If you use Mail.app (or MacMail as it’s also known) then you’ve probably found that HTML emails originating from Microsoft Outlook appear to have tiny text. Annoying, isn’t it?

The solution, however, is simple. Close down Mail.app, open Terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.mail MinimumHTMLFontSize 13

Now start up Mail.app and Bob’s your uncle — Arial at a size you can read.

The big news yesterday was Apple announcing a beta of Safari 3 for both Mac and Windows. It even made page 2 of Metro which is a little bit weird.

Safari has long been the browser of choice for Mac Daddy’s everywhere and now it fancies it’s chances against the behemoth, the king of the hill, the undisputed champion of the world and the object of hate for any self-respecting web developer — Internet Explorer. Safari, you’re going to take a beating.

Microsoft’s ability to completely ignore the voice of the people combined with Firefox’s top-notch rendering ability, security (apart from the master password thing), wealth of extensions and the power of nerd, has led Firefox, over the past four years, to gradually nibble away at Internet Explorer’s user base to gain a respectable market share of 15%. Safari sits just below 5% while poor old Opera is struggling to make 1%^[1]. I’m not sure where Navigator 9 fits in.

So how is Safari going to take that market share? What’s it offering over Internet Explorer or Firefox? It’s faster, apparently, not that 95% of it’s potential users would ever notice. The majority of PCs out there are so crammed full with AOL limited trials, Anti-Virus, Anti-Spam, Anti-Spyware, Google Desktop, Adobe Speed Launch, and all that other guff which gets pre-installed by manufacturers desperately trying to squeeze that little bit more profit out of each sale, that Mr. G. Higgins of Chesterfield has to endure 30 seconds of disk swapping before Windows will even let him double-click on the Safari icon, if he can find it on his desktop that is, which is chock-full of downloaded .EXEs, hilarious email attachments and misplaced documents.

And exhale.

What I’m trying to say is that Safari isn’t really offering anything else over Internet Explorer for PC users, except giving that tiny percentage who have a functional Dell but really like the look of that shiny Apple and might even consider buying one if they didn’t cost three times as much as a PC, a bit of Mac Love. It’s too little, too late.

Firefox really should have nailed it by now. It towers above the competition, the extensions are superb, even my online bank strongly recommends it, but

it

can be

really

s l o w.

And it doesn’t look like a Mac app on the Mac, which isn’t that important to me, but probably is to the majority of Mac users. And it doesn’t use the Keychain (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=106400 – 5 ½ years old!). And it isn’t written by Apple.

Still, I keep using Firefox even though I don’t really want to, so when Camino 1.5 was announced this week I got a little too overexcited before being quickly disappointed. Camino is fast, it looks like a Mac app (it is a Mac app), it uses the Keychain, it imports my Safari or Firefox bookmarks and even duplicates Firefox’s bookmark keywords which is such a nice touch (are you listening Apple?), but despite having ‘Mozilla Power’ it doesn’t have Firefox extension support (and never will) which means I can’t use Firebug, del.icio.us, Google Notebook, Tails and all the other add-on goodness which I can with Firefox. Game over.

So you see, the perfect browser really doesn’t exist. It almost does, and every feature you could possibly want exists in one of the leading contenders, but not one of them has managed to combine them into the one true browser. The crown is there for the taking.

• [1] Source: NetApplications

I’ve never seem a computer so keen to impress me. Not only does it work perfectly, silently and look fantastic, it’s also SO fast that it’s able to defy the laws of physics:

Greenpeace tested five popular brands (Acer, Apple, Dell, HP and Sony) for toxic chemicals such as brominated flame retardants (BFRs), polyvinyl chloride plastic (PVC) and lead and found that HP and Apple were the worst offenders^[2]. As a result, Greenpeace have launched a new site which mocks Apple’s own, urging people to contact CEO Steve Jobs and ask him to reduce the amount of these chemicals used in Apple’s laptop production, as well as asking for Apple to offer and promote a “take back” recycling program for all their products.

Why only target Apple?

This seems to be the issue most Mac-heads have with the campaign. Apple were not bottom of the list after all (although they were not far off) and they only recently moved to a 12% market share^[3] so why single them out?

I would have thought this was obvious but if not, just try and answer these questions off the top of your head:

• Who is the CEO of HP?
• Can you name a specific model of HP laptop?
• Name a bulletin board and rumour site solely devoted HP products

Apple tell people to “Think Different”. They market themselves as being something special in a PC world dominated by banality and mediocrity. In terms of PC product design they unarguably lead the world. They are something special. In environmental design, they’re exacly the same as everyone else. The internals of a MacBook Pro are effectively indistinguishable from the latest ‘Brand X’ laptop. Intel inside, hazardous materials inside.

Greenpeace simply want Apple to apply this ‘different thought’ to their use of toxic chemicals. They’re acknowledging that Apple are different, and recognising Apple as the company most likely to make a positive difference. If Apple do this, others will follow.

Take back

The one thing I find odd is Greenpeace’s request for a “take back” recycling program. I find it odd because from what I can see on the Apple website, they already do this. Are Greenpeace missing something?

* * *

What remains to be seen is how Apple respond to this. I’m hoping Apple will work with Greenpeace to remove, wherever possible, these toxic chemicals from their products and take the lead in producing greener solutions. It seems to me that they’re already doing more than other PC manufacturers in this area, but clearly there is a long way to go.

Reducing chemical usage is a step forward, but it isn’t a long-term solution. A better approach would be for Greenpeace to start lobbying these companies to work towards a more sustainable PC design as well. If we could send our computers back to the manufacturers after a couple of years to have the CPU or motherboard replaced whilst keeping all other components intact, we could greatly extend the lifetime of PCs, significantly reduce e-waste and save a heap of cash at the same time.

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.

• [1] Toxic Chemicals in Computers, Greenpeace 2006.
• [2] The Green Electronics Guide, How The Companies Line Up
• [3] Apple Laptops Take 12% Of The Market, MacObserver July 19th 2006