mac os x

Hope this helps someone - if you copy your old disk on to a new one when upgrading, and then have strange networking problems, uninstall Little Snitch and reboot. Of course, if you never had it installed, this tip probably won't help you! In particular, some applications could access the 'net, and others just sat and hung. Luckily I figured it out after just a couple minutes, or I would really have been leaving some head-shaped indentations in the desk...

So, my experiments with mutt continue. Incidentally, if you think that I'm crazy for using a cli email client in this day and age... Well, you're probably right. However, I'm crazy, but not alone, as the dearth of great email clients for Mac OS X is something that's been written about a lot. Anyway, that's a short way of saying that I think that mutt+"a whole bunch of utilities to add functionality to it" is a (at least somewhat) reasonable solution, given the alternatives.

Anyway, linsec.ca has probably the most info there is in one place on integrating mutt with OS X. I really like that lbdb gives me the capability to search the OS X addressbook, but I also wanted to the ability to add addresses directly from mutt. A little bit of dirty hackery with bash and osascript later, I have a working solution. This script assumes a working lbdb install, but beyond that, all you need to do is add the following line to your ~/.muttrc and place the attached script in your ~/bin directory. Then, press 'A' on any message in mutt.

So, I'm wavering between email clients yet again - giving the mutt+isync combination a try this time... Mutt's disconnected imap support is sadly lacking, and I've messed with offlineimap before, but found it a bit too fiddly. Anyway, I thought quicklook would be a nice way to view the many highly important images I often get in my email, as it pops up quickly, and doesn't require an application switch. A quick google scared up the 'qlmanage' utility, and I wrote a quick wrapper script to provide mutt with a 0 exit status instead of the 130 that qlmanage spits out. (ummm, whatever, apple) This prevents mutt from spitting out the 'press any key to continue' message and requiring an EXTRA KEYSTROKE. (picky, picky...) A little adjustment in ~/.mailcap, and away you go...

A while ago, I threatened to post this script, and then it slipped my mind, mostly because I switched to Gyazmail. At any rate, one of the most frustrating things about Mail.app to me was having to get out the mouse to switch between the inboxes of my various email accounts, especially once I got Mail Act-On working so nicely.