Some people asked me to talk about how the switch to Apple is going.
I continue to get acclimated to the new Powerbook. I knew there would be new things to get use to. The navigation is a little different. I like Expose and how it manages multiple windows. I am really impressed with how the iLife products work so well with each other. My wife has already made her first movie and published it to the web.
I also knew I would have to sacrifice. There have been two casualties thus far. The first is my Oddpost mail. The service is only available for Internet Explorer. With that I lost a great web-based mail systems with a RSS aggregator.
The second loss is the Movable Type interface. I was really annoyed to find the tag buttons missing on the New Entry page of MT. I use those constantly. Again, the javascript that runs those buttons is only supported on IE.
The encouraging part is for every problem, I find a better solution on Apple. I use NetNewsWire for my RSS feeds. The interface is outstanding and I love the ability to group feeds in folders. For blogging, I am trying out Ecto. Ecto is a client that sits on your desktop and does more than I could ask for managing posts.
Still looking for a killer email program…
if you don’t need to see HTML email as HTML, I’d recommend Mailsmith as a mail client… http://www.mailsmith.com/
I definitely biased, but Eudora is simply the best combination of interface, power, and organization.
http://www.eudora.com
I always wonder what people find so lacking in Apple Mail.app that they would spend $ on something else. Especially mailsmith which not only doesn’t support html, but doesn’t support imap as well – $99 for that and an ugly interface? You’ve got to be kidding! I love BBedit, but…
In my experience, mail.app is snappy and flexible – what are the vital missing features?
Have a look here:
You should be able to find something that meets your needs, and that you’ll like!
I love apple’s mail app for a desktop client, and for a web client I couldn’t be happier with mailblocks.com. Check them out, a slick web interface, and I NEVER get spam thanks to them-
Why are you sacrificing. Internet Explorer is available and ships with the Powerbook. In my opinion Safari is much better, but you are not tied to it. Like Mark I also find that the mail.app is more than enough for my needs but your mileage may vary.
(trying again to get the link to show)
Have a look here:
http://www.applelinks.com/pm/more.php?id=814_0_1_0_M
You should be able to find something that meets your needs, and that you’ll like!
Regarding your search for an email program, have a look at PowerMail, by CTM Development. I’ve been using it for about five years now, and it gets better with every release. It combines power user features with a very good user interface. And searching is very fast, even with very large email databases.
http://www.ctmdev.com/
What’s wrong with Apple’s mail? Nothing much unless
A) you like to use rules to filter your email into folders
B) you have more than one email address
If both A and B are true Mail has a major flaw: it forgets which email account the mail belongs to. This is a major PITA. And, I might add, it is the ONLY mail client that allows multiple accounts and rules that does so.
As an aside, this is one of those “Switcher” issues that tends to come to the fore. “Oh, the Mac doesn’t have ‘insert-program-name-here’.”
The best example–since rectified–is QuickBooks. There are at least a half-dozen small-business accounting products for the Mac. But lots of people couldn’t use Macs because it didn’t have “QuickBooks”.
The “software-gap” between Macs and Windows is not as broad as most believe. While, yes, some of the “name brands” are not available, products which do the same thing–in some cases better–are.
Mail’s mailbox navigation is a mess, esp compared to Eudora. You’re dodging all over the keyboard to open mail. Eudora needs only the Spacebar.
I’m using it but not entirely happily.
I tried Apple’s mail program and didn’t really like it, but I have been using Eudora for several years now and I think it rocks. You can also use it for free by downloading it and running it in sponsored mode which displays a tiny ad. eudora.com.
Wow!
Thanks for all the feedback.
I’ll check all the recommendations. I still don’t think Mail is going to cut it for me.
Thanks again.
If your mail needs are modest Mozilla’s Thunderbird is nice and Free. Also, the Mozilla FoxFire browser is very very good; The best of a great field of mac OSX browsers.
Apple mail is nice enough; But I have had it disappear three times on two Macs. It also can develop an incurable double vision problem. All email is duplicated and you cannot just delete the duplicates. If none of these fairly common maladies overtake your install of Mail it is quite nice. Of course, much the same could be said of Windows XP.
An interesting mail client is Nixus Email. It is active from any application that allows you to enter text. But I don’t think it supports multiple accounts?
Roger
I have more than 10 years worth of email stored on Eudora. Searchable and retrievable reliably. All on text files too, in case Eudora development ceases and system updates make it unreliable.
It’s not as fast in searching as database-driven email programs like Entourage. But I’m sure my computer can search through text files pretty fast… 🙂
I like mail.app, and recommend it to my family/friends. But I wouldn’t trust it to reliably store 10-20 years of email.
I also prefer Eudora to Mail. Been using it for years, and I live by the filters.
My only qualm would be that it display HTML a little nicer. If they released a version that used Apple’s built-in HTML renderer, it would be just about perfect.
Thanks for the tip on Ecto. I think I’m really going to like it…
I like GNU Mail. I have a list of budget applications for Mac OS X which includes the link to GNU Mail. I found Eudora the most confusing program interaface I have ever seen and it is very hard for my parents and my grandma to use. OS X Mail is one of the few things that locked up my whole computer and there is no way to cancel it if it can’t access your server. Thunderbird locks up forever when you start it up. GNU Mail hardly ever crashes on me and is very fast. It is totally open source so it is completely free.
http://benjamin.huot.home.comcast.net/media/sw/mac/budget.html
David wrote:”What’s wrong with Apple’s mail? Nothing much unless A) you like to use rules to filter your email into folders B) you have more than one email address If both A and B are true Mail has a major flaw: it forgets which email account the mail belongs to. This is a major PITA. And, I might add, it is the ONLY mail client that allows multiple accounts and rules that does so.”
This is not true, since you can use specify what happens when an email is “To” such-and-such in the rules!