Mail Tags Beta Works with Leopard

I was glad to see this morning that InDev has released a new beta of Mail Tags that works in Leopard. In the forums on their site, they explain that a working copy of Mail Act-On is not far behind it. These were the two applications I lost with the Leopard upgrade that I really missed. The developer explains the implementation of Mail Tags with Leopard as follows:

Indev is happy to announce that MailTags for Leopard, the forthcoming update to MailTags will be compatible with Mail 3.0 in Leopard. This update will be free for all registered MailTags 2.0 and 2.1 users.

Mail 3.0 in Leopard brings many new features and improvements to Mail, such as stationary, to dos and stand alone notes. With the new announced features for Mail 3.0, many people have asked about how MailTags for Leopard will work with Mail 3.0.

Metadata makes it better
Many of Mail 3.0’s new features are designed help you manage your information better. MailTags for Leopard is created to go the extra distance to transform Mail 3.0 into a powerful organizational tool. With keywords, project, priorities, tickle dates, and message notes, you can tag your messages to fit your organization scheme. And unlike Mail 3.0 notes, which do not relate to your messages, MailTags data actually are part of your messages. This means that when you view your messages, the tags will always be there. When you move your messages, the tags will also be moved. When you search for your tags, you find your messages.

Maintain your organization with others and over time.
With the ability to send tag and receive tags with message, you can share your metadata with others. With the ability to tags replies as they arrive, and the ability to easily locate previous messages in threads even if they are in different mailboxes, you can automatically maintain your organization system throughout your email conversations.

Tag your critical RSS feeds
In a flow of information, RSS feeds are about more than the latest headlines. Many organization systems now use RSS feeds to be notified of critical information, such as support tickets, user forums discussions, and database driven workflows. With MailTags for Leopard you will be able to tag RSS news items with the same project, keyword, priority and tickle you use for your email. When you look for items needing attention, you can find your tagged RSS items as well as tagged messages.

Indev says the program should be out of the public beta by January 2008. Check it out.

20 Great Mac Applications

Lifehacker did a great little write up of 20 essential applications on your Mac. I generally agreed with their opinions. A few in particular that I find very helpful are ...

Disk Inventory X - This application is great for sniffing out large files on your hard drive you didn't realize are there. Before installing Leopard, I found 8 gigs of sample garageband song files that were easily moved onto an external drive.

Growl - Don't question it. Just install it.

TextExpander - This application is a huge timesaver. The trick is to remember it is there and to keep updating it with new snippets. I've been using the new version that came out a few weeks ago and had ho problems with it in Tiger or Leopard.

A few of the applications Lifehacker recommends don't really impress me so much. I prefer mail.app over Thunderbird and Safari over Firefox. Anyway, you can read the full article right here.

Dashboard Web Clippings

This morning I used the new Dashboard web clippings feature for the first time. I've got my fantasy football score in the Dashboard. It is very convenient and live updating. Setting it up was as simple as pushing the new button in the Safari menu bar and selecting the section I want updated. Thumbs up.

Time Machine and Aperture Don't Play Nice

Apple has identified an "issue" with Time Machine corrupting the Aperture database. Ouch. Since both programs are made by Apple, you'd think they would have figured that one out already.

Apple Explains:

Issue or symptom

Running Time Machine backup or restore operations while Aperture is running may lead to inconsistencies in the Aperture database.

Products affected

Aperture
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
Solution

If you use Time Machine with Leopard, be sure to set your computer up so that Time Machine only does manual backups. Avoid performing either backups or restores while Aperture is running.

This document will be updated as more information becomes available.

Review - ConceptDraw's MindMap Pro

If you would like to hear my dulcet tones, you can listen to this review on the MacReviewCast Epsisode 131.

Mind Map … what a strange word. It makes me think of something ominous in a science fiction movie. I first heard of mind mapping a few years ago. Since I’m always looking for an edge and I am, admittedly, a productivity junky, I immediately went online to see what all the fuss was about. I found a few articles and applications that were supposed to help me be creative, think “outside the box”, and a host of other popular euphemisms. What I discovered was that mind maps are, essentially, a way of diagraming concepts visually as opposed to simple text lists. If done correctly, they allow you to move things around and look for relationships and concepts that don’t usually jump right out at you. In attempting to put this theory into practice on a computer it was my initial survey of mind mapping applications generally got in the way of doing anything creative. I abandoned mind mapping and stuck with my faithful OmniOutliner.

So it was with a certain degree of scepticism that I agreed to review ConceptDraw’s MindMap Pro. This application is a simple to use but refined application for creating mind maps. Like all mind mapping applications, the program presents you with a clean slate and a variety of tools to draw shapes and connectors. ConceptDraw’s MindMap actually excels at this by giving you a variety of tools to change the graphics and pointers to suit different types of relationships. It has a built in library of very useful clipart. They are categorized but not searchable. It also includes a feature that allows you to import images from elsewhere on your Mac.

The process of creating shapes and lines in ConcepDraw’s MindMap Pro is very intuitive. I was making mind map diagrams before I even cracked the manual. The application offers a variety of ways to create the diagram depending on whether you are a keyboard or a mouse person and the it does most of the work for you in terms of spacing and organization. You can drag a point around on the screen and more often than not the application will figure out what you are up to. One caveat is that you are pretty much stuck with the tools the program provides you. It does not allow you to freehand draw shapes. I’m not so sure I would need this for mind mapping but it may be a necessity for some users.

This program comes with several good looking samples that can be easily adapted to suit your needs for both business and personal use. Likewise, it comes with several pre-built templates that also kick start your mind mapping process.

Where ConceptDraw really excelled in my opinion was the process of mind mapping. It has an excellent “brainstorming” mode that allows you to get a lot of ideas on the screen quickly and then easily move them around the screen and draw relationships between them. This is a process that I’ve been doing analog for years and for the first time was easier to do on a computer for me. Because its so easy, I’m actually using it.

ConceptDraw also does a good job of allowing you to share your work when it is done. You can export the final mind map to a variety of sources including PowerPoint, Microsoft Project, HTML, PNG, and text among others. It even lets you put the images on your iPod. It does not, unfortunately, export to Keynote.

I found ConceptDraw’s MindMap Pro the first application in this genre that I actually used for its intended purpose. When I first wrote this review I had several complaints about the interface. Specifically, I thought it suffered too much from being multiplatform. Wouldn’t you know that halfway through writing the review screenshots of the soon to be released version 5.2 got leaked and it looks much nicer and more Mac-like. Like all good software, after you learn to use ConceptDraw’s MindMap Pro, it gets out of your way and allows you to be productive. I will continue to use this application in my work. I would like to see future releases give me a bit more flexibility with respect to the shapes. I would also like to see it export to Keynote.

The developer for ConceptDraw’s MindMap is in the Ukraine and I found them very supportive while I worked through this application. That is a big plus especially if you are new to this type of software. MindMap Pro will run you $199. It includes a license for both Mac and Windows which is great if you have to work on multiple platforms (like me). If you don’t need quite so much horsepower you can go with the personal edition which costs $119 but does not have the same degree of integration with Microsoft and other ConceptDraw applications. You can download a demonstration at www.conceptdraw.com.

Leopard Roars

I'm posting from Leopard for the first time. The install went smoothly with no glitches. Here is the recap.

Apple Store Madness

I promised my family dinner (and my 11 year old is a budding mac geek) so we decided to make a family event of it. We got there about 15 minutes before six and there were a lot of people there. Like all Apple events, it was well organized and fun. They gave away bottles of water and the line was full of geek love. Likewise , when they opened the doors everything was well organized to give us T-Shirts and liberate me of my $199 with maximum efficiency. The store was fully staffed and lots of folks were helping customers with the new features of Leopard. We didn't participate in any of the sessions since I had been at work since 7am and was hungry.

The Install Process

I was ready to go when I got home. I did one last Tiger SuperDuper backup. I then put in the Leopard disk and clicked upgrade. I didn't archive or restore or erase and start over. I had enough of that in my PC days so I decided to just go for it.

Once the system got started with the upgrade it initially estimated the upgrade would take 3 hours. Within 10 minutes it shrunk the estimated time to 35 minutes. I went off to play with my kids. I didn't time it but I believe it was about 45 minutes from Tiger to Leopard. I also upgraded my daughters 17" iMac (circa February 07) with no problems.

Initial Thoughts and Use

My Mac restarted once the install was done and that was it. I am in Leopard. I've been using it a few hours and had no problems. I did disable of a few of add-on system preferences like Little Snitch and Spanning Sync. Those applications may work in Leopard. I just didn't want them getting in the way while I get used to the new system. It is really not all that different from Tiger. It is definitely evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary and if you are a Tiger user you will have no problem adjusting. I'll post a more thorough review sometime this week but so far, so good. A lot of the initial reviews were critical of the transluscent menus. I haven't really had much a problem with them.

I haven't loaded all of my software yet but all of my key applications (Omni Applications, iWork, Aperture, Soundtrack, MS Office) are working fine. I did have one crash when loading my Windows partition in Parallels. I'm going to have to look into that further today. (****addendum - I went back and Parallels loaded fine. I have no idea why it crashed last night*****) I also set my Time Machine to work last night when going to bed. I have already gone back to retrieve a few deleted files and it is very easy to use. This will be the first backup system that my wife and daughter actually use without my direct involvement.

I'll post more later as I get a little more familiar with it but I can report initially the upgrade was easy and my Mac has not spontaneously burst into flames.

Leopard Launches

I'm reading lots of positive reviews of Leopard. I don't know if it will create many switchers but it is definitely getting better reviews than Vista did. Regardless, I'll be in line tonight at the Irvine Spectrum Apple store. If anybody else is going to be there drop me an email and we can meet up. I am still planning on just doing the "upgrade". If things get ugly I can do the full erase and install but I really would rather avoid that if possible. I'll keep you posted.

Leopard - Preparing the External Drive

I must admit I'm just a bit giddy about this new cat. It is a new experience for me to be excited about an operating system upgrade. It is surreal for me as a former PC guy to contemplate a new operating system without a hardware upgrade of any sort. Nevertheless, here I am watching the Apple propaganda videos and reading anything I can get my hands on. As part of this upgrade I plan on embracing Time Machine so I had to get serious about external storage.

I have a 1TB Firewire drive and a collection of USB external drives I've collected over the years. I spent the evening configuring the Terabyte drive for Leopard and thought I'd share my strategy with everyone.

I've partitioned the drive into four drives as follows:

1. MacBook Pro SD

This is a 130GB partition for my SuperDuper image. My 160GB drive actually has a capacity of about 148 GB but I can't imagine ever running the drive up to 130GB. (Famous last words)

2. Final Cut Media Drive

This 120GB partition holds all my external media for Final Cut Studio, Logic and various Jam Packs. Interestingly, I have this data also duplicated on a portable Western Digital portable Passport drive. They both have the same name and Final Cut, Logic, and Garage Band all see the data regardless of whether I'm plugged into the Firewire or USB Passport. Excellent.

3. Time Machine 350GB

There are lots of opinions about how big a Time Machine Drive should be. I'm going with just a tad over double the drive capacity. I guess we'll find out together.

4. Data ~316GB

This is where I keep the rest of my data. It includes the Aperture masters, Videos, a 40GB iTunes library, Encrypted legal files and a host of other data I can't bring myself to dump.

So there you have it. I'm good to go with Leopard this weekend. One other precaution I'm taking is keeping a SuperDuper copy of my Tiger rig on a USB drive for a few weeks after I upgrade to Leopard just in case.

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MacSparky, leopard, time machine

The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks

Over the dinner table we got into a discussion of, believe it or not, the proper usage of quotation marks. This led to my 11 year old and I unearthing a very funny site, The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. I don't know what it says about me, but I found it really funny.

Leopard Security Improvements

I stumbled upon this excellent article discussing the security improvements in Leopard. The author makes an excellent point that easy backups (Time Machine) is part of a security system. The explanation of buffer overflows was also so well done that even I understood it.