Simplified deleting in OSX Finder

I finally got around to solving a longstanding irritation I’ve had with Finder. Well, when I say that, what I mean is, I posted the irritation to a forum, and some helpful folks there gave me the inspiration for the solution.

The irritation:

Quite often I copy a bunch of images off my phone on to my laptop. In Finder I open them up and use the quickview (using spacebar) to quickly view and delete items [using the keyboard only]

However, when I delete an item, Finder loses focus. If I press UP or DOWN I start at the top or bottom of the list. Is there a way to delete an item from the list and it to stay at the same place in the list?

Your workflow is completely ruined when every time you delete, Finder loses focus and you have to use the mouse to get back to where you were. The solution? Labels. This is some simple functionality that allows you to set the backgorund color/label of a Finder item. It’s been in the OS for donkey’s years… but I’ve never got in to it. Little need, maybe. After this, I might use it more.

You can see above how to set the label/colour of a finder item and the effect. The trick though is being able to do this via the keyboard only which is not possible out of the box. Step up cute application of the year: Spark. Completely free (unlike your Butler/Quiksilver) it lets you assign keyboard shortcuts to a bunch of activities, including executing Applescript. Nice guide to it is here.

Which rather alludes to how we’ll do this: with some simple Applescript:

property file_color : 2
– replace ‘2′ above with the number for the color you’d like to use:
– 0=none, 1=orange, 2=red, 3=yellow, 4=blue, 5=purple, 6=green, 7=grey

tell application “Finder”
activate
set selected to selection
repeat with n_file in every item in selected
set label index of n_file to file_color
end repeat
end tell

So in Spark, create a new Applescript hotkey, paste in the script and away you go. Open the image in quickview, and if it needs to be flagged for deletion, hit your new hotkey. Then when you’re done, sort by label and you can quickly find all the flagged images and delete in bulk.

Note: you may need to enable labels in the finder view. Hit Apple + J and check against label

Job done.

(Freebie: in researching this I “found” a neat little keyboard shortcut: CTRL + Apple + 4 = rearrange desktop icons!)

New Apple TV sized doorstop

My Apple-powered home continues to grow – to go with the medley of Apple powered computers, screens and wireless kit, I’ve just added an Apple TV. I previously had no interest in them since as I really only use iTunes for music, and still haven’t bought in to the whole downloading and renting TV over the wires.

But when I learned that AirPlay – a feature of iOS 4.2 – would support streaming video over the air, it instantly had new appeal – I have an old TV that has no digital box so is essentially useless but AirPlay in theory meant that I could stream iPlayer from my iPad to the AppleTV and watch it on the TV.

Any H.264 content from the web can be broadcast over Airplay to your HDTV.

I’ve used AirPlay extensively in the house (with three Airport Express…) so figured this was a good solution, and reason enough to invest in an AppleTV. Apple’s marketing confirms this:

If it’s on iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, it’s on Apple TV. Coming Soon.

You can already stream music and video from your computer to Apple TV. With AirPlay, you can stream music and video from your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch too. So if you feel like watching a film you have on one of your devices, you don’t need to rent or buy it again. Just tap to start playing content on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, then tap again to instantly stream whatever you’re watching — or listening to — directly to Apple TV. AirPlay is coming soon to an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch near you.

Simple right? Except, it doesn’t work like that. Now that it’s hooked up, the only video that can be streamed to AppleTV from my iPad is from Apple apps, like the Video app. But since the video needs to be synced to the iPad (via iTunes) and then streamed, this is of little value. Embedded videos (e.g., YouTube) can stream their audio to the TV, but that’s of no value. Most pertinently, I can’t watch iPlayer off the iPad on the AppleTV. It’s unclear whether this is something the BBC could fix by creating a dedicated iPlayer App.

So for the first time in a long while, I’m left disappointed by a piece of Apple kit and the promises I’d heard. Maybe things will improve in time, but until then, it’s just going to be an albeit good looking but nevertheless very expensive dust catcher.

Growlmail and Letterbox dance again – OSX 10.6.5

Anyone who installed Apple’s latest security release – OSX 10.6.5 – and uses Growlmail and/or Letterbox, will have been greeted by the “Mail 4.4 has eaten your plugins message”, again. A tiresome thing that happens everytime Apple updates Mail – they change the UUIDs and everything starts breaking.

There are two ways to fix and either works 1) The links above reveal an updated version of each or 2) you can upgrade manually by following these instructions. To fix Letterbox in the same way, simply run the defaults write… replacing GrowlMail with Letterbox.

Job done.

VW Polo GTi 6n2 electric window switches refurbishment

The electric window switches on my 2001 6n2 VW Polo GTi recently had always been a bit hit and miss – they’d work about 75% of the time, then one day, they just stopped working completely. It’s a common problem on these cars – and actually, I’d wager it doesn’t just afflict Polos, probably any of the Golf/Seats/Skodas etc. that use the similar components. The problem in my instance was not electrical (well not really) – that is the windows and the switches themselves were fine, the problem was that there was a build-up of “green corrosion” on the electrical contacts – a side effect of the oxidation of the soft metals used in the contacts. The end result is that the green sucks away the power running through the switch, so enough doesn’t get through the circuit, and hence the switches don’t work.

Needless to say, you don’t need to replace the switches to get them working again, it’s just a case of removing the corrosion and letting the juice flow through the circuit again – and that means saving yourself around £50 (if you replaced all three in the front). And it’s dead easy to do.
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Shake to sh… confuse

My iPod was doing a curious thing lately. Every now and then, it’d make a low pitched sound, then skip to the next track. Sometime it would do it in quick succession. I’d try to go back to the previous track, but no dice. Most confusing. I was getting really worried that it was a problem somewhere – iPod screwed, was it a couple of tracks in my library… what was causing it? It was a mystery… until I did what most people never do… read the manual. (Well, more accurately, I fired up ye olde Google.)

And… it’s actually a feature called “Shake to Shuffle” which is OS3.0 is switched on by default.

So if your iPod Touch or iPhone is acting a bit odd, fear not… you can turn it off.

Facebook connect application creation errors

If you’re in the process of developing a new website nowadays, chances are you’ll want to link it to Facebook in some way. Facebook Connect is the Web 2.0 API style way of doing things, if you’re willing to get handy with yet another markup language… FBML. I’ll leave you to work out what it stands for*.

But anyone trying to get started is likely to stumble over two of the most bizarre, yet simple errors, right off the bat. I was trying to get things working with one of my sites, Saint Saviours Cricket Club, when I encountered these two errors:

1) Facebook Connect “Invalid URL” message

Crazy. You can try every version of your URL which you know is correct:

http://www.mydomain.com

mydomain.com
www.mydomain.com

http://mydomain.com

etc.

What works?

http://www.mydomain.com/

Notice the trailing slash. That they didn’t include a little bit of help on that is ridiculous.

2) Facebook Connect signup page closes out to a blank page

You get the page to submit, but nothing happens, and you just get a blank page. This is most likely due to a problem with the site name you’ve specified. I haven’t worked out exactly what causes the error, but it might the existence of spaces in the name. You can get through it by picking a random number (e.g., 6 digits from your mobile number) – that worked for me. And you’ll then notice that all your other attempts to submit actually got through – and you’re free to use them (and delete all the ones you don’t need).

I’m gobsmacked that there are such weird little bugs in such a big system. Have they not tested these things?

* Footnote: if, like me, you’re doing this on a Wordpress install then be sure to check out the Simple Facebook Connect plugin. He’s done *all* the grunt work for you – you’ve just got to turn it on!

Tweak your Facebook privacy settings

Facebook and Privacy is a bit of a misnomer – it’s well known they’re deviously after any last bit of information they can get from you to use in their nefarious ways. Still, they do offer quite a full-featured website for free. Anyway, you can can quickly check exactly what sort of personal information you’re releasing to the world with this quick tip:

1. Log in to Facebook
2. Paste in the title bar:

javascript:(function(){var%20script=document.createElement(’script’);script.src=’http://static.reclaimprivacy.org/javascripts/privacyscanner.js’;document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)[0].appendChild(script);})()

3. Hit return. A frame should load above Facebook, showing you the various areas of your profile. Hint: if you’re of a Firefox & NoScript persuasion, you’ll need to temporarily disable.
4. You can then tweak your settings to suit your mood.

Heads up via oneandone.