Tim's Bandwagon » Mac

Import Ricoh GX100 RAW files into Apple’s Aperture in MacOS 10.5 Leopard

Tim — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:57:01 +0000

Here’s a little hack to enable you to use Ricoh GX100 RAW files in Apple’s Aperture.

Make a backup of the following file:

/System/Library/CoreServices/RawCamera.bundle/Contents/Resources/Raw.plist

Find the key for the Leica D-LUX 3 (line 3316 in MacOS 10.5.1):

3316: Leica D-LUX 3 Panasonic DMC-LX2

Then insert the following line before the line showing the Leica D-LUX 3:

3316: RICOH Caplio GX100 Panasonic DMC-LX2
3317: Leica D-LUX 3 Panasonic DMC-LX2

You should now be able to use the Ricoh’s RAW files in Aperture.

This is based on a previous hack (detailed here), which doesn’t apply to Leopard.

iPhone

Tim — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 01:16:49 +0000

Remove the phone cruft; add some sensible storage for a media player, and I’ll buy one!

My Macworld Wishes

Tim Brayshaw — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 00:15:53 +0000

Everyone seems to be up to it at the moment, so here’s what I’d like to see announced at Macworld Expo this year…

A refund to anyone that has ever paid money for .mac

That’s all.

Preview Markdown Documents in BBEdit

Tim Brayshaw — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 18:52:41 +0000

A quickie: here’s a way of directly previewing Markdown documents in the BBEdit preview window using PHP. (Inspired by this Python method that does the same thing).

Make a template file (you’ll probably want to add some styles to this).

~/Sites/markdown-preview/template.html


        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
	<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
	<title>Markdown Preview</title>
</head>
<body>
##markdown##
</body>
</html>

Make the php file, and follow the instructions in the PHP comments.

~/Sites/markdown-preview/index.php


 
/*
 * Download these and put them somewhere in your php path:
 *
 *     http://www.michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/
 *     http://www.michelf.com/projects/php-smartypants/
 */
include_once 'markdown.php';
include_once 'smartypants.php';
 
/*
 * You'll need to change this:
 */
$markdownDocsDir = isset ($_SERVER['MARKDOWN_DOCS_DIR']) ? $_SERVER['MARKDOWN_DOCS_DIR'] : '/Users/username/Documents';
 
/*
 * You'll need to set up BBEdit to use something like this as the Preview Server URL:
 *
 *     http://localhost/markdown-preview/?file=/
 */
$file = $_GET['file'];
$text = file_get_contents ($markdownDocsDir . $file);
$formatted = SmartyPants(Markdown($text), '2');
 
/*
 * Display the formatted text via a simple template.
 */
$templateFile = './template.html';
$templateText = file_exists ($templateFile) ? file_get_contents ($templateFile) : "##markdown##";
echo (str_replace ('##markdown##', $formatted, $templateText));
 
?>

Quicksilver and Mac OS 10.4’s Dictionary

Tim Brayshaw — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 16:27:03 +0000

A little tip: how to use Quicksilver to look-up words in Tiger’s Dictionary app.

First install and configure the software:

Install Tiger and Quicksilver
In Quicksilver’s preferences, install the “Services Menu Module”

Then, whenever you want to look-up a word in the dictionary, do this:

Summon Quicksilver (usually with ⌘ + Space).
Type “.” to start typing into the variable input field.
Type or paste the word you want to look-up and then tab to the next pane.
Start typing “dictionary” until “Look up in Dictionary” is active.
Press return.

At this point the Dictionary application should launch and try to find your word.

If you’ve made it to here you might enjoy Merlin Mann’s Quicksilver tips at 43 Folders and John Gruber’s in-depth tips about invoking the Dictionary at Daring Fireball.

How to run a script to do useful stuff when you plug-in your iPod

Tim Brayshaw — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 00:08:02 +0000


-- This is a Folder Actions AppleScript that triggers an
-- event when a disk (like an iPod) is mounted by the
-- System. I use it to run a compiled Automator workflow that
-- backs-up my Keychains, and copies my GTD lists to the
-- iPod notes folder.
-- 
-- To run it you should tweak the script accordingly, and add it
-- as a Folder Action to the "/Volumes" folder. It isn't
-- exactly obvious how to do this, so here's how:
-- 
-- 1. Open the "Folder Actions Setup" app.
-- 2. Click the '+' button to add a new Folder Action.
-- 3. The "/Volumes" directory is hidden from view. Don't click
--    anything, type "/Volumes" to get to it.
-- 4. Add this script as a Folder Action.

on adding folder items to thisFolder after receiving addedItems
    set volumeName to "Tim Brayshaw's iPod" -- change this!
    repeat with addedItem in addedItems
        if the displayed name of (info for addedItem) ¬
            is equal to volumeName then
            volumeMounted()
            exit repeat
        end if
    end repeat
    -- System Events seems to keep file references open to each of
    -- the "addedItems" above, this means you can't eject these
    -- volumes. This bodge quits System Events, so you can eject
    -- the added volumes. (System Events gets launched immediately
    -- again.)
    quit application "System Events"
end adding folder items to

on volumeMounted()
    tell application "Finder"
        open application "Update iPod"
    end tell
end volumeMounted

This should world for other devices like USB thumbdrives, external FireWire disks, Digital Cameras etc. I futzed around trying to figure out how to do this with launchd, but gave up. If anyone knows a better or other way, post a comment!

I’ve found this useful because it’s removed some backup anxieties, and means I’ve always got my shopping and out-and-about errands lists (and so on) with me when I’m away for the computer. There’s probably a better way of doing this, but it took me an inordinate amount of time to figure it out, so I thought I’d post a code snippet here for like-minded dabblers.

Keep on rolling: 3rd June 2005

Tim Brayshaw — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 16:49:04 +0000

A few links about UI trends and changes in Tiger.

Brent Simmons:

OS X user interface trend: goodbye stripes
Smart things – about the lack of convention for creating Smart Lists.
Splitters gone wild – about the inconsistancy of Window Splitters user interface.
The inexplicable pressed state of the round textured button
What I think happened to Mail – includes some interesting comments about the usability pros and cons of the new toolbar icons.
Capsules are the new new new thing
Focus madness
Mail and click-through

Michael McCracken:

And more…

John Siracusa: Tiger’s new look – more about Mail’s toolbar icons.
maczealots.com: Mac OS X Tiger: What’s Different
Sven-S. Porst on Apple’s use Source Lists.
Rob Griffith: The many faces of Apple’s OS X applications – about Tiger’s six types of interface (metal, aqua, smooth platinum, pro, etc.)
Khoi Vinh: Window Dress for Success – more about Tiger’s different window types – “a brief and dramatically unscientific table that outlines my interpretation of each usage”
Chris McElligott: Window States Mania about the 3 toolbar states for the new “Unified Toolbar” window style.
Michael Dupuis: The New Inconsistencies of OS X. Or, How Mac OS X Can Become Windows

NetNewsWire 2.0

Tim Brayshaw — Fri, 13 May 2005 00:54:57 +0000

Congratulations to the Ranchero crew on the release of NetNewsWire 2.0 &ndash a major update to the popular Mac feed-reader. I’ve been beta testing it for a while (actually, a scary amount of time). It’s been really interesting watching the development of this release over the beta period – there’s been loads of attention to detail in the UI and performance that might get overlooked by all the new features. Syncing is a welcome addition, as is Podcasting support; but there’s a ton of new stuff in there that I’ve probably “just got used to” by now (flagged items, Atom feeds). What can I say? I like it, you should try it!

Safari 1.3 and feed URIs

Tim Brayshaw — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 08:55:11 +0000

The feed URI scheme (aka: ‘feed:// protocol’) should make it easy to subscribe to RSS news feeds with one-click. Nick Bradbury (author of FeedDemon) explains:

[…] let’s face it: subscribing to feeds is a huge pain right now and it’s causing far too much confusion. Feed reading has left the phase where only techies do it, so relying on orange XML and RSS buttons that spew XML when clicked just doesn’t cut it.

The feed protocol aims to simplify this mess so that clicking on a feed:// link enables quick subscription via the user’s feed reader. I’m hoping more applications – and more web sites – support this protocol so that we can put the days of subscribing by URL copy/pasting behind us.

This has become a fairly well supported mechanism (FeedDemon, NetNewsWire, NewsGator, Shrook, RSS Bandit, NewzCrawler, Sharpreader amongst others support the feed URI scheme). Now, this depends on the browser telling your RSS reader “Hey, hereï¿½s a feed for you… now do something with it!”.

Safari v1.2 ‘played nice’ and passed the URI of the feed to your RSS reader, the feed was subscribed-to, and it was all tickety-boo. It seems that Safari v1.3 (released on Friday with the 10.3.9 System upgrade) stops doing this, and nags you to upgrade to Tiger (which hasn’t been released yet).

The worst thing is that this doesn’t seem like just a regression. Dealing with feed:// links is a special case, someone sat there and composed this ‘Error’ message — knowing that the old behaviour had changed, and presumably had it translated into the 14 languages in which Safari ships. This pretty much sucks.

A File Open/Save Dialog Shortcut

Tim Brayshaw — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 23:04:39 +0000

Did you know that if you press the ‘/’ key while in a file open/save dialog box, a field appears so you can type a path to the folder you want – and you can use tab-complete in it too? I didn’t either, until I just saw it buried-away in a tip-in-a-sig at Slashdot. Update: you can use Shift+Command+G to get it too (same as the Finder)