Using Apple Mail and Google Apps

I’m posting this because finding out how to do this was bloody hard and took WAY too long. It’s taken me HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS to work out how to do this – but I worked it out and now I come down from the mountain to share this information with you.

How To Set Up Multiple Domain Aliases For Google Apps using Apple Mail or another IMAP Client

If you are using Google Apps for your businesses and you have multiple domains that you have set up as domain aliases in Google Apps and you want to use an IMAP client such as Apple Mail to be able to send from each of those domain aliases – here is how you do it.

First you have to set up the domain aliases under Google Apps itself (Mail > Settings > Accounts > Add another email address you own), completed the MX record re-direction, etc. That’s the easy part (although, depending on how moronic your domain hosting provider is – such as Melbourne IT – it could take days to work out).

Now… Inside your IMAP client, where you fill out your account name and email address, just type in all of the email addresses you want to use, separated by commas. Click on the image to expand and see what I mean. Just use the main domain’s IMAP and SMTP gateway. These domain alias addresses will then appear in the FROM drop-down when you are composing a new message. EASY. But this took me HOURS and HOURS and HOURS to find an answer to. Hope it helps someone out there.

If you want to do the same thing on your iPhone, it’s even trickier because for some reason there is no comma on the keyboard when you are typing in the FROM address! You have to do it like this:

In the iPhone create an IMAP account, not a google account as it limits the fields you have access to. So this means use the “OTHER” option when setting up the new account. Set it up for your main email address (the address you us to sign-in with). Make sure that is working and that you can send e-mails properly.

Now, go into notepad on the iPhone and type in the emails that you want to use separated by commas. Be sure to start the list with the comma as well

i.e. ,me@maindomain.com, user@alias.com, user@alias2.com

Highlight everything and copy to the clipboard.

Now go back to your e-mail config and replace the contents of the address field with the info from the clipboard.

(source)

Microsoft? Yeah right.

I just watched the Microsoft "Courier" Tablet video on Gizmodo (see the bottom of this post if you haven’t seen it already) and it really looks amazing… until you realize that Microsoft has been making amazing looking futuristic videos for a decade and what have they delivered? Nada.

I was working at Microsoft back in 2000 when they came out with the infamous "Steve Masters" video. Check it out below.

Pretty impressive, huh? That was NINE YEARS AGO. And what does Microsoft have in the market that looks ANYTHING like that today?

You tell me.

So I’m sorry Microsoft. Deliver something cool, deliver on your vision just ONCE (outside of XBOX 360 of course, that *is* cool) and I might believe your futuristic videos again. But until then, why not be more like Apple and actually invest your energies into actually MAKING cool products instead of videos telling us how cool your products will be one day?

Here’s the Courier Tablet video if you haven’t already seen it:

Bionic Contact Lenses!

According to InventorsSpot.com – it’s called “A Twinkle in the Eye” and these lenses have been fabricated with an LED, a small radio chip and an antenna.The unit is powered wirelessly by the RF electrical signal and represents the start of research that could eventually lead to screens mounted onto contact lenses inside your eyes.

This reminds me of Vernor Vinge’s novel, RAINBOWS END which was set about 20 years into the future when everyone wore contact lenses that had the net and all sorts of augmented reality overlays. I did an interview with Vinge about it which you can listen to here. Sign me up for this shit NOW.

Newsgator / NetNewsWire

I’ve been using Google Reader as my default RSS reader for a few years and, like all Google server products, I love it. However I also like to use a clients for some of my services, such as mail and calendar, because they allow me a deeper level of customization of the user experience.

A few months ago I went looking for a Mac RSS client that would act as a front-end to Google Reader but I couldn’t find one. I ended up moving to NetNewsWire instead as an interim measure, exporting my Google Reader OPML. Unfortunately, though, the NNW iPhone client keeps crashing on me, so I had to use Google Reader on the iPhone – not a great experience either, because everytime I leave Reader to view a full post, then return to Reader, Safari refreshes all the feeds takes me back to page one, even if I’m on page ten!

Anyway, Newsgator CTO & Founder Greg Reinacker announced via email today that they are releasing new versions of all of their products (some today, some, like the iPhone client, soon), that will use Google Reader as the back-end. Great news! I’ve already upgraded my NetNewsWire Mac client. Thanks Greg!

Download the new versions here.

G’Day World #325 – Jonathan Oxer

This is the longer audio piece from my chat with Jonathan Oxer. Jonathan has an RFID chip embedded in his arm which he can use to operate electronic devices in his house. Why? Listen and find out. If you haven’t yet seen the video to go with it, it’s here.

Keep up to date with Jon’s experimentation on his blog.

As a result of all the media interest in his high-tech home, Jonathan is set to host a new TV show called SuperHouse which will go to air later this year. Check out www.superhouse.tv to find out more.

The music on today’s show is “Demon Seed” from the new Nine Inch Nails album “THE SLIP“, which is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license.

NIN encourage you to
remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc..

ROCK ON TRENT REZNOR!

The Slip