opens terminal in directory of finder window
To open your current working directory from the terminal in the finder simply type:
open .
That is open “dot”, which you can replace with other valid file names. Works with other files as well. Pretty much does what would happen if you would click on the thing. In unix a . is the current directory
AppleScript I hate. The concept to have a scripting system to drive Applications is great. The implementation sucks ass. No, really, it’s worth this trip into the dumb language bin. AppleScript is a stupid hack. It’s syntax makes no sense for anybody. Only a couple (and I mean less than hundret) zealots that happen to get scared of any real language still use it. Worst of all: the makers of AppleScript are still with Apple and have given us “Automator”. Just add another layer of crap over another one. AppleScript thinks that people want ‘human readable code’. No they don’t. Specially if it makes no sense at all. End of rant.
It is also plain broken:
launchctl is the utility to start and stop processes for Apples launchd tool. For an application I am writing I would like to start / stop services, and launchctl does just that. I can create a .command file and that makes a shell script clickable. The only caveat is that terminal will launch and the window will not go away once the script is done. Not as neat as it should be. As an aside: stay away from the “Save Settings as Defaults” in Terminal.app. This will also save your current running application for instance as that. If you have a login to another machine, than all future Terminal windows will want to log in to that machine. The remedy is to trash the terminal.plist out of ~/Library/Prefecenses. And the ‘close winow when shell exits’ option does not work. Hence the detour to Applescript. But, that does not work either, since Applescript just beachballs if it launches a launchtl unload ... for instance.
Applescript is a freaking hack. It makes me sad and angry (ok, actually that would be an overstated, computers don't that do that anymore to me) since it's sitting in a place that an amazing application could occupy. Imagine any decent widespread syntax, an API library to all Applications and some GUI glue. That together with some way of version manage / download these 'system scripts' and you would have lots of people developing nice short cuts, meta apps or whatever you want to call it. It would be extending what Unix did 30 years ago for command line applications. Use Photoshop, mail and iDVD in one workflow for instance. Or google, iTunes and a printer in another. You see, it would be awesome. For everybody. But instead Sal and Co. give us what they can come up with. Which is frankly not much. Sigh.
“Office space” did not do that well in theaters 1999. It developed a following over time. Much like the Big Lebowski it created a culture of references that most big box office hits lack and probably also envy. It’s director made a second film called “Idiocracy”, and it opened last week. Yet, you probably have never heard of it. There is an uncommon reason for that. The Studio did zero PR on this movie. Something that never has been done by a Hollywood studio before. There are no trailers, no PR material, nothing. It opens in a couple of Cities, and Fox probably hopes that it is out of the Cinema’s before a Starbucks, Carls Junior or Costco lawyer sees it. It’s plot line is as thin as it can be, the visual effects are excellent B, no C movie class. Yet, I think it is worth watching. The best that could happen is that “Idiocracy” performs like “SOAP” was supposed to do. Maybe that would teach 20th Century Fox a lesson or two.
some known and some unknown OS X shortcuts and functions
rare good review of “idiocracy”
google movie reviews are actually kind of usefull. Just prepend your search with movie:
It looks like somebody is benefiting from Sony’s PS3 debakle: This is waiting dot com from the same people (person?) that brought the world Wii60. Wii60s tagline is that youshould buy a Nintendo Wii and a Xbox 360 instead of one Sony PS3. Cost would be probably the same. Of course neither Ninento nor Microsoft could sponsor such a site. Sony does through their actions. Why the site owner do it? Simple: Money. It’s an easy way to get traffic to host these things in time. And if that does not help then you add a little bit of search engine spam:
if you scroll down on this page then you see how that looks these days
too bad it will spawn hundreds of failed attempts that will not.
It seems that the Red camera does create images. People say so. I have not seen them myself, nor did I have personal contacts with the people involved yet. But at this point I have to write that I did not think that the Red camera would get that far. Still miles to go to be a solution. But, again, my assessment needs correction. I thought we would see images mid next year and would be underwhelmed by them. I was wrong it seems.
Sony sold one million PS2 consoles in the first 3 days in Japan. Now they launch with 100,000.
They claim that they have received three million Cell Processors from IBM.
Of course Nintendo could not help itself and issued a press statement that IBM ship shipments for their Wii console are on trak. They will announce a launch date next week it seems.
Microsoft will lower the price for the XBox 360 in Japan one week before the PS3 comes out. They only sold 159,000 consoles since they launch last year.