bioneural.net » applescript

Air Sharing between iPhone and Mac

Bruce — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:14:38 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Air Sharing is a fab app for iPhone that lets you mount a file store on the device to the desktop as a wireless share. You can browse your files using any decent web browser, and even upload files to the phone—albeit one file at a time. This limitation can be overcome by mounting the iPhone as a network drive (on Mac from the Finder Go > Connect to Server... and enter the server address). Rather than have to visit this menu each time, wouldn't it be nice if there were a one-click way to mount iPhone? There's a app for that. Yep, there's an app for that if you're willing to make one. Fear not, this is very simple using Automator which brings AppleScripting to the Rest of Us. The iPhone supports Apple's Bonjour networking protocol, and can be recognised by either the assigned device name or IP address. If like me you use your iPhone on more than one WiFi network, it might be assigned a different IP address via DHCP. Because of this it makes sense to use the iPhone's Bonjour name rather than IP address, which you can identify from within Air Sharing by taping on the WiFi icon: My Air Sharing app is built with three Automator actions: Get Specified Servers, Connect to Servers, and Show Growl Notification (Growl is an essential OS X add-on). In Automator drag these actions to the right side of the window in the order shown: In the Get Specified Servers action click Add ...

An OS X player for More FM Wellington

Bruce — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 14:29:13 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Good radio stations can be hard to come by. My personal preference is for a mix of older and contemporary tracks, with a healthy dose of variety but nothing too far outside mainstream. One such radio station is Wellington's More FM, to which you can listen live using your web browser. I'm not keen on Internet radio delivered via a browser window because I usually end up closing the tab/ window by mistake! This Saturday morning project produced an OS X app to keep in the Dock for when the urge to listen to More FM strikes; it opens a network stream and commences automatic playback, using either of the VLC or QuickTime players. Tested under Mac OS X 10.5.6 using VLC 0.9.9 (Intel) and QT 7.6. A browser-based player Windows Media Player 10 content as streamed by More FM won't playback via your Mac within Safari unless you have downloaded and installed both Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X and Windows Media® Components for QuickTime from Microsoft: A VLC-based player This Automator application for OS X uses the Play Movie from URL automator action by Jason Prell, available from Apple here. You'll need to have installed this action and of course the veritable VLC to use it: If Play Movie from URL is not pre-installed you'll see an error: A QuickTime-based player QuickTime is installed with Mac OS X by default. This app uses the default Run AppleScript action included with Automator, but QuickTime needs the help of Flip4Mac WMV to handle the WMA2 audio ...

Live BBC weather using GeekTool

Bruce — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:33:00 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

GeekTool is great fun and seems an ideal means of occupying the mind while avoiding something else you should be doing. This Preference Pane for OS X basically lets you create a "live" desktop, auto-updating with data extracted using shell scripts (which can themselves call AppleScripts), image overlays, or log and other text files. I found many inspiring examples around the web to appropriate for my own desktop (see here; apologies for failing to note sources)—but one thing I had to work out by trial-and-error was bringing BBC Weather into the mix. Assuming you already have GeekTool installed (free), go download and install Lynx, a command-line web browser available for OS X here (free). Now enter your town, city, country or UK post code on the BBC Weather website. Look for the "latest observations feed" link. For example, for Chesterfield the feed link is: http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/weather/feeds/rss/obs/id/3282.xml In GeekTool create a new shell script with the following command: lynx -dump http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/weather/feeds/rss/obs/id/3282.xml This will show you the text file that we will be working with, created from the RSS feed. Alternatively you might open the same URL in Lynx itself from the Terminal: In a TextEdit window (for editing convenience) we now write AWK commands to search for and pull out the bits we want. I found these articles served as a useful AWK primer. You can also search-and-replace text as in the following code to remove redundant commas: {gsub(/,/,"")}; Find a unique word on each line from which you want to extract text. For example, to refer to the line containing ...

The current time in NZ is...

Bruce — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 18:01:23 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

... something that any New Zealander abroad is bound to ask, particularly if they don't plan on disturbing friends or family at an ungodly hour. If you spend a lot of time online (not that I'd know what that's like) their are several ways you can access NZ time without installing shareware or blowing £300 on World Time watch. Here are just a few—care to add to the list? Bookmark this The simplest method is to add this link as a bookmark in your web browser. AppleScript fetish Using the same link, Mac users might like to add the following AppleScript to their scripts Folder, for use with Script Menu: Embed a clock using JavaScript If you like to dabble in Javascript, you could add a NZ clock to your personal web page. Try Cameron Gregory's Clock. Embed a clock using Flash You could "rent" a clock from ClockLink.com who offer free analog and digital clocks using Flash that you can embed into a web page or alternatively in your desktop (if you have a PC permanently online).

Where has all my iDisk space gone?

Bruce — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 21:23:20 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

So you've cleared out the folders on your iDisk—Sites, Pictures, Movies, etc.—yet according to the .Mac System Preferences pane you've still got megabytes of iDisk space occupied. What's going on? When Ng Wee Nghee in Singapore asked me such a question, I suggested that he might use an AppleScript to show hidden files on his iDisk. The following script (I can't cite the original source I'm afraid) does the trick: However, Ng wrote to say that .Mac Support offered him the following information: What is filling up your iDisk are iSync files in the Library folder. Some files and folders in your iDisk are meant for system use. You can't change or edit them. These files help your iDisk work. If you try to make changes, you will usually see a -38 error. The contents of these files and folders are modified by applications that interact with your iDisk, such as HomePage, Backup, iCal, iPhoto, and iSync. If you manually deleted these files or folders, the applications will not work correctly. iDisk folders you can change Documents Movies Music Public Pictures* Sites* * iPhoto or HomePage may have saved files in these folders. Don't delete or change these files in the Finder. When you wish to delete or change them, use iPhoto or HomePage. iDisk folders you cannot change (root level) Backup Library Software The Backup and Library folders are created and modified by applications. Use the appropriate application to modify the contents. The Software folder includes applications Apple makes available as a service to all .Mac members. You can copy the contents of this folder to your ...

Automatic notification of uploads to an iDisk

Bruce — Sun, 21 Dec 2003 18:04:51 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Allow Internet users to upload files to a password-protected folder on your iDisk, and set up automatic notification so that you are aware that a new file has been added... Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) lets you keep a local copy of your .Mac iDisk and sync this with the online version automatically or manually. See System Preferences > .Mac > iDisk and check "Create a local copy of your iDisk". Your iDisk contains a Public folder which you can configure (from the same Preferences pane) to allow others read and write access, and to password-protect this folder. Using .Mac's HomePage feature, you can create a file-sharing Web page to allow users to easily browse the contents of your Public iDisk folder. But folks can't upload any files from this page: for this they need Apple's iDisk Utility (for Mac OS X and Windows XP) and—if you set one—the proper password. Password-protection helps ensure the general public don't use your iDisk for their own personal storage requirements! So how do you know if you have any new files? Well, you could ask your friends to send you an e-mail, or your could make use of the iDisk sync feature and Mac OS X's Folder Actions to notify you when your Public folder is changed. To set up a Folder Action, right-click in the Finder and choose Enable Folder Actions from the pop-up menu (if you haven't already; they're off by default). Use the Folder Actions Setup utility to add a folder (use the plus button ...

Access Mac's Internet on Palm via Bluetooth

Bruce — Sun, 12 Oct 2003 07:25:03 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Surf the Web, send and receive e-mail by creating a wireless Personal Area Network between your Palm T3 and Mac... This guide is no longer being updated. Getting this to work is evidently dependent on many variables and it is highly likely that your set-up differs from mine. I no longer have Mac OS X Panther or Palm Desktop installed so cannot help you problem-solve; all I know is on this page. I don't know if it will work with Mac OS X Tiger (note: the Bluetooth Serial Utility no longer exists; see System Preferences > Bluetooth). The solution I recommend for sharing your Mac's Internet connection to the Palm is not free, but saves much frustration. If this is functionality that you simply must have buy The Missing Sync for Palm OS. The following setup uses a QuickSilver G4 PowerMac running Mac OS X 10.3.2, fitted with a D-Link DBT-120 USB Bluetooth Adapter, connected to the Internet via a Vigor 2200USB NAT router and ADSL, and a PalmOne T3 running Palm OS 5.2.1. PC users can check out Dean's guide here. There are 10 steps: Step 1: Enable Bluetooth on your Mac and Palm You probably already know how to turn on Bluetooth on the Mac and Palm. If you haven't activated it, do so. If you don't know how to, you probably don't want to read any further :-). Step 2: Pair your Mac and Palm T3 Before beginning, you'll need to pair your Palm and Mac. To do this, use Mac OS X's Bluetooth Setup ...