automation
Latest
Book: Discovering Automator
Discovering Automator is a new book from Hanaan Rosenthal that delves into the many facets of making your Mac do more work in less time for you with the power of Mac OS X Tiger's Automator. From Automator World's description, Discovering Automator details "the ins-and-outs of Automator: basic workflow construction, deployment, debugging and advanced topics such as creating shell scripts, Applescripts and plug-ins." The book also comes with over 70 Automator actions, including many requested actions for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.Discovering Automator sells for $14.99 at Amazon.com, but if you'd like a taste, you can download both a sample chapter and the table of contents at Hanaan's site.[via Automator World]
Freeverse offers free automation plug-ins for Sound Studio 3
Freeverse has announced a free set of automation plug-ins for Sound Studio 3, their fantastic, easy-to-use audio editing application which we've blogged before. Dubbed "Monbots" (short for Monkey Bots), these are but the first three in what Freeverse promises to be a series of handy automation plug-ins and tools.The first monbot, Clean & Convert, is an audio scrubber for tidying up any misbehaving or noisy audio. The second, called Mastering Console, offers a set of tools and effects for (you guessed it) mastering audio, while Bookend Audio allows you to easily add intro and outro audio to a file or group of files. A fourth monbot, capable of stitching multiple pieces of audio together into one file, is aptly called Stitch and is listed as coming soon.It looks like the monbots are free, so all you need is a copy of Sound Studio 3 which sells for a mere $79.95.
maccontrol
Do you ever wish you can run all of your home entertainment stuff with your Mac and a remote? Well, the fine folks at maccontrol certainly hope that you do. They have two products that are designed to make this happen: the maccontrol connector and the maccontrol remote.The Connector can control but to 4 infrared devices and can use 4 serial connections to control other things. It links up with your WiFi network and leverages the power of BonJour to autodiscover your Mac, other Connectors, and the Remote.The Remote includes a 2.5 inch LCD and a scrollwheel which makes it very iPod like. The display can show a program guide, your iTunes library, or even RSS feeds.The bundle will set you back $800 but they are currently running a Macworld preorder special for $649.
Getting started with Folder Actions
I'm finding myself spending more and more time at Apple.com/pro, as there are some truly useful tips for getting things done in OS X. Take this tip for example, that C.K. just sent my way: Adding Automation Through Folder Actions. Y'know those Enable/Configure Folder Actions options that show up any time you right-click (ctrl-click) a folder? Well, this tutorial will help explain what those are about by getting you started with setting up a simple action that notifies you when a file has been placed in a folder. Handy for a workplace environment where coworkers are placing items in your shared Drop Box. If I remember right, you can also attach applescripts and even Automator Actions you create or download as folder actions as well, which can really open up the doors for simple folder-based automation. Check out the brief tutorial to get your feet wet with the (geeky) goodness of automating OS X.
