Shocking, shocking– a software update breaks things that it's supposed to help. After I downloaded and installed the latest combo update for Leopard, my Mail.app went to hooey on me. It'd open, then open mailboxes, and then… choke on viewing messages. What to do? Here are the things I tried:

• A preface– someone once told me not to download the OS updates from Software Updater; rather, the better plan is to repair disk permissions (go to Applications –> Utilities –> Disk Utility), download the DMG from Apple's website, install, and repair disk permissions again.
• When the problem happened after the initial install, I ran Vacuumail. It's a program that cleans up the database behind Mail.app and makes it run faster. Still crashed after that.
• Then I deleted all the files from my ~/Library/Caches folder and restarted the computer. (For those that don't know, the ~ stands for your username on the computer, your "home" folder.) Alas, no worky yet!
• MacFixit had a number of suggestions:
  • trying moving your preferences files out of the default location and see if Mail can do its thing. This didn't work for me, and honestly, it woulda been crappy if it did, because that would have meant re-setting up 7 mail accounts.
  • Hold the shift key down when opening Mail. This tells Mail not to focus on any one message. Still didn't help me.
  • Resinstall the combo. Still no dice.
• A discussion at the Apple support forums mentioned trying to uninstall any plugins you have for Mail. If you didn't have the install files to begin with, you could go to: ~/Library/Mail/Bundles and move anything that's in there out to a temp location (like your desktop).
• Me, I decided to see first if any of my plugins had updates since the release of 10.5.6. They did! GPG Mail, which I use to send secure/private emails, had a new release on 12/30. Yippie. I downloaded it and installed it over the previous version. Opened Mail, and… magic! My problems were solved.

Hope this helps anyone else struggling with issues…

Lots of things have been happening and hence the absence of actual updates here, haha. Sorry about that. Where to begin?

• Over at Hightower Lowdown, we've launched a new weekly video series featuring America's #1 Populist. What more could you ask for? 2 minutes of Jim talking to you every single week! You can also watch it on YouTube, or subscribe to the show in iTunes.
• And for AlterNet.org, we relaunched the front page to be snazzier and brighter. Design was done by Design About Town, engineering by the ever-smarty Shawn and project management and OCD tweaking by me. Whee!
• I redesigned and launched the website for best-selling author Amy Bloom, who has been an absolute riot to work with. I haven't read her newest, but Come To Me was highly recommended to me by Bitch Magazine co-founder and feminista-extraordinare, Lisa Jervis. And it rocked.
• Lots of photosets from the last couple months.
• Um, I upgraded to Leopard last night, and so far so good. One thing that I called tech support about because I couldn't find an answer anywhere else: yes, Time Machine will wipe your external drive the first time you use it, but then you can continue putting other things on it after. It doesn't have to be a dedicated Time Machine drive, whew.

That's pretty much it. Holidays are a-comin' and I'll be up in Bingotown for a while, hanging out with the fam, and then back in NYC for New Year's. Hope all's well in the land of not-my-apartment!