Technology, Macs, the Internet and other matters

I don’t really use Apple Mail myself — these days I do all my email via the Gmail web interface. Plenty of people out there do use Mail.app, and may find the Take Control of Apple Mail in Leopard ebook useful:

You’ll learn how to use and customize the Mail window, control the size and styling of incoming messages, and make rules to move messages into different mailboxes automatically. The book covers outgoing mail, showing you smart ways to address messages, send attachments, and send HTML-based messages. But, that’s not all! You’ll also find advice about setting up accounts, solving account connection problems and other bug-a-boos, handling spam, managing attachments, making backups, searching, signatures, notes and to-do items, Data Detectors, and more.

Book Info: 95 pages; Published 13-May-08; 1.2 MB download; Free sample with Table of Contents, Introduction, Quick Start, and section starts. US$10.

I’ve bought and read other Take Control books before now, and they’ve always been well-written, well-produced and worth the cost.

Popularity: 2% [?]

SitePoint say:

Our Sensational Photoshop book is now FREE to Download!

That’s right! No catches, no samples. For a LIMITED TIME only, a COMPLETE COPY of Corrie Haffly’s Brilliant Photoshop Web primer is free to download.

[Mentioned on the Wise Women mailing list.]

By the way: the catch is that you must supply your email address, then they send you a download link. As I write, I’m in the middle of downloading the 63Mb, high resolution PDF, but there’s a smaller file available too.

Popularity: 8% [?]

I’ve recently been testing a web application that does some horrible things — for example, clicking what appears to be one link in a navigation bar sends (incomplete) information away as a final submission. There’s not even a warning. This behaviour should be changed before the application launches: I’ve lodged a bug report.

You have to wonder, though, how such a ‘bug’ could have arisen in the first place.

Today Rachel McAlpine talks about a real-world outcome of things being in unexpected places:

Yesterday Elsie arrived wearing her pants back to front. It didn’t stop any of her activities, including her Cinderella task of washing my kitchen floor. However, she couldn’t put her hands in her pockets and the pants looked funny.

Why this unaccustomed booboo by an experienced self-dresser?

The inside label, that scratchy bit of cloth with the manufacturer’s name (O’Neill), was at the front instead of the back. Like most people, Elsie knows the label goes in the back. It’s the main clue for figuring front from back.

Our usability makeover involved cutting off all traces of that label. And sometimes, features of design and content that foil online readers can be fixed just as easily.

[Via Contented: Usability: put things where expected.]

Popularity: 9% [?]