Kev Rodgers

The misnaming tic

2010-07-10T00:00:00-04:00

People frequently screw up names in the same ways.

Yes, I have seen this. The one that irks me the most is VMware. The most common mistake I’ve seen is VMWare. When I write about a company or product, I search for what is the official capitalization.

Safari Extensions Obviate NNW

2010-06-10T00:00:00-04:00

Two safari extensions have obviated my need for NetNewsWire: greader-bgtabs and Google Reader Styles.

My flow for reading articles when I'm on the desktop is like this. I open NetNewsWire and use keyboard shortcuts to open all the new articles in Safari in the background. Then, I go to Safari and read the articles.

Some people are happy simply reading the articles inside NetNewsWire, either in the integrated browser or in the stylized view pane. That's cool. And, if that's how you like it, then NNW will work well for you. Since I'm only using NNW as a launcher, it's superfluous to have it running all the time.

My issues with the Google Reader website are, 1) it looks pants, and 2) when you press 'v' to open items, they open in the foreground. The two extensions I'm using alleviate both issues. Now, the Google Reader website looks good and pages open in background tabs.

I'm all for only using those applications that you really need. And, until recently, NNW was the best option for a good feed reading workflow.

This is how Apple rolls | Tablets | Macworld

2010-05-16T00:00:00-04:00

Minimal Mac

Try this with your next Mac (or, for the daring who wish to clone, wipe and start from scratch): Instead of using Migration Assistant to transfer Applications and Settings from the old Mac, try using the machine fresh out of the box. Then, install and transfer applications and settings only when absolutly [sic] needed.

OK, I'll give this a go with my next Mac. I should be receiving it in the next couple of weeks. I've got a shit load of apps on my current MacBook Pro that I never use. I wonder for how long I can go without installing invaluable apps such as LaunchBar, TextExpander, and 1Password. My guess is less than 2 days.

My bet is, most will be surprised at how little they end up adding back. It could be an interesting experiment at least.

Oh yes, it will be interesting.

The Faces of Twitter

2010-05-13T00:00:00-04:00

The Faces of Twitter

As your average nobody on the Internets, I have a fairly even ratio of Followers and people that I follow.

And then there are people like me. At the moment, I'm only following 48 accounts (a mix of people and companies). I've had a Twitter account for over three years, and have 21 followers (most of which are marketing types). I'm more of a Twitter consumer than a Twitter creator.

CSS Naked Day 2010

2010-04-08T00:00:00-04:00

CSS Naked Day 2010

Are you in?

Yeah, I'm in.

Update: CSS Naked Day has ended; the style sheet has been re-enabled.

Link List Post with Jekyll and Applescript

2010-03-13T00:00:00-05:00

In the previous post, I mentioned that I hacked together a somewhat automated process to create a linked list style post. The following AppleScript is what I came up with:

on displayErrorMessage(s)
    display dialog (s) buttons {"OK"} default button "OK" with icon caution
end displayErrorMessage

tell application "Safari"
    try
        set pageURL to URL of document 1
        set pageTitle to name of document 1
        set selectedText to do JavaScript "getSelection();" in document 1
    on error errorMessage
        displayErrorMessage("Can’t create a new post because of an error getting information from Safari.") of me
        return
    end try
end tell

property LF : ASCII character 10

set modTitle to text returned of (display dialog "Modify the title:" with title "Modify Title" default answer pageTitle buttons {"OK"} default button 1)

tell application "System Events"
    set the clipboard to "[" & pageTitle & "]" & "(" & pageURL & ")" & LF & LF & ">" & selectedText & LF & LF
end tell

do shell script "ruby ~/bin/newlink.rb " & quoted form of modTitle

Here is a breakdown of how the script works.

on displayErrorMessage(s)
    display dialog (s) buttons {"OK"} default button "OK" with icon caution
end displayErrorMessage

tell application "Safari"
    try
        set pageURL to URL of document 1
        set pageTitle to name of document 1
        set selectedText to do JavaScript "getSelection();" in document 1
    on error errorMessage
        displayErrorMessage("Can’t create a new post because of an error getting information from Safari.") of me
        return
    end try
end tell

This first section, which I copied from the New Post from Safari script included with MarsEdit, grabs the URL, Title, and selected text from Safari and assigns them to the indicated variables. This is the essential part of the process, and if this was all the script did, it would be a big timesaver. But, I wanted to see if I could get more out of it.

set modTitle to text returned of (display dialog "Modify the title:" with title "Modify Title" default answer pageTitle buttons {"OK"} default button 1)

This bit of code will open a dialog box asking to modify the page title. Some page titles are lengthy, and this bit allow me to shorten it up to what I want.

tell application "System Events"
    set the clipboard to "[" & pageTitle & "]" & "(" & pageURL & ")" & LF & LF & ">" & selectedText & LF & LF
end tell

This part copies a Markdown formatted link to the clipboard. It includes an href to the article as well as a blockquote of the selected text.

Now that I've got what I want to include in the link list in the clipboard, the next step is to create a new post in the Jekyll system I have setup. Thanks to this bit of Ruby code, compliments of Alex Payne, a shell script call to the Ruby progarm will create the file with the necessary markup.

do shell script "ruby ~/bin/newlink.rb " & quoted form of modTitle

The next step is to paste in the clipboard data and type any other comments I have.

It may seem like a lot of effort, but it only takes a few seconds to generate the link list item. I'm sure there is a more efficient way to do this, and I'm looking forward to figuring one out.

Blogging with TextMate

2010-03-11T00:00:00-05:00

Blogging with TextMate, and using AppleScript and JavaScript to ease the pain

Doing all of my blogging with TextMate these past few weeks has been great, except for one terribly annoying thing, namely the inability to quickly conjure up a bit. I was having to manually — gasp — create these (usually) quick, simple posts. I don’t necessarily need speed when starting long-form blog posts like the one you’re currently reading, but for the more frequent “bits” I definitely do. I need/want something that amounts to little more than a keyboard shortcut.

In order to take linked list posts seriously, I definitely need some automation in the process. I hacked around some with what I found on Justin Blanton's site and wherever else I could find AppleScript examples; I am by no means skilled with programming. I've managed to put together something that works for the time being, but I can't help but think there is a more elegant solution to this problem.

Cameron Moll and the Linked List

2010-03-08T00:00:00-05:00

Cameron Moll

You see, I’ve always enjoyed posting links as much as I’ve enjoyed posting articles.

Maybe I want to write linked list items on my blog too. Since I'm using Jekyll, I will need to test it out. This is that test.

The Search is Over

2010-02-24T00:00:00-05:00

When I was twelve, we didn't have cable television, so if we wanted to see any music videos, we waited for NBC's Friday Night Videos. On one particular Friday night, the video for Survivor's "The Search is Over" was scheduled. The cool thing about this is my Uncle Alex (UA) is in the video. So on that particular Friday night, me, my brother (Hey brother!), my mom, and my grandma gathered around the T.V. to catch a glimpse of UA on the small screen. When his scene finally arrived, my mom or grandma jumped up and shouted, “There's Al! There's Al!” We captured the moment on VHS and watched the video over and over for the next several weeks. That videotape has since been lost, broken, or erased. Not that it matters, I don't have a VCR I could play it on now anyway. But thanks to the Internet, I was able to locate a decent clip of the video. It was quite a search, but now it's over.

UA is the guy answering the phone in the video and today is his birthday. Happy Birthday UA!

A Picture Please

2009-12-23T00:00:00-05:00

This website is coming along and now I want to test a post with a picture in it.