Thoughtful, detailed coverage of the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, plus the best-selling Take Control ebooks.

 

 

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How Loud Are Your Mac's Fans?

When they get hot, Macs turn on various internal fans to keep components cool. The noise can be annoying, but just how loud is it? If you have an iOS device with a built-in microphone, you can download one of many free sound meter apps (search on decibel in the App Store) and see if you're subjecting your ears to a truly unreasonable noise level.

 
 

Mailplane 2.2

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Uncomplex has updated Mailplane, their WebKit wrapper for Gmail's Web interface, to version 2.2, adding support for Gmail's new Priority Inbox and more. In terms of Priority Inbox, Mailplane can now show unread counts and Growl notifications only for "important" messages. Speaking of unread counts, Mailplane now supports the TrueNew plug-in that displays two Inbox counts: unread and unseen, where the latter reflects messages that are new since you last used Gmail. Also new in Mailplane 2.2 is the capability to drag the title bar's proxy icon to get a Mailplane URL for any message or search; it's useful for linking to something specific in another of your applications. Other new features include automatic opening of "safe" attachments (just like Safari), and script support for automatically inserting a Bcc address to send a copy of a message to a CRM or helpdesk system. Finally, Mailplane 2.2's Contacts > More Actions > Export command works again, and the picture attachment optimization window avoids unwanted resizing. A blog post gives more details. ($24.95 new, free update, 21.5 MB)

 

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