Click here to see the ifttt tasks

Click here to see the Mail Rule

This is kind of a stripped down version of Read It Later or Instapaper, but functions perfectly for my workflow.

Requirements

  • Apple Mail
  • Apple Safari (with Reading List Support)
  • ifttt Account

First I’ve set up actions in ifttt that forward Links I favorite in Twitter or Google Reader, to my personal Email and prepend the subject with “#ReadLater”. Next I constructed a Mail Rule that acts on all messages who’s subjects begin with said keyword. The Mail Rule will invoke the following Applescript, mark the message as read and move it to the trash.

using terms from application "Mail"
	on perform mail action with messages theSelectedMessages
		tell application "Mail"
			repeat with eachMessage in theSelectedMessages
				set mailbody to content of eachMessage
				set theUrl to paragraph 1 of mailbody
				tell application "Safari"
					add reading list item theUrl
				end tell
			end repeat
		end tell
	end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from

Use cases

  • Read newsfeeds on iPhone. Save longer or interesting articles for later by clicking the favorite star.
  • Interesting item pops up on twitter, but you don’t have time now to read the containing link right now.
  •  While walking in the street you see a URL you want to remember, just mail it to yourself with the appropriate keyword in the subject.

  • New Skype Beta for Mac
    Skype released a new Beta client for Mac OS X yesterday. The most important changes are:

    • Effortless search integrating the Mac AddressBook
    • Group Video calling has finally arrived on the Mac
    • New call control bar that let’s you monitor the most important infos about ongoing calls in a little overlay window
    • Completely revamped User Interface

    The UI part is what has the most impact from my point of view, so it’s probably best to watch the following little video that explains all of the updates:

  • Apple accepts App submissions to it’s upcoming Mac App Store
    Now it’s time to get your software App Store ready and submit them via iTunes Connect.
    The Mac App Store’s launch might be imminent.
  • Last.fm Kinect Application
    To be honest I didn’t pay much attention to Microsofts Kinect launch previously, but now a very funny blog post by Last.fm highlighted a few features of this interesting technology and introduced a Kinect application that can control your music.
  • Google Chrome gets a PDF viewer
    I really like using Google Chrome for all my browsing habits, since it’s fast and feels very light, compared to Firefox or  Safari. The only thing I really missed from Safari, was the ability to view PDF documents in the Browser without having to download them and start another application. Now the newest Google Chrome Beta version includes PDF viewing support. The feature will be implemented in the next stable update.
  • A funny little picture explaining what your phone says about you

    What your phone says about you

    What your phone says about you (click for larger version)

  • Myspace Accused Of Ripping Off Stealth Startup Pinterest
    This morning?Pinterest co-founders Ben Silberman, Paul Sciarra and Yashwanth Nelapati woke up to a barrage of?tweets,?So @myspace has completely ripped off @pinterest. It really pisses me off when an old, tired hack tries to undermine hardworking inovators. [sic]?Myspace revealed its new redesign last night and Pinterest users quickly picked up on the similarities between the two site aesthetics, leading to an?intense Twitter debate.
  • Sencha Takes On Flash With HTML5 Animator
    Sencha is making a big bet on HTML5. The company, which was formerly known as Ext JS, raised a hefty?$14 million round led by Sequoia Capital in June. Since then it has been perfecting its HTML5 framework Sencha Touch a framework that lets you build mobile web apps for iOS and Android that feel?almost native and are also cross-platform. And today, the company is adding another big addition to its product suite:?Sencha Animator.
  • Flickr takes a Twitter cue; introduces suggested friends and Facebook contacts
    Given that, from the start, Flickr was intended to be a social photo sharing platform, the latest move from the company comes as no surprise.
    According to the?Flickr blog, the site is introducing a People You May Know feature.
  • Apple holding “secret summit” with select iOS devs next week
    Business Insider is reporting that Apple is set to hold a?secret iOS developer summit next week. The event apparently begins next Tuesday and will run for three days. While Business Insider doesn’t have any firm details yet, they speculate that the purpose of the summit is to improve the quality of apps on iOS devices in order to stave off competition from Google’s Android App Store.
  • Google makes some design changes to Gmail in mobile Safari
    Googles Interface Design ChangesThe first change is a that scrolling now mimics the speed of your swiping on the screen, making longer messages easier to read through. The second change is that the toolbars within Gmail are now locked while you scroll (they used to appear after you were finished scrolling).

I just received this email from Google and I must say I’m applauding to their decision!

Dear Google Apps admin

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,
The Google Apps team

In short Google Docs & Google Sites will only support the following browsers from March 1st, 2010 (with Google Mail & Google Calendar following later that year):

  • Internet Explorer 7.0 and above
  • Firefox 3.0 and above
  • Google Chrome 4.0 and above
  • Safari 3.0 and above

Let’s hope this move creates enough momentum to get people to stop using those shitty old browsers that always give me hours (or even days) of headache, whenever I have to make sure a site is cross-browser compatible. I might even predict that this dreaded term of “cross browser compatibility” may soon be only a distant memory from the past, as all the latest browsers pretty much agree on how to render HTML and treat the DOM (and therefore JavaScript) 🙂

As much as I love the new Safari Beta Apple put out recently, there are a few problems which I’d like to point out.

  • GrowlMail – As nearly everybody should know by now, the new WebKit kind of breaks the GrowlMail plugin for showing previews of new incoming mails. As a result I uninstalled the plugin and now I’m using Mail.appetizer
  • Right click – I’m not entirely sure if this is indeed connected to the new Safari Beta, but since installing it, right clicking in most of my apps results in an application lockup for several seconds to minutes.
  • Top Sites – I frequent quite a few online forums and as a result of them showing up in the top sites, I can’t see the “Posts since last visit”, because the sites seem to be loading in the background whenever the Top Sites are visible. So if I don’t click on the sites each and every time, the forums still count it as a visit and I “loose” the newest posts. Now I try to keep my Top Sites free of any online forums. We’ll see if that works out.
  • WordPress Visual editor – A very annoying bug prevents me from adding links in WordPress’ visual post editor. The screen dims and the link overlay kind of displays but I can never click anything in it. Only remedy is to close the tab and reload it. I switched back to the HTML Editor on my blog now… 🙁
  • HTML Access Keys – I can’t use CTRL + S to submit HTML Forms that have the accesskey property set on their inputs. Kinda sucks for me, as I’m a total keyboard shortcut junkie.

That’s it for now, I’ll add to that as I encounter more.
(And yes, I also submitted those bugs to the Apple engineers as any good beta tester should do!)

[update:] There’s a fix for the GrowlMail problem. See comments for details!