January 2012
10 posts
1 tag
Interesting Links - Week 3, 2012
Diurnalize - Silly daily challenges.
Steven Frank: Notes - Who doesn’t love Steven Frank? Guy knows his shit.
iBooks Author - Announced by Apple this week, I think this could be a game changer for digital publication.
2 tags
Evernote and MarsEdit
I use MarsEdit to post most of the articles (if you want to call them that) I write here. It’s a great application, but I don’t like writing draft posts in it because there’s no way for me to access them when I’m not on my Mac (at least not until Daniel gives us MarsEdit for iOS). I’ve tried to write my drafts in text files stored in Dropbox using vim, TextMate, nvALT...
1 tag
Interesting Links - Week 2, 2012
Awk - A Tutorial and Introduction - Pretty self-explanatory.
TThor Newsletter - Long list of interesting links, delivered to your email inbox every week.
The Kingdom of Loathing - Ever wanted a pet sabre-toothed lime? Have an urge to celebrate the Festival of Jarlsberg? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then this the online game for you. But even if you didn’t, forget...
BBEdit
A couple of good, detailed posts about BBEdit this week. Not an editor I use on a regular basis, but I’ve tried it a few times here and there. It doesn’t suck.
Macdrifter - Moving Text Editors: Taking BBEdit Seriously:
What I’ve discovered is that BBEdit is an incredibly complicated and simple tool. It’s a plain text editor on the surface, but it’s highly customizable (like...
RAW Week at Boing Boing →
Speaking of Bob:
Over the next week, Boing Boing will be posting a series of remembrances, interviews, videos, and other material about Robert Anton Wilson that we hope will astonish and delight you, too.
My Favorite Author
Various members of the Read and Trust network spent November writing about their favorite authors. Since I’m not nearly cool enough (and let’s be honest probably never will be cool enough) to belong to a group of such excellent writers, I thought I’d share mine here: Robert Anton Wilson. You’ve probably never heard of him.
I first came across Bob’s work while I was...
1 tag
Interesting Links - Week 1, 2012 →
Slow week….
The James Joyce Checklist - A huge database of primary and secondary works related to James Joyce.
Code Year - A new programming lesson automatically sent to you every week. I’m in. (via Brent Simmons)
Brett Terpstra - Some of my Favorite Mac apps in... →
When Brett says an app is good, you listen.
An Interview With Notational Velocity Developer... →
I think in Notational Velocity you can see the genesis of this wave of text editors and note taking applications we’re currently riding. I switched to nvALT when it first came out, but that application wouldn’t have existed without the original.
Macdrifter - Safe URL System Service →
A nice example of how to integrate Python with Automator. I can definitely see myself using this in the future.
December 2011
13 posts
1 tag
Interesting Links - Week 52, 2011 →
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python - Just a rough outline at this point, but could turn into something promising
Raspberry Pi - A $25 ARM-powered Linux box. I might buy one just for the hell of it. The price is certainly right.
Asciiflow - An online flow diagramming tool done completely in ASCII characters
Proposed New Calendar Would Make Time Rational →
Not Mac related, but I’ve always been fascinated with calendars and the measurement of time. Personally, I think the Discordian calendar is far superior to anything we have going right now: none of this 30 days hath September bullshit. It’s all arbitrary anyway.
Running a website with VoodooPad →
VoodooPad is one of those applications that I’ve had for years and never quite found a good use for, despite trying. I have the iPhone/iPad version installed just waiting for something to click. But Gus makes great software (Acorn is my image editor of choice) and Brett, as usual, finds a way to make it sing.
Weekend Project - Exploring /usr/bin/ and...
Have you ever wondered what all that stuff in your /usr/bin/ and /usr/sbin/ directories does?
Probably not, but I have.
True UNIX geeks will most likely scoff at me for my ignorance, but everybody has to start somewhere, right? The brute force approach to exploring those directories would have been to get a listing of every command and run man on each one individually. But that strikes me as...
1 tag
Interesting Links - Week 51, 2011 →
Pygame Examples - Pygame is something I’ve been meaning to look into. I’m not much of a game developer, but it supposedly does a good job just teaching you about Python.
Brati’s Lover - AppleScript Collection - A nice collection of useful AppleScripts. (via Macdrifter)
Linux Distribution Chooser - I’m not sure why I put this here, but if you should be looking for Linux...
1 tag
Interesting Links - Week 50, 2011
Platypus - Turn scripts into applications (via Brett Terpstra)
CodeRunner - More than a text editor, not quite an IDE.
Wake In Progress - Finnegans Wake, illustrated.
DeckPub - Interesting approach to publishing on iOS.
2 tags
Evernote Quick Search with LaunchBar
For the next installment of my Evernote and AppleScript series, I present a really simple script that allows me to search my Evernote database from LaunchBar:
Instead of switching to Evernote, clicking on the search field and typing my search, this lets me do it all from the keyboard without leaving whatever other application I happen to be using. I just invoke LaunchBar, switch to text entry...
Interesting Links - Week 49
Stallion Python Package Manager - A simple local-running web app that shows what Python packages are installed on your system.
SiriProxy - Hacking the Siri protocol for fun but not profit (incidentally, The Siri Protocol would make a great science fiction title).
Move The Web Forward - A bunch of great links about web technologies and how you can get involved in making the web work better.
...
Macdrifter: Python and the Mac Clipboard →
Besides just being generally useful, this post is also a great example of making a simple prototype and iterating to make it better. Because how often do you land on the “best” answer on your first try, especially when it comes to programming?
Gabe was also a guest on a recent episode of the Mac Power Users podcast. They talked extensively about Keyboard Maestro, which is a tool I...
iPen →
Speaking of styli, this looks pretty damn cool.
(via Macgasm)
TechCrunch: In Defense of the Stylus →
Devin Coldewey:
…despite being a third-class citizen in our world of capacitive touchscreens, being publicly ridiculed by Steve Jobs, and generally being considered a nuisance, the stylus isn’t something we should relegate to the company of floppy disks and CRT monitors just yet.
I can’t believe I’m linking to a TechCrunch piece, but I actually agree with most of it. A...
WatchI had the pleasure of hanging out (read: drinking) with Daniel at the Voices That Matter iPhone Developer Conference in 2009. He’s a great guy and an awesome Mac developer. His products MarsEdit and FastScripts make this blog happen.
1 tag
Interesting Links - Week 48
Text Processing in Linux - Useful on the Mac too
einstein - NewtonOS emulator. Not something new to me, but it’s been getting some more love lately.
Amazon Kindle Source Code - I’ll never look at this, but still pretty nifty
playterm - Like looking over someone’s shoulder as they do stuff in a terminal.
70Decibels - Fun podcasts. British accents.
pickleDB - Kinda like...
November 2011
14 posts
2 tags
Evernote Daily Log with LaunchBar
I’ve always thought Evernote would make for a workable place to keep something like a daily log, but I could never find a friction free workflow to make it happen. However, I was recently reminded that LaunchBar is more than just an application launcher and can execute actions, which can be AppleScripts. Since I know a little AppleScript, I wrote one that would basically solve this...
1 tag
Interesting Links - Week 47
I really enjoy Brett Terpstra’s web excursions, so I’ve decided to shamelessly steal the idea. Look for new installments Saturday-ish (unless I don’t find anything interesting to share).
Here are this week’s links:
Calepin - Markdown + Dropbox = Blog.
(An ((Even Better) Lisp) Interpreter (in Python)) - Title says it all.
SmalltalkHub - A source code repository for,...
Followup: Book Cover Images
A quick followup to my stealing Amazon image cover images post. I wrote a short AppleScript that will let you grab a one-off. First you’ll need to visit the book’s page on Amazon, highlight the ASIN in the location bar and copy it to the clipboard. Then run this little guy:
Assuming you stay on the item’s Amazon page, it’ll be replaced with just the image, which you can...
Type2Phone (Mac App Store Link) →
Send keystrokes from your Mac to your iOS (or Android, if you must) device. It even works with a Bluetooth keyboard that’s paired to your Mac.
(via osxdaily)
OmniFocus is now on speaking terms… →
So this is pretty awesome. Well done Omni Group.
2 tags
Evernote
I’ve decided to abandon my plain text note-taking system in favor of Evernote. nvALT and Byword, Elements and PlainText, these are all great applications and I’ve gotten a lot of use out of them over the years, but there was one use case that they weren’t addressing for me: sometimes it’s helpful to have images, or some other kind of non-textual data, accompany a note. The...
Don't Steal My Shit
There are a bunch of licenses people use for their web content these days. The most prolific is probably Creative Commons and its many variants. But the one constant in all licenses is pervasive legalese. So with that in mind I present to you the Don’t Steal My Shit License:
You can read my shit
You can quote my shit
But don’t be a dick and steal my shit
Simple, permissive, to...
Brett Kelly - Using Evernote to Archive Your... →
I’ve created and maintain an exhaustive (well, as of a few weeks ago) archive of all almost all of the crap I post on the Internet. You should, too.
This is something I’ve starting doing with ifttt too. I also use it to tweet anything I post here since Tumblr’s auto-tweeting is anti customizable.
Di-Verge
Re: my last link, I feel like I should explain, briefly, why I have no use for sites like Engadget or the Verge (hereafter referred to as General Purpose Tech Blogs, or GPTBs) instead of just saying they suck.
For better or worse, I’m only interested in a small area of the tech world. GPTBs, as my pithy initialism suggests, all cover broad categories of tech topics, most of which I...
Finally, The Verge →
Shadoe Huard:
The truth is simply that I’ve outgrown websites like The Verge. I don’t care for comments, forums or nifty side by side product comparisions. I no longer enjoy websites with front pages littered with dozens of clicable boxes and scrollable banner ads.
I’ve never cared for sites like that, but I checked out The Verge anyway.
My opinion remains unchanged.
October 2011
16 posts
2 tags
Weekend Project: Evernote Dated Photo
Back in September Brett Kelly wrote a neat little Python/Applescript tool called Evernote Dated Photo:
When you add an image to Evernote using this app, it will set the “created” date on the note to be the same day the photo was taken.
As originally written, it could only handle adding one photo at a time to your default notebook. Brett put the project up on github, so I forked it and added...
The Importance of Mind-Wandering →
Ennui is a cognitive gift, but it must be properly unlocked. We can get better at being bored.
The Evolution of Apple Design Between 1977-2008 →
Nice pictorial of Apple’s evolution, even if it is a little dated. Obviously this is something I enjoy.
Entrepreneurs Who Go It Alone — By Choice →
An article featuring Instapaper and Pinboard? Sign me up.
Ben Brooks - The Argument for 3G MacBooks →
So it’s quite obvious that with more and more cloud enabled users, creating a seamless and “just works” Internet connection is becoming even more important to crafting a great user experience.
I agree with Ben. For now my solution is to tether my MacBook Air to my iPhone. Certainly not ideal, but it’s better than nothing.
Yuvi Zalkow - Failing As A Failed Failure →
Be a hell of a failure and see what you learn from it.
OS X and iOS are not jails →
Chris Rawson over at TUAW with a nice response to RMS:
My iPad and iPhones may be tools of a “walled garden” approach to computing, but they do what I need them to do, every time, and without me having to tweak around the guts of their code in order to coax them into doing my bidding. How is that not freedom? How is that in any way equivalent to living in a prison?
See also my my Zealots...
Brett Terpstra - QuickQuestion →
Merlin calls Brett Mr. Useful. This is something that I’ve been finding pretty useful.
Zealots
I’ve written about my distaste for FOSS zealotry before, but man when Steve died the big guns came out. In their writing about Steve Jobs’ death and how good it is that we are now rid of his influence, Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond have shown once again that they are just as tyrannical, if not more so, as they accuse Steve of being. Steve never suggested that Linux (I refuse to...
A Reserved Seat
Most people probably woke up this morning and didn’t notice any change. Their world is the same today as it was yesterday. But I am not most people. My world feels different. A little less vibrant. One of my heroes is gone.
I watched the iPhone 4S presentation on Tuesday night, almost as soon as Apple posted it. As I was watching, I couldn’t help but notice that the camera seemed to...
