Toluu

MacOSXHints.com

Macosxhints.com RSS feed

Call the bit.ly URL shortener for the current siteNovember 18

I use bit.ly as my URL shortening service, mainly because I like the way that it links to Twitter and tracks statistics on shortened URLs that I send folks. I am, however, lazy and I don't like to do any more clicking, copying, or pasting than I have to.

So I created a bookmark on my bookmarks bar in Safari which opens bit.ly in a new window and passes the current page I am on as a parameter. The net effect is that most of the work is done for me when the window opens. The JavaScript bookmark is:javascript:window.open('http://bit.ly/?url='+location.href);This approach will probably work with other shorteners as well, and the above shortcut should work in any browser.

Show a one-line weather forecast on the desktopNovember 18

I love Wunderground.com's forecast. You can read all of the numbers, and look at radar all you want, but 95% of the time, it's too much info. Wunderground has a one-line forecast that relates today or tomorrow's temperature to today's. "Today is forecast to be colder than yesterday" is all I need to know.

Once you've installed GeekTool, you'll also need Lynx, a popular text web browser. Once GeekTool and lynx are installed, create a new shell entry in GeekTool and enter this code, substituting in your zip code for 12345:

lynx -dump http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=12345|awk '/Tomorrow is/ ...

10.5: Edit multiple events at once in iCalNovember 18

In 10.5, the iCal user interface is quite limiting. For instance, you can edit only a single event at a time. But there is something of a workaround to that problem: open multiple iCal windows at a time. Here's how. Quit iCal, then paste the following line into Terminal:defaults write com.apple.iCal IncludeDebugMenu 1Now launch iCal and select Debug » New Calendar Window, or just press Command-L. You can now edit an event in one window, and another event in the other window. iCal keeps the windows in sync, so that a change in one appears in the other.

[robg adds: The iCal debug menu was covered in this hint, but I thought this workaround for editing multiple events was worth sharing.]

Use Quicksilver for Finder cut and pasteNovember 18

For those of us who miss being able to cut and paste in the Finder, I just found a pretty functional way to do it through Quicksilver triggers. Here's how:

1. Invoke Quicksilver (probably by pressing Control-Space)
2. Press Command-, to open its preferences
3. Go to Preferences » Application, and make sure 'Enable advanced features' is checked
4. Go to Catalog » Quicksilver and make sure 'Proxy objects' is checked
5. Go to Triggers and click the plus sign to add a new trigger and select Hotkey
6. Start typing Current Selection, and when the item pops up, press Tab
7. Start typing Move to... and then press Tab
8. In the last box, press Command-X clear the field. It must be completely empty for this to work -- no text, nothing
9. Click Save
10. Click the 'i' at the bottom right of the screen to show the trigger options
11. Under hot key, choose your preferred ke...
    
    

10.5: A simple fix for a vanishing boot disk iconNovember 17

Under some unknown circumstances (I haven't been able to consistently duplicate the issue), it happens that the system's disk icon vanishes in Leopard. Toggling the Show Hard Disks setting in Finder's preferences has no effect, and the various repairing tricks do not solve the issue.

What happens is that the system disk (by default, named Macintosh HD) becomes marked as a hidden (invisible) file. Why? Who knows. But fortunately, it can be reverted to visibility with a simple Terminal command:sudo chflags hidden "/Volumes/NameOfTheVolume"To make this work, change NameOfTheVolume to the actual name of your system disk. Note that the chflags can be useful for hiding/unhiding regular files and folders, too:$ chflags hidden "/path/to/file"$ chflags nohidden "/path/to/file"