MacOSX Flashback Trojan is covered by ClamAV

So called because it looks like an Adobe Flash Installer. There seems to be a ton of news around this Trojan on various Mac-related websites. http://www.tuaw.com/2011/10/19/trojan-variation-disables-mac-malware-protection/ for instance.

We wrote protection for this in ClamAV about 5 days ago.  I know a lot of Mac users run ClamAV, so I just thought I'd throw this out there.

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Please leave comments below.

Locking your screen on OSX

Friend of mine tipped me to this (thanks @englishlfc).  People have asked me in the past about this, basically, how to lock your screen (Start your screen saver) using a keyboard shortcut on OSX.

On Windows you can mash Windows-L and it will lock your screen.  Or Ctrl-alt-del, enter.  (God it pains me to watch people hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and then MOUSE to "Lock Screen"... GRR!!)

My solution in OSX has always been to set my bottom left corner of my screen to "activate screen saver".  Then I could just move my mouse to that corner, and viola, locked screen.

But @englishlfc was looking to the same thing with the keyboard, and there are a ton of ways of doing it in Applescript, but it's even easier with Automator.

So, go open Automator, and select new "Workflow".

You'll get a blank screen that looks like this:

Select "Utilities on the left, and then find "Start Screen Saver" in the next column:

Drag "Start Screen Saver" over to the right:

That's it.  Save it as an "Application" in Documents or Applications.

Then go to System Preferences and set up a Keyboard Shortcut to activate that App:

Simple.

I did it a bit differently.  I used Alfred's new "Global Keyboard Shortcut" functionality to activate the app.

Done.

Maybe this'll help someone.

Want to know how to do this in Applescript?

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Please leave comments below.

Mac OS X Lion iChat supports Yahoo Messenger video and voice chat

As the title of the article title states, Apple's OSX iChat client on OSX 7 Lion supports Yahoo Instant Messenger adding to support for AIM, GChat, and standard Jabber.

This is a welcome addition and stands to keep chipping away at the other major Instant Messenger clients, but, why is there two separate video chat clients for the Mac? (Facetime, iChat)

It would seem to me that it would make more sense to combine these two.

• Facetime traverses NAT (etc) better than iChat


• Facetime uses less bandwith


• Facetime is now "HD" (as Apple calls it), leaving the "quality" issue behind (iChat's resolution was better than Facetime, as Facetime is faster on the network)


• However, iChat does support up to 3 video calls at once (and like, 10 audio)

Anyway, I hope they fix this before OSX 7 is released finally.  I'd love to have one app that covered both IM and Mobile Video Chat.

Appleinsider has a great breakdown featuring some nice videos of OSX7 on their site here and here.  Check it out if you are an Apple user like me.

Other notable features of OSX7 I think:

• No Front Row


• Java runtime is not installed by default, it's a download now.


• Rosetta support (so support for running PowerPC apps on Intel machines) is gone.  Meaning that Apps should be smaller in size.


• Migration Assistant now supports helping Windows users move over to the Mac (smart)


• OSX Lion was given to a few researchers for review, so they can beat it up.  Very nice work.  I hope Apple rewards the researchers in some way.

Apple updates Anti-Malware file

Last year in August I wrote a post called "Snow Leopard is coming..." where I mentioned the XProtect.plist file.  This file protects and defends the OSX system against "downloader" trojans.  Ones that you receive via iChat, or download via Safari, Mail.. basically if you download the trojan to your system.

In the most recent update of Snow Leopard that came out last week (10.6.4), that I didn't cover, it seems Apple has updated the XProtect.plist file to include a new trojan named "HellRTS".

I guess this answers my original question, if they are going to keep it updated, am I am glad they are, however, I'd like to see them update it even more often than that, and of course include more things.  It's better than nothing, I suppose..  but I'd like to see more.

As of right now, there are a whole three trojans protected against in the XProtect file.

• OSX.RSPlug.A
• OSX.Iservice
• OSX.HellRTS

You can find this file in the:

/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/

directory.

This article by Sophos turned me onto the update, but I reposted without the conspiracy theories:

http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2010/06/18/apple-secretly-updates

iPhone 4

Yesterday Steve Jobs got up on stage and announced the new iPhone, iPhone 4.  It has a list of slick features, I'll write a couple, then an opinion or two about each.

1. FaceTime

Facetime is a new feature to the iPhone family.  It's basically, Video Calling.  Using the front or the back camera of the iPhone you can make a Video call with one another.  Right now FaceTime is limited to Wifi only, and Apple is going to work with the cell carriers to get their networks up to speed to allow FaceTime on 3G calling.

Opinion:  I think is a really neat innovation.  I can see a lot of use for this, however...  I have a feeling that no one will use it, it will be a pain in the ass for it to work, and it'll get bad press.  I am sure there will be ports to open on the firewall for it to work, and it won't work for $REASON.  I guess we'll find out, but overall I think this is really neat and I'd love to use it with my family, especially after my new baby is born.  It's also going to be an "Open Standard", so hopefully lots of people build this into their phones/apps.  iChat probably won't get it until 1o.7, and the iPad won't get a camera until Round 2.

2. Retina Display

The Retina Display is a higher resolution screen 960x640 at 326 dpi.  It seals the front glass to the LCD by lamination (I believe that's how it works) so it eliminates the "Depth" in between the front glass and the icons.

Opinion:  Cool.  Love me some higher resolution.  Not much bad you can say about that.

3. Multitasking

The iPhone 4 has Multitasking through the use of services (instead of full apps running in the background).

Opinion:  Cool.  About time.  I've been really, really content with using one app at a time, EXCEPT when I am using something like Instant Messenger, or where I need to go back and forth really quickly between apps, and the app I need to switch back and forth to doesn't remember where I was at the last time I used the app.  Really annoying.  So glad this is getting fixed.  I've occasionally wanted multitasking on the iPhone, but I've wanted it more on my iPad.

4. HD Video Recording

You can now record HD (720p) video on the iPhone with it's new 5 Megapixel camera, put it into iMovie (a new app for the iPhone) make your own home movies and send them out on the internet.

Opinion:  Good.  I've been very content with the camera that is in my iPhone 3GS, so a better camera is always welcome, however, I know once you record video on the 3GS and try and MMS it to someone, it can be annoying as shit waiting for the upload to take place.  I know uploading a video from the iPhone 4 to Youtube, unless some magic happens, especially on the processor side..  sending a 720p video somewhere is going to be awful and take forever.

5. Mail

Unified inbox, email threading, and multiple Exchange accounts

Opinion:  About time.  I've been just fine the way it has been, however, I'm glad they are making it better.  The unified inbox especially.

6. Folders

The ability to group your apps together in a single button.

Opinion:  Useful.  I'll definitely use it to group things like games and Productivity apps together.  I've tried not to put too many apps on my phone.  But I've met some people that have pages upon pages of apps and this will be good for them.

7. iBooks

The ability to read your iBooks that you've purchased for your iPad up until now, on your iPhone.  Also includes a PDF reader (also coming to the iPad).

Opinion:  Okay.  I think reading a book on that small of a screen will be difficult, but we'll see.  I really like reading on my iPad, but it's big.  I also like the fact that PDFs can now be in a native app.

8. Stainless Steel case design

It doubles as the antenna for the phone and it gives it rigid stability.

Opinion:  Great.  Especially if it reduces the amount of calls I drop.  Looking at you AT&T.

9. Glass front and back

It has black (or white) Glass on the front and back of the phone as faces.

Opinion:  Am I going to scratch the shit out of this thing?  My iPhone glass hasn't scratched yet, so I feel okay I guess.  Whereas the plastic black of my iPhone 3GS is scratch city.

10. Extra Microphone for Noise Cancellation

There is now a Microphone on the top of the phone to listen to ambient noise and cancel it out.

Opinion:  If it's as good as the Jawbone, AWESOME.

Things that are missing still:

• The ability to open a .ics file (Calendar invite) in Mail and add it to your calendar.  I mean, seriously?  It's not clear if iOS 4 will allow this, but we'll see.


• Note syncing OTA.  Really?  I still have to plug in my iPhone to my laptop to sync notes?  No thanks, I'll use Evernote.


• The ability for the "place" in a movie or song to auto-sync back to your actual library, through MobileMe, and down to other devices.  That way when I put down my laptop and pick up my iPad to watch the same movie, it's at the same place.

Twitter / Microsoft: Steve Ballmer not speaking ...

From Microsoft's official Twitter feed.

Told you so.

Twitter / Microsoft: Steve Ballmer not speaking ....

Day Two: No One Even Attempts Hacking Chrome at Pwn2Own Competition

Day Two: No One Even Attempts Hacking Chrome at Pwn2Own Competition - Google Chrome - Lifehacker.

Found this interesting.  I didn't make it to CanSecWest this year, but several of my friends did go to this event/competition.  While I did see that every other major browser was cracked on day one, (IE8, Firefox, and Safari) Chrome didn't even get  tried, apparently.

While Chrome does use the Webkit (safari) engine, Chrome starts each browser tab in a separate process which is in a 'sandbox'.

On the usability side, I've been using Chrome on the Mac since they opened up the dev channel for it, and I really like it.

iPhone universal inbox?

Julio Rodriguez, a fellow Apple user wrote Steve Jobs an email thanking Apple for their great customer service, and proclaiming his "life-long" customer status.

However, the interesting part for me came in the second paragraph where Julio ask Mr. Jobs:

I just have one question for you; will iPhone ever have a universal mailbox just like Mail has on my Mac?  It would be so much easier and efficient

Steve Jobs answered back in his typically terse answer form:

Yep.

Sent from my iPad

For a screenshot of the email (including headers), check it out here.

Inbox Zero is fail? Wrong.

Alyssa Gregory, blogger at sitepoint, clearly doesn't get it.

It = Inbox Zero, she says it can't be done.:

Merlin Mann, the de-facto creator of Inbox Zero offered a nice rebuttal, basically saying, "you clearly don't get it."

Then, Alyssa writes another post, basically saying "Uh, yeah, it still won't work."

Of course, this isn't my fight, it's Merlin's, however, as a devout follower of Inbox Zero, relying on it constantly as my day in and day out way of staying sane, I offered this rebuttal, which are basically my feelings about email.  (Which I doubt she'll post, but whatever.)  Here it is.

Merlin, you are still the man.

I believe you are still missing the point. The point in Inbox Zero is to become a “decider” and a “do-er” instead of an email processor. You receive email, you make a decision about it’s purpose, either A) Respond right now if it takes less than 2 minutes, B) If it takes longer than two minutes, Put it into a folder to reply later, C) Make a TODO to DO the thing that is in the email, and save the email, or D) Delete it.

Is the email that is sitting in my inbox right now, that I am staring at, actionable? Do I need to physically do something with the information that is front of me? Yes? Make to-do todo it, then DO it. No? Either file it, or delete it.
Follow this process until you hit ZERO emails in your inbox.
Then CLOSE your email. CLOSE it. And go DO the things that you made todo’s to, do.
Even if those todo’s involve answering the email that you put into a folder under “B", you need to DO them. Only check email about twice or three times a day, and you will be much more productive.
The point in Inbox zero is to process to ZERO, then CLOSE the inbox for the time being and GO CREATE. GO CREATE YOUR WORK BEING DONE.

Then, later, open it back up.

Things I wish about Email

Someone asked me:

"Joel,


I read your last post on Thunderbird and noticed you said [...] that you were "over client based email".  I use Thunderbird.  Why do you say that?  What don't you like about [...], client based applications?"  -- Yes I paraphrased.  But spelling is intact.

Mail.app
-- I would like the ability to shut off Spotlight indexing.  Meaning, I don't want Mail.app to download all of my Mail locally.  It's IMAP, that means keep it up in the cloud.  I don't want it here.  Also?  Very slow when dealing with Gmail.
-- I would like the "new" ability to "archive" an email with a keyboard shortcut.  In Thunderbird 3.0, I can mash the "a" key and the Email that is currently selected is archived.
-- Threading.  Threading is awful.  It works GREAT in Gmail, and is perhaps Gmail's best feature, bar none.
-- No way to bottom post.

Thunderbird
-- Same as Mail.app as far as the Spotlight indexing goes, except, I can shut it off in Thunderbird (awesome!).  But I don't want the client to download my email.  Period.  I want it kept in the cloud with no local copy.
-- Slow.  SLOW.
-- Threading, same as Mail.app, Threading sucks.  Again, Gmail has this down.
-- Too much CPU
-- Too much RAM.  (600 Megs?  Are you kidding me?)

Mutt
-- Slow
-- Can't open attachments, (yes, I know what you Mutt guys are going to say, but still, I would like the ability to just click (or tap a shortcut key) and open an attachment.  Not having to do a bunch of crazy nonsense to tie apps together.
-- Threading, I rather like the threading that Mutt has, and the customizability of Mutt beats everything else, bar none.

Outlook
-- Seriously, Outlook sucks.
-- Why am I including it here?
-- No way to bottom post
-- Inconsistant GUI
-- Slow
-- No way to bottom post.  Check out this fix (http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/outlook-quotefix/)
-- No addons
-- No archiving
-- PST size limits
-- Bad rule granularity.


I solicited feedback from Twitter, regarding the above, and these are the responses I got.

"Lack of keyboard for control wrt to moving from folder to folder.. GMail makes that very easy." -- @jasonish


"The difficulty in working with the OS address book - Thunderbird vs Windows 7 contacts comes to mind (complicates my iphone sync)"
-- @tomsellers


"haven't found one with a conversation view on par with gmail."
-- @jjarmoc


"1) Folders < Labels (ability to 'symlink' emails to multiple tags) 2) i use 3-4 devices to check mail 3)Gmail's thread handling"
-- @jamesjtucker

and in the interest of fairness.  I'll get on Gmail too.

Gmail
-- I want the ability to mark two conversations and make them thread together.  For instance, let's say there is a thread, then someone answers that thread, but the mail client for that person adds "UNCLASSIFIED" to the thread.  The Thread is then broken, visually, but it is still the same.  I want to be able to combine them.
-- Your IMAP implementation really sucks.  Bad.  Oh, and it's slow as hell too, almost artificially.  Seems like you really don't want people using any other email solution except for the web.
-- Drag and drop of attachments.  This should be possible in HTML5, or at least with Google Gears
-- Lack of Google Gears (and thusly, no offline gmail support) for Safari/Snow Leopard.  Can we get rid of Gears and be HTML5 compliant please?
-- Lack of Bottom Posting option.  No, addons through Greasemonkey do not count.  Want to really impress me?  Reformat an entire email (when I hit reply), to flip the thread around based upon indexing, (come on, you guys can figure that out), to read top to bottom.
Check this out Google.  Do THIS and all would be awesome -- http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/outlook-quotefix/
-- GPG/PGP support.  I don't use it, simply because it's a pain.  So I don't.  I probably would if I could.
-- The ability to filter on more headers.  Ideally, I'd love to be able to perform regex on headers.  Similar to procmail.
-- Label based signature blocks.  Or at least account based.





Please leave comments below.

Things I wish about Email

Someone asked me:

"Joel,


I read your last post on Thunderbird and noticed you said [...] that you were "over client based email".  I use Thunderbird.  Why do you say that?  What don't you like about [...], client based applications?"  -- Yes I paraphrased.  But spelling is intact.

Mail.app
-- I would like the ability to shut off Spotlight indexing.  Meaning, I don't want Mail.app to download all of my Mail locally.  It's IMAP, that means keep it up in the cloud.  I don't want it here.  Also?  Very slow when dealing with Gmail.
-- I would like the "new" ability to "archive" an email with a keyboard shortcut.  In Thunderbird 3.0, I can mash the "a" key and the Email that is currently selected is archived.
-- Threading.  Threading is awful.  It works GREAT in Gmail, and is perhaps Gmail's best feature, bar none.
-- No way to bottom post.

Thunderbird
-- Same as Mail.app as far as the Spotlight indexing goes, except, I can shut it off in Thunderbird (awesome!).  But I don't want the client to download my email.  Period.  I want it kept in the cloud with no local copy.
-- Slow.  SLOW.
-- Threading, same as Mail.app, Threading sucks.  Again, Gmail has this down.
-- Too much CPU
-- Too much RAM.  (600 Megs?  Are you kidding me?)

Mutt
-- Slow
-- Can't open attachments, (yes, I know what you Mutt guys are going to say, but still, I would like the ability to just click (or tap a shortcut key) and open an attachment.  Not having to do a bunch of crazy nonsense to tie apps together.
-- Threading, I rather like the threading that Mutt has, and the customizability of Mutt beats everything else, bar none.

Outlook
-- Seriously, Outlook sucks.
-- Why am I including it here?
-- No way to bottom post
-- Inconsistant GUI
-- Slow
-- No way to bottom post.  Check out this fix (http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/outlook-quotefix/)
-- No addons
-- No archiving
-- PST size limits
-- Bad rule granularity.

I solicited feedback from Twitter, regarding the above, and these are the responses I got.

"Lack of keyboard for control wrt to moving from folder to folder.. GMail makes that very easy." -- @jasonish


"The difficulty in working with the OS address book - Thunderbird vs Windows 7 contacts comes to mind (complicates my iphone sync)"
-- @tomsellers


"haven't found one with a conversation view on par with gmail."
-- @jjarmoc


"1) Folders < Labels (ability to 'symlink' emails to multiple tags) 2) i use 3-4 devices to check mail 3)Gmail's thread handling"
-- @jamesjtucker

and in the interest of fairness.  I'll get on Gmail too.

Gmail
-- I want the ability to mark two conversations and make them thread together.  For instance, let's say there is a thread, then someone answers that thread, but the mail client for that person adds "UNCLASSIFIED" to the thread.  The Thread is then broken, visually, but it is still the same.  I want to be able to combine them.
-- Your IMAP implementation really sucks.  Bad.  Oh, and it's slow as hell too, almost artificially.  Seems like you really don't want people using any other email solution except for the web.
-- Drag and drop of attachments.  This should be possible in HTML5, or at least with Google Gears
-- Lack of Google Gears (and thusly, no offline gmail support) for Safari/Snow Leopard.  Can we get rid of Gears and be HTML5 compliant please?
-- Lack of Bottom Posting option.  No, addons through Greasemonkey do not count.  Want to really impress me?  Reformat an entire email (when I hit reply), to flip the thread around based upon indexing, (come on, you guys can figure that out), to read top to bottom.
Check this out Google.  Do THIS and all would be awesome -- http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/outlook-quotefix/
-- GPG/PGP support.  I don't use it, simply because it's a pain.  So I don't.  I probably would if I could.
-- The ability to filter on more headers.  Ideally, I'd love to be able to perform regex on headers.  Similar to procmail.
-- Label based signature blocks.  Or at least account based.

Google Chrome for the Mac has reached Beta

Happy to see this, because I know several friends of mine have been working on this in the background at Google, and what a good job they have been doing as well.  I have visions of these guys in dimly lit rooms sitting around keyboards, their faces awash in the white glow of XCode, furiously figuring out the bugs and features to put into the Mac version of Chrome.  Okay, enough of that visual.  (you know, keyboards surrounded by cans upon cans of Mountain Dew...)

This morning Google released the Beta version (this is as opposed to the Alpha version that I talked about here) of Google Chrome for the Mac.  (and Linux as well..)  The biggest thing that I noticed that it supported was that it imported all my bookmarks from Safari for me.  Switching to Google Chrome was like,  basically a kid waiting to be put in the big game in school.  Standing on the side lines, sometimes used, sometimes not.  Safari being my primary resource for anything web-related.  Now, with full pads on, helmet in hand, my Quarterback for surfing the information superhighway is now Google Chrome.   I've handed the playbook of imported bookmarks over to Google Chrome, and my new browser has taken the field.

It's quick, it's stable, and each tab launches in it's own process, or thread.  This is priceless, as a crash in one tab does not mean the whole browser will die.  Just that tab.  Well, that's the theory anyway.

Give it a shot.

http://www.google.com/chrome?platform=mac&hl=en

Please leave comments below.

Apple Tablet (To be called Slate?)

For those of you that have been living under a rock for the past year, you probably have not heard the rumor that Apple is supposedly making a "Tablet" Computing device.

The first really, kind of, official note about that came out today by way of a speech given by the New York Times.


Bill Keller speaks to the digital group at The New York Times from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

It happens at 8:30 in the speech.





Please leave comments below.

Apple Tablet (To be called Slate?)

For those of you that have been living under a rock for the past year, you probably have not heard the rumor that Apple is supposedly making a "Tablet" Computing device.

The first really, kind of, official note about that came out today by way of a speech given by the New York Times.


Bill Keller speaks to the digital group at The New York Times from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

It happens at 8:30 in the speech.





Please leave comments below.

Google Chrome for the Mac released

Kinda.

Google released a "developer preview" of Google Chrome for the Mac finally.  Actually, you've been able to get a hold of it for awhile, but the copy that you could get, from Google, was essentially the developer developer preview.  It worked, but only in some areas.  I was using that for a long while, and I was quite happy with it.  But Friday of last week, Google finally put out a version of the browser that is a bit more..  "working".

You can grab it here.  I've been using it as my default browser since Friday exclusively, and it's been operating great so far.  The features that I appreciate the most about the browser, for some reason, is the "tabs on top" (considering Chrome is essentially a hopped up version of Webkit (Apple's open sourced 'Safari' browser that they use for development)), and the fact that each tab runs in its own process.  Which means if one tab crashes, the whole tab doesn't crash.  Which I appreciate a lot.

It's super fast when conducting Javascript type applications.  Google Docs, Gmail, Gcal, etc.  I can definitely appreciate the speed when it comes to my Gmail since I have over 7 Gigs of email, the ability to search through that and have it render quickly is a major plus.

Safari was my default browser before this, and while it's also very fast, when comparing the two browsers against Firefox, Firefox, unfortunately doesn't hold a candle, as far as speed goes, on the Mac.  So if speed is your thing, try out Chrome/Safari.


Please leave comments below.

Some New Apple stuff

Like every other retailer getting ready for the Holiday season this year, Apple, on the back of the biggest Quarter in Apple history, which saw their stock jump almost 10 dollars in one day, announced a few new products into the pipeline yesterday.  Let me just share a couple thoughts on these and then we'll move on to more interesting things.

1.  New iMac's with 21.5" and 27" displays.  While I don't have an iMac, my parents do, and I think it's a great platform.  All that in a 27" form factor is nice.
2.  Magic Mouse, the "world's first multitouch mouse".  Apple did away with the trackball, made the mouse a bit more rectangular (rather than the oval shape of the mighty mouse), got rid of the side buttons, and put multitouch gestures on the mouse.  Two finger swipe, scrolling in 360 degrees with just a finger.  Similar to the trackpad on the laptops.  Pretty cool I guess.
3.  Updated White Macbook.  Made it LED display, locked the battery in, made it "rounder".  (Even though that's not a word).  Now it looks like a true UFO.
4.  Updated Mac Mini, even a version with two 500GB Harddrives and Snow Leopard Server. (This is interesting here!)

Overall, underwhelming, I mean, from the 10,000 foot view, a couple of updates and a new mouse.  Of course I don't know what we expect Apple to come out with now-a-days.  Maybe we expect more from a company that invented the iPod and the iPhone.  I think the Mouse is cool, but the big one for me was the Mac Mini update.

Putting Snow Leopard server on it, as kind of a "home" server type of appliance, that's an interesting play, and I'd like to see what they are going to do with that technology being in the home.  


Please leave comments below.

Some New Apple stuff

Like every other retailer getting ready for the Holiday season this year, Apple, on the back of the biggest Quarter in Apple history, which saw their stock jump almost 10 dollars in one day, announced a few new products into the pipeline yesterday.  Let me just share a couple thoughts on these and then we'll move on to more interesting things.

1.  New iMac's with 21.5" and 27" displays.  While I don't have an iMac, my parents do, and I think it's a great platform.  All that in a 27" form factor is nice.
2.  Magic Mouse, the "world's first multitouch mouse".  Apple did away with the trackball, made the mouse a bit more rectangular (rather than the oval shape of the mighty mouse), got rid of the side buttons, and put multitouch gestures on the mouse.  Two finger swipe, scrolling in 360 degrees with just a finger.  Similar to the trackpad on the laptops.  Pretty cool I guess.
3.  Updated White Macbook.  Made it LED display, locked the battery in, made it "rounder".  (Even though that's not a word).  Now it looks like a true UFO.
4.  Updated Mac Mini, even a version with two 500GB Harddrives and Snow Leopard Server. (This is interesting here!)

Overall, underwhelming, I mean, from the 10,000 foot view, a couple of updates and a new mouse.  Of course I don't know what we expect Apple to come out with now-a-days.  Maybe we expect more from a company that invented the iPod and the iPhone.  I think the Mouse is cool, but the big one for me was the Mac Mini update.

Putting Snow Leopard server on it, as kind of a "home" server type of appliance, that's an interesting play, and I'd like to see what they are going to do with that technology being in the home.  


Please leave comments below.

Tungle Makes Cross-Calendar Scheduling Simple

This is a great idea.

Tungle Makes Cross-Calendar Scheduling Simple [Calendars]

via Lifehacker by Jason Fitzpatrick on 9/30/09

If you're looking for a web-based application for scheduling meetings, you'll find no shortage. Want that application to sync to common calendar applications like Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCal? Prior to Tungle you were out of luck.
Tungle combines the best features of a variety of calendar syncing and meeting scheduling tools and rolls them all into one. With Tungle you can quickly jump from your existing calendar application to sending invites to your team members, checking their calendars even if you all use different applications, and optimizing everyone's schedule for the best meeting times. Check out the demonstration video below to see Tungle in action:



Tungle is a free service and is accessible by the Tungle site, an iPhone app, a Firefox plugin for Google Calendar, and a variety of apps for various social calendars.

Tungle [via Mashable]

Tungle Makes Cross-Calendar Scheduling Simple

This is a great idea.

Tungle Makes Cross-Calendar Scheduling Simple [Calendars]

via Lifehacker by Jason Fitzpatrick on 9/30/09

If you're looking for a web-based application for scheduling meetings, you'll find no shortage. Want that application to sync to common calendar applications like Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCal? Prior to Tungle you were out of luck.
Tungle combines the best features of a variety of calendar syncing and meeting scheduling tools and rolls them all into one. With Tungle you can quickly jump from your existing calendar application to sending invites to your team members, checking their calendars even if you all use different applications, and optimizing everyone's schedule for the best meeting times. Check out the demonstration video below to see Tungle in action:



Tungle is a free service and is accessible by the Tungle site, an iPhone app, a Firefox plugin for Google Calendar, and a variety of apps for various social calendars.

Tungle [via Mashable]

Why I haven't been talking about Email

I received an email recently asking me why I haven't blogged (really at all) about email recently. This person enjoys my tips, and actually, the most read articles on my blog are about Email.  However, I think it's because I have it figured out now.

I use Gmail on the web.  No local client.  (This is probably the biggest saver!  Deleting my local mail from my computer saved me about 6 Gigs of space.)
I use keyboard shortcuts and the "To" and "Cc" indicators (The little >> and > signs)
All listservers skip the inbox and go straight to their labels.
All "bulk" email (twitter and facebook notifications, marketing emails, advertisements, special deals on Hertz rental cars, etc) is tagged as "Bulk" and skips the inbox.

For the periodic "checking" of email I use Google's Notifier application.  (http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/notifier_mac.html)  Where I have shut off the sounds, and shut off the popups.

This also has the added benefit of working with my Google Calendar, where I DO have pop-ups enabled to remind me of stuff.

I process email to Inbox Zero everytime.
To flag emails I use the little stars.
To make To-Do's I use Omnifocus.  This has the added benefit of, you know, in case Gmail goes down (as it has recently a couple times), your "To-Dos" aren't managed by your Inbox.

This has made my email process so efficient, I don't have to waste time screwing around with how to make it "Better".

I thought about using tags to flag things as "To-Do" or "Important" or "Needs to be done" or something.  But I don't want to mess with my system.  It works.





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