hazel
Latest
Alfred, Dropbox, Hazel, and Markdown? All in a day's work
"How does a geek-pastor use a computer?" is a question that I assume a lot of people ask themselves, although they probably don't. But if they did, this would be one answer: I need to make a list of the readings and sermon titles for the church secretary and choir director, so one can make the weekly worship guide, and the other can plan the music. I put my schedule up as a web page, like this: The reading is linked to the text so that everyone involved can easily access the text (I'll need it for sermon preparation, and the choir director will need it to see what the text is about so she can try to match it to potential hymns/anthems). Which reminds me: I have an Alfred shortcut for looking up Bible passages from the NRSV: A month year of Sundays Today the church secretary reminded me that I needed to update the list, as I had gone through all of the previous weeks that I had scheduled (oops). I decided that it was a good time to make a list of all of the Sundays between now and the end of 2015; that way I could start to fill in the dates of special events, vacation, etc. So... how would a sane person make a list of Sundays? Maybe look at a calendar? Try to figure them out in your head? Not me. I wrote a shell script: Actually I made my loop a little more complex, in order to give me the Markdown formatting that I wanted for the list: That gave me a nice, clean "unordered list" in HTML. The first line under the date will be the Scripture Reading. The second line will be the sermon title. The third line (if any) will be any notes about that particular Sunday. Fortunately I didn't have to include all of that in the output because I could use CSS' "generated content" feature to automatically add it for me: Markdown Markdown is a simple way of writing plain text which can be automatically translated into HTML (the language of web pages). But I don't want to have to remember to manually update the HTML page every time I edit the plain text Markdown file. So I have Hazel do that for me: Translation: Any time the file worship.mmd in the folder worship.luo.ma is updated, run that script on it, which will automatically convert it from Markdown to HTML and save it as the file index.html. The ~/Sites/worship.luo.ma/ folder is linked to my Dropbox, so I can edit that file on any of my Macs (or on my iPad or iPhone), and every time I press "Save" the website version will update, usually in less than a minute (the amount of time it takes Dropbox to sync and Hazel to notice the file has changed). (Have I mentioned how much I love having a MacMiniColo server? Because I do. A lot.) You can see the result for yourself at http://worship.luo.ma, or view the Markdown file at http://worship.luo.ma/worship.mmd. Now... if only I could get Hazel to clean up my actual desktop.
Best Mac apps of 2013: Talkcast recap
On this Sunday's TUAW Talkcast, several Mac pundits picked out their favorite Mac apps of 2013. Our own Michael Rose convened the panel, including GeekBeat TV host Benjamin Roethig; TUAW TV Live host Shawn "Doc Rock" Boyd (who hates snow); longtime TUAW contributor, app developer and podcaster Brett Terpstra; and the managing editor of The Mac Observer, Jeff Gamet. The show will be available on iTunes momentarily (and streamable from Talkshoe), but in case you want to speed up your app sampling, we've recapped the app list here. To best highlight these apps, I will list them alphabetically with links and relevant quips contributed by the host and guests. All of these apps are compatible with OS X 10.8 and 10.9, and reasonably priced. Some of them work with older systems, also. Also, be sure to read Brett's own list of his favorite apps of 2013, over at brettterpstra.com. Best Mac Apps of 2013 1Password 4 from AgileBits Inc. (On numerous people's lists.) Jeff called it "magically awesome." Brett notes that it stores your passwords and personal information (including credit card numbers, software license keys and more) and "makes storing and generating [the items] just simple." The popup that used to only work in browsers now works anywhere on your Mac; that way, you don't have to open the main 1Password app nearly as often as before. AirServer 5 from App Dynamic. An AirPlay receiver for Mac and PC. Can mirror your display from iOS devices. "Great for demoing iOS apps, and a more professional feature set than Reflector" -- Mike Rose. Alfred v2 from Running With Crayons. A free, hotkey-based launch controller that also can initiate a quick web search and offers a number of other capabilities (offered by Doc Rock; he referred to it as one of his household servants). This one received a TUAW Best of 2011 for Mac Utility apps. Adobe Edge Code and Edge Inspect Combo. Doc Rock uses these programs with his Creative Cloud subscription. Edge Code is a HTML and CSS editing tool. Edge Inspect is an inline editor of code, which while working on a line, the meta key will open up accompanying files in a modal box, so they can be adjusted without leaving your main HTML file. "It's amazing," according to Doc. Bartender from Surtees Studios Ltd. (Offered up by Brett Terpstra and Jeff Gamet.) "Bartender is a lifesaver." It lets you control which menu items show up on your menu bar, and lets you rearrange them at will. Bartender was also written up on TUAW as a Friday Favorite while it was still in beta. BeamApp from BeamApp UG. Brett noted this Mac and iOS tool for quickly sending phone numbers, songs, maps and more between your devices and your Mac. Mike pointed out DeskConnect, which has some of the same functionality but also allows you to send files (PDFs, presentations, Word docs) between the Mac and your iOS device in a jiffy. BetterTouchTool by Andreas Hegenberg. A free utility for OS X 10.7 and above that lets you configure gestures for your mouse and trackpad. Brett says he uses two Magic Trackpads and can set them up to do just what he wants. CheatSheet from Media Atleier. This free utility uses the command key to show you all available shortcuts for an app. Not available in the Mac App Store because it cannot be sandboxed. See Media Atelier's blog for the explanation. Clarify 1.1.3 from Blue Mango Learning Systems. A great tool for quick and easy documentation. You can capture an image, edit it and add text, all on one place. You can read about Clarify's first iteration in TUAW's Daily Mac App feature from 2011. Clef and Waltz. Mike Rose pointed out this new take on password and authentication management; just point your iPhone at an animated barcode patch and it lets you into the target site, removing your need to remember passwords. Although relatively few sites work with Clef, the new, independently developed Chrome plugin Waltz expands it to work with Twitter, Facebook, Dropbox and more. Clyppan by Ole Morten Halvorsen. It stores all your clipboard clippings, letting you recall them with a quick keystroke. Not new, but very useful. Coffitivity from coffitivity.com. Both Jeff and Mike called out this menubar tool. A certain amount of ambient noise can help stimulate creativity, so folks who work in silence may benefit from running Coffitivity, which adds background and ambient noise from a coffee shop. Downie by Charlie Monroe. Web video and YouTube downloader "that actually works." Downie actually suports 120 different sites, and Mike noted that it's replaced older tools like Grappler and EVOM for him. Everpix. This made the list despite the photo storage service closing shop earlier this year. "It was a fantastic app while it lasted." You can read the story of Everpix's closure from Megan Lavey-Heaton on TUAW. Evernote from Evernote Corporation. It's a note taking app that can do many things and Michael notes that it "keeps getting more useful." Jeff Gamet also notes that the Jot Script Evernote Edition (US $75) is more like writing with a real pen as opposed to a stylus. It's got a hard tip and clicks on the iPad, which is his only complaint. Fantastical 2 from Flexibits Inc. This is billed as "calendars and reminders done right." Jeff notes that additional plain text entry options, multi time zone and dictation support have been added. You can read TUAW's review from Victor Agreda to learn more. Final Cut Pro X from Apple. Listener John Brown suggested Apple's flagship 64-bit video editing application. John noted they've made it quite simple for most people to use and refers to it as "remarkable." Doc Rock also notes that it is "a major step forward" and "a great application." This week's 10.1 update added optimizations for Apple's new Mac Pro desktop. Hazel from Noodlesoft. Doc says this pairs up with Alfred as his "domestic help" and notes that "it does a really good job of keeping icons on desktop organized," plus it can move files around based on a variety of file attributes that you set. MailMate from Feron. An IMAP email client with an impressive array of features. "It does everything I need it to," says Brett, who describes it as "the TextMate of email." Marked 2.2 from Brett Terpstra. We couldn't let the show go by without a hat tip to Brett's own Markdown preview tool, very much improved in the 2.x version. MindNode Pro from Ideas On Canvas Ltd. Both Mike and Brett called out this Mac and iOS mindmapping tool for its speed, easy interface and good-looking output. Mouseposé 3.2.4 from Boinx Software Ltd. Updated in December, it's a useful mouse pointer highlighting tool for demos and presentations. "A lot of my colleagues use tools like OmniDazzle or Zoomit for remote presentations," says Mike, "and whenever I pull out Mouseposé everyone on the call goes 'oooh, ahhh.'" OmniPresence from The Omni Group. For users of OmniGroup's apps. It's a free service and menu bar item that offers file syncing between devices. "It makes all of the changes between your files appear everywhere," says Jeff, but without the limitations and aggravations of iCloud. PollEv Presenter app from Poll Everywhere. SMS-based polling service that works with PowerPoint or Keynote to show live polls in real time. Mike calls it one of his go-to tools. Popclip from Pilotmoon Software. (Offered by Doc Rock and Brett Terpstra.) A $2 app that shows up when you select text with your mouse or trackpad -- simulating the iOS text selection experience.. ReadKit from Webin. RSS reader; Brett says it's "simplistic and powerful, and it supports every RSS system you can think of, and makes my life easy." RocketDocs. This single-session browser tool is specific to the Google Drive/Google Apps productivity tools. Mike says it's often easier than setting up Chrome for Docs use, and keeps your editing sessions away from general browsing. Shush from Mizage. A cough button for your Mac, so that you can mute yucky noises when recording audio. Works in FaceTime, iChat, Skype, Podcast Capture and more. Both Mike and Brett enthusiastically recommend it -- Mike even used it during the show, and blocked every snuffle and cough! We welcome your suggestions for the best Mac apps of 2013 -- let us know in the comments or on Facebook.
Using Keyboard Maestro 6 to automate a web database
One of my favorite new features in Keyboard Maestro 6 is the ability to click on links in web pages using either Safari or Google Chrome. This new feature let me make an old macro (which was based around trying to click in the right place) a lot more efficient. I'm going to show you how I set this up. Although you probably won't be using this same web database system, chances are good that you could encounter something similar to it. My hope is that this will help people who are unfamiliar with Keyboard Maestro (or macro programs in general) understand how they might use automation to help make their computing lives a little easier. "What can't be automated?" Every week I log into EBSCO, a web database of journal articles. I put in my search terms or follow links from TextWeek - another site which has indexed articles by topic and links to EBSCO. That takes me to a summary page for the journal article which gives me publication information. I go through the results and find the articles that I want to read. There is no practical way to (usefully) automate that. I could probably find some way of fetching all of the results for a specific topic, but that wouldn't really be very useful. It's not exactly the stuff of summer blockbuster movies, but I rather enjoy it. The automation part kicks in when I actually find something that I want to read. Automate the tedious stuff Once I find an article I want to read later I have two options: I can click through and read the PDF through the site itself. This is invariably a lousy experience. The PDF ends up being loaded into one part of the screen, surrounded on three sides by parts of the website interface. I can save the PDF to my Downloads and/or open it in Preview, but it's all very clumsy and inefficient, as anyone who has used any sort of web database like this can attest. I can email the PDF to myself. In fact, I can email the PDF to myself and get a copy of the bibliographic information including a link back to the original in case I ever need to find it again. That's much nicer. Well, at least, theoretically. In practice, it's still fairly clumsy and inefficient. I have to click the "E-mail" link on the side of the page, as shown in the image below: There's no keyboard shortcut for that link, of course, which means I have to use the mouse. Or do I? Actually, with Keyboard Maestro 6 I can assign a keyboard shortcut to clicking links, and so I have set ⌘ + Y ("Y" as in "Y"es I want to read this article, but also because the key combination wasn't in use by Safari). When I press ⌘ + Y, Keyboard Maestro will click that link for me. But we're just getting started. Clicking that "E-mail" link doesn't actually email the PDF to me. In fact, all it does it open another AJAX/JavaScript pseudo-window with several additional fields: my email address. Yes, every time. No, it never remembers it, no matter how many times I've typed it in before. A Subject: line for the email. You might think that the title of the article I am reading would be automatically filled into the Subject: field, but you would be mistaken. A checkbox for sending the bibliographic information in plain text instead of HTML. You have probably already guessed that I'm not filling all of that in by hand, so you're probably expecting that I'm going to create another macro, right? Wrong! I don't need another macro, I can still use the one I've already created. Macro Step 1: "Click 'E-Mail' link" Macro Step 2: "Wait until 'Send' button appears (in that JavaScript/AJAX pseudo-window). Macro Step 3: When that button appears, press Tab twice to get to the "Email to" field. Macro Step 4: Fill in my email address (remember this part later) Macro Step 5: Press Tab again and enter the Title of the Safari window (which Keyboard Maestro can easily do) into the Subject: field Macro Step 6: Press Tab two more times which will put me on the checkbox for 'Send in plain text format' Macro Step 7: press Space to toggle the checkbox Which gives me something like this: Let's look at those steps again. Are any of them difficult? No. But how many times would I accidentally make a typo in my email address? Or tedious would it be to keep copying and pasting the Title: into the Subject: field versus the 0.01 seconds it takes the computer to do it automatically? How many times would I accidentally paste the Subject: into the 'Comments' box? Or forget to check the 'Plain Text" box? Macro Step 8: click that "Send" button Now we're done, right? Aha, you're catching on. We're not quite done. After the email is sent, there's a confirmation window: Macro Step 9: Pause until the "Continue" button appears, then press it. Now here's another little detail: sometimes I will open a bunch of tabs, and each tab is a different article, so when I am done, I want to close the tab because there is nothing more to do with it. However, other times I will click through from the search results and the article loads in that same page. If I close the tab there I will lose my search results and have to go back and start over again. Fortunately, there is an easy solution. Macro Step 10: If Safari's menu option "History » Back" is enabled, select that menu option and take me back to the search results, but if that menu option is not enabled it means that this article was opened in its own tab. Keyboard Maestro can do this easily. Just fill in the blanks: How many times would I accidentally choose the wrong one? Knowing myself, a lot. Sure, it should be possible to just re-open the last tab, but it doesn't always work that way, especially when working with database queries. If I was to do each of those steps myself, it would take about 20 seconds for each page, assuming that I never made a mistake. (Even that is cheating because I have a TextExpander macro for my email address.) It takes Keyboard Maestro between 2–3, and most of that time is actually waiting for the server-side actions to happen. This morning I found 15 articles that I wanted to read: 20 seconds times 15 articles is about 5 minutes. To me there's a bigger factor than the time saved: the convenience. Having this process take just a few seconds instead of a few minutes means that I can keep my focus on what I am doing. That means more attention on the parts of the process that can't be automated: the searching and the reading. More time and energy to do the parts of the task that I want to do and enjoy, and less time and energy spent on the boring parts that the computer does faster and more precisely anyway. One more thing... Maybe two... Remember "Macro Step 4: Fill in my email address"? There's actually a 'trick' to that part too. Because I'm having the computer do the typing anyway, I actually have it send each article to two email addresses (separated by semi-colons, not commas... Why? You'd have to ask EBSCO). The first is my regular Gmail address where the article gets filtered away "just in case." The second email address is a SendToDropbox.com address which I specifically use for these kinds of articles. I don't know what kind of black magic they are using over there at SendToDropbox, but by the time I have closed the tab or gone back to the previous page in Safari, Dropbox is already downloading the files that I have emailed to myself. SendToDropbox can automatically sort the files by date (which is handy since that will, effectively, group them by topic for me since I generally search for one topic per day). Of course I can't stop there, so I have Hazel at that folder which does some even nerdier things to the files that SendToDropbox creates. The point isn't to do what I have done... As I said at the beginning, chances are you don't use the same database to lookup journal articles... But what do you do on a regular basis that could be automated? Are there parts of something that you do over and over again that you find really tedious that the computer could do for you? These automation tools – Keyboard Maestro, Hazel, TextExpander – won't make you think that you are living with The Jetsons, but they can smooth out rough edges in your computing life, making it less frustrating and more enjoyable. That's why automation continues to be a big focus for me as I look for the "little things" that add up to a better experience using my Mac.
Hazel 3.1 update adds powerful date-matching feature
Noodlesoft's Hazel is a file-organization tool for Mac OS X that uses a set of customizable rules to automatically move and sort your information. It can be set to automatically move your new music or movies to your Music and Movies folders, or sort files by name, email address, the website they came from and much more. For people who'd rather keep working than sort files, it can be a great time-saving tool for keeping your desktop and downloads folder clear. Today Hazel released version 3.1, which adds a powerful new date-matching feature to the software. The feature allows you to search the contents of a document for text formatted as a date, so if you need to quickly find a digital copy of an insurance report from June 19, 2013 you simply need to set Hazel to look for that date. Hazel knows to look for different kinds of date formatting, converting slashes to dashes when the moment needs it. You can see video of the feature being used below made by blogger David Sparks. Hazel 3.1 is currently available for download from Noodlesoft as a free 14-day trial. If you'd like to purchase the program at the end of your trial it will set you back US$28. Hazel 3.1 from David Sparks on Vimeo.
Log your social life with Hazel, Day One and IFTTT
TUAW's own Brett Terpstra has created a new tool called Slogger to help you log your online social life. Slogger, a shortened name for social logger, pulls down updates from your Twitter account, grabs posts from your RSS feeds, gathers links to your daily Github Gists and saves your last.fm playlists and loved tracks for the day. It also uses IFTTT along with Hazel to grab new images from Instagram, Flickr, and Facebook. All this information in then stored in Day One, a journaling app available on the Mac, iPad and iPhone. The script-based system is designed to run once a day so you can have a daily snapshot of your online social activity. You can read more about the technical side of how this system works and grab the scripts from Brett's website. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
Sync iCloud to Dropbox
Mac and iOS users are going to be increasingly pushed to choose between storing their documents in iCloud or Dropbox. I expect that Apple will continue to push more and more features to iCloud that will make people want to use it, and I expect that Apple will continue to make iCloud easier and easier for iOS and Mac developers to use, so developers will want to support it. I like the idea behind iCloud, but I don't really trust iCloud yet. Apple's previous attempts at online services have left me suspicious about iCloud's performance, reliability, and long-term future. I hope I'm wrong and that iCloud turns out to be great, but in the meantime, I know Dropbox, and I trust Dropbox. One of my favorite features of Dropbox is the ability to go back and see revisions from the previous 30 days. It's my safety net. The good news is that you can sync iCloud to Dropbox. The bad news is that it's a one-way sync from iCloud to Dropbox. But if all you want to do is backup iCloud files and be able to retrieve previous versions from Dropbox, it's pretty simple to do. I'm going to use Byword as an example because it's fairly straight-forward, but the process should work roughly the same for any iCloud enabled Mac app. Step One: Make sure iCloud is enabled. Go to System Preferences » iCloud and make sure that you have "Documents & Data" set to sync. Step Two: Create an iCloud-based file. The exact process for this differs from app to app. Byword has a File » Move to iCloud menu item. Step Three: Find the local iCloud folder. Here's where things get a little bit tricky. You have to get into the "Library" folder in your Home directory, but that folder has been hidden in Lion. Fortunately for you there are at least 18 ways to view that folder. My recommendation is to go to the Finder, select the "Go" menu, and press the Option/Alt key. When you do that, you'll see the Library folder appear. Or use ⌘ + Shift + G and type in "~/Library/" if you prefer keyboard shortcuts. Once you are in, look for a folder called Mobile Documents You'll find something like the list of directories shown here. Inside each one is a "Documents" sub-directory. I bet you can guess what is stored in there. Step Four: Sync changes via Hazel. Hazel was recently updated to version 3, and one of the new features is a 'sync' option. For those who don't know Hazel, you should, it's one of my irreplaceable apps. It allows you to create rules for all sorts of actions to happen in specific folders if different criteria are met. For example, Hazel can tell if a file has been modified since the last time Hazel checked a specific folder. If it has been modified, you can tell Hazel to do specific things, including "sync" from that folder, so another one. Click on image for a larger size I created a 'Byword' folder in my ~/Dropbox/ and then created a Hazel rule which says "If any files have been modified since we last checked (matched) this folder, then sync the 'Documents' folder (located inside ~/Library/Mobile Documents/) with the Byword folder in Dropbox. Step Five: (Optional) While I was checking around inside ~/Library/Mobile Documents/ I used Default Folder X to set the Byword iCloud folder to be the default folder for all new Byword documents. Now whenever I create new document on my Mac using Byword, I know that it will automatically be saved to iCloud and Dropbox. This isn't something that I will do for all of my iCloud-enabled apps, but I've been using Byword more and more lately for all sorts of writing projects, and I want to do everything I can to make sure that I am "covered" when it comes to saving my files. Two local copies (one in Mobile Documents, one in Dropbox folder) and two copies in the "cloud" (iCloud and Dropbox sync), plus 30 days worth of "undo"? (Not to mention that each of my Macs will have local copies as well, as iCloud and Dropbox sync across my network.) That's a system I can create and then forget about.
Set AutoImporter's preferences for cameras and iOS devices
When I plug in my SD card, I want one thing to happen: "Get my pictures (and videos) off this card as quickly as possible." I don't necessarily want to import them to iPhoto or do anything else with them right away. I just want them moved from Point A (the SD card) to Point B (a folder on my Mac). Ideally, I would like for each device to have its own folder because I don't want pictures from my iPad (screenshots, saved images from the internet, etc.) mixed in with family vacation pictures from my real camera. Fortunately, there is an easy way to do this in Snow Leopard if you take a few minutes to set things up the right way.
The best Mac applications I used in 2010
As the end of 2010 approaches, I started looking back over the Mac applications that I used this year to see which ones stood out. They weren't necessarily released this year (although many were), but they were apps that helped me get stuff done in 2010. I didn't try to come up with some specific number or any other predefined criteria, I just took a good hard look at my Applications folder, menu bar and System Preferences. They are presented in no particular order. Dropbox reached 1.0 in 2010, and the milestone release included some significant Mac-specific features such as Extended Attribute Sync. This was also the first year that I exceeded the free space Dropbox provides, and paid for a 50 GB account. Thanks to the referral program, educational user referral bonus, and extra free space programs that Dropbox offers, I have 83.4 GB of space in my "50 GB" account. TUAW folks have written extensively about our love of Dropbox, but if you've somehow missed it: Dropbox is a folder on your computer which syncs (and therefore is "backed up" and version-managed) online, and which you can then sync to all of your other Mac, Windows, or Linux computers. (Want to know more? Check out the official Dropbox tour.) Thanks to the API which the company announced back in May, many iOS developers have added Dropbox syncing as well, making 2010 a pretty significant year for Dropbox and its users. (Cost: 2 GB/free; $9.99/month or $99.00/year for 50 GB; or $19.99/month or $199.00/year for 100 GB.) Read on for the rest of 2010's best Mac apps...
HTC Gold with Windows Phone 7 in November, and more from a rumored UK roadmap leak
O, to see what Omio sees. The outlet has obtained what it claims to be "a huge UK mobile phone release schedule for the rest of the year... [from] all the manufacturers" (emphasis its own). So, from where would such an all-encompassing roadmap hail? We don't know, nor can we corroborate any of this, but the details are numerous so let's go through it -- albeit with cautious optimism and a few grains of salt. The biggest phone we can see of this baker's dozen of a lineup is the HTC Gold (sound familiar?), due in November and loaded with Microsoft's mobile OS newcomer Windows Phone 7. Unfortunately, that's all the information provided, but it's certainly enough to entice us. Also in November, we've got Samsung i8700 and Nokia E7 -- the latter being possibly a N8-esque QWERTY slider with AMOLED display and Symbian^3, and the former being a mystery (although Omio takes a gander that its aquatic Greek mythology might suggest a Bada-powered existence). Going up the list Memento style, October purportedly brings across the pond-ers HTC Vision, the virtually unknown HTC Ace, Nokia N8, and Sony Ericsson's Xperia X8 and Yendo. September's a bit of a yawner -- SE Hazel and a Nokia X2 candybar -- as is August with the X6 8GB and BlackBerry Curve 9300. And July? Nokia E5-00, Sony Ericsson W20, and Samsung i5500. As is usually the case, the more you can wait, the better your options. Now, let's see if this supposed roadmap stays on course.
Sort your crashlogs with Hazel
I've been on a bit of a Hazel kick lately. I wrote a short shell script that will sort my Crash Logs. #!/bin/sh ### Get the name of the app APP=`/bin/echo $1 | /usr/bin/sed 's#_.*##g'` ### make a directory /bin/mkdir -p "$APP" ### move the log into the directory /bin/mv -n "$1" "$APP" ### done! exit 0 Add this rule to the folder ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports. The rules above tell Hazel to only run on crash logs older than today, in case you need to do anything with it such as send it to the developer. UPDATE: Note that the developer of Hazel left a comment below showing how to do this without a script.
Automatically open Bittorrent files using Dropbox and Hazel
Every year there is a torrent made to let listeners download most of the music for SXSW. This year's torrent has recently been posted (previous years' are also available at the same site). I don't usually use Bittorent, so I asked around for client suggestions; Transmission seems to be a favorite among several of my TUAW colleagues. I also remembered a tip from my friend Guillermo Esteves (who did the awesome Star Wars crawl using only HTML and CSS), about using Dropbox to start torrents remotely. Guillermo provides some detailed instructions for Transmission and µTorrent to set them up to "watch" a folder for new .torrent files, with an important caveat to make sure that you don't download the files to your Dropbox. One additional Transmission tip: be sure that you un-check the box next to "Display 'adding transfer' options window" so that files will automatically be added, and be sure to check the box next to the "Start transfers when added" option. Guillermo shows both of those settings in his screenshots, but it took me a few minutes to figure out that I had them set incorrectly. Then I asked myself: "How can I be even lazier?" and I remembered Hazel, a program for automatically moving files from one folder to another based on a set of predefined rules. So I added a Hazel rule for ~/Downloads/ which will move any file where "Kind is BitTorrent Document" to my ~/Dropbox/Torrents/ folder. I repeated this on both my iMac and my MacBook Pro. Now I can be on my MacBook Pro and download a torrent file to ~/Downloads/ and have it moved to my Torrents folder, and have the torrent automatically start downloading on my iMac. So when I'm done with my MacBook Pro I can just close it without having to worry about interrupting any of my downloads. You may have noticed that we're big Dropbox fans around here. We use it for syncing Things or instead of a USB sync cable or keeping our notes with us or sharing screenshots, along with any number of other uses. Do you know of any other unusual uses for Dropbox? Let us know in the comments. In the meantime, enjoy the free, legal music downloads from SXSW!
Ask TUAW: Automatic file sorting, Disk Utility, iPod battery replacement, and more
Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we've got questions about automatically sorting downloaded files, using Disk Utility to change partitions and format external drives, using a KVM in a multi-platform environment, replacing an iPod touch battery, and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Leave your questions for next week in the comments section at the end of this post. When asking a question, please include which machine you're using and what version of Mac OS X is installed on it (we'll assume you're running Snow Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify), or if it's an iPhone-related question, which iPhone version and OS version you have.
Sony Ericsson Elm, Hazel, and VH700 stereo Bluetooth buds beef up vegan GreenHeart line
Who says tree-hugging has to be boring? Actually, Sony Ericsson's latest sets to join the eco-friendly GreenHeart line aren't anything special, but at least they don't slouch in the specs department -- both the Hazel slider and Elm candybar announced today feature 5 megapixel cams, GPS with geotagging, LED flashes, and dual-band HSPA on top of quadband EDGE. The real news, though, might be the introduction of SE's very first GreenHeart accessory -- the VH700 stereo Bluetooth headset -- which ponies up dual mics for improved call quality and micro-USB recharging. It'll hit in the first quarter of the year along with the Elm; the Hazel follows on in the second quarter.
Ask TUAW: OpenCL support in Snow Leopard, Boot Camp, automatic importing into iPhoto, and more
Wednesday means it's time for another Ask TUAW! For this edition we've got questions about what Macs will support Snow Leopard's forthcoming OpenCL acceleration, using Boot Camp with multiple partitions, connecting a Mac mini to HDMI, automatically importing images into iPhoto, and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X (we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions.
Hazel 2.2
Noodlesoft has recently released Hazel 2.2, a nice update to their rules based file organizer. Hazel 2.2 adds a number of interesting AppleScript improvements. You can now add scripts directly in rules, no need to create seperate files for your scripts. There are also some new Hazel specific AppleScript keys that allow you to pass values from a script to Hazel, which really lets you make some imaginative rules. You can check out the full release notes to marvel at all the updates Noodlesoft managed to cram into this point release.Hazel is one of those applications that is tough to describe, but once you get it you'll be amazed you managed to keep your Mac organized without. Hazel costs $21.95 and version 2.2 is a free upgrade.
Mac 101: uninstalling applications
This time around in Mac 101 I thought it would be good to talk about uninstalling applications on the Mac, especially for the recent switchers out there. Unlike Windows, Mac OS X does not have a native utility for uninstalling applications. Most (though not all) applications are installed just by dragging and dropping them into the Applications folder, and most are similarly got rid of by dragging them to the trash. However, when you do that you often leave behind preference and support files, especially in your user Library folder hierarchy (/Users/yourname/Library, as distinct from /Library which is "owned" by Mac OS X). While you can root these files out yourself, it's sometimes far from obvious where they are. To resolve this, a new class of uninstallers have appeared on the scene to address the problem. One of the first was AppZapper ($12.95), but many more have arisen like AppDelete (donations requested), SuperPop ($15), and CleanApp ($10). With most of these you choose the application you want deleted by dropping it on the uninstaller (or choosing it from a list); hit a button and the application plus its support files are sent to the trash. Taking a slightly different approach, Yank ($19.95) actually monitors your system while you are installing applications and creates a "Yank File" that records the location of everything created by the application. You then uninstall by running the Yank File. Finally, there are uninstallers that integrate with the Trash itself, requiring no separate interface. Into this class fall Hazel ($21.95), which also does other automatic file management tasks, and AppTrap (donations requested). What's great about these last two is that you can just drag an application to the trash and they will automatically look for and offer to delete the support files. Indeed, this seems to me to be the most Mac-like and elegant approach. For my own part I mostly just use Hazel, though I still throw things at AppZapper now and again.
File Action: a free, light-weight alternative to Hazel
Many of us here around the TUAW home office love Hazel ($21.95), the great folder-based automation utility that you can set up to run various rules to process (e.g. move, copy, sort) your files. However, we also like free, and so I was intrigued by a new application called File Action that is basically a kind of Hazel-light.File Action concentrates on only one task -- moving files -- but like Hazel you can set it up to move those files on the basis of various rules. While less sophisticated than Hazel it can definitely handle useful tasks like sorting your downloads folder on the basis of file extensions, etc.While I wouldn't give up the power of Hazel, if your file sorting needs are basic (and your wallet light), File Action is worth a look. It's a free download from Tom Hancocks.
Hazel 2
Hazel is a TUAW favorite, and we have been anxiously awaiting the day when Hazel 2 exits beta. Well, folks, today is that day. Hazel 2 is now available for purchase (a free upgrade for current users, and $21.95 for a single user license).Hazel is an automation tool that makes organizing your files a snap. You can create a number of sophisticated rules based on everything from file age to location, and then have Hazel act on those rules. Hazel will delete files for you, archive things, add labels, and much more.New in Hazel 2 are: App Sweep: Hazel keeps an eye out for when you delete an app. When you do, it offers to throw away all the other associated files with that app (support files that is, not files that you created with the app itself). Growl support New actions including rename file, sort into subfolders, and more. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Read the release notes for the fully skinny.
Hazel 2.0 beta released with application uninstalling, tons of new features
Hazel is one of those truly clever, useful apps that I think could make the Mac computing world a better place if everyone bought a license (and used it, of course). If you haven't seen our previous coverage, Hazel is - in a nutshell - your "personal housecleaner," allowing you to specify rules for moving and organizing your files just like you would with Mail messages. For a basic example, you could create a rule that watches your Desktop for downloaded files types like .ZIP, .DMG, .SIT, etc., and automatically move them to a Software folder once they're a day old. Hazel's abilities don't stop there, however; not by a long shot. Hazel can automatically import image files into iPhoto, music into iTunes, add Spotlight comments, organize files into folders and even subfolders, add Finder color labels to files, run AppleScripts and so much more. Hazel can even manage your Trash for you by setting a specific time frame after which older (but not all) files should be deleted, or even a size limit that the Trash should be kept under (say, 2 GB). All this is done completely and transparently in the background, allowing you to get things done while Hazel works its magic.Have I piqued your interest? Good, because Paul Kim at Noodlesoft has just released a much-anticipated Hazel 2.0 update in beta with some significant new features. At the top of my personal list is full-blown support for uninstalling an application and the ability to preview rule matches so you can polish your criteria before flipping the switch. Read on for details on these killer new features and more.
A Kinkless Desktop
Ethan Schoonover is the creator of Kinkless GTD, the series of AppleScripts for OmniOutliner that was one of the first serious GTD implementations on the Mac. He has since contributed to the development of the forthcoming OmniFocus. Ethan's productivity tips go beyind kGTD, however, and he has a five-part series of articles and screencasts called Kinkless Desktop, which explain his methods for keeping your Desktop orderly and productive. He has a number of nice tips including aesthetic customization and using TUAW favorite Hazel for automated filing. Check out the series at Kinkless.com.[via MacDevCenter]
