This End Down

Sorry, I know this may bore you all. But I wanted to write it.

Web sites

• Tumblr: Like a blog, but smaller. Rather than having to generate content, it allows you to quickly and easily repost others’ content.
• Twitter: Like Facebook’s status updates, but infinitely more powerful. Called microblogging, many people use it for a) social networking b) status updates c) tumblr-like linkposting d) interfacing with many webapps
• Socialthing!: Combines all (or hopefully one day, all) of your status update/social networking sites into one so you don’t have to read your Facebook news feed, Twitter updates, etc. all on separate sites
• GrooveShark: Listen to any song in their library for free, legally; buy it for the same price as iTunes but with no DRM; local Gainesville company run by very cool people
• Songza: Listen to any song in their (large and more comprehensive than GrooveShark’s) index of songs available online; not sure if it’s actually legal at all
• Caloriecount: Track a lot of stuff here. This helped me get control of my caloric intake and helps me monitor my weight.
• Evernote: Track everything–receipts, business cards, notes, pictures, anything. It’s free, and it connects to a program on your computer that makes it easier to track these things. Archive your important information so you can have quick, easily searchable access to it anywhere.
• Remember the Milk: Amazing to-do list manager. Interfaces with twitter, your desktop, Gmail, and more.
• Wesabe and Mint: Money manager sites–like Quicken, but online and free. Wesabe’s way more powerful; Mint is way easier to use. I still haven’t decided.
• Lifehacker: The source for these web sites and many more

Programs (for Mac)

• Mailplane: Gmail turned into its own program. It interacts and interfaces with the rest of the OS in ways that no web site ever could.
• Fluid: The ability to turn any web site into its own program (called an SSB, or Site-Specific Browser). I now have specific programs for GrooveShark Lite, Socialthing!, Remember the Milk, and more.
• Cyberduck: Free FTP, SFTP, Amazon A3, etc..
• Adium: Awesome free chat.
• KeePassX: Free platform-independant (meaning it works for you PC people, too) password manager.
• NewsFire: I don’t know if it can compete with NetNewsWire, but I got it when it was free and NetNewsWire wasn’t… generic RSS reader.
• Evernote: The program interface to the aforementioned web site.
• EDIT: Skitch: A quick screencap/webcam capture app with easy annotation and instant access to free web hosting.

These things I use all the stinking time. There are others I’m still experimenting with… in response to my last post (which was not supposed to be about asking for presents–I just wanted to talk about gift-list programs), I’m testing a gift-list web site called Boxedup.

Also, there’s the hot new web site I heard about called spendlessgivemore. Hm. That sounds really interesting.

In the span of the last few hours I’ve discovered Tumblr (thanks to Erica), signed up and created my own, lamented its lack of a working (at least in Leopard) widget Tumblet, tried to implement a Quicksilver script for it, and then learned enough AppleScript to fix it. For posterity’s sake, if for nothing else, here’s the script–if you actually plan on using this, make sure to read the original instructions:

For some reason, I cannot for the life of me get WordPress’s HTML editor to save the stinking space in this post. So, if you really want it, comment here and I’ll give you a prettier version.

to extractBetween(SearchText, startText, endText)
set tid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to startText
set endItems to text of text item -1 of SearchText
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to endText
set beginningToEnd to text of text item 1 of endItems
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tid
return beginningToEnd
end extractBetween

to parseLink(link)
set tid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " "
set theURL to the 1st text item of link
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theURL
set theName to 2nd text item of link
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tid
return "url=" & theURL & "&name=" & theName
end parseLink

using terms from application "Quicksilver"
on process text post
tell application "Keychain Scripting"
set tumblr_key to first Internet key of current keychain whose server is "www.tumblr.net"
set tumblr_login to ("email=" & account of tumblr_key & "&password=" & password of tumblr_key)
end tell
set tid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "."
if (1st word of post is "http") then
set type to "link"
set send to parseLink(post)
else if (1st text item of post is "www") then
set type to "link"
set send to parseLink(post)
else if (1st character of post is "\"") then
set type to "quote"
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "\""
set theQuote to the 2nd text item of post
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "--"
set source to the 2nd text item of post
set send to "quote=" & theQuote & "&source=" & source
else
set type to "regular"
set title to extractBetween(post, "", "")
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
set body to 2nd text item of post
if (body is "") then set body to 3rd text item of post
set send to "title=" & title & "&body=" & body
end if
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tid
set new_post to the quoted form of (tumblr_login & "&generator=Quicksilver&type=" & type & "&" & send)
set results to do shell script "curl --data-binary " & new_post & " http://www.tumblr.com/api/write"
if (results is "Authentication failed.") then show notification "Posting failed. Make sure your email and password are correct!"
return nothing
end process text
end using terms from

Finished.

About dang time.

It hasn’t been totally error-checked, so I’d appreciate your input. And.. crap. I still have to replace the header image with an H1. But. Beyond that, it’s done.

So I downloaded this program called WriteRoom. The entire purpose of this program is to isolate the writing experience from all of the other things that distract us on a computer–chats, Internet sessions, desktop backgrounds, sticky notes, desktop icons, flashing GMail notifiers, and the like. As you can see in the screenshot (which I hopefully remembered to upload), all you have is green text (with spell check) and a black background.

Read the rest of this entry »

Only ten people created mix-n-match Matts. You guys (except for those 10) are boring, and totally don’t deserve my next creation. Unfortunately, I created it before you had a chance to show your boringness, so I guess I’ll have to release it.

It’s another popup. Friends and family who don’t know Matt Green, I’m sorry, because this really won’t be all that interesting for you.

In other news: My Macbook Pro is here, I just switched to Sprint and bought a PPC-6700, I just installed my new printer (HP C3180), and I’m waking up in five hours. Oy vey. Also, I can’t find my USB cord for my camera, so I can’t really upload any pictures. Once I manage to get my new phone synced with my computer, I’ll be able to upload pictures from there, but until then, you can just look at the boring old links.

In preparation for a project I’ll be doing next month, I developed this little Flash test to see if I could make a switcher that uses all external variables. It’s not done yet, but I wanted to let you guys play with what I have so far.

Unfortunately, Wordpress and Xanga have a little trouble embedding complex Flash, so I’m going to just link to an external popup.

By the way–if enough of you guys submit your configuration, I’ll release a second special version I fixed up last night.  Trust me.  It’ll be worth it.