Jun

23

Dashing Portable Hard Drives from Toshiba

Filed Under Hardware | Leave a Comment

The American division of the Toshiba Storage sector today unveiled the new range of massive storage hard drives that have many unique features that include one touch back up and also 256-bit password encryption.

These USB drives of the next generation provide such features as that of the password protection in order to increase the security of the devices. The device is compatible with both Windows and Mac and no specific drivers are needed for their operation either. The storage capacities come in two ranges namely the 320 GB and also the mammoth 500 GB.

The NTI BackupNow EZ software helps the windows users to back up their entire system in just a single click. What makes the drive even better is the fact that the software allows you to restore the system contents even if you are not able to boot the windows OS.

The software, which the Mac users can rely upon, is the NTI shadow 4 software. But, the problem here is that unlike the Windows, you cannot take an entire back up. The Mac users can only back up the selected files and folders. It is really very interesting to note that the drive is compatible even with the Apple Time Machine. So, you need not worry about the compatibility issues as well.

You can expect the 500 GB storage king at around $150 and the 320 GB at $120. And this will definitely be a value addition to your memory utility peripherals.

Jan

16

Scripts

Filed Under Scripts | Leave a Comment

To use a script, copy it into Script Editor, and save it as a script. Create a folder with the same name as the relevant application, put your new script file inside it, and place it in ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/. When you’re all done, the path to the script should be something along the lines of ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/[App Name]/[Script Name].scpt. It will then appear in the Script Menu whenever that application is active. If you don’t have the Script Menu enabled, enable it.

Note that most of these are pretty bad—just a few lines that I’ve smashed together for my own purposes. So they’re poorly commented, have inconsistent variable names, and would probably kill you the first chance they got. That said, if you’re having trouble getting a script to work, feel free to send an email to contact at this website dot com.

System Tools

I put these in their own folder in the ~/Scripts directory, so they’re available in all applications.

Convert Clipboard to HTML
A very simple wrapper around John Gruber’s Markdown and SmartyPants. You’ll need to put a copy of each in the folders referenced within the script. I find this script to be more robust than the HumaneText service.

Convert Clipboard to HTML

Requires John Gruber’s Markdown and SmartyPants:

daringfireball.net/projects/

You’ll need to put a copy of each in the folder referenced within the script:

~/Library/Application Support/Scripts/

(This folder does not exist by default.)

set thesource to (the clipboard as string)

set theMacPath to (path to temporary items as text) & “markdown_temp”

set theXPath to quoted form of POSIX path of theMacPath

write_to_file(thesource, theMacPath, false)

set the clipboard to (do shell script “~/Library/Application\\ Support/Scripts/Markdown.pl ” & theXPath & ” | ~/Library/Application\\ Support/Scripts/SmartyPants.pl” as string)

display dialog “The contents of the clipboard have been converted to HTML.” with icon 1 buttons {”OK”} default button 1

to write_to_file(this_data, target_file, append_data)

try

set the target_file to the target_file as text

set the open_target_file to open for access file target_file with write permission

if append_data is false then set eof of the open_target_file to 0

write this_data to the open_target_file starting at eof

close access the open_target_file

return true

on error

try

close access file target_file

end try

return false

end try

end write_to_file

Educate Punctuation on Clipboard
Similar to the above script, but invokes SmartyPants only. Useful if you don’t want to add any more HTML to a snippet of text, but want to make sure your Mac still isn’t a typewriter.
Scrub Clipboard
Cleans any formatting (font, style, and such) from the text on the clipboard.

Eliminates any formatting from the text on the clipboard.

try

set the clipboard to (the clipboard as Unicode text)

on error the_error

display dialog the_error buttons {”OK”} default button 1 with icon 2

end try

Choose Color
Brings up Apple’s color picker, with options to copy the color you choose to the clipboard in HTML or RGB format. It should remember the color you choose across runs, but doesn’t, for some reason…

Invokes the Apple color picker from anywhere, and prepares some useful

information about the color you chose.

property my_color : {0, 32896, 65535}

set my_color to choose color default color my_color

set red to round (first item of my_color) / 257

set green to round (second item of my_color) / 257

set blue to round (third item of my_color) / 257

set red_web to dec_to_hex(red)

set green_web to dec_to_hex(green)

set blue_web to dec_to_hex(blue)

set red_web to normalize(red_web, 2)

set green_web to normalize(green_web, 2)

set blue_web to normalize(blue_web, 2)

set red to normalize(red, 3)

set green to normalize(green, 3)

set blue to normalize(blue, 3)

set decimal_text to “R: ” & red & ” G: ” & green & ” B: ” & blue

set web_text to “#” & red_web & green_web & blue_web

set dialog_text to decimal_text & return & “Web: ” & web_text

set d to display dialog dialog_text with icon 1 buttons {”Cancel”, “Copy as Decimal”, “Copy for Web”} default button 3

if button returned of d is “Copy as Decimal” then

set the clipboard to decimal_text

else if button returned of d is “Copy for Web” then

set the clipboard to web_text

end if

on dec_to_hex(the_number)

if the_number is 0 then

return “0″

end if

set hex_list to {”0″, “1″, “2″, “3″, “4″, “5″, “6″, “7″, “8″, “9″, “A”, “B”, “C”, “D”, “E”, “F”}

set the_result to “”

set the_quotient to the_number

repeat until the_quotient is 0

set the_quotient to the_number div 16

set the_result to (item (the_number mod 16 + 1) of hex_list) & the_result

set the_number to the_quotient

end repeat

return the_result

end dec_to_hex

on normalize(the_number, the_length)

set the_number to the_number as string

if length of the_number ? the_length then

return the_number

end if

repeat until length of the_number is equal to the_length

set the_number to “0″ & the_number

end repeat

return the_number

end normalize

StartSETI@Home
Pretty self-explanatory.
KillSETI@Home
Three guesses as to what this one does.
Get IP Address
Might need some tweaking if your network ports are set up
differently from mine. Makes use of a (very) tiny PHP script on my end:




(do shell script "curl http://ip.assortedgeekery.com/ -m 3") & return

on error

    set myWANIP to ""

end try

try

    set myAirportIP to "AirPort IP: " &
(do shell script "ipconfig getifaddr en1") & return

on error

    set myAirportIP to ""

end try

try

    set myEthernetIP to "Ethernet IP: " &
(do shell script "ipconfig getifaddr en0") & return

on error

    set myEthernetIP to ""

end try

set myInfo to myWANIP & myEthernetIP & myAirportIP

if myInfo is not equal to "" then

    display dialog myInfo buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with icon note

else

    display dialog "Not Connected!" buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with icon 2



end if






    

    <?php echo getenv('REMOTE_ADDR'); ?>

*)

try

    set myWANIP to "External IP: " &











 

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