Sending Rich Text Email with Mail.app

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Like me, do you work in a corporate office environment or with clients who are Windows/Outlook users? Do you set your signature to a custom font/font size other than default plaintext? Ever notice that when receiving a reply from someone that your original email is default plaintext while your signature is formatted oddly? This is due to Mail.app's simplistic way of formatting (some would say sloppy) your email as it sends out, which Outlook interprets and renders badly for the recipient. Well, here's how you can fix that as well as a more detailed explanation of exactly what is going technically to cause this. Thanks of a friend of mine, Nancy Seeger for sharing this with me.

The Mac App Store's Future Of Irrelevance

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Marco Arment, writes:

In the first year of the Mac App Store, before sandboxing, I bought as much as I could from it. As a customer, the convenience was so great that I even repurchased a few apps that I already owned just to have the App Store updates and reinstallation convenience. And, most importantly, when an app was available both in and out of the Mac App Store, I always bought the App Store version, even if it was more expensive. But now, I’ve lost all confidence that the apps I buy in the App Store today will still be there next month or next year. The advantages of buying from the App Store are mostly gone now. My confidence in the App Store, as a customer, has evaporated. I agree whole-heartedly with Marco on this. When the Mac App Store first came out, I began buying everything on it, and why not? It was great! I could sit down at any of my 4 Macs and instantly have access (well, with download times maybe not quite instantly - but easily) to all of my OS X software. I began to snug apps who weren't on the Mac App Store unless I absolutely needed them, such as SuperDuper!. And then, Apple had to rain on its own parade with Sandboxing and Entitlements. Now, I've had to purchase newer versions of several apps off of the Mac App Store because they've pulled out due to Apple's onerous restrictions that break core functionality of their apps. Apps that have been hampered by the Mac App Store that I rely on or are very popular: Textexpander, Alfred (which you cannot get from the MAS if you want to add-on their 'Powerpack' functionality due to the inability for in-app purchases), Hazel, SuperDuper!, Reflection, all of Atlassian's apps, Postbox. Myself, Manton Reece, Daniel Jalkut and others have been keeping a running list of articles on Pinboard about apps that have pulled out or have had updates rejected due to Sanboxing shenanigans. Someone at Apple who has the power to step in and reverse this poor direction Apple is currently taking with the Mac App Store had better do so soon, otherwise they are going to either doom the Mac App Store from being a long term success or lose years of progress while they recover from this bad decision years from now.

OS X Mountain Lion Review Roundup

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iTunes, App Store, iBookstore, and Mac App Store This morning, Apple released OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) on the Mac App Store, for $19.95. I have been using Mountain Lion since Beta 3 as a part of the OS X Developer Program. While there were a few bugs during the betas, as to be expected, the ones I noticed were all fixed by Apple by the time they released the GM Seed to developers a few weeks ago. Since then, the OS has been rock solid. There are lots of new features, many of which I think you'll appreciate. Rather than attempt to explain them to you myself, I wanted to list a few places where you can go read reviews of Mountain Lion written by the veteran reviewers themselves. First and foremost, I want to point out, that John Siracusa has once again written one of his famous OS X reviews (Web or Kindle) . John's review, which weighs in at 25,935 words, is the most in-depth review of all reviews. John has famously written epicly detailed reviews of OS X going on for over a decade now. His reviews are a must-read by die hard Apple users, so much so that Marco Arment has wrote a review of his review (which is quite funny to read).

Review Roundup

  1. John Siracusa - "OS X Mountain Lion" (Web or Kindle)
  2. John Gruber - "Mountain Lion"
  3. Jason Snell - "OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)"
  4. MG Siegler - "OS X Mountain Lion: Quick, Familiar, Cheap, And Drenched In iOS Goodness"
  5. Jim Dalrymple - "Apple Releases OS X Mountain Lion"
  6. Wayne Dixon - Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and ML Server via Web, Kindle
  7. Federico Viticci - "OS X Mountain Lion Review"
  8. Richard Gaywood - "OS X Mountain Lion: The TUAW Review"
  9. Shawn Blanc - "Mountain Lion and the Simplification of OS X"
  10. Harry McCracken - "Apple OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Review: The Mac's Lion Adventure Continues" While a lot of these reviews, or probably all, talk about the same topics, like me you may wish to read them all as I respect the views of each author and each author will have a different take on these features. Also, some reviewers will catch details that the others miss. I like to have a thorough understanding of the tools I use, so knowing as much as possible about OS X is desirable to me. I find that reading all of these reviews each year when new OS X versions come out gives me that knowledge.

Building And Dismantling The Windows Advantage

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Horace Dediu, at Asymco:

Considering the near future, it’s safe to expect a “parity” of iOS+OS X vs. Windows within one or two years. The install base may remain larger for some time longer but the sales rate of alternatives will swamp it in due course. The consequences are dire for Microsoft. The wiping out of any platform advantage around Windows will render it vulnerable to direct competition. This is not something it had to worry about before. Windows will have to compete not only for users, but for developer talent, investment by enterprises and the implicit goodwill it has had for more than a decade. It will, most importantly, have a psychological effect. Realizing that Windows is not a hegemony will unleash market forces that nobody can predict. Horace outlines why all of these things will happen, based on years of data going back to the 80's and current trend-lines in this article. Great analysis.

WWDC 2012 Rumor Roundup: iOS 6, Mountain Lion, iCloud and Macs

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Arnold Kim, at Macrumors:

With Apple appearing to have a full slate of announcements lined up for its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote on Monday, we're offering this roundup to summarize a number of the high-profile rumors that have been circulating ahead of the event. Arnold has done an excellent job of compiling together all of the rumors that have been floating around over the last several months. He does a good job laying out the more or less credible ones too. I for one am hoping for new Mac Pros, and an iOS 6 Beta… Happy Keynote Day everyone.

Mountain Lion: Hands On With Mail

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Dan Frakes, writing for Macworld on changes coming to Mail in Mountain Lion:

A VIP is any person you designate as being important enough to have their messages treated differently by Mail. You designate someone as a VIP by clicking the star icon to the left of the person's name in any incoming or sent message. You'll immediately notice that every message to or from that person now displays a star in message lists, making it easier to find those messages. In addition, when you designate a sender as a VIP, that person gets his or her own entry in a new VIPs section of Mail's Mailboxes sidebar. Click a VIP's name, and you get a list of all messages, across all mailboxes (including Sent and Trash), to or from that person. If like me, you use Mail exclusively, you'll want to read this article as it details all the gritty details of what's coming. Having been using the developer preview of Mountain Lion for 4 days already, I had not even noticed these changes yet.