Albert
Current Version: 2.2.1
From Dean Davis, author of other Orchard favorites such as WeatherMan, comes this unusual application that is hard to really classify, since - while it is indeed a POP3 email client - it is not really for sending or receiving emails, per se. Albert, as its author aptly describes, "is a nifty little application that can launch AppleScripts by sending it an e-mail. You can use any e-mail account to send Albert a command. Albert looks at the Subject line of each e-mail for the word 'Albert:', then launches the script with the name that follows 'Albert:'." It's an interesting application; version 2.2.1 adds/changes the following:
- Fixed bug where Albert would stall in checking Email state.
User Reviews
"Now this thing is fantastic!!! The author himself doesn't seem to be aware of the potential of his creation as he writes in the readme file, "All told, you may not find much use for this application. I made it on a whim." I say "wait a moment," everybody is waiting for Bluetooth in order to turn mobile phones into a remote control for computers and other appliances, but Bluetooth is vapourware at this point. Albert can do the very same thing over any distance very lo-tech *today*. If you have a mobile phone with email, you can send your Mac an email from your mobile and tell it to do all kinds of things, like gathering news to be emailed to you, turn the heating on in the house, send a entry from a phone book, you name it, the possibilities are mind boggling. Also, if you are travelling a lot, like I do, you can maintain access to your desktop back home even without expensive Internet connections. You could tell your Mac to start FTP only before you actually intend to use it and turn it off again afterwards all by email, so FTP would be shut and not open to possible attacks. Also, if you only have a dialup connection, you could send your desktop an email (to be checked, say, twice a day) to dial-up at a specified time, send yourself the IP address, start FTP and stay connected for a specified time, etc. This thing is very useful for people on the move; it's far more than just another easter egg made on a whim. The installation and configuration is very easy and it performs very well even on my old PowerMac 7100. I set Albert to check every two minutes, then wrote two scripts for turning the music on and off. Afterwards I sent email to start the music from my iBook and a little later the music started and a confirmation email arrived back from Albert. It uses only 2MB when running and everything works as advertised. The only thing I would like to see is the ability to authenticate senders via digital signatures in the body of the email, which could easily be done using PGP, which is scriptable, but Albert unfortunately is not scriptable. Nevertheless, Albert rocks! I give it five stars: *****"
—Bee Kay
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the Power Mac version for Mac OS 9.1 or higher.Also See . . .
Can't find what you're looking for? Try a search:
Also, if you have an older Mac, be sure to check out the "Classic" applications page for more options.
Finally, take a look at ALEMIA if you think you know that name of an application, but aren't quite sure.
Related Links
Andrew Starr has a marvelous page of Eudora plug-ins and enhancements that Eudora users must check out. His entire site (known as eMailman) is worthwhile for every email junkie out there.
Graham Orndorff has written a superb collection of articles on setting up email servers and secure email clients on Mac OS X.
Adam Engst has put together a comprehensive overview of email attachment formats that is invaluable for anyone who wants or needs to understand the complexities behind them.
Also Consider . . .
These are applications that are newer and of potential interest, but which I haven't yet selected for permanent inclusion. Have a look, and let me know if you think they deserve to be part of the permanent collection!