bioneural.net » tips

Find which application is using a file

Bruce — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:44:15 +0000

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

Not infrequently during my use of Apple's OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) I have been seeing a dialogue upon emptying the Trash telling me that 'This operation can't be completed because the item "xxx" is in use'. The culprit has been Mail.app, and the scenario seems to occur when I attempt to delete a file after having sent it as an attachment (and some time after the event at that). Here is the dialogue: Given that I know the file is not open, how do I find out what application thinks it is still in use? Thanks to a response on Apple Discussions, all you need to do is run the 'list open files' (lsof) command in Terminal.app: sudo lsof /path/to/file A shortcut to entering the file path correctly is to drag and drop the file from the Finder into the open Terminal window. In this example, Mail.app was refusing to let go of a Dilbert .gif file I had sent some hours previously: The solution was to quit Mail, empty the Trash, and relaunch Mail. Easily solved, but something Apple should be fixing, surely?

Add a geo field to iPhone and Address Book

Bruce — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 10:24:13 +0000

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

Both the Mac OSX Address Book and Contacts/ Phone apps on the Apple iPhone support a custom "geo" field. You can use this field to store GPS coordinates that will open a Google Map when right-clicked on Mac or tapped on iPhone. The reverse geocoding in Google Maps isn't always perfect; this gives you the option to store a more accurate location alongside a human-readable address. Creating a geo field in iPhone Contacts If you have an existing contact with address details in the iPhone Contacts app, tap on the address to launch Maps: Maps will place a pin at the approximate location of the address for that contact: Tap the blue and white arrow on the tag to see the Info screen, then tap the Share Location button at the bottom left: In the mail message body note the GPS coordinate values and jot these down: Go back into Contacts and edit the address to which you want to add the coordinates. Tap the plus icon to add a new address: Tap the address type button at the bottom right of the next screen: Now select geo as the address type: Enter the coordinates you jotted down earlier into the first field: After editing the coordinates should display underneath the existing address: Tapping these coordinates on the iPhone will launch Maps (although you may notice odd pin labels—not sure why that is). After sync you should see the corresponding geo field in Address Book under Mac OSX: If you don't have an existing Contact address you can of course start with ...

Personal productivity on Mac and iPhone

Bruce — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:36:58 +0000

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

As mentioned in an earlier post on using faux Contacts for collecting, managing, and synching tasks offline on the iPhone, I've been reading Getting things done (GTD) by David Allen. I have to say I found the book a difficult, overly repetitive and non-engaging read, despite my motivation to learn from it. If you could get a lot of things done in the time it takes to read 267 anecdote-heavy pages, here's my somewhat condensed take on the bits worth sharing, along with a few Mac-specific embellishments. This is Part two of a two-part series exploring GTD using a Mac and iPhone. It may make more sense if you review Part one first. Introduction I've been hooked on task lists since I first installed Claris Organizer 1.0 from floppy disk (remember those?) onto my PowerBook 100. Organizer incorporated Calendar, Contacts, Notes, and Tasks into a single interface—and I do appreciate integration. That app evolved into Palm Desktop and when I bought a Palm V in 1999 my obsessive list-keeping became mobile and subsequently synchronised via various apps including Entourage, iCal, iSync, and Missing Sync. While recent apps like OmniFocus and Things are rather pretty and more GTD-savvy, I'd prefer to rely the Apple-supplied tools I already have. Doing so is simpler (the less tools involved the better—that's one of Allen's recommendations), less costly, and makes use of the typically well-executed integration between Apple apps and devices. Reconciling task and time management Notice I said "typically" well-executed integration. Sadly integration of calendars, tasks, and notes between ...

Using faux Contacts for GTD on the iPhone

Bruce — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:16:28 +0000

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

Despite strong indications of an imminent second generation 3G iPhone, the recent £100 price drop on the 8GB iPhone proved too tempting. I had hesitated because the iPhone failed to meet my minimum requirements for basic PDA functionality. With 1Password mostly overcoming the secure data exchange obstacle, the remaining challenge was to find a network-independent way of managing and synchronising tasks ("to do" items). I've also been wading through David Allen's book Getting Things Done in a search for ways to improve my personal productivity. Could I cherry-pick the key principles of the GTD religion and apply them on the iPhone using only the built-in apps? This is Part one of a two-part series exploring GTD using a Mac and iPhone. Part two is here. The essence of GTD The OmniFocus Basics Video does a good job of distilling the core ideas in the GTD method. It outlines three concepts: Actions are something you can physically do in a single step; Projects are activities that require more than one physical action to complete; Contexts are physical requirements for carrying out actions (e.g. being at work, at home, connected to the Internet, etc.) The video also summarizes three workflow steps to getting things done: Capture all outstanding individual ("atomic") actions; Organize those actions by grouping them into projects and/ or context; Do the outstanding actions. Let's put that graphically (adding horizontal reorganization as part of ongoing review): I'm not being strict about contexts being a physical place, person or thing: in my world a context can be a frame of mind, or an ...

Customizing WordPress feed content

Bruce — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:38:12 +0000

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

When I last looked at customizing feeds in WordPress, it was all to do with being able to offer a summary and full text feed simultaneously—making use of WordPress' flexible feed URL syntax and a .htaccess file. In this post I look at modifying the actual contents of the feed using a functions.php file (which may already exist as part of your current theme). Just as WordPress provides a number of hooks for adding or removing actions in your theme header (see here), so to do the core files that generate your feeds. Editing the core files is however discouraged (it makes upgrading a pain), and although you can build your own replacement feed templates an easy alternative is adding a few lines to your theme's functions.php file. As a perpetual PHP beginner I feel obliged to warn you that use of the following code is at your own risk. If there are any PHP/ WordPress experts reading this who can improve on my code please make yourself known ;-) Removing WP version info Somewhere, a while back, I read a tip about not including the WordPress version you are running in your template header—potentially allowing hackers to identify you as a target if you haven't kept up-to-date. It's easy to remove if present. For example, in the K2 theme just delete the following line from header.php: From bioneural.net:Mac-based web developers...]]> ... http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ Rendered in a feed reader humans will see this: The Creative Commons icon is hopefully recognisable and links to the correct license; the link to bioneural.net ...

Pages and searching in WordPress 2.5

Bruce — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:07:34 +0000

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

WordPress 2.5 lets you search across pages (non-blog entries) as well as posts. This is undoubtedly a good thing, but if your pages are liable to turn up in site searches you might want to make a couple of changes to stop page content from swamping your results screen and improve appearances if you use category icons. In WordPress search results post content is displayed up to the  tag: The rest of the post continues, but when viewed on the non-single/non-permalink web page such as archives, categories, front page, and searches, the post is shown as an excerpt to the more point. Pages don't usually have a more tag, because there is no excerpt or "teaser" destined for use in a feed. Thus when a page appears in a search results it will display in its entirety. Furthermore, because I'm using the Category Icons plugin, post titles will display alongside the category icon for ease of identification. Since pages don't usually have a category, they will show indented with no icon. Here is a search for "architect", showing an iconless page result occupying the screen: With the addition of  to the top of each page, and the use of an icon for Uncategorized content (assuming all posts are categorised) we get this: Much more usable and informative.

Block IntelliTXT faux links with ease

Bruce — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:40:01 +0000

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

Bugged by faux hyperlinks with intrusive IntelliTXT pop-up ads on sites like MacWorld UK? Disable them in Firefox with Adblock Plus, or an ABP clone called SafariBlock if you're using Safari.

Spring clean your WordPress head

Bruce — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:00:42 +0000

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

If you had viewed the source of my WordPress-generated pages a while ago you'd have noticed that my head elements were a real mess. Now they've been spring cleaned, arranged neatly into related groupings and the needless clutter disposed of. Plugins that use the wp_head hook distribute junk all over the show, offending any sense of order. Luckily your WordPress theme is the key to taking control of your head, through a combination of edits to functions.php and header.php. Removing actions using a functions file Your theme may already include a file called functions.php. If it doesn't you can create one using the functions file found in the default theme directory (which is a bit busy), or copy-and-paste mine (with the K2 bits stripped out for clarity): The real advantage here is avoiding the need to hack any plugins or core WordPress files (an upgrader's nightmare). Let's go through the removal actions in sequence. Really Simple Discovery helps client software discover things about your blog. If you don't use a client and manage your posts directly in WordPress, you don't need to offer such help. The PHP script: remove_action('wp_head', 'rsd_link'); will remove a line from your head that looks something like this: Windows Live Writer is one such desktop blogging client, but supporting it needs yet another line in your head. The script: remove_action('wp_head', 'wlwmanifest_link'); will remove a line from your head that looks something like this: The Quoter plugin defaults to inserting comments, JavaScript, and CSS into your head: .commentlist blockquote cite { /* Fix for Kubrik theme */ display: inline; } You ...

Share and future-proof iWork '08 documents

Bruce — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:28:29 +0000

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

Can't open your old ClarisWorks or AppleWorks documents in iWork? Check the option to "Include preview in document" when saving in Pages, Keynote, or Numbers '08 to embed a PDF version. Access Preview.pdf inside the QuickLook folder via "Show Package Contents" (Mac without iWork) or by opening the filename folder (Windows). The advantage? You can re-edit the original while iWork is with us, but retain an archived cross-platform version until the end of PDF. [via macosxhints.com]

Accents and glyphs via Mac keyboards

Bruce — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:50:13 +0000

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

GoSquared made a handy PDF reference for producing accents and glyphs via their Mac keyboard shortcuts (e.g. Alt-E for é). Alternatively, open International in System Preferences and check the boxes for Character Palette and Show input menu in menu bar: always available, just chose Show Character Palette from the menu to select and insert the Unicode character of your choice (which you can optionally Add to Favourites).