OSX mail.app is a really sweet desktop mail application with built in gmail support.

After using mine for about a year, it had become kinda slow – I didn’t really notice how slow until I tried this tip:

1. Close mail.app

2. Open terminal

3. Type the following in to terminal:

sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/Envelope\ Index

4. You should now have a sqlite prompt (sqlite>).

5. At the sqlite> prompt, type:
vacuum subjects;

6. After the prompt returns (may take a few seconds), you can Control-D to exit.

7. Restart mail – it should be noticeably faster!

This technique can be used to track user behavior, but just as easily can be used in a more targeted way to identify which banking sites or web mail a user has visited.

These browser privacy attacks are mostly preventable by logically partitioning the history and cache by domain name; so called same origin policy.

The simplest way to do this in firefox is using the SafeCache and SafeHistory browser extensions.

Rather than add my own waffle, I’ve decided to link to a few of the posts that I think really add some value to the day. Here goes:

1. Copyblogger: The butterfly effect. An eloquent and original essay demonstrating that seemingly trivial changes can make all the difference.

2. Google blog: Because Google actually did some really good stuff for the environment this year.

3. Lifehacker: For providing simple, practical and creative suggestions that can make a real difference.

4. Pick the brain: For beautifully summing it up in two simple steps.

If everyone could pick just one new habit from each of these lists, we’d all be making a world of difference.

The Truecrypt developers do have a Mac version in the pipeline, however today you can create mountable encrypted virtual disks using nothing more than OS X (10.3 and above).

Here’s how:

1. Go to Applications/Utilities, open Disk Utility, then select New Image
2. Give it a name, select a volume size and encryption method (AES-128 is a good choice)
3. Click Create, and you will be asked to provide a password for the volume.

HINT: Use something long and non-dictionary. I use phrases rather than single words, these are easier to remember, and harder to crack eg: 7SunnyDaysIs1SunnyWeek.

There is a simple way to change this behavior so that you can see, and edit htaccess files on mac OS X.

TinkerTool is a great little application that allows you to configure many many features of OS X that aren’t otherwise available through a GUI.

TinkerTool allows you to enable/disable the display of hidden and system files in the finder. Enabling this allows us to see and work with Apache htaccess files.

It is likely that you will want to reverse this change once you have finished working with htaccess, as the setting does add clutter to the finder and to the OS X desktop.

Today we’ve compiled a list of 13 iPhoto plugins designed to share your photos with others. Enjoy!

1. AOL Pictures plugin (FREE)
AOL pictures includes an iPhoto plugin which allows you to upload your photos directly from iPhoto up to AOL picures.

2. Photon blog plugin (FREE)
Photon allows you to export your iPhoto photos up to your blog.

3. Bubbleshare iPhoto plugin (FREE)
A simple iPhoto plugin to easily upload your photos from iPhoto to the Bubbleshare photo sharing site.

4. Facebook iPhoto plugin (FREE)
Isn’t the whole world turning to facebook? What a runaway success!
The Facebook plugin allows you to upload photos from iPhoto into existing facebook albums, or a new one. You can then add captions to the photos, and even tag which of your friends appear in each photo.

5. Flickr plugin from Connected Flow (Commercial)
If there is a most succesful photo sharing site so far, it has to be Flickr (although I hear facebook is catching up quickly).
This iPhoto plugin allows you to modify titles and descriptions, tag your phots and even create new photosets. Photos can also be added to existing photosets.

6. Gmail with iPhoto2gmail (FREE)
This iPhoto plugin allows you to quickly and easily email photos to friends and family, from wthin iPhoto using a gmail account.

7. Google Earth with iPhotoToGoogleEarth (FREE)
Very cool plugin that allows you to upload geotagged photos to Google Earth. You’ll need GPS information in your EXIF tags, but that doesn’t have to be done in your camera.

8. iStockPhoto iPhoto plugin (FREE)
iStockPhoto is a very useful stock photography site, this plugin allows photographers to batch upload photos to iStockphoto.

9. Kodak Easyshare with Ofoto Express for Mac (FREE)
Kodak provide this desktop tool to allow you to upload from iPhoto directly to Kodak Easyshare.

10. Picasa Web Albums Exporter (FREE)
Allows you to export directly from iPhoto up to Google Picasa Web Albums

11. Shutterfly iPhoto plugin (FREE)
Shutterfly does online photo printing and sharing, this free iPhoto plugin makes it easy to upload your photos.

12. Smugmug iPhoto plugin (FREE)
Smugmug is another online photo sharing service, they have a neat iPhoto plugin.

13. YPhoto Plugin for iPhoto from Yahoo! (FREE)
Lastly, Yahoo! Gallery now offers a free iPhoto plugin, making it easy to export your pictures to Yahoo! Gallery.

Did we miss an export plugin? Let us know….

It’s easy to get complacent with your shortcuts as a power user, and one of the very first questions the new users ask when starting to work with OS X is, where are the keyboard shortcuts?

Many quickly figure out that commands invoked with the CTRL key in windows, are often invoked using the APPLE key, in OS X.

For example:

1. Copy to clipboard, is APPLE – C
2. Cut to clipboard, is APPLE – X
3. Paste from clipboard, APPLE – V

Application control: We’re all familiar with the old CTRL-TAB, in Windows, well…

4. Switching between applications in OS X, similarly is, APPLE – TAB

But OS X has a lot to offer in terms of application control, let’s take a look at Expose:

Expose was introduced in Panther, and makes use of the function keys, f9 – f11. The best way to see how they work, is to give them a go:

5. f9, tiles all open windows
6. f10, tiles all windows of the current application
7. f11, clears all windows out of the way revealing the desktop.
8. Hitting the same key a second time, reverses the effect.

Additionally, there are a couple more application control shortcut keys that you really need to know:

9. APPLE – H, hides the current window (to get it back, click it’s dock icon, or use APPLE – TAB)

And finally, how do you force quit an application?
10. Well you can always CTRL-click it’s dock icon, and select force quit, or…
11. APPLE – ALT – ESC will bring up a force quit window, a little like task manager.

Hopefully these OS X tips will increase your productivity with your new mac / macbook.