A few times I’ve experienced that OS X’ Mail has just stopped downloading new messages via POP from GMail. I’ve been all around Google’s mail system to try to figure out why Mail and GMail all the sudden won’t co-operate anymore. Not having any luck there I began exploring and found a solution:

For the sake of example, my account will be called [email protected]

Go to ~/Library/Mail/[email protected]@pop.gmail.com

In that folder there is a file called MessageUidsAlreadyDownloaded2. It’s an XML file that contains stamps of when what mail downloaded from GMail. Mine was about 45k large. I quit mail, moved this file away (just in case) and started Mail again. And voila! Mail is downloading mail from GMail via POP3S again. And it picked right up on where it left of.

GlusterFS is likely to implement S3 storage according to this forum post

Apple launches draws press. If Apple were to release something spectacular at the same time, that would draw a lot of press, downplaying the Vista release. Leopard will be spectacular, and so will iLife ‘07 and iWork ‘07 based on Leopard. To me it would make perfect sense for Apple to release all these three packages at the Vista launch date. I would love it even more if they released it all as one product. They asked us to stay tuned, I’m on my fourth double espresso and shivering with tention!

Thank you Google, they have released MacFuse. (tip from BSD News) I love FUSE with FreeBSD, but since I usually use FreeBSD for my servers and would like to use FUSE on my workstation, this is great! See Google’s blog entry about it. As I write I’ve got a couple of SSHFS mounts up. For my work, I’m really looking forward to use something like S3FS with Amazon’s S3.

The Apple TV is a device I have been looking forward to since the iTV prototype was announced. Why would I want this rather than a Mac Mini? Well…. my question is still unanswered. But these were my surprises and questions:

• Question: Ethernet and Wifi, does this device work like an Airport Extreme as well? The ethernet plug, is that gigabit ethernet or 100 mbit like the Airport Extreme? (why they didn’t go for gigabit there beats me)
• No DVD, No Blueray, No HD-DVD. Seriously, guys, I don’t want to have to run to another room to load my DVD. And if I had a computer in my livingroom, I’d be using it instead of the Apple TV
• 40 GB HDD is small. My 200GB disk with my iPhoto libraries and iTunes library is full and needs an upgrade. Add movies to this, and 40 GB is too small. On 40 GB you could squeeze in a single HDD quality movie (30GB) and a normal DVD quality movie (8 GB). Two movies and your system is full. One movie only in best quality. Why would I want this?
• How is DivX support for this device coming along?
• How do they intend to work out 5.1 surround with two analog sound outputs?
• PVR - having a built in tuner and recording TV shows and storing it in iTunes, possibly syncing it with my mobile phone (iPhone perhaps some day) or iPod Video. A decent PVR system is really what I’m in the market for these days, and that’s not the Apple TV.

My take so far is that the best Apple TV around so far is the Mac Mini. But I’m sure the concept is great, so I’m looking forward to future revisions. Having said that: the Apple TV has an USB slot. I wonder what they’ll expect us to hook up there. Looks like an USB HUB, a 500GB HDD, an audio interface and a TV receiver so far. That’ll become one expensive Apple TV with a lot of spaghetti cabling. Same with the Mini, though, but that’s after all an entire computer