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iSync Plug-In MakerBack in 2007 Nokia started releasing iSync plugins. Also back in 2007 I read a similar Sony Ericsson announcment.

The slight difference: Nokia iSync plugins actually exist.

As every project needs a kick-off… here it is.

  • There is a great tool called iSync Plug-In Maker (it’s included in the Apple Developer Tools)
  • Apple already has many Sony Ericsson plugins included in iSync (so it’s easy to diff Apples plugins with the plugins you exported via iSync Plug-In Maker)

And finally:
We crafted a Sony Ericsson K800i plugin via the iSync Plug-In Maker. It’s 100% compatible to the plugin provided by Apple. As it is not possible to modify “exported” plugins via the iSync Plug-In Maker, we are providing the dot ppdoc “source” file here as a free download.

@ Sony Ericsson:
We’d provide more samples, but since we just have this old and shabby K800i we had no chance to througly test other plugins (but it looks like our K770i plugin works as expected, so far noone complained). Of course donations are very welcome. What about a nice new K850i? :-)

Maybe you should also add an iSync section at developer.sonyericsson.com where developers upload iSync plugins for your review (of course you should offer some incentive for uploading).

@ All:
Your welcome to modify the plugin and build plugins for new phones.

  • Probably the documentation at developer.sonyericsson.com (-> Docs & Tools -> Phone Specs -> Whitepapers) will be helpful (looking up SyncML specs etc).
  • Use the automated tests of iSync Plug-In Maker.
  • Have a look at the iSync plugin introduction at thetaoofmac.com
  • Read Apples iSync Plug-In Maker userguide.
  • If there already is support for a similar phone, use FileMerge (also included in Apples Developer Tools) to check for differences between your plugin and the existing plugin.

Of course donations are welcome, too 🙂 If you blog this article, please add ???U0UtaVN5bmMh??? (SE-iSync! base64 encoded) to your title and your tags. We???d like to track the spread of this article. If it spreads like hell, probably Sony Ericsson will more likely offer iSync plugins in the future 🙂

via open.source.mac

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gAppleMail
Today while playing around with the new Apple Mail’s IMAP IDLE feature (which still doesn’t quit work I think) I discovered an interesting bit in the Preferences window.
Apparently Google succeeded in placing a link to it’s own help page into the Accounts settings in Leopard’s Mail.app. If this is placed there by Apple or via an integrated feature that lets email providers include Help links there, is unknown to me.
But still interesting and quite clever!

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Apple Mail under OS X Leopard doesn’t support the GrowlMail Mailbundle which comes as an extra when installing the Growl notificaiton framework. Since I really missed that feature, that has been with me as long as I own a Mac, I searched around the WWW to find a solution.
Luckily there is a way:

  • Quit Apple Mail
  • Download the Growl .dmg from its website and install GrowlMail
  • Launch the Terminal
  • Enter the following two commands
    defaults write com.apple.mail EnableBundles -bool YES
    defaults write com.apple.mail BundleCompatibilityVersion -int 3
  • Start Apple Mail and enable the GrowlMail plugin
  • Be happy ever after 🙂

via: blimps are cool

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Wow, I guess I never got so many comments on one of my posts in such a short time. Thank you for participating and especially thank you for pointing out how to get rid of some of the points I listed in my previous post about Leopard quirks.

Here are the amendments:

  • Cmd+Shift+Tab still works – Apple merely removed the ability to cycle in the task switcher with the arrow keys. The other way still works the same. Thank you to all of the people who stated that!
  • Mounted network volumes on the Desktop – Those can be enabled in the Finder’s preferences under “General”. Thanks to John and Bruno Rodrigues for guiding me in the right direction.

Also re-read the previous post, I just added one more bullet concerning the iTunes Artwork screensaver.

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If you only remotely followed the spreading news around the net, you should already be aware of all the good things Apple’s new operating system brought us. So I’m just gonna sum up the few things that bug me the most.
Just let me state that besides those, I really love the new things OS 10.5 Leopard provides me with.

So here are my gripes:

  • Lack of Bluetooth in Address Book – Why the hell did Apple remove the ability to control my cell phone via Bluetooth from the Address Book application? I just loved being able to answer and place calls and most notably send and receive text messages via a very integrated GUI application. I hate typing messages on my phone keyboard, so this was a really nice addition and I just don’t understand why Apple considered this to be a feature that should be removed.
  • Cmd+Tab doesn’t cycle anymore – In all previous OS X versions, if you pressed Cmd+Tab to switch applications, you could go left and right. Meaning if you where at the first application icon on the left, pressing Cmd+Shift+Tab or Cmd+Tab and Left Arrow you where taken to the rightmost entry. This doesn’t happen anymore. The task switcher stops at the edges, which I find very inconvenient. Now it takes me a lot longer to reach the application I was aming for, most of the time.
  • Network mounts not showing up – This one is still a bit confusing. The new integration of network shares in the Finder is quite good and works very fast. But network shares do not show up as mounted volumes on the Desktop anymore. The only way to get to them and eject them, is by displaying the “Comuter” item in the finder and clicking on its icon. Alas, there are all my mounted network volumes. If Apple didn’t want to clutter up the Desktop, they could at least let those Volumes show up in the Finder sidebar, like mounted DMGs.
  • FrontRow stopping iTunes music – When entering FrontRow while playing music, it stops the playback and you have to navigate to the desired song again. Quite the show stopper when moving away from your computer but wanting to have a nice readable interface from the distance.
  • iTunes Artwork screensaver has a red tinge – If you set the iTunes Artwork screensaver to more than 6 rows, which is necessary for widescreen displays to get rid of the black border on the edges, all the pictures suddenly have a reddish tinge. This is confirmed on two separate installs of Leopard on my MacBook and Ollis’s MacBook Pro.

That’s it for now. I’ll add to this list, as items pop up 😉

Update: Already one more addition to the list: FrontRow stopping iTunes music
Update #2: iTunes Artwork screensaver has a red tinge
Update #3: Some quirks could be resolved via the comments (Thank you all!). Read my follow up posting.