The Distress Signal

New/Final Codex

I wrote this plug-in for Google’s Quick Search Box a while back to replicate a bit of functionality from Coda that I lost when I moved over to Espresso. The gist of the plug-in is that it lets you quickly send search queries to documentation sources for things like HTML, CSS, jQery, Python, MySQL, and so on. I do a lot of these kinds of quick looks into documentation as I’m working so having a quick and easy method for it is helpful.

Even though I’ve now given up on QSB and instead moved over to LaunchBar, for reasons not really worth going into here, I’ve gone ahead and rebuilt this plug-in for use in the new release of QSB. For the less than four people who’ve actually downloaded it and use it here is the latest/last build. I’m also linking up the x-code project for the plug-in just in case anyone is interested in adding support for other languages or re-building it when QSB breaks it again.

AppleBlog Roundup 03

Over the last couple of weeks (OK.. so more like months, I’m a bit of a slacker) I’ve written a few posts over at TheAppleBlog and I just wanted to include them here for the sake of completeness. A few of these are on Google Quick Search Box which, while being a great little app, has frustrated me a bit with it’s lack of forward progress in Beta. I’ve recently switched over to Launchbar5 for all my GUI Ninja Tricks and I have to say I think it’s far better at the moment than QSB. If you’re into doing a lot of stuff very quickly from the keyboard, you might want to check it out.

QSB Video Walkthrough: I was playing around with Google Quick Search Box recently and was really surprised by all the functionality it provides. Once I got it fully set up with plugins and services, I realized it can give me just about everything I used to rely on Quicksilver for.

Creating Services for QSB: I’ve been playing around with Google Quick Search Box lately and am especially enjoying this services plugin from Martin Kuhl which lets you activate and pass input to OS X services right from within QSB.

Enable Expose and Spaces for Magic Mouse: So you’re loving your brand new Magic Mouse but are missing the ability to activate Expose and Spaces right from the mouse? Not to worry, we’ve got you covered. Using SIMBL and a neat little preference pane called MultiClutch, we can map our own custom shortcuts to the left and right swipes coming from the Magic Mouse and have them activate Spaces and Expose instead of navigating forward and back.

iTopoMaps: Like a lot of tech enthusiasts, I end up spending a lot of time sitting in front of my computer. When I do find a chance to break away I like to get out into the wilderness for a little backpacking. Nothing clears the mind like a nice long walk up a mountain and a night spent out in the open and of course, as with most things these days, there’s an app for that. iTopoMaps makes getting around in the wilds easier than ever with downloadable USGS topographic maps, waypoints, range and bearing tracking and more.

Enable CSS3 Support in CSSEdit: Chances are if you do any kind of front-end web development on a Mac you’ve heard about CSSEdit, a very popular tool for editing .css files in OS X. I use CSSEdit pretty much all day long at my day job and while I absolutely love it and have a hard time imagining doing my job without it, its lack of support for all the new CSS3 properties is becoming more and more problematic.

Replicating Coda’s Reference Books in QSB: I recently made the switch to the newest version of the web development application Espresso. After having used Coda for all my previous web development needs, I’m naturally making some comparisons between the two. I’ll leave the blow by blow evaluation to others but thought it worth noting that the one feature I find myself really missing the most from Coda is the ability to quickly search through reference books.

Blocking Flash in Chrome: I’m cuckoo for Chrome. It’s super fast, it’s Webkit, it’s got some nice developer tool options that aren’t available in Safari and it’s combo Search Box/Address Box is so intuitive it’s completely ruined me for any other browsers that still split up those two elements.

OS X Hidden Gems: Have you ever noticed that little dark circle that appears within the close button of a document window in OS X when you have unsaved changes? Yeah, me neither. After years of diligent Mac use, this subtle little element somehow escaped me until now. I guess I remember noticing it at times but never realized it was telling me to save my work. It’s a nice touch and got me wondering about what other subtle elements I might have missed over the years.

Syncing NewsFire Over the years I’ve tried out a number of different feed readers including NetNewsWire, Google Reader, Fever, and on and on. Each time I switch though, I always find my way back to NewsFire. For me it’s just the perfect balance of form and function. Well, it’s almost perfect. To paraphrase Churchill I’d say that NewsFire is actually the worst RSS reader, except for all the other RSS readers. The major gaps in my mind are its inability to sync across multiple machines and the lack of an app for the iPhone. As with all things in technology though, there are a lot of ways to skin that cat.

Searching Trash in OS X: At the moment I’ve got 1,303 items in the trash bin in my OS X Dock — not that much compared to the usual pile that accumulates there when my normal maintenance has me only cleaning it out once every couple of months. Usually, it’s not a problem. Occasionally, though, I’ll throw something away by mistake, at which point I’m reminded that you can’t just click on the bin and search through the trash like you can with other folders in your Dock.

Pimp your iPad Safari: Quix lets you create and manage bookmarklets for doing all sorts of cool things from within the browser. Want to find text within the current page, send the current page to services like Pinboard or Tumblr, search the current domain with Google, load Firebug lite to peek at a sites markup, shorten an URL with Bitly, or do anything else you can imagine? Quix is the answer.

AppleBlog Roundup 02

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve written a few articles over at TheAppleBlog and wanted to include a roundup post to them all here for the sake of completeness:

Convert Your DVD Collection with Fairmount: We’ve all had situations where we’ve needed to exercise our fair use rights and make perfectly legal copies of our own righteously purchased DVDs and Fairmount is here to make that task easier for you. Alternatively, if you just want to rip a copy of every movie that shows up in your mailbox from Netflix, it will help you do that as well. Just throw in a DVD and Fairmount will decrypt and mount the disk image, no fuss no muss.

iTunes + Dual Monitors = Failsauce I never understood why iTunes doesn’t support full screen playback for dual monitor setups. Maybe they’re trying to push users towards the AppleTV? Either way here’s a workaround that will let you go full screen on one monitor while continuing to have access to the other.

iPhonetography, Yeah There’s Over 1000 Apps for That: The new 3GS has been a boon to budding phonetographers. With it’s touch to focus/expose and the metric ton of apps/filters/editors available for it in the App store it’s no wonder it’s fast becoming the most popular camera on Flickr.

Full Screen Browsing with Safari: With Safari 4 browsing the web has never been better. When you’re on the laptop though, space is at a premium so here are a couple under the hood tweaks you can make to enable full screen browsing by hiding the Dock and Menubar and adding zoom buttons.

The “Other” System Preferences: I got to wondering what apps Mac enthusiasts gathered in the “Other” section of their system preferences so I asked the folks on SuperUser about it and reported back with what I found. Have a look at the comments on this one to find a lot of great lesser known add-ons.

All Things Apple

So I’ve decided to go ahead and throw in my lot with the good folks over at TheAppleBlog when it comes to my rants and reviews about all things Apple, OS X and the like. You’ll be able to see the articles I contribute over there by going to my Author Archive Page or better yet by grabbing the RSS Feed for the whole site. My first post on Proximity Automation (using Bluetooth and AppleScript to automatically fire off actions based on your proximity to the computer) is already available.

They’re a good bunch of folks over there at the AppleBlog and I’ve been enjoying the articles on their site for quite a long time. It was the first place that really got me into using Quicksilver which needless to say totally changed how I use my Mac, so I’m really happy to be joining the team. I’ll still be writing here about other various and sundry things and do plan to pick up the pace now that I have some more free time available for writing.

AppleBlog Roundup 01

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve written a few articles over at TheAppleBlog and wanted to include a roundup post to them all here for the sake of completeness:

Nambu Review: A quick review of the native OS X twitter client Nambu. I like Nambu a lot and it’s got a lot of power built into it. If they ever manage to include FriendFeed support I’d be sold but at the moment I have to admit I’m stuck on Tweetie.

Enable Tethering on the iPhone 3GS: I just got a shiny new iPhone 3GS and I’m loving it. I moved up from one of the original 1st generation iPhones and it’s a huge improvement. One of the first things I did was to workaround the default AT&T block to tethering and MMS, it’s remarkably easy.

Proximity Automation: Proximity is a cool free application that monitors your BlueTooth device and fires off AppleScripts as it moves in and out of range. I whipped up a couple of scripts to pause iTunes, set your away message in Adium and lock your screen just by getting up and walking away. And of course it reverses all that once you get back.