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As any person who frequently uses email will tell you, email signatures are very important as they usually provide more information than just a standard name and email address from the sender. You can spice up an email signature since Mail offers support for HTML signatures. If you are fairly comfortable with getting your feet wet with HTML & CSS, they are a snap to create. Read on for how you can make one!

A Note on iPhone Support

This how-to is written specifically for Apple’s Mail in OS X. Also, these signatures will display on an iPhone, but currently there is no method (aside from jailbreaking) to support these signatures on outgoing emails originating from an iPhone. Depending on the amount of content in your email signature, you may need to further tweak the CSS to get something that looks the way you want it to. For those who have already jailbroken their phone, look forward to an upcoming article on how to accomplish these signatures on your iPhone.

Let’s Get Started

Here is a quick example of what we will be creating.

For this how-to, you will need Mail, Safari and some type of HTML editor; my preference is Coda. Our email signature is simply an HTML page with some CSS styling. The code for mine is included below.

<style>
#sig a:link{color: #690;}
#sig a:visited{color: #690;}
#sig a:hover{color: #690;}
</style>
<div id="sig" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust:none;line-height: 14px; margin: 6px 0; padding: 8px; border-top: 1px #999 dotted; border-bottom: 1px #999 dotted; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif; font-size: 10px; color: #555;" >

<strong style="color: #690;">Chris Ryan</strong> Blogger, Designer, Thinker & Nerd
web: <a href="http://www.theappleblog.com" style="color: #690; text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 1px #999999 dotted;">theappleblog.com</a> email: <a href="mailto:chris@theappleblog.com" style="color: #690; text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 1px #999 dotted;">chris@theappleblog.com</a></div>

Copy this code (tweaked for your own purposes) into a new HTML document and save it as signature.html. Now open this file in Safari and inspect it to ensure that everything is correct as you would like it to appear in the bottom of your emails. Be sure and click the links to make sure they work correctly as well (and link to your content and not mine!).

If everything looks good, then go to File and pick “Save As” and save the file as a .webarchive. This is the same format that Mail uses to save your signature files.

Our next step is to go into Mail and create a new blank signature. This is found under the Mail menu and by clicking on Preferences. In the Signatures tab, you can click the plus icon to add a new signature. By default, Mail will pre-populate this signature with your name and email address. What has really happened is Mail has created a new .webarchive file with that signature content. We’re going to replace it with the file we created earlier.

Close the Signature window and quit Mail (changes should be saved automatically). Now go to your home folder and then open the Library folder. Inside you will find a Mail folder and inside of that, yet another folder called, you guessed it, Signatures (Home ? Library ? Mail ? Signatures). Inside of here are the .webarchive files for your signatures. If the signature you created above was the very first one, there should only be one file in here. If you already have multiple existing signatures, you can double click these files and use Safari to inspect their contents.

Locate the file that matches the simple new email signature we just saw in Mail. With the icon selected, press return as if you were going to change the file name. When the file name highlights, copy this to the clipboard (Command + C) and press return again to switch out of file renaming mode.

Go back to the desktop where you saved the .webarchive of your signature file and rename it using the filename you copied to the clipboard. You should now have a file with a very cryptic filename (such as “AAD4FDB4-8AE3-49F2-8079-161E16525CC0.webarchive”).

Now, drag this file back into the Signatures folder and Finder will alert you that it wants to overwrite this existing file. Click “Replace” to accept and when the transfer is complete, your Signature should be ready to go.

Launch Mail and go back to your preferences to verify the new signature is showing up. If you have multiple email accounts setup within Mail, make sure you drag the signature to the appropriate email accounts.

Create a new message and viola! Your new signature is there (or if you do not have them turned on by default, they are accessible from the Signature menu in the upper right area of a new email message window).

One Last Word On Coding

One special piece to note about the example code above is the usage of -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; which overrides the iPhone’s default attempts to re-scale the signature. This was essential in making my signature look best on the iPhone. Again, with the amount of content you have in your signature, you may need to play around with the CSS to get something that displays the way you want when you view your sent or received messages on the iPhone.

Depending on your comfort level with CSS, you can tweak the signature a bit more and even add a small picture. Some HTML based email browsers, like Yahoo or Gmail, will not display this picture by default though. There are other solutions to this, such as using Data URLs to represent your picture and for more information on that, check out this how-to.

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Recently, David tee’d up a great article about migrating from Aperture to iPhoto. And iPhoto is a great photo management application — it’s easy to use and extremely powerful. But the problem (for me at least) comes when trying to archive photos. I try to keep about 16 months worth of photos at any given time, but unfortunately because iPhoto stores everything in a tidy library file (rather than several individual ones), it doesn’t support this sort of backup.

So what happens when you want to incrementally back-up your iPhoto photographs? Although problems ensue, there are some ways to work around them.

The Problem

On one hand, it’s ideal to have a single mega iPhoto library where everything is stored. The downside of course, is that it quickly grows out of control — I get that. So I’ve taken to naming my iPhoto library files ‘monthyear-monthyear.’ (That way I can go back to that range of time and see how much hair I had. Ah, those were the days!) The problem arises if and when you want to only backup a portion of the current iPhoto library, and retain the rest locally. I’ve used a couple solutions, none of which are anywhere near as user friendly as everything else in iPhoto.

Some Sorta Solutions

One way to manage this scenario, is to select all the photos to backup from your current iPhoto library, and drag them to a temporary folder (say, on your Desktop). Now open the backup iPhoto library and drag all of those photos over to their new backup home. The first, and most obvious, issue is that this is a manual task. (I attempted an Automator workflow, but selecting images by time frame didn’t work.) Regular backup programs do everything on their own, so why would I want to do this by hand? The other issue is that the metadata, like facial recognition, has not always transferred accurately (for me at least).

You could opt to view the package contents of the iPhoto library file (right click the library for this option), and do a stare and compare, again, manually dragging all folders and files from the local library to the backup library. This is both more robust in transferring metadata accurately, and more time consuming. The downside is that you’re messing with some important data structures, and could potentially hose your backup (or local) library if you miss something.

I suppose the most obvious is just to get over my own desires to carry a rolling 16 month libray of photos. If I can get past this, then I could just backup the library each calendar year, and start from scratch each time. My issue with this is then I have no immediate access to my photos from even a few weeks ago, depending on the timing of that transition. So now all those images are unavailable to load to my iPhone, and show off at the drop of a hat. Bummer.

A Disappointing Verdict

There doesn’t seem to be an ideal solution to this dilemma. Worse yet, as you try to view older iPhoto libraries (assuming you keep up to date with the latest iLife updates) you then have to go through upgrading them prior to viewing. It would be great to see iPhoto given the ability to backup to a Vault type solution as Aperture boasts — but perhaps that’s just one of the ‘Pro’ features you’re paying for (unlike Faces and Places).

I’m hopeful that some of our sly readers have some great solutions to share that may solve this annoying problem. If you fit this description, please share!

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Days after releasing an update to iTunes that blocked the Palm Pre from syncing, Apple has ended another dispute concerning iTunes, this time by settling.

Last November, Apple began issuing cease-and-desist letters to Odioworks, which runs Bluwiki, a public wiki. In this case, people were publishing decompiled code from iTunesDB, the library file that stores music and playlist information for an iTunes user. The goal was simple: Make Apple devices interoperable with other media applications, like Songbird.

Apple asserted this was a violation of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, raising the possibility of legal action. In response, Bluwiki took down the pages and sought legal assistance. The Electronic Frontier Foundation took the case and Odioworks v. Apple was born.

Today, it died, though what ultimately killed the lawsuit is up for debate. If you believe Apple’s letter (PDF), it was because the technology was rendered moot. Apple had “stopped utilizing the code in question,” thus publishing the code was “no longer of any harm or benefit to anyone.” A less charitable interpretation might be that Apple’s legal maneuverings had successfully prevented open discussion, at least at Bluwiki, until changes were made to iTunes.

The problem is that what Apple did was wrong. The DMCA explicitly allows reverse engineering for “analyzing those elements of the programs that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs.” It’s anti-competitive behavior like this that makes appropriate action like stopping the Pre hack seem less so.

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The fear of freedom that Zengobi’s Curio offers users has caused me to write and rewrite this post many times over the past few months. I just haven’t known how best to embody its essence. So before I confuse (and frighten) myself more, I’m kicking this post off with my conclusion of Curio: It’s the ideal place to marry disparate pieces of information. Or more accurately, disparate pieces of information, each of which are organized in their own way — think Visio-style drawings, mind mappings, spreadsheets, outlines, etc. Curio is flexible enough to use for just about any data gathering or task organizing that you may be facing.

What Curio is Not

There are many applications on the market that fulfill fairly singular functions. XMind allows you to capture Mind Maps. Keynote helps you create great slides for presentations. Microsoft Office products like Word and Excel assist with creating somewhat formal collections of information. Quicktime can capture video.

Well, Curio is not any one of these things. Just the opposite, it’s all of these tools (and more) in a single package. At this point the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none” may be flitting through your mind. But while Curio doesn’t master the features of all of the aforementioned specialized applications, it certainly does a great job of handling the important functions of each — and then melding them together for a seamless user experience.

Features as Far as the Eye Can See

Covering all of Curio’s features and capabilities is better suited for a book, not a blog. But since I’m writing for TheAppleBlog, and not publishing my own book (or one for Zengobi — unless they’re hiring), I’ll just hit the most compelling points from this vast product.

Knowledge Base – Thinking of a Curio file as a Legal Pad may be a good place to begin. This Legal Pad contains all kinds of information you may want to keep track of — drag anything you want into Curio, create diagrams, record audio or video to embed into your document, snap images with your iSight or take screen grabs. And the list goes on. All of this information is flag-able, tag-able and searchable for later use. I’ve considered (though haven’t had the chance to try yet) using Curio in professional training courses to capture notes in a contextual manner.

Library – All of your content is kept in the Curio Library. So even if you’ve brought something into a Curio file and decided not to use it there, it can be stored in the Library for later use. This is a great way to keep important information available across all of your files.

Project Management/Task Tracking – Who knew Curio could function as a Project Manager? It’s no Microsoft Project, but you can certainly create tasks out of your Legal Pad notes. Those tasks can be assigned priorities and due dates. And then all of it can be tracked from within the Status view of Curio.

Flashlight – The systemwide search capability built directly into Curio is Flashlight…like Spotlight in OS X. This gives users a super simple and quick way to find anything to drag into your Legal Pad and associate with something you’re currently working on.

Sleuth – System files aren’t all you can grab, either. Sleuth is the built-in browser that allows you to search all kinds of web media and sites for things you may need to incorporate into your Legal Pad. Once you find what you want, drag the content of the search results, or the URL, into Curio’s workspace and do what you like with it.

Presentations – Because the content of your Curio file may be so diverse, converting it into a Keynote file for presentation may turn into a minor migraine headache. So why bother? Curio has its own presentation mode, which allows you to take full advantage of all the content you may have included in your notes (whether it be text, images, web links or movies).

Evernote – The go-anywhere note-taking solution (it’s great on the iPhone!) is integrated right into Curio. So anything you log in Evernote becomes immediately available for use directly inside your Legal Pad. Imagine the power of being able to capture ideas anywhere, and have them fully integrated into your note-capturing knowledge base built with Curio!

Extensibility – You can go to the Community part of Zengobi’s site and download different styles, themes and plug-ins to take your Curio notes to the next level.

Conclusion

The free-form methodology of Curio is truly powerful. No matter what kind of information you have, or how you want to mash it up, this is the software that will put it together for you, and make it completely usable and beautiful. But the power comes in the right situation and with the right user. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to decide what that situation is for my own use, and it frustrates me. You can purchase Curio in Standard or Pro versions — $99 and $149, respectively — or if you’re a student, you can get the Pro version for $69. Download a trial of Curio, and check out their Tutorinis (toward the bottom of the page) for more explanation and examples uses. You’re bound to find a great use for this amazingly flexible tool.

If you’re a Curio power-user, please share your use of this tremendous tool with the rest of our readers.