Archive for August, 2008
Today’s Tweets
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 | LiveJournal Archives | No Comments
- 23:27 I got my code, woo! #
- 23:31 Come on, its the 13th on the east coast, why are the pub games not available yet? #
- 13:14 Damnit, looks like I’m not riding my bike ALL THIS WEEK. #
- 13:15 #Blog: Automated for the People… kclose3.com/blog/?p=50 #
- 13:39 Man I want to play my some Pub Games. #
- 14:14 Time for some moving and hauling, I guess. #
- 16:36 I’m Free! #
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Automated for the People…
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 | Work | 4 Comments
…in which I talk about my recent experiments with Applescript and Automator, and probably bore you to tears.
So, in case you’ve never met me, I am the kind of person who likes to have things my way and will go to great lengths to customize things to be as close to my idea of perfect as possible. I would say I border on obsessive sometimes when it comes to attempting to achieve that perfection, but that would be a lie. There is no bordering, I’m all the way in. I’ve taken up residence in my obsessive compulsive need for things to function in the best possible manner. › Continue reading
Automated for the People…
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 | LiveJournal Archives | No Comments
…in which I talk about my recent experiments with Applescript and Automator, and probably bore you to tears.
So, in case you’ve never met me, I am the kind of person who likes to have things my way and will go to great lengths to customize things to be as close to my idea of perfect as possible. I would say I border on obsessive sometimes when it comes to attempting to achieve that perfection, but that would be a lie. There is no bordering, I’m all the way in. I’ve taken up residence in my obsessive compulsive need for things to function in the best possible manner.
To this effect, I’ve learned a lot about how Automator and Applescript work in the Mac OS X environment. I have to admit, I think Automator is one of the reasons I am starting to prefer Mac over PC. The fact that I can create miniature applications (applets) to do the things that, in my opinion, I need to do is invaluable to my pathological nature. Automator allows me to call forth commands and scripts from almost anywhere within the Mac environment and combine them into free running programs. It really is a great system.
Until recently, I had a free-standing application that would synchronize several different items with my Motorola Q through the Mac. It would automatically upload contacts, calendar items, photos, and music. Several factors have resulted in my abandoning that software. First off, with the University’s adoption of the Microsoft Exchange mail system, contacts and calendars are synchronized wirelessly on demand. Additionally, I found that I never really viewed photos on the phone. And finally, with my upgrade to OS X 10.5, I would have had to pay an additional $25 to upgrade to a Leopard compatible version of the software. I just didn’t see that it was worth the price, and system resources, just to move some music occasionally. Having previously purchased a pair of bluetooth stereo headphones, however, I really want to take advantage of the fact that my phone can play music. That, combined with the fact that I have over 20,000 songs in my iTunes library made me really lament the loss of that software. I decided there must be a way I can facilitate this process at no cost. First, I started surfing the web looking for a free alternative. Finding nothing, I turned to automator, which I’ve used in the past for smaller tasks, but never something of the complexity that this has turned out to be (links to the actions and downloads I used are after the break).
I found, in Automator, that there is a command that can read a list of tracks in a specified iTunes playlist. How handy is that? So I chose the smart playlist I had created previously for my Q and called in that data. I then passed that data on to a file copy command which would copy (not move) all the files discovered in the playlist to a location of my choosing. I had discovered my solution with only two Automator actions. As of 5:00 yesterday, I was happy with that. This morning, however, after having played a custom HeroScape map and then tweaked it after everyone left, I decided I could tweak my script to be better and more efficient.
Having failed to find a way to mount my Q as a drive on the computer, I am relegated to pulling out the memory card and use the card reader built in to my monitor (I honestly never thought I’d use that) to mount the music folder. Since I was already physically taking the card out and inserting it into the computer, I figured there had to be a way to save myself from having to click to start the applet. After some searching online, which actually resulted in several methods of triggering an action on mount. I decided upon installing a Preference Pane (another nice customization option for Mac OS X, modular system preferences), that simply watches for events, and performs other events in response. So I told the Do Something When (the preference pane) to watch for my SD Card to be inserted, and respond by running the applet. It worked flawlessly. I found that I could also tell DSW to watch for an application to quit. So I told it to watch for my applet to finish and then unmount the drive as a response. I no longer had to touch the computer at all to copy files to the card. Each step was getting more efficient, but thin I hit a snag.
My card is a 1gb card, and I was telling it to copy 128mb of music to it every time I tested the system. Turns out, there was no mechanism in my applet to remove the old files, so the SD card was getting more and more full, and finally failed to run the applet because there was no more room. I had to modify the system. I found that there was an Automator action to move files to the trash, so now, before copying files to the card, it first moved all the files in the music folder on the card to the trash, theoretically making space. Unfortunately, it was moving the tracks to the Trash folder on the card and leaving them there, so I wasn’t actually gaining any free space, only moving stuff around.
I spent a good little while trying to find a way to empty the Trash on the SD card alone (since sometimes I actually do go back and check the trash on my computer). Short of some pretty specific Unix commands, there was no way to do it, and since I was trying to make this applet adjustable (in case any of my variable change later on) I needed to figure out something different. I finally stumbled up on an Automator action that simple deletes files rather than moving them to the trash, and I’m okay with that. I was trying to avoid downloading any third party actions, so that my applet would be as self contained as possible, but I just can’t find a way around this, at present. At any rate, I now had the files deleting correctly, the new files copying, and then the SD card dismounting. I finally decided that a nice alert as to its completion would be nice, so I added a Growl action at the end that pops up and informs me that its completed and dismounted.
All in all, its a really nice process that I may not use nearly as often as would be merited by the amount of effort that went into creating the system, but what I think is more important, is what I learned from it. I know more about Automator and Applescript than I did before. This is how I learn, its how I’ve always learned. I find some lame project that doesn’t amount to anything of real value, but the processes can be applied to more important things down the line.
To that same effect, I’ve once again, surprised myself with my ability to decipher web code and rebuild it to work the way I need it to.
Yesterday I found that I needed to build a specialized page for the new CVAD web site but once it was built, it just wasn’t working the way it was supposed to. After some fine manipulating of the core programming, I was able to get my page to work just fine. It was a foray into completely foreign territory for me, but everything seems to have worked out perfectly, so I’m proud of my progress. I know that I often don’t credit myself with my adaptability or ability to learn, but in moments like that, I’m always surprised at how adept I really am at absorbing and reworking things that I have so little experience with. That’s definitely a skill that could get me work in other, more lucrative positions (damn you shirt.woot, why are you in St. Louis?).
Originally posted at K. Close III
You can comment at kclose3.com
Today’s Tweets
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 | LiveJournal Archives | No Comments
- 09:02 Still no email from GameStop… if nothing shows up in 32 hours, I’m gonna be pissed! #
- 09:05 I need to get back to reading more… I’m just under half way through that MONSTER book Jeremy left me. #
- 12:05 Some days I really do amaze myself with my ability to logically dissect and rebuild completely unfamiliar code. #
- 13:31 Mmm, Dulche De Leche #
- 14:25 One more computer down. #
- 14:40 Time to head out to Hickory again, I can’t believe I forgot my headphones a second day in a row. #
- 16:58 Surely there must be a free way to put itunes music on my Motorola Q! #
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Today’s Tweets
Monday, August 11th, 2008 | LiveJournal Archives | 3 Comments
- 23:12 Rock Band 2 Standalone instruments are now listed on Amazon and GameStop! Woo! #
- 08:13 Here’s hoping today will not be the first day of a Hell Week. #
- 08:57 Somehow I lost all my Taxi soundtracks. #
- 09:17 I have so many movies in my Netflix queue, and so little time to watch them. #
- 10:25 Things just keep backing up, up here. I need some corporate laxative. #
- 10:51 man, I’m starting to think I #
- 10:51 damnit. stupid accidental return. #
- 10:51 so, anyway, I’m starting to think I’ll never beat my 9 day streak on the xbox (per my xbox blog). #
- 11:39 I don’t care so much for my new Music Brainz application, but the old one stopped working. #
- 12:14 yeah, this other I Eat Brainz alternative also sucks. #
- 12:29 Ballz to autotag software… why IEatBrainz gotta stop working? #
- 13:01 #Blog: Honeydew… kclose3.com/blog/?p=48 #
- 13:01 I’m still not entirely sure what kind of blog I’m writing. I think I would rather it be more introspective, than simply my daily life. #
- 13:38 Listening to the Luc Besson’s Taxi soundtracks just makes me want to play more Burnout. #
- 14:17 Damn, looks like I won’t be riding my bike again until Thursday at the earliest. #
- 14:28 Dang, forgot to backup my Dreamweaver server info. #
- 15:24 I can’t seem to get used to my new folder icons. I need to give it more time, though. #
- 18:14 Still no email from GameStop… it had better come before 5pm on Wednesday. #
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Honeydew…
Monday, August 11th, 2008 | Cycling, Home | No Comments
…in which I talk about all the things I accomplished this weekend.
So I don’t really have a “honey-do” list, mostly because Heather’s not the kind of person to burden me with assigned tasks like that, though sometimes I think it would be easier if she did. Either way, I did a lot of things around the house over the last week and through this weekend specifically to the benefit of my lovely wife. I felt bad about wasting so much of my home-time with just sitting around watching TV and playing games that I wanted to get some real tasks taken care of. › Continue reading
Honeydew…
Monday, August 11th, 2008 | LiveJournal Archives | No Comments
…in which I talk about all the things I accomplished this weekend.
So I don’t really have a “honey-do” list, mostly because Heather’s not the kind of person to burden me with assigned tasks like that, though sometimes I think it would be easier if she did. Either way, I did a lot of things around the house over the last week and through this weekend specifically to the benefit of my lovely wife. I felt bad about wasting so much of my home-time with just sitting around watching TV and playing games that I wanted to get some real tasks taken care of.
On Monday, I started by digging the hole for her new retractable clothesline post. You see, we don’t really have a place to put both ends of a clothesline up, so we decided to install a retractable clothesline on the side of the shed and then have a post to run the clothesline to just to the south of the patio. I also, in my infinitely odd inspiration, decided that the post had to be removable in the event of festivities in our back yard, so I designed, in my head, a socket system wherein a pvc pipe is anchored into the ground with concrete, and the actual post then slides into the pipe for easy installation and removal. This simple idea lead to almost two hours in Lowes, walking between the hardware, plumbing, and fencing sections, trying to configure a contraption that did exactly what I wanted. I found a pretty good combination of parts that would seem to facilitate my needs. So, back to Monday, where I dug half of a hole. I stopped right after finally breaking through a nearly 2-inch thick root that was, no joking, running exactly through the center of my hole. Tuesday, I continued digging to the point where I just didn’t care anymore. I was still 3-6 inches short of my goal, but I cut off the bottom of the “socket” pipe and went to work with the concrete. I installed a couple of pieces of all-thread in the bottom of the socket, and cut a tab-slot into the bottom of the fence post so that once the post was inserted into the socket, it would effectively lock into place. the all-thread was also almost 6-inches long, passing through a 2″ pipe, so I had almost 2-inches of anchor on either side to help keep the socket stable in the concrete.
I put a few inches of concrete in the bottom of the hole, dropped in the socket and post, leveled everything up, and filled the rest of the hole with concrete. I let it set for two days, just to make sure it was all stable, and finished up the post, flange, and cap. Between those days, I replaced the handle on the toilet in the master bathroom as it had completely come disconnected and took some fancy jiggling to get the toilet to flush.
Sunday, however, was the big day. I started off by replacing the faucet on the kitchen sink because it had gotten very drippy underneath. With the exception of hooking up the water connections backwards and having to reconnect them, it all went fairly smoothly with minimal cursing. I took a break to eat lunch and continued by replacing several outlet plates in our house with new baby-proof plates, now that Ansel is mobile. This was followed up by some last minute adjustments to the clothesline post and the actual installation of the clothesline. We had tried to get it all together early enough for Heather to actually try it out, but a cloud bank came in and blocked out the sun almost completely for the rest of the day upon my completion of the clothesline. I finished up by changing out Heather’s license plates.
I felt pretty good by the end of the day, I felt like I had done my husbandly duties around the house. Sometimes if just feels good to be responsible.
…on riding my bike.
So I’ve been riding my bike to work as much as I can since Heather quit. Last week I was able to ride three times and regretted not riding it on both days that I was unable. Its a 3.85 mile ride, so its not that rough. In the mornings, its usually only about 75°-80° and so its not horribly strenuous. It takes me almost 20 minutes to ride to work, which isn’t bad since it takes me just over 15 minutes to drive to work. I’m not losing much time, I’m getting a bit of a workout and a wakeup as I get myself to work in the morning, and I’m saving money. My ride home is a bit more of a pounding as its been over 100° each time I’ve ridden. Fortunately, I can ride slower, take it easy, and I’m not concerned about my sweat or my smell when I get home. Don’t fret, I always have water and I don’t push myself.
I didn’t get to ride today, however, because my bike is at the bike shop today getting a tune-up. Its needed it for quite some time, but I just never got around to it. I’ve done some minor re-callibration on my own, but I just don’t know enough about what I’m doing to be very successful at it. I’m getting all the gears and brakes adjusted to improve my ride. I’ve had problems with the lower gears on the back wheel with them randomly switching, usually when I’m trying to climb a hill. The bike is 13 years old and it probably needed some work anyway. I’m just glad they didn’t feel like it needed a complete overhaul.
And still, I’m bummed about not being able to ride today. We had a cold front come in (the one that brought all those clouds that canceled Heather’s clothesline debut, yesterday) and it hasn’t exceeded 95° at all. It would have been a beautiful day to ride. I’m looking forward to tomorrow, though!
Originally posted at K. Close III
You can comment at kclose3.com
Today’s Tweets
Sunday, August 10th, 2008 | LiveJournal Archives | No Comments
- 00:48 #POTD: POTD2 #200 tinyurl.com/688ds7 #
- 00:48 #POTD: POTD2 #199 tinyurl.com/5gge7c #
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POTD2 #200
Sunday, August 10th, 2008 | LiveJournal Archives | No Comments
POTD2 #200
Originally uploaded by Kacey3.
Sleepy Boy.
POTD2 #199
Sunday, August 10th, 2008 | LiveJournal Archives | No Comments
POTD2 #199
Originally uploaded by Kacey3.
Mmm, Cake.
