Crooked Spin

I decided today to switch all of my mailing lists over to a gmail account.  I wanted to consolidate them all into one incoming email address since I’m sick of replies bouncing due to an unsubscribed email address.  I figured I’d use gmail to let google pick up the tab and so I could use the searching capabilities if I ever need to. I quickly realized what a pain in the ass Apple’s mailing list site is to use.  I had to first unsubscribe to each list I’m on (about a dozen) by entering in the current email address (which I had to look up to verify which account each one was coming in on).  Then subscribe to the new one.  That had repeated for each one.  On top of that, lists.apple.com was running super slow today.  Was literally taking 45 seconds for each page to load.  Now I’m waiting for a subscribe and an unsubscribe email to process for each one.  Lots of fun.

What I’d love to see is an “account” page.  Let me log into the mailing list site once.  Create a profile.  Then simply check and uncheck a box next to each list to subscribe and unsubscribe.  A 30 minute exercise in tedium would be reduces to 30 seconds.  All I would have had to do today is change my profile’s email address. They could even tie it into my ADC account.  Although I would want to option to set an email address for the mailing lists that is separate from the mail ADC email address.  It’s time to make some of these simple everyday tasks easier then the outdated interfaces that have been used for the last 12 years.

Setting the default email client in Mail is a bit awkward for a new user.  The preference is in Mail, which is fine.  The problem is that Mail will not let you access the setting until it has been configured for an account.  On first launch, Mail prompts the user to enter their account info so that it can access the account.  If you cancel the wizard, Mail quits.  This forces the user to enter user info (fake or real) just to get to the preference that tells the system to use another client. 

While the consultant in me appreciates it =), it is daunting for someone who isn’t very computer savvy.  I recently had to configure a couple machines for AOL users that were completely loss by the process.  They didn’t know where to begin.  A way to set the default client without configuring Mail really needs to be added.  The easy way would be to allow the wizard to be canceled without Mail terminating.  Another (and possibly easier on a novice) would be to have an option on the first screen of the wizard to set the default instead of starting the configuration.

Congratulations go out to Dale and Kathleen on their engagement. Dale finally popped the question and Kathleen accepted. From Dale’s description, it sounds like he had a pretty good set-up and execution:
I was able to pull Kathleen away from work Wednesday when a good friend of ours called and invited us to her […]

Sam Kass has a really cool page of quartz composer compositions and plugins that he’s made. I’m definitely going to be spending a bunch of time playing with everything there.

Thanks go out to Bill Bumgarner for pointing the site out. Although I should be cursing him for getting “Take on me” by A-Ha! stuck in my head.