tempo tissue

Tempo 紙手巾果然厲害！

媽媽今晚剛去了一個喪禮，吉儀裡有一張Tempo紙手巾，紙手巾上用原子印之類的印章，印了一段文字加一個百合花圖案，文字清晰可見，百合花線條清楚能辨。重點：tempo 紙手巾每張有四層，而印章的藍色墨水幾乎完全沒滲進第二層！第二層紙巾就只有圖中橙色圈著的一點藍！

最誠實的民建聯

大家終於清楚知道：禮義廉是民建聯的註冊商標一部份，大家絕不能模仿！

在此一讚民建聯：你好誠實啊！

明報即時新聞：社民連在維園年宵攤位售賣T恤被指侵犯民建聯註冊商標，海關下午派人扣查。

海關表示，幾日前接到民建聯投訴，尋求律政司意見後採取行動，今次行動與一般打擊冒牌貨行動無分別。海關在行動中，檢走約110件T恤，暫時無人被捕。

社民連秘書長季詩傑說，事件是針對性檢控，已聯絡律師。他指出，T恤是網民設計，放在社民連的攤位售賣，所得款項供五區辭職的活動之用。

周啟邦的”遺願”?

“周啟邦的獨子周國豐在醫院召開記者會…表示，父親彌留時，母親、他和太太陪伴在側。父親最大的遺願是能夠見到男孫一面，他的太太預產期本來是年初四，但在催生下已在5日出世，父親能夠如願以償，可以抱孫。”(明報即時新聞)

遺願…是遺留下來的願望，是人死了還沒有達成的吧？都已經達成了的，還遺什麼願呢？

“父親生前最大的心願是能夠見到男孫一面…已經如願以償”，這不就簡單直接了嗎？

Schedule mail on Mac (the easier way): Automator iCal Alarm

Found an easier way to schedule mail on Mac to send it later at a specific time I want by using Automator iCal Alarm.

When you open Automator, it immediately asks you to choose what you’re trying to build:

Building an iCal Alarm will automatically set a new event in iCal with the alarm action set to be whatever you design in the Automator.

So I want to send an email at maybe 9am tomorrow morning, I can open Automator and build an iCal Alarm like this:

1. Get Specified Finder Items
2. New Mail Message (type your mail here - leave recipient blank if you’re sending group mail and add the two extra steps below)
3. Send Outgoing Messages
4. Save

You may skip step 1 if there’s NO attachment. You can also send group mail (with/without individual salutation) at a later time by adding these steps between steps 2 & 3 above:

1. Find Address Book Items (find Groups)
2. Group Mailer (check “add greetings” for individual salutation)

Then in iCal, you’ll see a new event set at the time you hit “save”:

Then edit the date and time of the event and the alarm time to whenever you need it.

DONE!

However, from experience, attachment doesn’t work for Group Mailer. So, if you wish to send a mail with attachment to a big bunch of people, stick to the 4-step solution. The only drawback is it can’t take group name as recipient, i.e., all email addresses are disclosed. If you wish to keep mailing list confidential, you’ll need to add your group to Bcc list.

You may also set the alarm to be repeated periodically and have the same mail sent to the same recipient(s), say, every month. This would be really handy to someone who needs to send out reminders periodically.

I’m still working on getting Apple Mail to send all drafts at once so that I can incorporate Serial Mail and Apple Mail and Automator. The problem is Apple Mail seems to be incapable of sending more than one mail at the same time. It can send 100+ emails consecutively very quickly (like really immediately one after an other) but just not when you “select all” in drafts box then hit “send” in file menu (or shift+command+D).

iPhone Note-taking App review: Momo VS Awesome Notes

(Updated review on note-taking apps for iPhone and iPad here.)

I have both Momo and Awesome Notes on my iPhone. You may find it a bit weird that I keep two note-taking apps on my phone at the same time but in fact, they serve different purposes.

I’m a private music teacher and I keep teaching notes / records. For this purpose, I go with Momo for three reasons:

1. tagging system – a huge advantage for people who takes loads of notes everyday. The way I use it is I tag notes with my students’ names so that I can have a good view of notes I’ve taken in one particular student’s lesson so far in one single list.  The folder system in Awesome Notes doesn’t really work for this purpose. If I wanna do this is Awesome Notes, I’ll need, maybe, 20 folders – way too many for Awesome Note’s home screen. And even if I wanna go with folder system, there’s “Favorite tags and Smart tags” in Momo that I may include several tags in a “smart tag” and that “smart tag” will become a folder-like thing.
2. Calendar – users may pick a day in calendar view to see notes taken on a particular day. The date with notes are highlighted so user may see if there’s note on a particular date.
3. “preview” – it shows up to 2-3 lines of each note on the list so that I don’t need to open the note to know what’s inside. Very handy when I just wanna have a peep of what I taught the student previously.

For Awesome Notes, I use it for some totally different purposes:

1. Todo list – I may choose to add “todo” as a tag in Momo but then there’s no icon badge and no due date to be set. In Awesome Notes, I can set due date very easily (pretty good user interface, really) and I can actually check it off when it’s done. I can also put todos in different folders to mark their categories, say “home”, “work”…etc.
2. Sermon notes – Right, I can take sermon notes in Momo as well… but Awesome Notes has some much prettier / funnier background theme. I do need something more fancy to keep my incentive (!) on taking Sermon Notes… I used to take sermon notes in Momo before I bought Awesome Notes.

Here’s a simple comparison between the two apps:

[Update: Awesome Note is only 3.99 and it has calendar view now.Date and time are also adjustable. It doesn't have bullet point yet. Momo has it though.]

Automator and iCal: Schedule email and send group mail with individual salutation on Mac

(I found an easier way… see this post)

I wanted to send groups mails with individual salutation at a scheduled date and time. There’re several free scripts / apps out there to do this. I’ve tried probably all of them but none really worked (I’m running on Snow Leopard).

There’re paid apps to do this but then I don’t wanna pay. (Yes, I proudly admit I’m cheap in this sense.)

Ok, if I only wanted the individual salutation part, Serial Mail is a good one and it’s free. It doesn’t only support names as placeholders but also other fields in the Address Book. It’s also got an iPhone app! One very good news for iPhone user as the built in mail app in iPhone doesn’t support group mail.

So… what to do?

After many trials and errors, my final solution is “Automator + iCal”.

There’s this built-in app in Mac called “Automator”. Honestly, I didn’t have a clue what it is for the first two or three years I switched to Mac. I don’t use it that frequently until very recently. Anyway, to the steps:

To send GROUP EMAILS WITH INDIVIDUAL SALUTATION with Automator immediately:

1. Launch Automator: New workflow
2. Mail: New Mail Message (add by drag and drop) – For group mail, leave “To:”, “Cc:” and “Bcc:” blank. Do fill in the Subject line, write your mail in “Message”, choose account if you have multiple accounts set up. NO ATTACHMENT. If you want individual salutation, don’t write “Dear xxx” at the beginning of your mail.)
3. Contacts: Find Address Book Groups – Find people / groups and define it
4. Mail: Group Mailer – check “Add Greeting” if you want to have individual salutation. Otherwise, uncheck it.)
5. Mail: Send Outgoing Messages

If you want to send your mails immediately, click “Run” on the top right corner. But if you want to send your group mail later at a specific date and time… go on with the following steps:

1. Save as application (remember where you’ve saved it. You’ll need its path soon.)
2. Open iCal and set up a new event at the time you want you mail to be sent
3. Set alarm -> open file -> choose the application you’ve just saved two steps ago
4. Done

If you don’t want the new event to stick in your calendar, add the following steps after step 5:

1. Find iCal Events (Find events, All of the following are true, Title is “title of your new event”…)
2. Delete iCal Events

But it’s probably easier to just delete it from calendar afterwards

What about if you just want to SCHEDULE ONE SINGLE EMAIL?

1. Launch Automator: New workflow
2. Mail: New Mail Message (add by drag and drop) – Type your recipients’ email address in “To:”, “Cc:” and “Bcc:” as needed. No auto-fill here. You may click the vCard icon on the right to choose recipients from Address Book. Before hitting “Done”, remember to hit “To” after choosing. Do fill in the Subject line or it’ll ., Write your mail in “Message”, choose account if you have multiple accounts set up. NO ATTACHMENT.)
3. Send Outgoing Messages
4. Save as application (remember where you’ve saved it. You’ll need its path soon.)
5. Open iCal and set up a new event at the time you want you mail to be sent
6. Set alarm -> open file -> choose the application you’ve just saved two steps ago
7. Done

Important notes:

* It’s VERY IMPORTANT to save your workflow as APPLICATION in scheduled email. If you save it as workflow, it’ll only call out the workflow without running it, which means… it won’t do anything.

* NO ATTACHMENT: Someone said here that we may add attachment to group mailer in Automator but it never worked for me. And even if it works, it won’t work with scheduled mail anyways – it requires manual input when mails are being generated. My workaround is to upload the file to a server / website, then paste the link in the mail body. The “New Mail Message” in Automator does recognize URL so if your recipients can see HTML mail, they should be able to just click and see your file.