Archive - April, 2010

automator

April 19, 2010 in tech with 4 Comments

automator

I love Automator.

It’s a powerful program that comes bundled with OS X that allows you to automate tasks and actions on your mac. I’ve just started playing around with it, but it’s an incredibly powerful tool that can enhance your workflow.

For instance, every Friday I need to send out an email to our staff to remind them to get me their agenda items for our next staff meeting. I used to just try to remind myself each week…and that didn’t really work out. So then I went to the next step. I created an iCal alarm for 10am each day. This was effective, but I still had to respond to the alarm. I had to open Mail.app, create a message, choose the recipients, type my message and then send it.

Not hard, but a bit tedious.

So I created an Automator action that would accomplish this whole task for me on it’s own.

Here are the steps I took:

1. Open Automator.
2. Create a new “iCal Alarm”

3. Select “Mail” in the left column to only show Mail.app specific actions. Then drag “New Mail Message” onto the window on the right.

4. Enter the information for the email recipients, subject and message. You can also select which email account you want to send the message from (if you have multiple accounts).

5. Now select “Send Outgoing Messages” and drag it beneath the “New Mail Message” action.

6. Save the Automator file.

7. iCal will open. Set the parameters of the iCal event. (I created a separate iCal Calendar named “Automator” for all of my Automator events). Notice that the alarm isn’t a noise. Instead the alarm is to open the Automator file. Make sure to set the “repeat” setting in the iCal if you want this to be a reoccurring event.

If you’ve done this properly, Automator will create your email and send it off for you at the time you specify and at the repeat value you set (i.e. every Friday at 10am).

This is just scratching the surface of what Automator can do. I’ve automated several different tasks on my mac (like backing up folders to my Dropbox account).

If you’d like to explore it a bit further and get an idea of Services (new to Snow Leopard), check out this video with Sal Saghoian from PixelCorps.tv.

Google Quick Search Box

April 12, 2010 in tech with 0 Comments

apps_ring

I’ve been using Google’s Quick Search Box on my macbook for a couple of months now and thought I’d give it a quick review and recommendation.

You can start the search box like any other mac application, but since it runs in your menu bar you can press the Command key twice to call it up (quick and easy).

Once it’s up, you are presented with a box that allows you to search for just about anything including: web searches, documents on your computer and most importantly (for me) applications to launch.

I’ve used QSB to search to find a few items on my mac, but for me, the real power is the ability to quickly launch any application. In the screen shot below, I’ve started the search box and then typed the letter “F”. QSB auto-completes “Firefox” for me. All I need to do is press “Return” and Firefox instantly launches. There’s no need for me to even finish typing the word “Firefox” out.

I still keep many of my most used applications in the dock, but since using QSB, I’ve been using the dock less and less. It’s just faster than scrolling to the bottom of the screen and much faster than clicking through to the Applications folder.

This is just scratching the surface but I’ve had such great results with it just as an application launcher that I thought I’d give it a shout out here.

Anyway, you can download Google Quick Search Box here and try it for yourself.

8-bit invasion

April 8, 2010 in tech with 2 Comments

nes

I saw this today and instantly knew I had to post it here on the blog.

It makes me want to get my NES out and play some Contra or Ninja Gaiden.

Too bad it’s packed away in storage.

at the park

April 5, 2010 in family with 1 Comment

IMG_0650

With the weather getting nicer, we took the boys to a park to burn off some energy the other day. It was a typical park/playground. But then I saw it. A tire swing. I haven’t seen one at a park in years (of course, I haven’t really been to that many parks recently…). I spent hours playing on the one at my school growing up. Then I realized that Parker and Kent had never been on one and had no idea how it worked.

So I decided to introduced the boys to the nauseating fun that only a tire swing can provide.