Mail

I have been in the process of planning out switching to Linux in 2010 for my main development computer (a laptop), as well as for various web and database servers I am responsible for at work.

I've been making good use of Sun's awesome (and free) VirtualBox program, which allows me to create any number of virtual computers to experiment on. I've had a couple of CLI-only server versions running (Debian and Ubuntu), as well as what amounts to a desktop system for the last three Ubuntu releases: 8.10, 9.04, and the just-issued 9.10.

My User has information that could... that could make this a free system again! No, really! You'd have programs lined up just to use this place, and no MCP looking over your shoulder.

I'll cover the whys and wherefores of switching in the future. For now, suffice to say that the ever-increasing commercialization of Mac OS X, with accompanying restrictions, has been grating on me for some time now. I am also attracted to the notion of software freedom (having been a huge fan of the original Tron movie ;) and of course the cost savings can be dramatic. And since I work primarily in education, I think we would be neglecting our duty by not exploring the open-source world.

All that is visible must grow beyond itself, and extend into the realm of the invisible.

One of the first and ongoing steps is compiling a list of application equivalents to programs I am need of.

• Mail -> Evolution
• iCal -> Evolution
• Exchange -> Evolution \m/
• MacJournal -> Zim or RedNotebook or Lifeograph
• iPhoto -> filesystem + gThumb (still need EXIF editor: JHead?)
• iTunes (music) -> Rhythmbox
• iTunes (podcasts) -> Rhythmbox (audio ok, testing vidcasts)
• OmniFocus -> Getting Things Gnome (GTG) or spreadsheet?
• Adium -> Empathy
• Quicksilver/Spotlight -> Deskbar-Applet
• iFlash -> Mnemosyne
• NetNewsWire -> Liferea or Gregarius
• Tweetie -> Gwibber
• VoodooPad -> Zim
• MarsEdit -> Drivel, BloGTK, or Gnome Blog?
• Dictionary.app -> Gnome Dictionary
• RPG -> see http://www.shell-fu.org/lister.php?id=885
• Black Ink -> Xword
• Desktop Pictures rotation -> Wallpaper Tray (Gnome panel)
• GarageBand/podcasting -> Audacity + LMMS
• OmniGraffle -> Dia
• Minuteur/ApiMac Timer -> Timer Applet

Still looking:

• Time Machine (backup) -> roll-my-own or manual?
• Bluetooth File Exchange -> built into Gnome?

Stuff that exists in both places:

• Firefox
• MacVim -> Gvim
• Audacity
• GIMP
• VirtualBox
• ClamXav -> ClamAV
• VLC
• MySQL Administrator and Query Browser
• NeoOffice -> OpenOffice
• Google Earth
• MacNikto -> Nikto

If you're looking into switching as well, or just are looking for new apps to try out whatever your platform, check out AlternativeTo, which provides alternatives for Linux, Mac, and Windows programs.

Note: Written before the current cold whacked me in the head and upper respiratory tract. Bits are incomplete. Suggestions are welcome.

End of line.

• The read-once email client and reference emails
  "I’ve been dreaming of a new kind of email client, one that only lets you look at a new email once. That’s right - you get to scan it for 30 seconds and then you have to do something with it or it gets archived out of sight."

• Terminal Tip: the joy of nl - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
• MacOSX Guru Site: How to read local Unix mail in Mail.app under Tiger ?
• growlnotify documentation
• Technical Note TN2065: do shell script in AppleScript
• Two-Heel Drive: A plug for plain ol' walking

• Shell stuff: job control and screen - Basically Tech
• Illuminati Home Page
  It's only a game. Really. Fnord.
• Minimizing Mail | Celsius1414
• TIP Using screen - Gentoo Linux Wiki
• Jules Verne Adventures Film Festival
  "Jules Verne Adventures proudly celebrates 15 years of Exploration, Conservation and Education. Let's keep experiencing Extraordinary Voyages in the tradition of Jules Verne - where Science meets Fiction, where Documentaries meet Movies."
• How to stop workday interruptions? - Lifehacker
  High-powered weaponry? Defense droids?
• Hotmail offers - (37signals)
  "Want a MSN hotmail account? Be prepared to run this gauntlet..."

After all the talk recently about green text on a black background, not to mention keeping hands on the keyboard and off the damn mouse, I decided for the hell of it to get mutt set up on the old laptop and have some good Terminal fun.

I'll write this more in depth at a later time, but suffice to say it is working fine after relatively little effort.

Between mutt and lynx, I may never leave the Terminal again. ;)

Good info

• mutt.org: Mutt E-Mail Client manual
• macosxhints.com: Get mutt to open URLs in Safari (or Firefox or whatever your default is)
• macosxhints.com: Using applications to view attachments from Mutt
• Mutt Config Files
• Mark Stosberg's Mutt Fan & Tip page

Once you have mutt installed (assuming you did it via fink) you can find a sample muttrc file here:

/sw/share/doc/mutt/samples/sample.muttrc

(From April 2004; since then I've taken to having an absolutely unobtrusive mail program -- see Minimizing Mail.)

I have multiple email accounts in Panther Mail, checked automatically on a fairly rapid schedule (5 or 15 min intervals usually). While its Bayesian spam filtering is quite spiffy most of the time, there are occasional "false negatives" that get through. In addition, when I'm busy working it gets to be annoying to be bothered checking email when often it's not that important.

I decided to leverage the power of the say command (man say for more info), which converts text to speech, and use its -o option to create .aiff files.

First, I created one to announce email for my Celsius1414 account:

say -o 1414.aiff "Message received for Celsius."

This spawns an AIFF sound file, which I drop in my ~/Library/Sounds folder. Then, within Mail's preferences, I made a new Rule with a condition matching all email for the Celsius1414 account, which then performs a "Play Sound" action, matching that 1414 sound. Sweet!

I soon realized that this would, obviously, match all messages for 1414 including false-negative spam, so I added another condition that the sender be in my Address Book. I also turned off any other Mail sounds (easily added back in with simple Rules). Now, life is sweet, as my computer announces email that I'll probably want to look at and leaves me alone to work otherwise.

Taking it up a notch (to paraphrase Emeril), I created a few more sounds and accompanying rules to match specific people and specific groups, so that I now have something akin to Uhura announcing incoming messages from Star Fleet. :)

Mail.app is the email client bundled with Mac OS X.

Some folks don't like the new version of Mail in Tiger. In fact, they are pretty damn vociferous about their hate.

The hidden PreferPlainText preference mentioned below still works in Tiger (thank heavens) -- check out this macosxhints.com story for how to force Mail to display a plaintext alternative for messages. Repeat after me: HTML does not belong in email.

Brent Simmons covered the Tiger topic in What I think happened to Mail. In the comments of that article, I wrote:

Having just installed Tiger last night, I'm getting a fresh look at Mail's new UI in action... and I have to say I love it. The main window feels more unified without the drawer, and all the small enhancements are great (e.g. individual activity indicators next to the separate account inboxes). I think the menubar looks (and feels) better than before -- much less distracting. Not sure what everybody was in an uproar about.

No "uproar" pun intended. I swear.

Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are your friends. For example, under the Mailbox menu, you'll find a "Go To" submenu with some handy shortcuts -- Cmd-1 (Apple-1) through Cmd-6 (Apple-6) take you to your Inbox, Outbox, Drafts, Sent, Trash, Junk mailboxes.

Another favorite is Cmd-Option-P, which switches to the Plain Text version of the email you're currently reading. Handy for the times when you get crazy HTML mail or stuff you can't seem to read. On this same front is this hint from MacOSXHints.com: Force Mail to display plain text by default, which is very handy as there isn't a Preferences item for it.

Speaking of Preferences, under "Viewing" be sure to turn off "Display images and embedded objects in HTML messages" to save yourself a lot of time and spam-grief.

Rules

While you're in there, why not create Rules to shunt all your mailing lists and other subscriptions into their own folders automatically? That would be an example of good behaviors. :)

And for goodness' sake, change the checking interval to something sane like every 30 minutes or more. Do you know how many interruptions that is during a given week?

See Minimizing Mail for more tips.

Something I wish Mail.app had...

Every time I use the Dock icon feature that NetNewsWire has, a hierarchical list of unread messages, I wish Mail had the same thing. As it stands currently, Mail lets you start a new email, get new mail, and see open windows.