Moo! The Musings of a Plaid Cow

Keyboard Shortcuts

The Plaid Cow — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 03:37:21 +0000

A good long time ago, there was a screencast of what you could do with FastScripts. Unfortunately, the screencast didn’t do it justice. The problem with doing a screen cast for an application/script launcher is that it is highly dependent on the applications and scripts that you have available. And, for the most part, this is not a tool that does things, it allows you to do things. So what do I have set up? Here is a sampling:

System Level

iTunes control - Prev (F9), Play/Stop (F10), Next (F11)
Ping GrowlTunes (Cmd-F10) - Ping GrowlTunes to re-show the current playing track.

Finder

New Named Folder (Cmd-Shift-N) - Will suggest a name for a new folder (based on the selection), then move all of the files to that new folder
Rename Files (Cmd-Shift-R) - Open the selected files with R-name
Rotate Images (Cmd-Opt-R) - Rotate the selected images (a dialog asks clockwise or counter-clockwise)
Move Files Up (Cmd-Shift-U) - Move the selected files to the parent folder.
Move to Filename Folders - Move the selected files to folders based on a portion of the name.
New Document (Cmd-Opt-N) - Create a new document of a type selected from a dialog. (Like a right click in windows.)
View as Preview (Cmd-Shift-J) - Change to view by icon w/ large icons & show preview.
View by Icon (Arranged by Name) (Cmd-Shift-1) - Changes to view by icon, sorted by name
Slideshow in GraphicConverter (Cmd-Shift-D) - View the current folder as a slideshow in GraphicConverter
Open Terminal Here (Cmd-Shift-T) - Open a Terminal session with the directory set to the current folder

Mail

Mark Read (Cmd-T) - Mark the selected messages as read
Mark Unread (Cmd-Shift-T) - Mark the selected messages as unread

iTunes

Rename Files (Cmd-Shift-R) - Rename the currently selected files (based on the tag data)
Organize Files (Cmd-Shift-O) - Move the currently selected files (based on the tag data)

Safari

Open Text as New Tab (Cmd-Opt-T) - Opens a new tab with the selected text as the location

This is all I can come up with off the top of my head…and these are just ones with keyboard shortcuts. There are plenty of others that are just in the menu.

A Quake! A Quake!

The Plaid Cow — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:26:55 +0000

компютри втора употребаReally? Yeah, no fake.

Works better than an alarm clock, but 5:37 am is too early.

24/7 Ain’t What it Used to Be

The Plaid Cow — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:41:46 +0000

VitaCost advertises “24/7 Customer Service 1-800-381-0759″ right on the front page of their website. What they meant to say, is that outside of regular business hours, you can only place an order–they can’t actually do any customer service.

At least they make the phone number easy to find–that should be worth something.

Fruux vs Plaxo

The Plaid Cow — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:02:02 +0000

After looking at the concepts in Fruux, I was left with one question:

How does this different in principle from Plaxo?

At the current time, the only answer I have is that Plaxo exists.

Q-Tips are an Abused Drug

The Plaid Cow — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:41:15 +0000

Apparantley, WebSense considers Q-Tips to be an abused drug. I’m still not sure why.

That Makes WebSense

The Plaid Cow — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 11:46:15 +0000

As a part of our new internet filter at work, all .edu sites are being blocked because “the university environment, by its open nature, is a haven for hackers and malicious code abuse.”

Yep, that is some awesome logic.

Microsoft Excel AutoRecover Errors

The Plaid Cow — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 11:28:18 +0000

In the process of upgrading my PC at work to XP, I changed the base directory that the the Microsoft Excel AutoRecover data was stored in. Actually I had forgotten that the AutoRecover data was stored there, but was reminded of this when I tried to change tabs in the “Options…” dialog:

This might seem innocuous, but the only direct way to change the directory is through the “Options…” dialog, and this error is shown instead of switching tabs in the dialog. This would not likely be an issue if any of the following were true of the design:

There was a way to change the directory from the error dialog.
A default directory was used in the case that the custom directory could not be used.
The “Options…” dialog could be opened without a document open.
The dialog switched tabs even though the error occurred.
The error could just be ignored.

Well, the last is partially true. The error is just ignored silently when starting up Excel. There is no warning that AutoRecover data is not being saved. This is probably why I missed is when I changed the directory name previously. Luckily, I’ve only been running this way a couple of weeks.

(Of note, I don’t have it pointing to a standard location like C:\Temp because one of the likely recovery scenarios is a power failure and there is a script that runs on login that deletes the temporary files. The logic of this can be debated separately.)

Plaid Cow Pants

The Plaid Cow — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 12:55:02 +0000

Yikes. Its Plaid Cow Pants.

Where Requirements Come From

The Plaid Cow — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 12:15:07 +0000

When the rationale for one of your system requirements ends with “(Idea dreamed up at a workshop.)”, you know that it’s got to be a good one.

AT&T Wireless Customer Support

The Plaid Cow — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 12:09:12 +0000

If you need to call AT&T Wireless Customer Service (i.e., who you would get calling 611 from your wireless phone), you can also reach them by calling 800-331-0500. This works from any other wireless phone or landline. This is available on their website, but I couldn’t find it without resorting to Google.