Mr. Wagner should remember that Mail, like most email clients, has a "Delete" command. On the other hand, I would guess that he opens and reads every piece of junk mail he gets and every article and every ad in the newspaper, as well.

In all seriousness, this is a vexing problem, but it requires intelligence--"wetware"--more than software. There are lots of approaches one can consider. (If Mr. Wagner doesn't do at least some of these, he should quit his job because he's incompetent.)

1. Don't publish your "real" email address. Create an email address on Yahoo, gmail, etc. to use on non-secure websites. For heaven's sake, don't publish your email address on your own website. (There are ways to allow people to mail you without making the address accessible to "bots." Be stingy giving out your real/personal email address.

2. Get and use an advanced spam filter. Mail has one, but there are others that might work better for him.

3. Change your email address periodically. This can be a PITA, but it helps.

4. Don't sign up for newsletters, etc. (Want to bet that he's signed up for lots of newsletters and other services that automatically send him stuff?)

5. Set up rules in Mail or other clients to move emails you know that you want to a special mailbox. You can filter them based upon sender (e.g., it would be good to have your boss on that list!), subject, etc.

and so on.

As for, "E-mail should be plain text, and only plain text," I agree, for the most part, though some HTML email is useful. What Mr. Wagner should remember is that Leopard Mail is one of the LAST email clients to offer/allow posting HTML email. He should be beating Microsoft about the head and shoulders for the stuff they put into Outlook, which is used by MANY more people than Mail. Apple probably added the ability to send HTML email to Mail because users asked for it.

As for the notes and to-do's, I haven't used Leopard, so I can't comment on those, directly. However, I have this sneaking suspicion that this has something to do with the iPhone, as much as Leopard directly.

Mail rules and smart folders do all of what he complains is missing since tiger.

Mail is far from perfect, but Apple cant be expected to filter my or his mail based on material better than I can, but at least they have given me than tools, that i have taken the time to learn how to use, to allow me to do do just that.

Maybe Mr. Wagner could do the same

Mail's junk filtering is pretty good. To make it better I use gmail for my email address. Google has a junk mail filter. So, I in effect have two junk filters working. Also, I have an email address specifically for signing up for sites and services. My personal email address is used only for personal contacts. I hardly ever get junk mail in my personal email address using that system.

There is one thing Mail doesn't do, which most other email program do. It is annoying. Namely: in most mail programs you can click on an email and it will pop open in a separate window. YOu then can advance through your email by hitting an arrow on the open email message Window. When you open an email in Mail, you have to actually close the message, and select another email to see the next email message.

Plain text emails can be just as ugly as HTML versions.

• No paragraph breaks where appropriate.
  
• Numerous forward quotes
  
• All lower case
  
• All upper case
  

At least the stationery in Mail is decent looking and isn't the magenta colored comic sans on a cyan colored page kind of stuff we usually get.

Much as I enjoyed gslusher's e-mail and its implication that I am a retard, in fact I was specifically *not* talking about spam. Mr. gslusher can be forgiven for missing the subtle clues, such as where I said I was not talking about spam.

Mitch Wagner

<steps_up_onto_soap_box>
I think the new mail app sucks! Not only the Mail app, either!

Why...

To "delete" any file - such a "Slime Posing As Messages" S.P.A.M. - I can no longer just click on it or command all if there are a few and hit delete. With no changes to any of my prefs (and even after a bit of experimentation) there is NO easy way to get rid of this C.R.A.P.

The SPAM filter worked great in 10.4.10 but now all of my SPAM shows up the main window and I must say - I have a big enough "one" and I have plenty of Rolex knockoffs and I met all the old girlfriends from High School Class reunion I want to meet and I really do not need any Windows software - no matter how cheap! - lovely stuff.

I really do not like green eggs and spam!

As far as I am concerned Leopard has been a major disappointment and I have been an early adopter since the Lisa! One problem after another! TNTL (too numerous to list) for the non-military initiated.

This OS update SUCKS... It wasn't even ready to come out of Alpha, much less Beta! What is this crap that you cannot designate more than one HD for Time machine! That is a pure load of BS.

Yo - Apple - many folks have hard drives bigger than 250 megs! So, distributed backup (er, Time Machining) would be great! Why do I need to designate what I feel is not important enough to save? If it is on MY computer, it is important to me!

Are you listening Apple! Or you even care anymore?

</steps_down_from_soap_box>

Quote

Anonymous wrote:
Much as I enjoyed gslusher's e-mail and its implication that I am a retard, in fact I was specifically *not* talking about spam. Mr. gslusher can be forgiven for missing the subtle clues, such as where I said I was not talking about spam.

Mitch Wagner

I read that. However, all the steps I listed apply generally, not just to "spam" (unsolicited commercial email). In a sense, any email you don't want is like spam. You can teach the better spam filters (e.g., SpamSieve) to also filter out other, non-commercial emails. (Thinking that spam filters are only for spam is thinking too narrowly.) Have you written rules for Mail to selectively filter your incoming email for messages you want or don't want?

If you use a POP account, you can get software that will go onto the account and get the headers, so you can delete the emails on the server. There's an elderly shareware application PopMonitor that might work with Leopard. A newer, but apparently less refined application is MyPopBarrier. I use POPmonitor, but have not tried MyPopBarrier. POPmonitor can filter emails, though the filters are fairly simple.

Your article implied that Apple should "do something" about the huge email volume you get, but you didn't address ways one can do that with tools that are already available. It also sounded like you think that software to do what, as I said, would probably require wetware.

Ask yourself this: do you want someone in the US Postal Service automatically sorting out which mail you get and which you don't get or would you rather do that yourself? I get mail from several sources that is sometimes junk but sometimes is important. Also, what is junk to me might be very important to someone else. The same applies to email.

Also, where did I say that you were a "retard"? (Your use of that term, by the way, is grossly insensitive; "retard" is a derisive, sneering word in the same vein as the "n" word. If you wouldn't use the "n" word, don't use "retard.") I said that, if you don't do at least some of the steps I mentioned, you're incompetent to do your job, which is writing about technology. Incompetent does not equate to "retard"--and notice the "IF."

Not that I don't believe you, but I am not experiencing the problems you describe in Leopard Mail:

1. I can highlight a message in a mailbox/folder and hit the delete key to delete it.
   
2. I can select several emails using Command-click and hit the delete key to delete them.
   
3. Most of of the spam is sent to the spam folder, some slips through, but my Panther spam rules carried over.
   
4. The mail rules I created under Panther work to move messages to special folders
   
5. The scripts I wrote under Panther to forward certain types of spam to appropriate reporting agencies work.

The only Mail problem/bug I have is that the Smaller-Larger type buttons do not work when composing a new message. The keyboard commands work to changed type size, the size under the font menu works. The buttons work when reading a message or replying to a message, they just don't work when creating a new message. I reported this item via the "Provide Mail Feedback" which is under the Mail menu.

Quote

YankInOz wrote:
I think the new mail app sucks! Not oly the Mail app, either!
Why...
To "delete" any file - such a "Slime Posing As Messages" S.P.A.M. - I can no longer just click on it or command all if there are a few and hit delete. With no changes to any of my prefs (and even after a bit of experimentation) there is NO easy way to get rid of this C.R.A.P.

The SPAM filter worked great in 10.4.10 but now all of my SPAM shows up the main window and I must say - I have a big enough "one" and I have plenty of Rolex knockoffs and I met all the old girlfriends from High School Class reunion I want to meet and I really do not need any Windows software - no matter how cheap! - lovely stuff.

I really do not like green eggs and spam!

As far as I am concerned Leopard has been a major disappointment and I have been an early adopter since the Lisa! One problem after another! TNTL (too numerous to list) for the non-military initiated.

This OS update SUCKS... It wasn't even ready to come out of Alpha, much less Beta!

Are you listening Apple! Or you even care anymore?

Quote

Guest wrote:
Much as I enjoyed gslusher's e-mail and its implication that I am a retard, in fact I was specifically *not* talking about spam. Mr. gslusher can be forgiven for missing the subtle clues, such as where I said I was not talking about spam.

Mitch Wagner

I officially declare "it's on". Here's the call from ringside...

Round 1. gslusher hits with the retard jab. Wagner pops back with "illiterate".

Quote

Bosco wrote:

Quote

Guest wrote:
Much as I enjoyed gslusher's e-mail and its implication that I am a retard, in fact I was specifically *not* talking about spam. Mr. gslusher can be forgiven for missing the subtle clues, such as where I said I was not talking about spam.

Mitch Wagner

I officially declare "it's on". Here's the call from ringside...

Round 1. gslusher hits with the retard jab. Wagner pops back with "illiterate".

As they said after the infamous Mike Tyson v Evander Holyfield boxing match; "It's the byte of the century!"

Same here. Umm, what's the beef?

Quote

Sir Harry Flashman wrote:
Not that I don't believe you, but I am not experiencing the problems you describe in Leopard Mail:

1. I can highlight a message in a mailbox/folder and hit the delete key to delete it.
   
2. I can select several emails using Command-click and hit the delete key to delete them.
   
3. Most of of the spam is sent to the spam folder, some slips through, but my Panther spam rules carried over.
   
4. The mail rules I created under Panther work to move messages to special folders
   
5. The scripts I wrote under Panther to forward certain types of spam to appropriate reporting agencies work.

The only Mail problem/bug I have is that the Smaller-Larger type buttons do not work when composing a new message. The keyboard commands work to changed type size, the size under the font menu works. The buttons work when reading a message or replying to a message, they just don't work when creating a new message. I reported this item via the &quot;Provide Mail Feedback&quot; which is under the Mail menu.

Quote

YankInOz wrote:
I think the new mail app sucks! Not oly the Mail app, either!
Why...
To &quot;delete&quot; any file - such a &quot;Slime Posing As Messages&quot; S.P.A.M. - I can no longer just click on it or command all if there are a few and hit delete. With no changes to any of my prefs (and even after a bit of experimentation) there is NO easy way to get rid of this C.R.A.P.

The SPAM filter worked great in 10.4.10 but now all of my SPAM shows up the main window and I must say - I have a big enough &quot;one&quot; and I have plenty of Rolex knockoffs and I met all the old girlfriends from High School Class reunion I want to meet and I really do not need any Windows software - no matter how cheap! - lovely stuff.

I really do not like green eggs and spam!

As far as I am concerned Leopard has been a major disappointment and I have been an early adopter since the Lisa! One problem after another! TNTL (too numerous to list) for the non-military initiated.

This OS update SUCKS... It wasn't even ready to come out of Alpha, much less Beta!

Are you listening Apple! Or you even care anymore?

Quote

Sir Harry Flashman wrote:

Quote

Bosco wrote:

Quote

Guest wrote:
Much as I enjoyed gslusher's e-mail and its implication that I am a retard, in fact I was specifically *not* talking about spam. Mr. gslusher can be forgiven for missing the subtle clues, such as where I said I was not talking about spam.

Mitch Wagner

I officially declare "it's on". Here's the call from ringside...

Round 1. gslusher hits with the retard jab. Wagner pops back with "illiterate".

As they said after the infamous Mike Tyson v Evander Holyfield boxing match; "It's the byte of the century!"

Ah, but it takes two. I wrote all I had to say--twice. That's more than enough. I'll leave it in Bosco's capable hands. At least, then, there's a possibility of a guilty chuckle.

LOL. You are a little inconsistent. You quote retard, but abbreviate nigger. Shouldn't you be saying, the "r" word? Moreover, is there really a big difference between calling somebody incompetent and retarded? Both are insulting and refer to one lacking abilities.

Quote

gslusher wrote:
Also, where did I say that you were a &quot;retard&quot;? (Your use of that term, by the way, is grossly insensitive; &quot;retard&quot; is a derisive, sneering word in the same vein as the &quot;n&quot; word. If you wouldn't use the &quot;n&quot; word, don't use &quot;retard.&quot;) I said that, if you don't do at least some of the steps I mentioned, you're incompetent to do your job, which is writing about technology. Incompetent does not equate to &quot;retard&quot;--and notice the &quot;IF.&quot;

Quote

Terrin wrote:
LOL. You are a little inconsistent. You quote retard, but abbreviate nigger. Shouldn't you be saying, the "r" word? Moreover, is there really a big difference between calling somebody incompetent and retarded? Both are insulting and refer to one lacking abilities.

Notice that I put his term in what are called scare quotes. You are probably aware of this usage, but, from the Guide to Punctuation from the University of Sussex:

Quote

Quotation marks used in this way are informally called scare quotes. Scare quotes are quotation marks placed around a word or phrase from which you, the writer, wish to distance yourself because you consider that word or phrase to be odd or inappropriate for some reason. Possibly you regard it as too colloquial for formal writing; possibly you think it's unfamiliar or mysterious; possibly you consider it to be inaccurate or misleading; possibly you believe it's just plain wrong.

Yes, there is a big difference, one that I shouldn't have to explain to you. Incompetence can refer to one's ability to do a particular task: I am incompetent as a musician, for example. That's far different from calling some a "retard" (note the scare quotes, again). For one thing, incompetence may be remedied through study, practice, training, and perseverance. (On the other hand, I could never be a competent musician.) Using "retard" as an epithet is making fun of people who have learning disabilities.

Educators don't use "retarded" anymore because it's too broad and it implies a clear-cut dichotomy, when, in truth, there is a wide range of abilities covering many areas of learning and development. Instead, they try to figure out what a particular person's abilities and difficulties are and develop educational programs that are appropriate for the individual. I've taught riding to people from age 5 to over 60, including several with diagnosed learning disabilities. I've tried to tailor my teaching to the individual, as well.

It's also worth noting that Mr. Wagner used an all-too-common rhetorical trick of putting words in someone else's mouth (or keyboard, as it were). It's a trick often used by politicians to distort, confuse, and mislead in order to score a point. For example, Al Gore never said that he "invented the Internet." He said that he helped get it started, which he did in Congress.