If you like David Allen’s Getting Things Done and you use a Mac then you might also like the GTD and Entourage PDF book. It’s a $10 download but worth it if you’re a GTD freak and are tired of seeing all the how-to’s for Outlook on a PC. I bought a copy yesterday and it’s already allowed me to simplify my Entourage set-up. I struggled to get organised with a combination of Apple Mail and iCal as they just didn’t cut the mustard. iCal doesn’t allow you to add categories to to-do’s and Mail doesn’t fully work with an Exchange server in anything other than IMAP mail mode. As much as I was reluctant to go back to Entourage, setting up a simple workflow has eased the pain and now I’m happy.
Oh, and thanks to GTD my inbox is now always empty at the end of the day!
I’ve had the same experience with Apple Mail and iCal. I love the interface look and feel and simplicity but just doesn’t, as you say, “cut the mustard.” So I’m considering today going back to Entourage, particularly after I “accidently” erased (and apparently permanently erased) my whole inbox . . . somehow Apple Mail allowed me to do that one late night when no one should be “deleting” anything in a groggy state, and no amount of checking through folders and trash has turned up the deleted files. At any rate, I’m going back to Entourage and getting that $10 pdf.
Thanks!
Greg Taylor
I’ve always really liked the simple interfaces of iCal and Mail. And when you get under the hood, these really do pack a lot of power. The only trouble is you would never know it, unless you opened their AppleScript dictionaries! Also, I’ve found their stability to be somewhate tentative.
Entourage 2004 is rock solid, and it interfaces with Exchange. I found the White Paper really very helpful, for a basic setup. For more advanced application, I ended up “rolling my own” with Entourage and AppleScript. Most of the scripts I’ve written are posted on my blog at: http://www.earth2adam.com.
Hope these help.
Best,
-Adam