With all the changes going on around here, I decided to do a little house cleaning and did away with a couple sub-domains which housed various projects. One of these sites was my “widget” site which housed my creations for Apple’s Dashboard application. Out of all the widgets posted there, only one was still drawing traffic.

My Travel Bug widget is basically the same search feature found on the main Geocaching web site, albeit in a much smaller form. You can search for geocaches using a variety of methods including zip code, cache name, city, state, etc.

I unfortunately haven’t had an opportunity to go geocaching in quite some time and therefor don’t frequent the main website anymore. Should any users come across an issue with this widget and how it interacts with the site, please leave a comment and I will update it as needed.

Download The “Travel Bug” Widget

My brother-in-law finally took the plunge into the land of personal web sites and blogs, and recently launched Serious Zen. It was only natural for him to put a Glamour Shot© of the third coolest dog universe wide on his home page. It therefore only became natural that I should create a little Dashboard Widget to honor that fact.

Now you can enjoy the “ridiculously, obscenely adorable pooch named Arthur” right on your Dashboard – fur free! It is up to Chris to update the photo with the mug-of-the-moment, but I’m sure he will keep it fresh. It’s not as if his iPhoto isn’t filled with a superfluous amount of his photos.

Download Widget

I let my .Mac expire several months ago after going back and forth in regards to renewing it. A lot of people complain about the price, $99 for a year, but I feel for the average computer user it is a good deal, especially if you don’t have a web host. I do however have a host so I was basically shelling out a Ben Franklin ever year for one reason: keeping my laptop in sync with my desktop. Or more specifically, keeping my Address Book, iCal and Safari bookmarks current on my portable.

Having joined the growing number of people who are leaving .Mac behind I needed a solution to the above problem. For the past several months I have been using Apple’s Remote Desktop, which is an incredible program, to log into my MacBook Pro to replace those three folders with the current data from my PowerMac. But wouldn’t you know, being the type of person I am, I would occasionally forget to do that and find myself on the road with an outdated calendar and missing that one new phone number from my address book that I added the day prior. It was time to get squared up, I thought.

I fired up Automator and quickly got to work. I have a purchased copy of the awesome FTP program called Transmit which already has a few plug-ins available. Using a couple of those, along with several from the Finder category, I knew the hard part was already done and I just needed to build the process.

For this workflow to function, you must have Transmit installed!

The first thing I decided to do was to make a place on my web server outside my public_html directory where I could store my files but also have the security of keeping them away from prying eyes. I created a folder in my root called “data”, but you can call it whatever you want.

Next I went back into Automator and started building the first application which would grab the data from those three programs and put it in that directory I just made on the server. There are three folders in the workflow that you will need to change from the values I have listed.

TIGER > Users > abraham > Library > Application Support > Address Book
TIGER > Users > abraham > Library > Application Support > iCal
TIGER > Users > abraham > Library > Safari

Most likely you will have “Macintosh HD” instead of “TIGER” and your username will certainly not be “abraham”. So click on the [ + ] button for the first section called “Get Specified Finder Items” to add your three variables and then highlight each of the original three and click the [ - ] to erase mine.

I now needed to copy those three folders and place them on the Desktop by using the “Copy Finder Items” command. Once done, I then followed that up with the “Create Archive” command so I have a nice and tidy ZIP file to upload to my server. I decided to call the achive “DATA.zip” which you can see in the third command.

It’s time to use one of those default Transmit plug-ins to get this ZIP archive online. I have used generic values in the workflow that you will need to replace with your own FTP settings. The once that you need to make sure you also change is the last one called “Upload Path”. This is going to be that folder you created outside of your public_html folder that I did in Step 1. I called my folder “data”, and using the format in which my server is set up, the value for that field is “data/”.

The last thing I needed to do was to get rid of all those temporary files that are now on my Desktop. I am very particular about clutter and the less time I have to look at those files, the better. The last two commands in the workflow, “Get Specified Finder Items” and “Move To Trash” do just that. Now everything is nice and tidy again!

I saved the workflow and then re-saved it but this time turned it into an application which I called “Sync Up”. I copied over the icon from my iSync application and placed it on my desktop. Make sure you read my tip at the bottom of this how-to.

Now that my data is successfully achived and placed in a private directory on my web server, the only thing to do next is to pull it off using my laptop and replacing the old files. The process is virtually the same but reversed. This is going to require a new workflow which we will again turn into a stand alone application once it is completed.

This first step for getting our data off the server should be an obvious one; we need to log in and download it. I used the same data for the server settings as I did uploading it with one difference; the “Direction” needs to be adjusted so it reads “Download”.

This next step took some trial and error. Not because of what needed to be done, but because my computer was doing it to fast. Basically, we want to tell the Finder to located the “DATA.zip” file it just downloaded and open it up so all the files expand on to the Desktop. I had to put a pause for 5 seconds before and after this step because… well, I just did.

It’s time to remove (or delete) the old data from all three applications. Just like in the first version we did to upload the files, you can use the “Get Specified Finder Items” command to do this. Make sure, just as you did above, to use the [ + ] to add your own file paths and then the [ - ] to remove the three of mine that are there by default. After that a simple “Move to Trash” and another “Pause” command help round out this task.

We have three folders to take care of. Two of them (Address Book and iCal) go into the “Library/Application Support” folder while the other (Safari) goes just in the “Library” folder. Same as above, we use the “Get Specified Finder Items” along with the “Copy Finder Items” to complete these two separate tasks. By doing this we are essentially replacing the files we just deleted.

The only thing left to do now is clean up! Again with the “Get Specified Finder Items” to select the two temporary files on the Desktop along with a “Move to Trash” to round out this download application.

Make sure you save this as a workflow on your portable (or where ever you are downloading the files to) along with saving this as an application bundle.

So there you have it. Two applications, one for each computer, and ten minutes of your time is all it took to remain friends with Mr. Franklin. I took this one step further by creating an iCal calendar called “Sync” and making a daily entry that launches the appropriate program. For example, my desktop alerts iCal at 6:00 every morning to run the upload application. At 6:30 a.m. my laptop runs an iCal event to launch the download program. Using this method, if I decide to go work from the pub coffee house one day instead of from home, my laptop has all my current information.

Download Automator Files

I have begun doing some preparation work in hopes to get Matinee 3.0 development underway. With its recent success as part of the Mystery Bundle at macZOT! a couple weeks back, I feel that now is a good time to keep the momentum going. The application has now received over 25,000 downloads from the web site and that doesn’t include installs from any demo discs.

There is a feedback form on the web site and I have a whole folder full of suggestions from both registered and unregistered users. However, I thought I would put the question up here to see what kind of feedback and responses I get as far as desired features for the next major release of Matinee. Some of the more popular ones I have received are listed below.

• A Full Screen Based UI
• Automatic Lookup Of Cover Art
• Better Network Drive Support
• Front Row Integration

There was a point in the past where I was getting lots of requests for .MP4 support. I personally feel that Front Row has addressed that issue, and since it is a quick and easy process to get it installed on non-Intel machines I not really sure if this is an issue anymore. Matinee was originally designed to launch DVD’s with Apple’s DVD Player… kind of a one trick pony.

So if you are a user of the application and want to chime in with some thoughts or feedback, please post a comment below so others can follow along.

Last night while watching NCIS there was a local news spot reminding everyone about the time slot move of Fred Cantu. What made this particular spot stand out to me was the fact that he (or perhaps someone at the station) has set up a live web cam because, well… I have no idea why. The point is that Uncle Fred has one.

There doesn’t seem to be much going on this morning but checking on a regular basis was really interfering with the work that I get paid to do. So I decided to take 20 minutes and whip up a Dashboard Widget that would show the latest web cam image and also refresh it every 30 seconds. If you are a Mac user, check it out as really cool things are happening. Like at first, there was a chair at his desk and then I checked back like 20 minutes later and it was gone!

UPDATE 1: The chair is now mysteriously back.
UPDATE 2: Uncle Fred says, “We’re excited about your widget!”

UPDATE 3: The promotion is over and his web cam is now offline. I have removed the download link but have left this post up for archiving purposes.

For those of you that use my program, you most certainly use another application along side it called MacTheRipper. This is used to rip DVD’s in their full, uncompressed format down to a persons hard drive while also removing any copy protection in the process. What users of that application may not know, as I also did not, is that MTR creates a hidden folder in the root directory of your Home folder. Inside that folder is a list of all the DVD’s that you have ripped. I can’t speak for you, but it is sure something that I would prefer not to have on my system.

To get rid of this hidden folder, open up Terminal and paste this line of text, and press return:

If you want a confirmation before it deletes, change the “-r” to “-ir” in that line.

Decide which URL you want to mask over your iWeb web site. I created a specific sub-domain in cPanel to do just that.

Log in to your current web server (not .Mac) and navigate to either your “public_html” folder, or the one you set up for your sub-domain.

Create a new blank text file called “index.html” and copy the following code into it. Replace the text “USERNAME” with your .Mac username.

Save this new “index.html” file to your server.

That is all there is really and it should take no more than two minutes tops to do. If you have any questions, comment below and I will try to help you.

Web sites like these have flooded the widget seeking community with some really stellar offerings… and some real pieces of shit as well. After well over a month of growing and pruning my collection of these widgets I feel that I have a pretty nice setup which I utilize several times a day. Below is a screen shot of my dashboard (click for a larger view) along with a listing of what they are.

Calendar, iCal Events, Flip Clock, Calculator, Stocks, Weather, Google Maps, FTP Drop, Stickies, ShortStat, Airport Radar, Capture, TinyWorld, Translation, RabbitRadio, Black ‘n’ Blue, Delicious Library

Out of curiosity, I asked around for some other opinions on the subject. Dwayne sent me a screen shot of his (below) where he likes to have the words “balls” and “fuck” available for immediate viewing.

The photo above shows my PowerMac minus an optical drive. Figuring out how to get the stock SuperDrive out was a challenge in itself. That was until I realized it helped if I disconnected it from the Logic Board first. As I found out when adding another hard drive, Apple has the coolest way to plug shit in. Also as with the hard drive, I didn’t have to use any tools to install this thanks to the mounting system they have inside the case.

Just to be clear, I removed the stock SuperDrive which is a Pioneer DVR-106 DVD Burner and replaced it with a Pioneer DVR-109 Dual Layer DVD Burner. You can find these in retail stores (with a slightly different model number) but you will pay about $50 more and get software you don’t need (as it won’t run on your Mac). Instead, head on over to NewEgg and pick up the OEM version of the drive for $60. A couple days later your new SuperDrive will arrive via FedEx.

So as I said before, I had to install this four separate times and I hope you will learn from my time consuming mistakes. First off, before you even put the screw slides in the bottom of the drive, you need to get a thick paper clip and put it in the small hole on the front of the drive to manually eject it. Doing so will allow you to take off the front “lip” off the tray. This lip is to big and will catch on the PowerMac’s case. Secondly, don’t forget to put the metal clip around the front of the drive like the one had when you took it out. A stupid mistake, I know, but when you are excited you miss things like this. Lastly, and this one I remembered about in advance, don’t forget to reset the jumpers on the back of the drive. You want to put it on the third set for “Cable Select”

My last recommendation is if you have access to a PC, install it in to it first and upgrade the firmware. For some reason, even though you have to do absolutely nothing to this drive to get it to run on OS X (I am using OS 10.4 Tiger), Pioneer does not support this drive running on a Mac and there for has no way to flash it. If you decide to do the firmware upgrade as I did, it will bump it to version 1.4.

After you do that, put it back into your PowerMac, plug everything back in and boot up. You won’t even notice the drive is different as the transition is seamless. I tested it out with iTunes first and it alerted me that my preferred drive (Pioneer DVR-106) was not available and if I would like to use the available burner (Pioneer DVR-109). The one thing that you will notice is the speed difference. This optical drive is so much faster and if you do a lot of burning, that is a big plus. The volume of the drive is the same so I didn’t notice any changes there.

If anyone has any questions on removing and installing or configuring a new SuperDrive go ahead and leave a comment below. I’ll be happy to answer any questions I can.

A couple nights ago I came across a link on Apple’s “Hot News” page to a tutorial on how to make a Life Poster. At the time I had no idea what that meant, but if Apple was plugging something that wasn’t theirs then I knew it would be cool. After clicking the link I landed right spot on top of Mike Matas’ new blog. Sure enough, he had come up with yet another brilliant idea… and this is what I love about him. Mike is easily one of the smartest, most gifted and respected guys in my field and his award winning Mac application, Delicious Library, is but a small start in his bright future. But moving on…

So in any case, after reading the tutorial which basically involves Apple’s iLife ’05, 98 good photos and a quick import / export in Photoshop, I knew that I would be making my own Life Poster. And on top of that, I knew that it was going to blow (my) Mike away when he saw it.

Since I am linking to the tutorial here, I don’t want to go to much into it other then writing about my own experience with the project. I was afraid that I would have trouble finding 98 photos that I would want to stare at. Once I got into iPhoto though, I realized the hardest part would be weeding my album, which contains a bit over 1,400 photos, down to just 98. I also pretty quickly realized that I didn’t want that many photos of family and friends (no offense) so I tossed a couple dozen nice shots of vacations and geocaching in there for good measure.

So after completing his tutorial I forked $22.99 over to Kodak via iPhoto’s “Purchase Prints” area and they promised to print me a 20″ x 30″ high gloss Life Poster. Even better than that is the fact that I submitted it yesterday late afternoon and it shipped out this morning! How is that for fast turn around? The one thing that mildly bothers me is that the poster, once imported back into iPhoto, weighed in at about 160 MB in size. But when it transmitted the poster to Kodak, iPhoto said it was sending a 11 MB file. I am sure Apple has some sort of on-the-fly compression or something for reasons like this so I will just keep thinking positive.