WideMail: Apple Mail Does Columns View Too

Sometimes Microsoft just seems to do things right. One such instance I can think up of is Outlook. If you have a wide screen then it makes much more sense to have a 2 column view rather than having 2 rows because it is much easier read an e-mail that is lengthy since you won't have to scroll through it.

On the mac side of life, however, Outlook isn't an option. You can only choose between Entourage (way too tardy and bloated), ThunderBird (has a lot of features but still lacks the light-weighted-ness that Apple Mail has) and Apple's very Mail. I prefer Mail as my regular e-mail client because as I've mentioned before, I love its to-do functionality, it's speed and Address Book integration.

Apple Mail however doesn't have this functionality, even though both the other competitors have it and you're pretty much stuck with 2 rows instead... or so I thought. Here's a cool little plug-in that can boost your productivity tremendously if you use Apple Mail to check your e-mail.

Dane Harnett was kind enough to write a plug-in that would put mail into column view for all those who have a wide screen monitor/laptop. It's called WideMail, and there are versions available for Apple Mail in Leopard and Apple Mail in Tiger.



Although a nifty installer is provided, you'll still have to have bit of tweaking to get the column to look exactly how you want it. But the good thing is that it's completely customizable to your taste through its very own dedicated preference pane. Neat huh?


Now all you need to do is open up Apple Mail and quickly read the e-mails without having to scroll up and down. If you're still having trouble with clearing your inbox, make sure you check out 10 ways on how to clear your inbox. This should help you get rid of all the e-mail in your inbox.

How to use Hotmail with Apple Mail

Update: If you're using HTTPMail with Leopard 10.5.6 - You'll have to upgrade to HTTPMail 1.53 for it to work! Click here to download HTTPMail 1.53. No wonder, my hotmail stopped working on Apple Mail after I upgraded to 10.5.6 =( ... But its all fixed now... =)

I absolutely love Apple Mail because of its simplicity and to an extent it's robustness (the To-Dos and Notes) and use it all the time when possible. I find that Entourage is a bit too bloated, and the same goes for Thunderbird. Plus, other applications don't have iCal integration, which is another application I have come to love. However, one big problem is that by default Apple Mail does not support Http accounts, so it's impossible to use mail if you use Hotmail or MSN (now apparently called Windows Live Mail). The solution was created by Daniel Parnell fit the bill. It's called HTTPMail. You can find it over at the Automagic Software downloads page.

Once you download and install the plugin, you should be good to go. Simple enough? Not really, it's Microsoft stuff, and as I've come to find out, Microsoft stuff isn't exactly simple. Yet. When I tried to send an e-mail through my Hotmail account in Leopard, I got an " *** -[NSURL initWithString:relativeToURL:]: nil string parameter" error. But, using Microsoft software for so long has taught me something - never give up. So I set out to find a solution, and finally after a couple of minutes of thinking I figured, it must be the URL, since the error had URL in it. Turns out, that you need to use some other URL to send the mail. The steps I took to solve the problem were as follows:

How to stop *** -[NSURL initWithString:relativeToURL:]: nil string parameter error

1. Open Mail
2. Click on Mail (in the menubar) > Preferences. Alternatively, you can press Cmd + , to open the preferences dialog
3. Click on Accounts and select your Hotmail Account
   
4. Where it says Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) click on the drop down menu. Then click Edit Server List...
5. Create a new entry as shown in the picture below. Make sure to use the server name oe.msn.msnmail.hotmail.com

1. Switch to the Advanced tab for a sec and make sure it says port 25
2. Then Click on OK
3. I recommend you check the box that says Use only this server under the Outgoing Mail Server drop down Box
4. Close the preferences dialog box. If you asks you if you want to save your settings, make sure you say save
5. Send your Mail (I'm guessing you already have mail in your outbox, or else you wouldn't know about the error) through the Hotmail (or whatever description you put in) server you just created.

Hopefully, you'll now be able to send your e-mails through Apple Mail. Now you'll be able to send and receive e-mails through your Hotmail account without having to use the inelegant web-mail interface.