLs, or if you want to link text to a URL, you generally have to select text, go to a menu item (Link..., Link Add..., etc.) that's a few submenus down, and then enter the url. Me? I'm always looking for the easy way out...
Last week I talked about 
I use Thunderbird for email on my laptop running Ubuntu. It works great, but the default skin isn't to my liking. I've tried skinning it with mixed results, but today I've found The Skin I've Been Looking For (but not in a creepy, 
MailTags
