Compare More Easily in Apple Mail
In Apple Mail, if you need to work back and forth between two different views of Mail's mailbox contents, you can do so quite easily. For example, you might want to look at a mailbox holding all filtered-in sales orders from the past week while also looking at a smart mailbox showing unanswered customer questions.
To avoid constantly clicking between mailbox views and losing your context each time, choose File > New Viewer window to get a second window and then arrange each window as desired.
Written by
Tonya Engst
Recent TidBITS Talk Discussions
- Alternatives to MobileMe for syncing calendars between iPad/Mac (1 message)
- Free anti-virus for the Mac (20 messages)
- iTunes 10 syncing iPod Touch 4.1 (2 messages)
- Thoughts about Ping (16 messages)
Published in TidBITS 1002.
Subscribe to our weekly email edition.
- Apple TV 3.0 Adds Focus on Your Content
- Roku Adds Two New Internet Video Streaming Boxes
- The Best Camera Evangelizes iPhone Photography
- Twitter Adds Lists, Finally
- Free "Take Control of VMware Fusion 3" Simplifies Windows on a Mac
- Chinese iPhone Has No Wi-Fi
- New Processor Promises Improved Camera GPS Support
- PureFTPd Manager Updated for Snow Leopard
- SheepShaver Brings Classic Mac OS to Snow Leopard
- TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Updates for 2 November 2009
- ExtraBITS for 2 November 2009
- Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk for 2 November 2009
TweetMyMac Offers Remote Control by Twitter
TweetMyMac is possibly one of the most bizarre, but then instantly obvious, ideas that I've seen in a while. The software uses Twitter as a messaging mechanism that enables you to control your Mac remotely.
The folks at Twitter have long made available access to the system via an API (application programming interface) used by developers outside the company to create Web, mobile, and desktop applications. TweetMyMac is software that runs under Mac OS X and receives messages from a Twitter account you set up specifically as a control channel.
The concept is simple. Direct messages in Twitter are received only by the party to whom the messages are addressed. Thus, if you set up an account for a Mac you want to control, you have a direct conduit to it. Your Mac's account must then be set to follow one or more Twitter accounts from which you want to send commands; only accounts being followed may send the Mac direct messages to be executed as remote commands.
The set of commands is small but interesting. You can remotely restart, logout, sleep, or shut down a Mac; launch and quit applications; retrieve its IP address (perhaps useful in case of theft if TweetMyMac remains active); pull a picture from the built-in camera or grab a screenshot (hmm, also useful for a stolen Mac) which is sent back to you via Twitter; and lock the screen (errr...same comment); among other commands. Perhaps most useful is the capability (disabled by default, due to its power) to execute Unix shell commands.
The software, by TheMacBox, is free, although donations are encouraged.
![](/file/11593/db.tidbits.com.tar/db.tidbits.com/images/badges/CrashPlan.png)
to your own drives, computers, and online with unlimited storage.
With unlimited online backup, this is one resolution you can keep.
Back Up Your Life Today! <http://crashplan.com/ref/tidbits.html>
And as a bonus, the picture used for your profile is a snapshot of the desktop.