utility

Gimmesometune, despite the really stupid name, is a nice bit of donationware that fills a need for iTune users that want some control over itunes, but do not want to waste a lot of desktop estate (like the Apple mini-player does).



Gimmesometune has most of the function that the payware CoverSutra has, but lacks Growl support. However, Gimme gives you a nice player control in the menu bar, which is all I really wanted anyway...something small and innocuous to control iTunes while it’s minimized.

You can even use the Apple Remote Control to control your tunes and bring iTunes to the foreground when you have it running out back. Pretty slick, and it does not have to cost you a dime!

The only con I could find (besides lack of Growl notifications), is that Pathfinder Desktop users will find the display of the now-playing window erratic, but many other apps behave this way as well with pathfinder, so this should be no surprise.

To download and/or donate, go here: http://www.eternalstorms.at/gimmesometune

I don’t like to review, use, or purchase any Mac software utility over 10 bucks as a rule, but sometimes there is nothing else you can do. Entourage Email Archive X from Softhing is just such a case.

Entourage 2008 users on a Mac (and 2004 users as well) have gotten short-changed by both Microsoft and by Apple. There is very little development or support for an Entourage user who has to use this dumbed-down version of MS Outlook – a lot of suffering just because they are a Mac user and need something more then Apple Mail offers as a business-class email client.

Archiving older emails is one example. Entourage 2004/8 has no facility to speak of. Blog posts recommend manually dragging folders around, one by one, but in the case of my inbox, that would be plain nuts. I have a hard time keeping current mail sorted, let alone the old stuff. So I searched the web for something better until I found EEAX.

EEAX is about as simple as it gets to archive and backup your old mail. Just select the folders you want archived, the preferred format you want to archive in, and the destination directory. Boom, that’s it.



However, there is one catch. Most users will probably want to archive and delete the archived emails and attachments from their current inbox. This will give you a nice lightweight inbox to work with on a daily basis. In my case, I wanted to archive all the mail prior to Dec 31 2008 but retain the thousands of emails for safekeeping. I found no easy click for that! What you need to do is 1) run the archive, then 2) look at the archive log file, then 3) click the Move the Processes Emails to Entourage Trash icon (see below).



Well, I am sure there is some good programmatic reason for the workflow above, but this dumb user just can’t see it. However, it’s not a big deal once you know-know. The important thing for any utility is that it works. And this one does nicely, despite the high price tag of $30. But where else are you going to go for an Entourage 2008 utility? Not Microsoft, and not Apple.

EEAX (and other Softhing apps) can tried by going here: www.softhing.com