Category Archives: Apple

Lot of Apple

The mailclient for OSX

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Another blog about my latest journey to find a mailclient for Apple’s OS X (Yosemite) which would work the way I want. I’m working for many years according to the “Inbox Zero” principle. Basically, keep your Inbox empty. Everything in the Inbox is something ‘to do’. This works beautiful for me, even with my > 6GB IMAP-mailbox where all my e-mail is stored. Archive what needs to be archived, delete mail which is not required to have (usually spam or server messages).

So, as you can imagine my mailclient should work fast and I love keybindings. Mail clients like Outlook used to be okay-ish for me, until I started to work with the Inbox Zero. Clicking, dragging and stuff wasn’t my thing. Plus Microsoft seems to have issues creating a reasonable search within e-mail. In short, searching sucked. Also the fact I started to use Linux as my desktop OS where I had to use WINE to start Outlook wasn’t working in Microsoft’s advantage to become my mail client. So, I started with several mail clients under Linux. From Evolution, Kmail to eventually Thunderbird. Up till last year, this was my preferred mail client.

Why change a winning concept you may think? Thunderbird works under Mac as good as under Linux (or Microsoft Windows if you please). Well, Thunderbird isn’t a nice looking client and you can fix that with themes, true.. but the worst part, it’s SOOOO slow, especially when using multiple (huge) IMAP-boxes . Even on my late 2013 Macbook Air (8GB RAM) it was just slow. When it was started, it was fine. Cleaning caches and not downloading all messages helped a bit, but still .. Also, since I tried out Apple Mail I got a big fan of the “Conversations” which Apple Mail has implemented very nice. Yes, there’s a plugin for that (Conversation) like there’s probably a plugin for everything. Though this particular plugin was really buggy and I had to switch back to ‘show in normal reader’ too much just to see attachments. So, time for a new mailclient.

Apple Mail is nice but has one major disadvantage. It doesn’t support multiple identities. I want to mail from “Bart” and in some other cases from “ZipZap Entertainment”. Apple Mail doesn’t do this if all mail comes into the same IMAP mailbox. On top of this, Apple Mail is even worse with big IMAP mailboxes.

Then I found this relatively new client “Mailbox“. This feels (and probably is) made for the “Inbox Zero” concept. Native support for Conversations and feels like a real Apple product. Biggest disadvantage, no IMAP support (what?). They only support iCloud (which I couldn’t get working) or Gmail. Pity.. Such a nice client with such big miss.

My quest continued and after some searching I found PostBox. Basically the speed and layout of Apple Mail with all the advantages of Thunderbird (multiple identities, signature support etc). After the 30 day trial I got addicted to this nifty piece of software. This actually makes my life (or my todo-list) easier. I can move messages to the correct archive automatically or manually using keyboard only. Really great piece of software and very fast. It literally has everything I want in a mail-client.

So, here’s the free commercial for them. They deserve it. It’s well worth the money and I bought it today (with 2 days left for trial). Yay Postbox!

Android vs Apple, again

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As open-minded as I try to stay and being a Linux-user for at least 15 years, it’s quite obvious that Android has my attention. Since I changed from Linux to Macintosh (first as a Hackintosh, later I actually got real Macbook) for my personal use, I shifted to Apple’s operating system and I’ve been using that as my primary operating system.

Going back in time, when I still mainly used Linux. I’ve used most operating systems on mobile (incl Windows mobile 6.5 back in the day and my favorite Symbian OS on the pretty SonyEricsson P1i. My contract ended so I got myself an Orange M3000 running Windows 6.5. Worst mistake ever (and possible worst phone ever made). I switched back to Symbian on a Nokia N91 (which was a neat phone) but eventually I went for an iPhone. The very first one (already outdated at the time, the iPhone 3G was there already). I played with it a lot but there was no integration between Linux and iPhones at the time. I had to run Virtualbox in order to jailbreak the iPhone to make it work. Then I read about the new Motorola Milestone coming out, running the latest Android (that was back in 2009). I got mine using import through Germany which gave my Milestone a German keyboard layout. Workable though. I think I was one of the first people in NL who had this phone which was a great phone in those times. It was also my first Android experience and all seemed well. But, I got annoyed. Motorola stopped updating the Milestone and using custom roms I had to get newer versions. All these versions had some issues, either battery drained too quick or crashing for incoming phone calls. All in all, I got really fed up and sold them Milestone to get an iPhone 3GS (which I still have today) which also started my journey to become an Apple user (Hackintosh -> Macbook).

So, here we are. 6 years and 2 generations of iPhone later (currently on iPhone 5). I’m completely converted into an Apple user having the Timecapsule at home, 2 Macbooks (my wife has one and myself), 1 powerbook, 1 powermac (see here) and even an iPad. All my music (well over 10000 songs legal) is distributed around my devices using iTunes Match and everything is okay.

Why this blog? Well, my mother-in-law was fed up with her LG E612 and I gave her an iPhone 4. A good chance for me to start playing again with Android just to see where they are now.

I rooted the device and installed the latest available Android on it, 4.4.4 (KitKat) apparently and, without simcard, started using it (yes Apple, without simcard)

But, it’s probably the phone, I’m not convinced. I do like the fact it has a native SIP-client in Android (which doesn’t work and only crashed the phone, probably related to the phone) and that it’s open (I can relatively easy install another ROM). But iOS on the iPhone feels so much more solid. Applications work decently and as a personal taste, the layout is by default not the most nice one I’ve ever seen. Yes, you can change it and that’s again the problem, there are too much layouts .. Application which don’t work are also something I don’t get. I mean, the OS is the same (despite version differences) but why does Zoiper refuse to play the audio to the normal speaker and are all my calls by default on speakerphone (can’t turn it off either). Tried different Android versions, all the same.. I mean, come on.. I want to use it as SIP-client to make private phone calls, not everybody should hear that..

So, in general, my opinion:

Pro’s Apple (which are con’s for Android)
– Software simply works. No bullshit. Works on all iPhones unless specified.
– iOS works equal on all phones factory default. Not this weird menu’s on different brands.
– iTunes Match works like a charm.
– integration with desktop is flawless. Answering phones on my macbook or iPad, awesome! Contacts synced without thinking, love it. Photos in the (private) cloud, yes! Messages are even synced. I can send text messages from my desktop.

Pro Android (cons for Apple)
– SIP-client
– Multiuser
– SD-cards just a a normal drive recognised.
– Access to the phone (ssh, fileserver)
– It’s a small Linux. Love it!
– Runs on multiple brands.

So, my perfect phone would be an Apple operating system with addition of a default SIP-client, multiuser and easier to access which will be integrated with my computer(s) as the current iOS is and with freedom of phone selection (for example, I would like something like a Samsung or HTC if it runs iOS).

I guess I should keep dreaming ..

MorphOS install

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Since I’m a big fan of Amiga’s, the MorphOS operating system got my attention since it runs on Apple’s PPC macs (so, Powermac, Powerbook, Mini’s etc). I thought to give it a try, so I did. I got me an old 350Mhz Powermac G4 (generously donated by my friend David) and I installed MorphOS 3.4 (back then that was the latest). My first try was using the CD-drive which is kinda hard if you have a Macbook Air and no CD-burner, but I reinstalled an old PC and could actually burn it. My second try was using an USB-boot. Lucky, MorphOS made a guide for this.

I recorded my first try (using a CD) and put it on youtube. Everything looked fine, but there was no audio. My final goal is to have a system which looks the same as the old Amiga, feels the same as an old Amiga, but doesn’t require (often brittle) hardware of 20 years old. Without audio, well.. that’s a big miss on an emulator.

I started to look around and came across a nice Powerbook G4 and according to the HWC-list it was a supported one! Awesome. I went to pick it up (it even included a new battery) and installed MorphOS. Guess what? Same problem! Apparently, this PowerBook 1,0 867Mhz doesn’t support audio (doh) while the 1Ghz model does. And ofcourse I had the 867Mhz version. Another useless Mac around (which is now running Debian btw).

Around Xmas we have this nice giveaway and I decided to donate my PowerMac G4 to one of the users at AmigaScene.nl so he could play with it and I left trying MorphOS for now.

Why are you making this blog then? Well.. Another person decided to give me another PowerMac G4:

kerstpakket2014

Here it is, on the right side. Also I got this nice Apple Cinema Display with the ADC-connector. The guy who donated me the PowerMac 3,5 decided to put in another video card without ADC-connector. So my new quest was to get either a videocard with ADC or a convertor. I decided to go for the latter so I can use the Display on other computers as well.

A few days later I found one (secondhand) for a decent price so installing could begin? No, the PowerMac didn’t have a harddisk and I recently threw away all my P-ATA harddisks >_<. Thanks to the nice people at Tweakers.net I got myself a few (free) P-ATA harddisks. I received them a few days ago and yesterday I found time to get this package together to make a working system. I also created a video for this at youtube.

It seems that the MorphOS 3.2 I’m trying to install is really slow (not sure where the problem is here). Also I can’t hear audio (could be because MorphOS doesn’t support audio out from the Internal speaker). It’s shouldn’t be a problem of the hardware. This PowerMac 3,5 has an 800Mhz CPU, 1.5GB of RAM, 160GB HDD and an ATI 128Mb videocard. In the next few days I’ll try to install the latest MorphOS and I’ll keep this website updated.

A Few Hours Later:

Since I created this post, I’ve been trying to get my old PowerBook G4 booting using USB and found out that the Open Firmware doesn’t actually like booting of a 8GB USB disk. I got it booting something, but it just didn’t continue. So, I cracked open my drawer and found an empty CD-recordable. Using my Windows 8.1 machine I burned the ISO to this disk and I went installing MorphOS 3.7.

Guess what, all problems disappeared AND I have sound. Even more surprising, I added an Airport compatible card (that’s what it said) and everything is working, even sound. Oddly enough, it somehow sees if something is connected on the mini-Jack in the back. Without anything connected, it doesn’t make sound. So, I plugged in an empty miniJack plug and sound is coming from the speaker in front of the Mac.

Obviously, I made a video because I’m proud to finally get MorphOS up & running! Now I’m gonna connect it to my home wlan-network (!) and start to make a ‘modern’ Amiga a-like system.