Review: MailHub (plugin for Mail.app)

One of the things I do is "collect" software never knowing when I'll use it, but there are a small staple of applications I use all the time. When I saw MailHub, a plugin for Mail.app, I quickly downloaded it and played with it for a few minutes. I don't think I spent more than 10 minutes with it before I pulled out my credit card and purchased it! One of the problems with receiving so much email is what to do with it. I used to run rules on messages and kept having to setup new rules to move messages. This was inefficient for me, so dealing with messages as I read them seemed much more efficient.

If you don't use rules in Mail, you have to use the mouse to move messages to different mailboxes/folders. For people like me that like to use the keyboard as much as possible, the process of reading a message, then moving my hand to the trackpad/mouse to file a message just wasn't attractive. With MailHub one or two keystrokes is all it takes to move messages to mailboxes. To top it off, MailHub has smarts that tries to figure out where the messages will go and it does a pretty decent job. MailHub does a number of other things, but the ability to file messages quickly is ideal for me. My inbox is now down to zero as I deal with messages quickly as I read it.

The $19 cost for MailHub is peanuts as it saves me a significant amount of time. The plugin hasn't affected the stability of Mail and is quite integrated into Mail.

Pros

• Excellent integration with Mail.
• Learns about where to file messages.
• Easy to use keystrokes to file messages.
• Low price.

Cons

• Every update to Mail requires a plugin update. Mail plugins are not supported by Apple and with Snow Leopard, Apple has added a version ID to each Mail release, so plugins have to get updated. MailHub has been updated to support the new Mail versions.
• Only works with Mail. This really isn't a knock on MailHub, but I've started using Outlook for Mac to integrate with my work's Exchange server and I miss MailHub when using Outlook

Summary

If you use Mail on the Mac and get more than just a few messages a day, MailHub is definitely worth a look. There is a 30 day trial, but I suspect that you'll purchase it after just a few days. The plugin is well done and it's simplicity makes it a breeze to use.

The devil is in the details

I'm a very detail oriented person and one of the things that annoys me in reading code is something like this in header files:

Copyright 2010 __MyCompanyName__. All rights reserved.

There are numerous posts including this one that tell you how to change this by default. However, you can change it on a per project basis in Xcode by setting the organization. While many may consider this minor, the question I have to ask is "what else did the developer miss?". This kind of detail is one of the reasons I've been quite good at reviewing code and finding issues.

I've seen this mistake made in commercial projects as well as open source projects. Do people look at the code when they first create a file? While we're at it, when I create a file, I make sure the copyright is set to whoever really owns the source; when I've done contract work, the source is always owned by the client, so I make sure it is set. About 70% of the code I've seen has had the wrong copyright. Most people don't care about this, but if push comes to shove, I don't want to be in the middle of someone trying to determine who owns the code.

New Service: Professional Source Code Review

While discussing what I should do with my spare time, a colleague suggested that I write a book. That sounds interesting, but what makes me qualified to write a book? He said what makes anyone qualified to write a book. Good point, but I still am not writing a book.

Today I spent my time on the (almost) daily dog walk thinking about that and came up with an idea "professional source code review".

So, I'm now opening up my new service. For a flat fee, I'll spend up to 5 hours reviewing source code and then I'll prepare a detailed outline of issues and recommendations on how to proceed. Who am I targeting? In general I'm looking for companies that have outsourced their projects and want to keep an eye on the development to make sure they're getting their money's worth and to be advised of where things can go wrong. Many companies that undertake development don't have internal resources to review source code and rely completely on the outsource vendor. While many applications work, reviewing code can assist in polishing the code and possibly preventing future issues.

What happens if your vendor fixes the issues and you want another review, I'll spend an additional 5 hours (at half price) re-reviewing the code. Are my services cheap? Well, no, but how much is your vendor going to charge you fixing their own mistakes? Software development is a unique business where we're paid to write the software and then fix mistakes (most projects I've worked on are on a time and materials basis).

Why should you hire me? I've been writing handheld software for over 16 years (yes, I actually have as I wrote Newton software while I was still in college). I'm very meticulous and have seen enough code to know what is good and what is bad. Software can work, but some of the hardest problems to track down are caused by poorly written code. I can help resolve these issues.

If interested, contact me. Of course, there are certain projects that I can't review, so I'll need a high level overview of your project before I can let you know about proceeding.

Can you spot the differences?

Do you spot the differences between the 2 boxes below?

If you don't, you're not the only one. My three and a half year old son saw the box on the left (these Trader Joe's Crushers are a staple in his diet) and said "It has 2 holes". My wife and I looked at him and didn't quite understand what he was talking about. He was clearly talking about the box, so I grabbed the old box and low and behold, the old box (on the right above) has one connected hole to display the product. The new box (the one on the left has 2 holes). While there are other differences that you can now see by looking at them side by side, I never would have paid attention to something like that.

The mind of our son amazes me; he notices so many things that I ignore or simply neglect.