Frequently Used Keyboard Shortcuts From My Day

I. LaunchBar

To invoke LaunchBar I use command + space. My most frequently used LaunchBar initials and their respective applications are:

S Safari
M Mail
IT iTunes
IC iCal
F Fever
T Tweetie
N NetNewsWire
C Coda
TR Transmit
ME MarsEdit

II. FastScripts

AppleScripts I use regularly, executed with keyboard shortcuts by FastScripts:

SCRIPT: KEY COMBO:
Activate Mail shift + command + m
Send Mail message to Yojimbo option + command + y
Non-top-posting email reply option + r
Send Web page to Yojimbo option + y
Title case service control + option + command + t

III. Etcetera

A couple of my favorite apps which make use of universal hotkeys for the keyboard enthusiast:

ACTION: KEY COMBO:
Invoke the Quick Entry dialog in Things shift + command + space
Invoke Thing’s autofilled Quick Entry dialog shift + command + t
Invoke Yojimbo’s Quick Entry Pane shift + command + y
Frequently Used Keyboard Shortcuts From My Day

“Macintosh Shapes Up a Winner”  →

Speaking of the past and the LA Times, check out Lawrence J. Magida’s 1984 review of the Original Macintosh 128K.

Once you’ve set up your machine, you insert the main system disk, turn on the power, and in a minute you are presented with the introductory screen. Apple calls it your “desk top”. What you see on your screen looks a lot like what you might find on a desk. Instead of just a blinking cursor you see pictures, called icons, that graphically represent the things you can do with the computer.

“Macintosh Shapes Up a Winner”

Tweetie 2.0  →

What Loren has done in his design of Tweetie 2 is similar to what many of the best authors do in their writing. Some authors lay out plainly points 1, 2, 3, and 4, so we, the readers, are sure to be with them when they reach the height of point 5.

But, in my estimation, only the best writers have the skill to skip 2 and 4 while still bringing us to 5 — their prose alludes to the missing pockets of plot just right so that we figure it out on our own. And this they do without us realizing, because though we were actually led by the writer, we feel like smarter readers.

It is in this regard that software developers are not unlike writers. But instead of a plot they have a feature set, and instead of prose, a UI. The developer can lay out the whole of their feature set before the user with menus, sub-menus, and more. Or they can hide pieces of it hoping that each feature will be discovered, but knowing that perhaps they won’t.

But ignorance can still be bliss, because in my book a simple, well-written application that delights is far better than a feature-rich one which overwhelms. And this is why Tweetie 2 is not just my favorite Twitter application on any platform, period, it may also just be my favorite iPhone app.

Tweetie 2.0

Good Morning

The beginning and the end are my two favorite times of the day. This is when my thoughts are most clear and distractions seem most distant.

Mornings are usually spent quietly in my office with a hot cup of coffee.

Good Morning

Half the recipe to a good cup of coffee is a good cup, and this mug from Peet’s is my favorite. It’s my companion as I journal new thoughts and ideas, check my email, read a book, or watch a lame YouTube video my sister sent.

It’s this time early in the day that I cherish the more than any other. The coffee is fresh, and even though I have half-a-dozen meetings planned and a to-do list as long as my arm, the day still feels like a blank canvas.

Good Morning

A Pretty Good Script for Creating a Yojimbo Bookmark From Safari, With Tags, Comments, and Growl Support

Up until last month I had always just used the “Archive to Yojimbo” and “Bookmark to Yojimbo” javascript bookmarklets which the Bare Bones team provides. Saved as triggers that I launched through Quicksilver, I had been getting on fine with them for quite some time.

But after my switch to FastScripts instead of Quicksilver it seemed a good time to finally write my own, ideal script for crating a Yojimbo bookmark. Though a slew of AppleScripts out there already do this, none of them work quite the way I wanted.

Since I never know what words I’ll use when searching for some long lost bit of info in Yojimbo, I’ve found that the more metadata I can give an item when it’s created the easier it will be to find it some day. Which is why, in addition to tags, I wanted a ridiculously simple way to get a portion of text from the Web page into Yojimbo’s Comments box when creating a new bookmark.

The easiest way to do this is to take a highlighted chunk of text from the Web page and tell the script throw it into the new bookmark item as a comment. And that is precisely what this script does.

When invoked, the script takes the frontmost tab in Safari and creates a new bookmark item in Yojimbo. You’ll be given the opportunity to enter any tags before the bookmark is created, and if you’ve selected any text from the Web page you’re bookmarking it will get pasted into the Comments box of your new Yojimbo bookmark. Finally, once the script has successfully run, a Growl notification will let you know.

Additional cleverness comes to play in the case that your URL is already bookmarked in Yojimbo. If so, a dialog box will let you add the URL again or open Yojimbo and edit the pre-bookmarked item. Or you can simply cancel and pretend like you knew all along that you’d already bookmarked that page. (This bit of functionality is based heavily on another bookmark in Yojimbo script written by Jim DeVona.)

The section of the script that prompts for tags is based on a script by John Gruber. His original code looks like this:

set _tags to {}
try
    display dialog "Tags:" default answer ""
    set _answer to text returned of result
    if _answer is not "" then
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ", "
        set _tags to text items of _answer
    end if
end try

 

It’s short and clever, but once you run it you’re committed. Sometimes I invoke the script and, for whatever reason, I change my mind. But with the above code, hitting the “Cancel” button doesn’t quit out of the script — rather it just continues on without generating any tags and the bookmark is still created.

And so I modified John’s tag input code to bail if you hit Escape or click “Cancel”. To bookmark an item with no tags just leave the input field empty and press Return or click “OK”.

set _tags to {}
set _dlog2 to display dialog "Set tags (if any):" default answer ¬
    "" default button 2 cancel button 1
set _action2 to the button returned of _dlog2
if _action2 = "" or _action2 = "Cancel" then
    return
else
    set _answer to text returned of _dlog2
    if _answer is not "" then
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ", "
        set _tags to text items of _answer
    end if
end if

 

Download

Updated on March 20, 2012:

  • Zachery Jensen updated the script so that it now properly takes the selected text from your current Safari window and places it as a comment in the Yojimbo bookmark.
  • The `tell` command which previously referenced “GrowlHelperApp” now references “Growl” in order to support the Mac App Store version of the app.

P.S. Mail To Yojimbo script updated also

The MailToYojimbo script is updated as well with the improved Tag support (added October 2009) and fixes for the new Growl (added March 2012).

A Pretty Good Script for Creating a Yojimbo Bookmark From Safari, With Tags, Comments, and Growl Support

Reader’s Setup: Patrick Rhone

Patrick Rhone is a Technology Consultant, Mac Geek, Productivity Nerd, and Blogger. He lives in Saint Paul, MN where he lives and loves with his wife, two teenage sons and toddler daughter. For the time being, he is probably best known as the Curator for Minimal Mac, a site focused on making your Mac simpler.

Patrick’s Setup:

1. What does your setup look like?

The Mac setup of Patrick Rhone

The Mac setup of Patrick Rhone

The Mac setup of Patrick Rhone

The Mac setup of Patrick Rhone

2. What is your current Mac setup?

My main machine is a “Blackbook” 2.0GHz 13-inch that I have upgraded with 4GB of RAM and a 320GB, 7200 RPM hard drive. I rarely come close to using all that that power and space. In fact, I currently have 240GB available.

I don’t have any music or movies or such (we will get to that later). I really do try to keep my own computing world as stripped down to the basics as possible. As a tech consultant, I do need to have it available if the need arises for a client. For instance, there are times when I may need to recover a couple of hundred gigs of data from a dying machine. Having more hard disk space than I need for myself allows me to avoid having to carry an external drive.

While at my desk, I use an Apple Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard (the tiny, sexy one) and a Logitech VX Revolution mouse.

3. Why are you using this setup?

I am a big fan of portability and, at the time I bought it, this was the most portable of Apple’s lineup. Previous to this, I had a Powerbook G4 12-inch which is my favorite Mac of all time. When the second one of those died on me Apple no longer made them. This was the best choice available (and it was Black). My business requires me to be out of the office on a regular basis at client locations. Therefore, I really need to have a good machine with me for information retrieval and troubleshooting purposes.

If I had my druthers I would have a Macbook Air but it lacks the ports and space I need to get my job done most days.

4. What software do you use on a daily basis, and for what do you use it?

It may be boring to some but Safari, Mail and TextEdit are actually the most used programs on my Mac. If I have to write anything it usually begins in TextEdit and moves along from there. I think it is the most underrated program on the Mac.

I am also a big fan of Fluid.app, which allows you to make site specific browsers. I have one for Helvetireader. I have one for the 37 Signals suite of apps, because I use those for my business. There are a few more for other projects too. It is a great way to reduce distraction and focus in on just one website or a small group. It even has a full screen mode (and I love me some full screen mode).

Beyond that, the list is varied. I use BusyCal for my calendar, Notational Velocity for quick notes, Yojimbo for longer and graphic heavy stuff (PDFs, Websites, RTF, etc.), Tweetie for Twitter, and Concentrate for, well, concentrating.

Of course, my Mac life would not even be complete without Quicksilver.

5. Do you own any other Mac gear?

This is where it gets fun…

I still have a Powerbook G4 12-inch, which I keep on my workbench. I currently have it set up as a “Writing Mac“. If I really need to get some writing work done I have been doing it there lately. My workbench also always has miscellaneous client machines and projects strewn about.

I have an old Mac Mini G4 that is the nerve center for my backup (using CrashPlan Pro) and media center setup. It sits headless and runs a copy of Mac OS Server 10.5. I remote into it when I need to configure anything but that is rare. I have it connected to a Drobo that is currently providing 2 Terabytes of storage space. Not only does this allow me to provide backup to my family and my clients, I also have a ton of (legally purchased) movies and music being served up to…

My iMac 20-inch, which acts as a media center for the house. My wife and I do not watch enough TV to justify having cable. Instead, we use this. It runs Plex which is a fantastic media center interface. Not only does it allow access to the media on the Drobo, it also has plugins for Hulu, Netflix, BBC, and much, much more. If it is available as an internet stream you can watch it through Plex. It also has an Elgato EyeTV hooked up for watching and recording over the air DTV.

One of the beautiful things about the setup above is that I can stream music and watch movies on any of the other machines in the house as well. This alleviates the need to keep it locally on any of the other machines.

I also have an Airport Extreme for the wireless router with an Airport Express to stream music to our office/bedroom/loft space and provide ample coverage (we have a 2800 sq ft home).

I also have an iPhone 3G, a 5G 80gb iPod (both of which sync to the iMac for the music, movies, etc.), and lots of other miscellaneous pieces and parts because it’s an occupational hazard.

6. Do you have any future upgrades planned?

I think this setup will serve me well for a long time to come. I can’t imagine needing anything else, unless Apple serves up the iTablet anytime soon of course.

More Sweet Setups

Patrick’s setup is just one in a series of sweet Mac Setups.

Reader’s Setup: Patrick Rhone

“Luck. Quality. Marketing.” [iTunes Link]  →

Nice and lighthearted presentation by Loren Brichter on the success of Tweetie for iPhone at Stanford’s iPhone app class. When one of the students asks about charging for upgrades, Loren answers:

You actual can’t charge for upgrades. It’s something I’ve been talking to Apple about. Right now all the point-upgrades have been free, but if you want to charge for an upgrade you have to release a whole new app.

And there’s no upgrade path for people, which stinks. Cuz I would like to release Tweetie 2 and charge ninety-nine cents for it. But either I release it completely for free and don’t make any money, or charge $2.99 for everyone.

That was six months ago.

“Luck. Quality. Marketing.” [iTunes Link]