"Josh, Jack, and myself are not discrediting Steven Troughton-Smith and Grant Paul’s work in any way. The port they announced tonight is awesome. The sad part is that it will not and cannot be released."
As you might have guessed from my previous posts I’m back to using iCal. The built-in calendar provided by Apple (since I upgraded to Lion). I’ve been using BusyCal ever since I reviewed it on Mac OS X Screencasts. It’s a really really really really great product, but since Lion it felt kind of wrong. I like iCal’s new look, despite “everybody” else hating it, but that’s just taste.
Actually I still don’t prefer iCal, but I’m still using it, because it’s the most “Apple-ish” calendar I can get on OS X (Week Calendar for OS X, pleeeeease!). My biggest complaint actually is the not-visible-at-all-times calendar list. That’s a huge disadvantage. I work with a lot of calendars. Everyone has its own color. So looking at the calendar list, makes it easy to distinguish work, free time, time with The Woman™, and so on.
I’m working around this issue by having a special shortcut assigned to “Show Calendar List” and “Hide Calendar List” (which is ⌃C in my case). When I press ⌃C, I can instantly see a calendar list.
Awkward, but usable.
So, yeah, I’m back on iCal. Feels good.
Reminders working perfectly (Girlfriend™ shoppinglist woes gone).
All AppleScript hackery will work out of the box. (See iCal Time-Recording<3)
QuickCal works just so much better now! I can’t praise this is app enough at the moment. (In Lion) QuickCal let’s you create new events without even launching iCal.
Getting the aforementioned week number subscription working without Google Calendar is a bit more tricky, as there is no special site for it, but luckily iCalShare is still maintained ad online.
First search iCalShare (click link) and search for the calendar in your timezone. Then subscribe (Calendar → Subscribe…) to get week numbers showing up in iCal.
In iCal go to Calendar → Subscribe… and paste the, previously copied, iCal address from the linked site’s Google Calendar (Google Calendar is required for the link above to work!)
I’m going to post another update for iCal-only instructions.
I’ve been working on a screencast for MindNode touch 2 the last couple of (months)1 weeks.
MindNode touch is the app I’m using to plan new projects and structure my thoughts. I’m always surprised by how long I’m actually using this app already. Markus sent me the first beta of MindNode back in 2008/2009? I think it was 0.6 beta. I’m a big fan ever since. The app does all I need, while leaving out all features other apps smack ruthlessly in your face (looking at you, iThoughts).
For me MindNode has always been the most elegant, simple and minimal mind mapping app. Before MindNode I used FreeMind. MindNode was such a relief!
"Philip Hodgetts and his team have been working hard with FCPXML, the new version of an Extensible Markup Language that FCPX supports. They have released Project X27 a $49 translator that takes the FCPXML and converts it into an XML that can be imported into FCP7 and other applications that support that format."
So we’re now just waiting for the other way around, don’t we.
Run Terminal commands without opening Terminal.app in Alfred
I wrote a small (very very small actually) Extension for Alfred. This Extension allows you to run a command without opening a new window/tab in Terminal.app (aka “run Terminal command silently” or “run Terminal command in background”).
All you have to do is type {query} in the command section of a new Shell Script Extension. Also make sure to disable all escaping under Advanced. (Thanks, Andrew for the suggestion). My preferred Keyword is cmd. So to run a command now I’d type:
cmd touch /Users/zettt/Desktop/todo.txt
This is far from being perfect (e.g. lack of feedback on running commands) and is probably not recommended at all, but it allows you to do the described thing pretty easily.
For everyone too lazy to create this Extension by yourself. I’m providing mine here as download as well.
AirServer 3.0: AirPlay your iOS media to every Mac
AirServer has been updated to version 3.0 yesterday. The app allows you to make an “AirPlay enabled AppleTV” out of every Mac. This includes photos, videos, and music. Version 3 adds the following features:
Re-engineered support for iOS 5
New iOS 5 playlist support
New built-in video, photo and slideshow players for Lion
New built-in photo and slideshow players
Slideshow player supports visual effects and music
Multiple displays, mouse gestures and keyboard support on Lion
Fullscreen mode with Plex and XBMC in the background
Support for both fullscreen and windowed mode
Audio password protection
Automatic rebroadcasting on overloaded networks
Automatic relaunching after crashes
AirServer will hopefully be able to stream an iPhone/iPad display over AirPlay in the future as well. Unfortunately, at the moment, it can’t/doesn’t.
The app is only $7.99 and works far better than other AirPlay apps like Shairport or Airmac.
It’s hard for me to express my condolences. Steve has been responsible for so many things in technology, we now see and use every day. Starting with the personal computer way back in the 1970s, to the iPad and iPhone from 2011.
He dreamed of the personal computer everybody could use. The Mac wasn’t that computer, the iPad probably is. It must have felt good for him to hold this thing in his hands after almost 30 years of work. Unfortunately cancer doesn’t care about life goals and beat even him.
Launch Chromium/Firefox With Command Line Arguments to Enable Hidden Features
Launching Chromium or Firefox with arguments from command line reveals a lot of useful options. You can remove “annoying” warnings for plugins or launch Firefox’s Profile Manager with these.
Normally you would just launch Terminal, type in your command, hit return and keep Terminal running for as long as you run Chromium. That’s a bit awkward isn’t it?
With Alfred’s Extension goodness however, there’s actually a much easier way to do this.
Open Preferences and go to Extensions.
Add a new Shell Script Extension.
Name it appropriately, give it a title and a keyword (e.g. chromium).
In case you have some arguments you always want to include. Just add them before or after {query}. Example (Chromium): "/Applications/Chromium.app/Contents/MacOS/Chromium" --always-authorize-plugins {query}
That’s about it. Now just bring up Alfred, type chromium --myarguments and ↩. Alfred will launch Chromium with any typed in arguments.
In case you can’t remember arguments, include the links from above as arguments in the Command area. (# http://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/)
Growl has just been released for Apple’s Mac App Store. Version 1.3 (new version, old version apparently won’t see further development) has a couple of new features including an overhauled user interface. Growl 1.3 also gets rid of its “old-style” Preference Pane and now runs as a separate app and has a new rollup feature.
