found_drama

Draft #2 is under way.  I spent the better part of the weekend taking the notes that I made during my read-through of the first draft and applying them to the text.  Sixteen chapters (roughly 80 pages, or 18,670 words) into it and it’s feeling pretty solid.  Some areas have received the thorough re-working that they deserve while others I’ve left largely untouched.  Lucky for me the weather was pretty dreary here, so it’s not like the time was squandered.  (Ha!)

currently playing: fleep… “7am Sessions” mix

[tag]Jeff Coleman[/tag] (my advisor from [tag]St. Mary’s[/tag]) has a new collection of [tag]poems[/tag] out. Titled [tag]Spirits Distilled[/tag], Jeff’s brief write-up goes:

The book addresses a range of subjects, including my deceased father and grandmother, the 1998 dragging death of James Byrd, Jr., former and recently deceased Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, the psychological terror of September 11, the war in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, the 2001 massacre of Nepal’s royal family, people living with AIDS, the Confederate Flag issue in my home state of S.C., voodoo spirituality, love and other forms of maddening desire, and the influence of writers Gwendolyn Brooks and James Baldwin. I think you’ll like it.

Jeff is an inspired writer and was a great mentor to me through a particularly tough time for me as both a student of the craft and as a human being. I’d recommend that if you check out only one book this month (it is [tag]National Poetry Month[/tag], after all) that this be it.

If you haven’t checked out the [tag]deep house[/tag] mixes on [tag]Fleep[/tag].com already, please do so.  One of the most recent mixes (”One Night In Singapore“) is absolutely to die for.  As A. said: “Why isn’t his [tag]music[/tag] in stores?”

A few months ago in my “pre-packaged [tag]Apple[/tag] apps vs. [tag]Mozilla[/tag] equivalents” round-up, I made mention of how Apple’s [tag]Mail[/tag] (or the dreaded “[tag]Mail.app[/tag]” if you prefer) application had mediocre [tag]signature[/tag] support. My criticism went something like:

Pain in the butt. Can’t reference external files and what’s worse, you can’t edit the HTML source of the sig. So those fancy inline CSS styles you wanted to use are pretty much out. (You can copy/paste them in but chances are you’ll lose half of what you wanted.) -1

This has turned out to be only partially true. Through some of my toying around, I discovered that if I created an external HTML file, opened it in [tag]Safari[/tag], copied from there, then pasted into Mail’s signature edit window I would get a close approximation of what I’d created. It might add an extra line break in the process or otherwise “re-interpret” my code but it seemed a small price to pay.

This led me to the conclusion that Mail was using [tag]WebKit[/tag] to render the HTML in email messages. (No surprises there.) But big deal right? Anyone could have arrived at that conclusion and it still doesn’t change the fact that Mail doesn’t have robust support for your fancy [tag]CSS[/tag]-based signatures.

Until I stumbled across this article about the problem over at AllForces.com. Full details are over there but I’ll break down the short version here:

1. Make your signature in your favorite text editor (use in-line CSS styles)
2. Open it in Safari
3. Save as “[tag]Web Archive[/tag]“
4. Find your existing crappy signature’s filename (hint: it’s in ~/Library/Mail/Signatures)
5. Rename that Web Archive from Safari to the one Mail gave to your previous crappy signature
6. Copy the renamed Web Archive from wherever you saved it to the Signatures folder and be done with it

I still want a [tag]Camino[/tag]-equivalent of Mail.  But for now, I’ll take this.