Mitch Wagner

I have an expanse of blank white wall behind my desk, which always bugs me when I see myself on Zoom calls. This has been a stone in my shoe for three years since videoconferencing became commonplace. I’m jealous when I see other people have excellent backgrounds for their Zoom calls.

A friend suggested I just get a couple of guitars and put them behind me. “But I don’t play guitar,” I said. “Doesn’t matter,” my friend said. “Anybody asks, you just make a sad face and say, ‘Oh, I just don’t have time to play anymore.’”

I found a local shop that sells movie posters, with a focus on midcentury grindhouse horror movies. Having a poster for “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” hanging behind me for business meetings would definitely send a message.

I wrote: Red Hat secures the software supply chain. Red Hat unveils Trusted Software Supply Chain, which tracks where open-source components come from and whether they are trustworthy to “provide customers with the added assurance that the bits they are deploying are safe and secure.”

Oracle’s Larry Ellison gears up to spend millions to back Tim Scott’s 2024 run. Of interest to my Oracle pals.

From what I saw working there two years, the culture within Oracle is extremely progressive. Inclusive, good benefits, supports environmental causes.

On the other hand, Larry Ellison himself is very conservative. He supported Trump and now this.

An odd juxtaposition.

Ray Stevenson Dead: ‘Punisher: War Zone,’ ‘RRR’ Actor Was 58. I’m sad to hear it. To me, he’ll always be Titus Pullo, the lovable cuddly murderous psychopath from “Rome.”

I can proofread my article or generate a cool Midjourney image to accompany said article. Gee, tough decision. Do I want kale or chocolate cake?

If the Apple VR/AR headset debuts, and it’s as described in leaks, it’s going to be the biggest flop in Apple’s history and one of the greatest tech flops ever.

Nobody’s interested in wearing a Batman mask all day.

Ex-Apple marketing executive says the company’s upcoming ‘Reality’ headset risks being ‘one of the great tech flops of all time’

Mimestream is a native Mac app for accessing Gmail. It gives you Gmail’s advanced capabilities, including Priority Inbox, categories, and labels, in an app that looks and works like a native Mac app. 

The alternatives to Mimestream are Gmail’s web interface, which I find cluttered, or native Mac mail apps, which look and work like Mac apps should but don’t give you all of Gmail’s capabilities. 

Mimestream has been in beta and free to use for years. I’ve been using Mimestream for most of that time. Now, Mimestream exits beta and gets a few juicy new features for organizing multiple accounts, muting some accounts at scheduled times (for example, if you’d like to mute your work account during personal time), configuring filters and more. Templates with variables will be useful for people who repeatedly send versions of the same email, such as customer support. And a menu bar extra lets you check to see what’s new without opening the app.

Other features of Mimestream: Support for Markdown formatting, Google calendar responses, Google Contacts integration, mentioning colleagues to bring them into the conversation, and syncing with Gmail signatures. More here.

Mimestream is a fast app. With it, I can fly through my email quickly, with minimal hassle. I’ve been using Gmail for more than 15 years, and there are still aspects of that interface I find confusing. That’s not a problem with Mimestream.

I’ve liked using Mimestream and will gladly pay for it. Pricing is US$49.99/year or $4.99/mo. Beta users, like me get 50% off for the first year. $25 is a reasonable price for a year of an app I use all day, every workday.

People who are only occasional Gmail users looking for an alternative to the Gmail Web interface might be happy just sticking with built-in Apple Mail, which is free with your (expensive) Mac. In the past, Apple Mail was unreliable with Gmail, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem lately.

Mimestream was founded by Neil Jhaveri, a software engineer who worked at Apple 7½ years, leading and managing engineering teams working on Mail and Notes. According to the product roadmap, the company is working on expanding Mimestream beyond Gmail to support other mail services, including Microsoft Outlook. They're also working on iPad and iPhone versions of Mimestream.

Daring Fireball notes that the first version of many Apple products is historically overpriced and underfeatured. That’s how Apple works. They grab the affluent early adopters first, and then over the years the price goes down and capabilities improve. Example: The Apple Watch.

So if the Apple headset is overpriced and underfeatured, that’s no reason to declare it dead on arrival.

Surprisingly insightful art observations from “The Simpsons."