Junk Mail mode in Apple Mail
I lost my junk mail icon – how do I get it back to teach my inbox what is junk?
Mail menu > Preferences > Junk Mail
Set it to automatically Move it to the Junk mailbox, as opposed to what used to be called Training mode, which is now, in Leopard the Mark it as junk mail, but leave it in my Inbox setting.
But before you do, I would suggest leaving it in Training mode for a bit, and clicking the Junk/Not Junk button. In fact, one will initially need to train Apple Mail to recognize legit mail — newsletters and such — by clicking Not Junk.
I’ve always said a month, but that’s an arbitrary guess on my part, and is contingent on someone being vigilant about clicking the Junk/Not Junk button. Stay in Training mode until you are confident that it’s catching junk mail correctly by marking junk mail brown, and leaving non-junk along.
Make sure that you add any trusted correspondents to your address book (Message menu > Add Sender to Address Book (⌘⇧Y)) to prevent them from being mis-identified as spam.
Gmail, if you use it, and you should be using it, will catch most of the spam most of the time, but that’s how you deal with the rest.
Backup Address Book & iCal, and troubleshoot syncing
Just a quick note of instructions for Leopard.
1) Backup Address Book
File > Export > Address Book Archive …
Agree to the default file name, saving it with a date
2) Backup iCal
File > Backup iCal
Agree to the default file name, saving it with a date
3) Quit all applications on the iMac.
Then open iSync in Applications.
iSync menu > Reset Sync Data
Reboot
4) Let syncing happen. If it comes up with conflicts, review them, and choose the item in each conflict most likely to be accurate.
VirtualBox + Windows 7 Test Drive = smoothness
Just installed Sun’s virtualizer VirtualBox — a free, open-source alternative to Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion — and then created a virtual machine for the Test Drive of Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC).
VirtualBox is easily acquired and installed. Microsoft required a hotmail/live.com registration to download Windows 7 … I think I had a hotmail account back before Mr. Softee snatched ‘em, but despite my misgivings, I registered with my real address.
Anyway, I haven’t had a chance to dig into Windows, and I don’t have nearly enough Benadryl on hand for that anyway, but I am very pleased that VirtualBox installs and works basically as smoothly as either of its non-free competitors. I hope VMWare and Parallels have recouped their development costs for their products.
The Shipping News
From a review of a hard drive at newegg.com. S/he was done with listing Pros and Cons and then said this very helpful tip:
Other Thoughts: Here’s a suggestion for anyone buying a hard drive, go with FedEx, the express saver is the cheapest. I know it cost more than UPS and Newegg’s “free shipping” isn’t FedEx, but here’s the deal: I have bought over 30 hard drives (Western Digital and Seagate) through Newegg in the past 2 years, 100% of the ones shipped FedEx are still running, 80% of the ones shipped UPS were either DOA or failed within 6 months. UPS beats the He11 out of their shipments, even their website states that every package is subject to a 6 foot drop. Do the math, free shipping or cheaper UPS shipping isn’t free in the long run. I ship my non-fragile items with the free shipping, but I do a separate order and use FedEx for hard drives and motherboards.
A rare prediction
I’ve been reading books on the iPhone with the free Stanza application. And right after I heard about this excellent program, Amazon purchased Stanza, and the guess is that it intends to replace its own Kindle reader for iPhone with Stanza.
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed reading on the iPhone. Because one can change the font, the font size, the font color, the background color, and even the margins of the page, it’s an experience far superior to, say, reading an article on a web page in Mobile Safari.
While Amazon’s new version of the Kindle is selling way better than the original model, it now seems to me a fair bet that Apple has already been playing with this idea. And so, while I never like to try to guess Apple’s plans — and certainly never to bank on them — I’m going to officially throw in with all the folks who are assuming that Apple will announce some form of media tablet this summer. I think they’re even going to get into selling eBooks, although it would seem smart of them to get in bed with Amazon on that deal.
All of this gives me high hopes for the publishing industry, which has suffered greatly in recent years. I also hope that electronic distribution will save authors and publishers from the chains of the big book retailers such as Barnes & Ignoble and Borders, who have had a chokehold on the industry for too long. Unfortunately, small bookstores will get probably even more screwed in the process.
Should I apply the 10.5.7 combo update?
Just a brief note to all who are wondering if they should let Software Update install the latest Leopard update:
In general regard to software updates, I always find it easier to tell people, unless they are in a production environment where app failure might cost $$, to go ahead and download and install whatever updates come down the pike…
BUT! I keep one exception to that policy, and those are the big OS updates, i.e. going from 10.5 to 10.5.1 or 10.5.6 to 10.5.7.
When I am going to install a major update like that, I always go to Apple.com and download the “combo update” for that version. So today, for example, I did a Google search for “10.5.7 combo,” came up with this link. I went there, clicked “Download,” and let the big honkin’ 729MB file start its transfer.
Combo updates reinstall all of the updated files from, in this case, 10.5.1 through 10.5.7. This gives you a nice refresh of your OS — like an exfoliation — and can prevent a lot of the issues that some people report with updates.
(You will run a complete backup of your hard drive before you install any updates, now, won’t you?)
If you do want to know what problems people are having with a software update, and whether they might affect you, check out MacFixIt.com. One can scan them on the off chance that one of them might have an impact on one’s computing life.
