This User’s ExperienceThe blog of Matt Henderson

I can’t begin to express how fortunate I feel that about one week ago in the US, I purchased a new 15″ Powerbook, given that yesterday, Steve Jobs introduced the new Intel-based Powerbook which happens to be only about FIVE TIMES FASTER! They were NOT supposed to do that yet! Aaaaaarg!

For all you buggers with blazing new Intel Powerbooks, I wish you an abundance of Revision-1 hardware problems. (Maybe they’ll spontaneously combust!)

In other news, you’ve got to feel for Dan Wood at Karelia Software. A few years ago, Apple stole his thunder by releasing Sherlock, effectively killing Dan’s popular Watson software. For the last couple of years, he’s been diligently working on a new easy-to-use website builder, Sandvox. Well, yesterday Apple released iWeb, which, from what I can tell from the demo, absolutely blows Sandvox out of the water. In Dan’s own words, lightning can apparently strike twice.

Technorati Tags: apps, mac

I have iTunes running at home on a Mac mini, with a Harmon Kardon Soundsticks II system connected, and was looking for a way to control iTunes remotely, from another Mac. This page discusses setting up a PHP script on the remote machine, but involves some things I didn’t like much (like running the web server as a normal user). Also, managing iTunes via web URLs isn’t as convenient as I’d like.

What I finally decided to implement, was a number of shell scripts that can be run from QuickSilver. This works, is very convenient, and only relies on SSH key authentication (i.e. without password) to the remote machine.

Following are the shell scripts I now have. (Important: Note that the second and third lines of each script below are really one line in the shell script. I broke the line for display purposes here.)

With these in place, controlling iTunes remotely is a matter of command-space iNext return. Great!

• iUp (increase the volume)

  #!/bin/bash
  ssh 192.168.2.130  "osascript -e 'tell application \"iTunes\" 
  to set sound volume to sound volume + 5'"
  

• iDown (decrease the volume)

  #!/bin/bash
  ssh 192.168.2.130  "osascript -e 'tell application \"iTunes\" 
  to set sound volume to sound volume - 5'"
  

• iNext (next song)

  #!/bin/bash
  ssh 192.168.2.130  "osascript -e 'tell application \"iTunes\"
  to next track'"
  

• iPrev (previous song)

  #!/bin/bash
  ssh 192.168.2.130  "osascript -e 'tell application \"iTunes\"
  to previous track'"
  

• iPause (pause)

  #!/bin/bash
  ssh 192.168.2.130  "osascript -e 'tell application \"iTunes\"
  to pause'"
  

• iPlay (play)

  #!/bin/bash
  ssh 192.168.2.130  "osascript -e 'tell application \"iTunes\"
  to play'"
  

• iQuit (quit iTunes)

  #!/bin/bash
  ssh 192.168.2.130  "osascript -e 'tell application \"iTunes\"
  to quit'"
  

• iStart (start iTunes)

  #!/bin/bash
  ssh 192.168.2.130  "osascript -e 'tell application \"iTunes\"
  to start'"
  

Technorati Tags: mac, itunes

Tip of the day: Add the date to the MacOS X menu bar. (Via Tao of Mac)

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A friend of mine just bought an iMac and asked me for some Mac OS X application recommendations, providing as good an opportunity as ever to create a new permanent weblog article to maintain a list of favorite applications. The must-haves (the ones I use most) are marked in bold.

• Acquisition. P2P client.
• Adium. Multi-protocol instant messaging client.
• Bookit. Maintain bookmark synchronization among several browsers, and .Mac.
• Chronosync. File/folder synchronization.
• Cocoalicious. Manage Del.icio.us bookmarks.
• CocoaMySQL. Manage MySQL databases.
• Cronnix. GUI to the UNIX cron scheduling utility.
• DayLite. Customer Relation Management.
• DEVONthink. Information manager.
• DropDMG. Create archives.
• ecto. Weblog management.
• iView Media Pro. Catalog and manage media files.
• MailDrop. Sending mass emails.
• NetNewsWire. RSS news reader.
• Nisus Writer Express. Word processing.
• OmniGraffle Pro. Drawing/illustion.
• OmniOutliner Pro. Outlining/brainstorming.
• pCalc. RPN calculator.
• Podner. Convert movies to iPod format.
• QuickBooks. Business accounting.
• Quicken. Personal finance.
• Quicksilver. Launcher, and much, MUCH more.
• RPG. Password generator.
• Skype. VoIP telephony.
• SpamSieve. Spam killer plugin for Apple Mail (and others).
• SplashID. Encrypted password storage and recall.
• SSHKeychain. SSH key management.
• Synchronize Pro! . File/folder synchronization. Bootable backups.
• SuperDuper. Create bootable backups and mirrors.
• TextMate. Text editor.
• Textpander. Wonderful text snippets.
• Timbuktu. Remote control a Mac. (Perfect for taking care of Mom.)
• Toast Titanium. Create CDs/DVDs, process video/audio.
• Transmit. FTP/SFTP client.
• URLwell. Temporary bookmark storage.
• VLC. video player.
• VueScan. Scanner software.
• WhatSize. Manage disk usage.
• WorkStrip. Workspace management.
• X-Chat Aqua. IRC client.
• xScope. Screen dimension inspection tool.
• You Control Desktops. Multiple desktops.

The place where I track application updates is VersionTracker.com.

Technorati Tags: apps, mac

This is fantastic. Just fantastic. (If you’re a Macintosh/Apple fan, of course.) Drunken Batman’s videotaped informal chat with top Mac developers at the Evening at Adler.

Technorati Tags: mac

The most annoying thing I’ve found in PGP 9 is its seeming inability to encrypt multiple files individually. If I select multiple files to be encrypted, PGP 9 will create a single, generically named, .zip archive of the result. This may be fine, sometimes. However, most of the time I would prefer that the encryption process result in a set of individually encrypted files. And as far as I can tell, there is no way to do this.

I hope somebody out there has found a work-around.

Update: A fine alternative for me would be if PGP 9 could allow me to create “encrypting dropplets,” i.e. drag and drop applications (droplets) pre-configured to encrypt dropped files to a given set of keys. That would be very handy.

Technorati Tags: apps, mac

WorkStrip by Softchaos, which at first glance appears to be a Dock replacement, is a surprisingly useful productivity tool. Using WorkStrip, one can create and configure “work spaces,” which, when activated, populate the WorkStrip dock with files, folders, applications and other resources associated with the defined workspace context. This is best illustrated with an example.

If you have a look at this video (careful, it’s tall and narrow), you’ll see that when no workspaces are active, I have WorkStrip configured to make available a minimum number of persistent resources — the Finder, my startup drive, my network volume, my IRC client, Mail, my OmniOutliner planning document, and my DEVONthink database. Once I activate my “Weblog” workspace, WorkStrip is suddenly populated with all the resources I want handy when working on my weblog — folders to my local website, Photoshop, TextMate, Transmit, Ecto, iView Media Pro, and URLs to my local staging site, and my live site.

If you need to add a resource to a workspace, just drag it to the particular workspace’s icon within the WorkStrip. In addition, WorkStrip tracks files that are opened and URLs accessed during an active workspace session. So, for example, if you have a “Coding” workspace defined, all the files you’ve recently accessed with your editor will be immediately available under the associated application icon within the WorkStrip.

All in all, my impression that WorkStrip is a well thought out, and well engineered utility. I didn’t immediately catch how useful it would become to my workflow, but about a week after purchasing a license, it fits like a glove. I even gave up using Path Finder in order to have access to all the additional nifty services WorkStrip provides which rely on the Finder.

Technorati Tags: apps, mac

Owning both an Apple G5 desktop computer, and a Powerbook, I have to deal with the issue of browser bookmark synchronization. I tried .Mac synchronization with Safari, but found it to be less than fully reliable, especially when I made, from time-to-time, a sweeping reorganization of my bookmarks. And .Mac synchronization doesn’t help much when you’re using OmniWeb.

A friend recommended taking a look at Bookit, by Everyday Software. As you can see in the screenshot on the right, Bookit synchronizes all your browser bookmarks against a master bookmark (Safari, etc.). When you perform a synchronization, Bookit can create a master bookmarks file (Bookit format) that you can transfer to another computer, to use as the sync reference by Bookit on that machine.

The latest release of Bookit (in beta) takes this one step further by allowing you to specify .Mac as a virtual “browser”, thereby allowing you to sync “to it,” or use it as a master reference. With this setup, I use Safari as the master bookmark on my G5, and sync “to” my .Mac account. Then, on my Powerbook, I use .Mac as the “master” bookmark, and sync “to” the local Safari bookmarks.

All in all, this is just the simple bookmark management system I’ve been looking for.

And some other bookmark related tips:

• URLwell, is a fantastically useful menu bar utility that acts as a temporary drop-box for URLs. Visiting a page in Safari or NetNewsWire that you want to read later, but don’t want to “bookmark”?– just drag the URL to URLwell, and it’ll be there waiting for you.
• Cocoalicious is a Mac GUI front end to the del.icio.us web-based tagged bookmarking system. Fantastic. (And the subject of a future post here.)

Technorati Tags: apps, mac