Archive for June, 2010
Saturday, June 19th, 2010
As I've mentioned, I handle hundreds of messages per day for myself and my clients. I have separated my email from bulk email effectively now, but still found my computer sluggish.
The problem seemed to be around Apple Mail. I'm new to IMAP so I decided to dig deeper. I initially thought the issue was with Rules, as I have SpamSieve and many dozens of rules to deal with bulk email (things I might want to read but don't want in my InBox).
The problems turns out to be something else altogether:
Smart Mailboxes. Every time you get new mail your Smart Mailboxes folders update their unread counts: "Updating Smart Mailbox Unread Counts" is the message you will see in Mail's Activity Monitor.
Apple Mail
Smart Mailboxes
Spiking CPU
I have a lot of Smart Mailboxes (great feature, btw) which allow me to check how many leads each of my clients received this week and this year. At a glance, I can see how business is going (don't forget to weed out automated tests occasionally). Some of these mailboxes have many thousands of messages. Updating them takes a few seconds each.
These Smart Mailboxes get updated every time you get even one new email.
Normally I check my email manually only which means these updates don't happen very often and happen at a time when I'm working in Mail and am not surprised or bothered by 15 seconds of sluggishness. On the other hand, with my primary account as IMAP on IDLE that meant every time I received a single email all my spam filters and Smart Mailboxes updates ran each time. Given that even my primary email gets at least a couple of hundred emails per day, that's more workstops than I'm willing to put up with.
The simplest solution then would be to close Mail altogether when I'm not using it. This option doesn't appeal to me at all as I use Mail for reference and for writing messages even when I'm not checking for new messages.
- First issue: with IDLE checked (if it works, it often doesn't), you will get new message pushed to you like it or not. Turn off IDLE
- Second issue: make sure your general preferences are set to update only manually.
- Third, pray.
This will probably stop IMAP from updating automatically, making life much better again. At least when Mail is a background application.
Preferences checking for new mail manually in Apple Mail
If you click into Mail and start looking at IMAP messages for every unread message you read, the whole cycle of Smart Mailbox updates start again. There is the feeling of sluggishness.
That's the price of using IMAP in Apple Mail apparently. There is no solution I can find, apart from deleting all your Smart Mailboxes. Which makes Apple Mail no better than any other Mail client, albeit a little bit prettier.
I thought I had a solution here, but in the end but just found a problem. Not even prayer will help here.
What we need is a way to turn Smart Mailboxes on and off (I don't need them all the time, I just need them when I'm in the mood to do a bit of analysis). Deleting them all and recreating them is not really an option. It took me weeks to refine them.
One way of dealing with this would be to disable Spotlight (which would stop smart filtering) but that would mean no advanced search function, something I use everyday.
The only workable solution is an on and off option (probably in right click) for Smart Filters. Or even by each Smart Filter with right click. I don't expect that from Apple. But perhaps someone can find a hidden preference that we can use from the command line. Otherwise one has to go back to POP (not as much of an issue with POP as there seems to be a delay before the filters update).
Are there no heavy Mail users at Apple, who use Smart Filters in their work and use IMAP too?
By Alec
IT |
Friday, June 18th, 2010
Wordpress 3.0 is out, finally. No doubt, many good things under the hood. I particularly like that multiuser is now available. For once, the default theme is not visually embarrassing, although no doubt that will change once we've seen Twenty Ten a hundred times on splogs.
One bad thing, people's expectations that Wordpress 3.0 is:
- bug free
- compatible with current plugins
No way guys. There's no way that most popular plugins are ready for 3.0. So unless you are willing to go on a severe plugin and functionality diet, just forget about Wordpress 3.0 for a couple of months.
It's the same deal when Apple releases a new version of their OS (back in classic days or with OS X). You don't want 10.6.0 or 10.6.1 or even 10.6.2. Applications don't work and are incompatible. The sweet spot to move is the .4 or the .5 iteration.
Frankly, I'm still running 10.5.8 on my main computer and have had less headaches as a consequence. I'm about ready to move, as all my software now has Snow Leopard updates and all of the other workarounds have been published by those who love to live on the bleeding edge. Still I might skip 10.6 altogether though and move to 10.7 when it's ready. My girlfriend's Macbook is running 10.6 and the only thing I'm missing out on are the built-in scanner drivers (works great with our HP C3180, unlike HP's own software). Oh and Acorn 2, which is the best photo edit tool I've seen outside of Photoshop.
The crazy thing are greedy clients who want the latest and greatest before the paint is even dry. We just finished a huge Typepad to Wordpress move using our current plugin set (there's a fair amount of moving parts to make a T2WP conversion seamless) and one gentleman is clamouring for his free upgrade to Wordpress 3.0.
First we are not part of Wordpress incorporated (that's called Automattic). Second, he is running a media site and he needs all those plugins which haven't been even tested yet on Wordpress 3.0.
One step at a time.
Fortunately this time, Matt has promised to take some time off from developing core code and Wordpress will distribute their efforts to improving the Wordpress.org site and resources. A much better idea.
Normally this is where I’d say we’re about to start work on 3.1, but we’re actually not. We’re going to take a release cycle off to focus on all of the things around WordPress....so much of our effort has been focused on the core software it hasn’t left much time for anything else. Over the next three months we’re going to split into ninja/pirate teams focused on different areas of the around-WordPress experience, including the showcase, Codex, forums, profiles, update and compatibility APIs, theme directory, plugin directory, mailing lists, core plugins, wordcamp.org
We have more than enough functionality. Just keep the API's running clean and keep improving the invisible code.
Only one big disappointment: Foliovision is not yet on the list of contributors for core code. We'll have to settle for the best alternative WYSIWYG editor and best image publishing system on the Wordpress platform. We also have the best Wordpress comment moderation system and the best free Flash video player plugin for Wordpress. Well maybe that last is a dubious honour as Flash is on its last legs but lots of people love FV Flowplayer.
Thanks and congratulations to those who did make it and created the core of the latest Wordpress.
We'll be busy over the next couple of months getting all of our plugins up-to-date and compatible with 3.0. For our users, no worries, all of our current active plugins will be making the transition.
I thought it would be time to congratulate our former CTO John Godley but strangely John's not on the list yet either, despite having written the best set of plugins out there and now working for Automattic.
By Alec
WordPress |
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
After some analysis of Wordpress Javascript code, we were finally able to add autosave to Foliopress WYSIWYG, our WYSIWYG editor for Wordpress.
The new version number is 0.9.11, you can download it from its Wordpress.org plugin page.
Full list of new features are:
- Wordpress autosave support
- better Wordpress MU support
- HTML entities are not processed by default - keeping your accented characters unchanged
By Martin
WordPress |
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
If like me, you are an old Eudora hand, you probably used POP reliably for decades before moving to Apple Mail and the possibility of troublefree IMAP use.
Apple Mail Setup IMAP: To Take the Leap Or Not?
You’ve probably also heard horror stories of unsynced and lost email from those who took the jump to IMAP in the 90’s. You prefer the security of local mail on POP for the following reasons:
- your mail doesn’t spend much time on the cloud so there’s less possibility of it being read unless someone is actively tracking you
- what’s on your computer is getting backed up by you so you have physical control of the data
Now however you may have a Mac Mini, a Macbook, Macbook Pro 17” portable desktop, a Windows 7 netbook, a Nokia N97 mini smartphone with keyboard, an iPhone and an iPad as well as a photo studio Hackintosh. Or five of the above at any given time.
Making sure you always have local up to date email with you is a hassle (you may be doing it by carrying a FireWire boot drive with you everywhere, but that doesn’t work on the netbook or the Hackintosh or the iPhone or the iPad or your Nokia N97mini either.
Working with the web interface is getting old as it means going through the same email twice, once online and once locally to get everything put away in the right folders.
If like me, you have a lot of custom sorting routines built in to Apple Mail, you certainly don’t want to give up those two hundred odd handbuilt rules.
But have no fear. All is not lost, even for email power users. You can smoothly move to IMAP for your important mail. I receive at least 600 emails per day, not counting SPAM. So if I can successfully make the POP to IMAP move, so anyone can. Fortunately, the vast majority just need to be filed for future reference.
The first thing to do is to separate essential email from non-essential email. If you’ve been using throwaway addresses and forwards (which you should have been doing all along), make sure all of those extra addresses end up at an address like Leave that non-essential mail in POP where it will be sorted automatically as it comes in and put in all your custom local folders.
With your primary address, you will have a lot less mail to deal with. You likely have just two goals for incoming mail: Archive or Delete. I recommend you keep your IMAP structure quite simple. That’s been enough for me.
What I’d like to see again, I archive after reading, what I don’t want to see again I delete and what I haven’t dealt with yet stays in the inbox for the moment for when I get back to my main machine.
Of course that means I can’t deal with all the less important email when on the road. But that’s no problem. When I’m on other assignments I’m just as happy not to see all those newsletters and can go after the bulk mail when I’m particularly bloody minded.
Now enjoy being able to really work with your email on every machine you own. I recommend Thunderbird (now has a widescreen viewing option) on Windows and Apple Mail on Mac. Come home with your work done.
Every once in a while, I’d recommend moving your archived email to a local folder. That way not too much email stays online and you also have the security of local backup.
local and imap folders archive
IMAP will change your life for the better. Enjoy mail on all your mobile devices. Maintain sorting for bulk mail.
Now that the essential prep for the move is done, I will post the nitty gritty technical details of POP to IMAP transitions.
By Alec
IT |
