applescript

Build a Window Management App with Apptivate and AppleScript

l 398 253 E2B8C194 978C 403B 8429 245F36234004 300x190 Build a Window Management App with Apptivate and AppleScriptOnce I get going again, you may notice a slightly new direction in the content here at MacMerc. I’d like to get away from reporting and repeating the news and focus more on tutorials and reviews of the awesomeness that can be done and had with our little technological gems from Cupertino.

To that end, I bring you a link to a tutorial I found from AppStorm. With this ingenious little system, you will quickly and easily build your very own window management app using nothing but a cigarette butt, a Starbucks splash stick, AppleScript and an app called Apptivate.1

What’s a window management app? Good question. Sounds like a big bag of boring, but if you often need to work in several different windows on a single screen and you spend any time at all sizing and positioning windows so you can see them all, you’ll dig this simple method to solve that dilemma.

What productivity hacks and and systems do you use to rock the Mac to save time? I want to know. Please leave a comment.

If you’ve written a tutorial or posted a video about it, I want to post it here. Please leave a link in the comments.

  1. I totally lied about the cigarette butt and the splash stick []

Spring Cleaning

We know life tends toward chaos, and so does your Mac. Reign in the disorder with these free downloads.

mu Spring CleaningEole

As creative as its name, Eole gives you a one-step cleanup that will sweep documents away to your Home directories (Music, Movies) based on their file type.

mu Spring Cleaningmaintain1

Keep your Mac’s inner-workings in top shape with this AppleScript Studio app. From maintain1 you can run all kinds of maintenance tasks built in to OS X’s UNIX roots.

mu Spring CleaningMySQL BackUp

Use a MySQL database on your Mac or a remote server? This handy little piece of freeware makes it easy to download and backup your MySQL databases using the mysqldump command.

mu Spring CleaningAccounts Enhancer

Wish there was an easier way of changing “short” user names? Accounts Enhancer makes this easy for Panther owners.

mu Spring CleaningMailDeliveryTool

Clean up your outgoing mail with this free tool. MDT keeps your “from” email addresses straight, so you can be sure to email associates from your work address and friends from your personal one.

Now its your turn to get that hard drive in order. Happy cleaning!

Brian

mu Spring CleaningDownloads provided by MacUpdate

Accessorizing Entourage

Well tomorrow marks one month until the scheduled release of Microsoft’s Entourage Palm conduit. In commemoration of this I decided to feature some of my favorite Entourage add-ons.

Mail Pictures

Another great “does what it says, says what it does” freeware marvel. This is a little AppleScript drop box that takes the dropped image, and after you specify the max width or height in pixels, it attaches the image to a new message. Not rocket science, but the size-limiting feature is a good way to keep your file size down. This little app comes in two flavors, one built to work with iPhoto, and another built for Graphic Converter.

SpamReporter Script

The next two items are AppleScripts to add to Entourage’s “script menu”. Drop it in the “Script Menu Items” folder in the Microsoft user data directory. After adding your scripts to the folder they show up on the menu

When executed, “SpamReporter” moves the selected “spam” message(s) to the trash, but first forwards them on to uce@ftc.gov, a bunch of government folks paid to eat up spam (and analyze it). If you have a free “SpamCop” spam-reporting account, you can configure the script to send it there for reporting.

Delete Completely for Entourage X

Making up for an annoying missing feature in Entourage, this script completely deletes messages, bypassing the trash. No more double deleting with this convenient addition.


Queue Sync

Next month may be find this freeware absolute. Still in beta, Queue Sync came on the scene months before the promise of a Microsoft-made conduit.

conduit Accessorizing Entourage

What this conduit lacks in finesse and speed (it’s slow) it makes up for in features. Destine, according to the website, to become shareware, Queue Sync syncs your Palm device’s todo’s, addresses, appointments, notes and even email. A great find for anyone with Entourage X and a Palm device, this app is completely useless to everyone else.

For those of you that don’t have Entourage and instead use Apple’s free (and not too shabby) Mail.app, here’s a freebee called “MailSwitcher“. It allows you to share your Mail app with another user without loging out.

Tune in next week for another set of freeware that exploit a little-know feature of OS X. Until then, keep it real,

Brian