Gary Secondino: FactFiles

New Blog and Tools

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 18:36:26 GMT

After more than 10 years of good Blogging use from Radio Userland 8 I've moved on to MarsEdit, NetNewsWire, and WordPress. Follow this link to my next blog, webstir.com/opmlblog/.

Web Reference Articles

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:40:54 GMT

Theming Your CMS Without Tearing Your Hair Out

XML and PHP Simplified

The Lightest Lightbox

XML and PHP Simplified - XML,PHP and the Database

How to include a thumbnail in the HTML of a page

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 14:17:13 GMT

The www just grew a little bit. This is an important post by Dave Winer on Scripting News.

Mac OS style abstract desktop in Photoshop

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:50:00 GMT

Tutorials: The Photoshopper PSD Tutorials Good to know

10 Dirty Little Web Development Tricks

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:16:50 GMT

Youngfook is a web producer based in Tokyo. He is a self-proclaimed internet Z-list celebrity.

Something to dig into

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:19:42 GMT

It's been almost ten years that I've been using and watching the development of web services that lower the threshold to self-publishing i.e. blogging. Now I see one service that will also connect to the popular social networking sites. http://www.zemanta.com/ should be looked into.

Apple is Early Adopter of DisplayPort Spec.

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:41:44 GMT

Apple didn't just introduce new laptops Tuesday; it also introduced a new term to the vocabulary of Mac users - DisplayPort. The Mini DisplayPort found on new MacBooks, the refreshed Macbook Air and 15-inch MacBook Pros replaces the DVI and mini-DVI interfaces found on older models. But is this another proprietary debacle like Apple's failed Apple Display Connector (ADC) interface? more...

70 Expert Ideas For Better CSS

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:03:33 GMT

70 Expert Ideas For Better CSS - Upload a Document to Scribd

Turning Off OS X 10.5 Apple Data Detectors in Mail

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:55:59 GMT

I just figured out that you can disable them by entering "defaults write com.apple.mail DisableDataDetectors YES" in Terminal.

Control Your Mac from Afar

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 03:19:06 GMT

There are many different ways to control your Mac -- even when you're not sitting at it. You might think that this level of flexibility would require special software. But no! If you're running Mac OS X, you'll be able to accomplish everything in this article without buying a single piece of software. SSH, Applescript, Tunneling, helpful comments. oreillynet.com

BBEdit and CVS Version Control

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:52:03 GMT

If you're a Web developer, even minor errors -- a simple typo in your code, for example -- can create major problems. But you can easily track down and reverse such mistakes by setting up version-control software. This powerful tool records all changes to a document and lets you quickly step back to an earlier version -- even if you've changed and saved the file many times since then. Just think of it as your personal time machine. more...

Low Low Prices

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:33:56 GMT

I hit the jackpot for low priced "A/HDMI Cable, Home Theater Accessories, HDMI Products, Cables, Adapters, Video/Audio Switch, Networking, USB, Firewire, Printer Toner, and more!" items at monoprice.com

Open Source Applications

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:32:17 GMT

The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy [~] and Their Open Source Alternatives A big list.

Extending Wordpress

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:29:51 GMT

Move the Wordpress Blog/CMS into the web application space.

Mac OS X: How to capture a window to the clipboard

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 14:59:15 GMT

In Mac OS X the screen shot key combinations are:

That's great but I don't want to marquee select a window each time for capture. Fortunately there is a simple answer. After you enter into the selected mode tap once on the keyboard space bar. The cursor will change from a cross-hair into a camera. Move the cursor into any window and a transparent blue will cover the window indicating that it is selected. Click once on the mouse and the visible window is saved or copied to the clipboard ready to paste into another application.

Remember, this is a screen capture of the visible selected window. Anything in the window that is off screen will not be recorded.

Mac OS X Tiger Tip of the Week

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 01:59:36 GMT

Burning Multiple Times to the Same CD

Generally, when you burn files to a CD once, you’re done — you can’t burn to that CD again. Unless you use this little trick: First create a new folder and give it a descriptive name (something like “burn baby burn!” Kidding). Now put the files you want to burn into that folder, then go to the Applications folder and open the Utilities folder. Double-click on Disk Utility. When it comes up, go under the File menu, under New, and choose Disk Image from Folder, and then when the Open dialog appears, find that folder with the stuff you want to burn and click the image button. A Save dialog appears in which you can leave the name as is or choose a new name (leave the other controls alone), and then click Save. In a few moments, a disk image of your folder’s contents will appear in the list on the left side of the Disk Utility dialog. Click on that icon, and then click the burn button at the top left of the Disk Utility dialog.

When you click the Burn button, a dialog will appear asking to insert a disc. Do so, and then click once the blue downward-facing triangle on the right side of this dialog to show more options. Click on the checkbox for Leave disc appendable, then click the Burn button. Your data will now be written to that CD. To add more files later, just insert that same CD and then you’ll use this same process all over again, but when you get to that final burn dialog, the button won’t say “Burn” this time, instead it will say “Append” because you’re adding these files to the same disc. By the way, don’t forget to remove the files you already burned to this disc from your “burn baby burn!” folder (and the DMG file it creates) before you make your next disc image.

Thank you Apple.com

Mac OS X: Additional Features of the Dock

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 13:07:49 GMT

The Dock offers useful controls and menus that may not be immediately apparent. You access these additional features by using different combinations of modifier keys (such as Option, Control) with different types of mouse clicks (click/release versus press and hold).

Answers to Radio suggestions for enhancements

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 14:41:08 GMT

Suggestions for enhancements: #1 - Search boxes to use within your site so that you can find old posts. You can add on a google search box and customize it to search within your blog site, though it is usable your site will have to be indexed and may take some time to actually come up with all your searches. Here is a link on how to install the google search box into your templates: Google Search Box for Radio Userland Weblogs This is a site that provides a search box and is able to index your site quicker. Here is the thread discussing that search box: http://radio.userland.com/discuss/msgReader$31377?y=2004&m=4&d=8 Here is the link to the site: http://www.freefind.com/ You can create an index page for your posts. It is indexed by month and in descending order which makes it easier to find the post you are looking for by title. The link for the script is here: Roger Cadenhead's WORKBENCH.ROOT Install workbench root, after installing workbench root, go back to link page and click on "Workbench.viewPostIndex()", under scripts for further instructions on the macro and where to put the macro in your #homeTemplate. #2 - Preview Post before publishing. On this preference page: http://127.0.0.1:5335/system/pages/prefs?page=2.11 If you uncheck it to have the option of the three buttons, post, post & publish, and publish, then uncheck upstreaming you will be able to preview your posts before publishing it. No one else will see your posts until it is published and it upstreams. You write your story and then post it, to view it you can go to this URL: http://127.0.0.1:5335/index It should look like your public page with the exception of the links at the top of the page. When you are ready to publish, turn on the upstream and publish. Your post will take the date of when the story was written. #3 - New browser window opens when starting Radio. That is a good request. I don't know if there is a current script for that, or if it is even possible to make a script to do that, I wouldn't doubt it can be done, though it is a plus if it can be worked into Radio as a feature for Radio updates. *crossing fingers* Radio is an out-of-box software period. You can customize it to your liking and have it function to your liking and that is where we have to look, find, ask, do,learn, etc. to achieve how we would want our blog to be. There are other blogs out there probably with better features but what they all have in common is that there is always a learning curve, and always something to learn or tweak to get what we want to achieve with our blog. Anyway, I hope this isn't too overwhelming and if you need help please feel free to post your questions up here. Good Luck!

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 15:33:36 GMT

Mac OS X

I've discovered three things today, all independently useful, and more so in the aggregate.

(1) It is possible to put an iCal calendar** online, without having a .Mac account, or webdav enabled on your server. All you need is a server with PHP installed, and this free app: PHP iCalendar. It installs very easily (all you really have to do is upload it and change one line in a config file, and then FTP over your calendar files). The calendars are online in a format very similar to what appears on the Mac; with the exception that they can't be edited online. The transfer process is one-way; from the Mac to the server.

(2) You'd probably want to copy over the calendars regularly from the Mac to the server. There are a few ways to do this: The programmers recommend Cronnix, a graphical front end for running cron jobs.

For my purposes, I'd rather choose when to send over the files versus having it done via a cron job. And I found this thread on the PHP iCalendar's discussion boards, which described a shell script that will automatically FTP the files to the correct place on the server:

#!/bin/bash

#Publish iCal.cmd - publishes my ICSs to my webserver using FTP
cd ~/Library/Calendars/
ls
ftp -u ftp://username:password@ftp.myserver.com/public_html/calendars/ Home.ics Work.ics
logout

* The path on the server, starting with the server name and ending with 'calendars/', has no internal spaces. (It's not easy to see this if your browser window causes the lines to wrap.)

* The calendar files (Home.ics and Work.ics) are separated from each other, and from the server path, by spaces.

*Everything from word 'ftp' to the word 'Work.ics' is on the same line, however it may appear on this HTML page.

Obviously, change the first line to the shell that you use on your Mac, and replace username, password, myserver.com, the path on the server, and your local files appropriately. And the script needs to be chmodded to execute:

chmod +x path/to/theScript

(3) Here's the really exciting part (at least for me):

A shell script on Mac OS X can be set up to execute when one double-clicks on the file's icon! The details are here, but here is how it is done:

Name the file with the extension .command ~~(I think you could use any extension you want, as long as it is not used by any other program on your Mac system)~~.

In the finder, select the file and choose Get Info from the menu bar (or click Command-I).

In the Get Info box, under Open with, select Terminal.

If you want every application with that extension to automatically open with the Terminal app as well, click the Change All... button.

-----------

** This php iCalendar application will also work with a number of other calendaring systems, such as Mozilla. It is even possible, if you can export a calendar from another application in ics format, to put them online as well.

------------

For my own information, here is how I installed PHP iCalendar:

Download the application (it automatically unstuffs on my Mac.
Upload the tar file to my server.
ssh in, and unpack the file with tar -xvf phpicalendar-1.0.tar
Alter config.inc.php by changing the $default_path variable; upload the new file to the server
FTP over my calendars, from Home Folder -> Library -> Calendars

Brought here from Beth's Fact Files

How to take a screen shot from AppleScript

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 15:29:01 GMT

Mac OS X Run this from your favorite AppleScript script editor and then take a look at the clipboard (via the Finder's Edit menu). The script simply takes a screen shot and sends it to the clipboard. do shell script "/usr/sbin/screencapture -c"