Heinz's Email Blog May 2005 Archive

Recently, I became interested in how the short word lap acquired so long a list of different meanings. It seems the original meaning of "a fold of a garment" was ... Read More

There are at least 145 lakes full of interesting microscopic organisms beneath the ice of Antarctica, but hundreds more of these hidden gems may still be discovered. If you know a ... Read More

Some German psychologists have recently revealed the shocking truth: love — "real" love — does not exist. It is merely a construct, the result of candlelight, wine, red roses and ... Read More

Yahoo! Mail, the free email service used by more people than any other, now crams more photos in an email than any other, and easier, too. PhotoMail, integrating Yahoo! Mail ... Read More

There is this book. I have not read or skimmed it, I do not recommend or condemn it, but the title alone, which is also about all I know, is ... Read More

Slow pitches are, maybe counter-intuitively, more difficult to hit than those thrown with more vigor, not only but also for children. Eudora likes to make you believe inserting images in ... Read More

Mulberry, the email client that owes its color and its name to much-beloved Pyramus and Thisbe, has been updated with a sophisticated calendar and tasks module that can not only ... Read More

It's Towel Day today, a nod to Douglas Adams, whose Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series continues to remind us that a towel is "the most massively useful thing an ... Read More

Some decades ago, trains of the Austrian Federal Railways (OeBB) lacked in comfort what they emanated in ambience and aura. Among the important ingredient in the wagons' charming mix were ... Read More

Ever since hearing some Orcadians talk, sing and make music on a radio show, I would love and plan to visit these beautiful islands North of Scotland some day. I ... Read More

Fifteen years ago today, on May 22, 1990, Windows 3.0, shipped (do you still remember this?). In a way, Windows 3.0 was the first version of Windows, and at least ... Read More

"T'is but a part we see, and not a whole," writes Alexander Pope, the English poet whose birthday we celebrate today, in his Essay on Man. Pope is reflecting on our ... Read More

I don't remember much about Ivan Tors's Flipper, but I do know that it was too frightening for me as a seven-year-old (I did not or did not want to ... Read More

When Abraham Ortelius issued his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theater of the Earthly World), on this day 435 years ago, he created the first atlas in the modern sense, which allowed ... Read More

I was so close to inventing and patenting a sandwich toaster that keeps you warm through the night and repairs itself — when, much to my disappointment, I found it ... Read More

Looking at a city now and in an old photograph or copperplate engraving while maintaining the same viewpoint and angle can be fascinating. Viewing a web page now and as ... Read More

MSN Desktop Search, the tool that searches through history in no time at all, is now Windows Desktop Search. Not only the name is new, however. The interface has become ... Read More

If you read a book like John Mueller's fine Using SOAP (Special Edition!), it is advisable to frequent a public place, maybe a train but preferably a place that is ... Read More

NetNewsWire, the agence Feed-RSS, has been updated in a significant fashion. Long in the making and beta testing, NetNewsWire 2.0 is a major upgrade. While the once-integrated blog editor has ... Read More

The Ides of May (May 15) mark the "birthday" of Mercury, the god of commerce. Celebrating the Mercuralia, merchants would sprinkle their hair with water, called aqua Mercurii, taken from ... Read More

A good password is impossible to guess and hard to break. Most certainly a good password is not a word found in a dictionary — or among the words most ... Read More

After fighting for independence from Spain and being a part of the Republic of Gran Colombia, Ecuardor finally became an independent state on May 13, 1830. This is important because ... Read More

MailWasher Pro, the versatile, precise and astonishing baking soda and vinegar for email users, is now even more precise and astonishing. On the outskirts, not much has changed (there is ... Read More

Shrook, the clever and smart RSS feed reader for Mac OS X, has just gotten a bit smarter still. Shrook 2.2 plugs into and uses Spotlight for speedy searching. Also ... Read More

If you have ever disassembled a keyboard in order to "thoroughly clean" it, you know that throwing it away and buying a shiny replacement is always the better option. There ... Read More

Though the ancient Roman poets got a tad complicated, wordy and awkward when describing technical things, the Romans in general were masterful and diligent road builders. You can find their ... Read More

If you are a friend of bookmarklets, you may like KasMail. Add to your collection of buttons that create a new message in Hotmail, remove Flash animations and background music ... Read More

SpamSieve, the wonder-appliance that allows every email client to turn an undistinguished email mass into spit-roasted mail with spam purée, has been updated not only to work with Mac OS ... Read More

When the Holy See is in the news, it is always nice to see and hear the active use of Latin. An interview — in Latin, mirabile dictu — with ... Read More

It does not happen often that something new is discovered in the field of ancient history. But a recent breakthrough achievement by University of Oxford scientists literally sheds new lights ... Read More

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger brings a new Mail. What makes the version number jump from 1.3 to 2.0 is (probably) not the new set of toolbar buttons in a ... Read More

According to the scientists who, in an experiment just as fascinating as their object of study, attached tiny transponders to the backs of butterflies to track them, the lepidoptera do ... Read More

Crowds cannot be wrong, right? So the longest queue at the supermarket gets longer and the most crowded restaurant gets ever more crowded. But what if the first customers did ... Read More

I do not really like Mother's Day. This has less to do with an alleged commercialization of all holidays and Mother's Day in particular than with the perceived antinomy of ... Read More

NewsFire, the cool hot Mac RSS feed reader, has been updated with fresh podcast abilities. RSS feed enclosures get their own slick download and player window, and you can search ... Read More

"[M]en judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you. Every one sees ... Read More

I now have a dishwashing liquid that smells like apples ("Apple Fresh") — it smells alluringly good like apples in a way that is extremely irritating at a time when ... Read More

When I was a child, I loved to "read" a copy of the Austrian traffic law. There was an illustration of every road sign. I regarded with much amusement and ... Read More