MountVolume Applescript

All website data, MySQL dumps, photos, personal documents, and music on the iMac are backed up nightly to the Dell server. I use a Samba volume on the Dell for better file name because Samba seems to have better file name compatibility than a Win2K Apple File Sharing volume.

The problem is, OS X will automount an AFS volume, but not a Samba volume. I found an AppleScript called MountVolume that will mount many different kinds of volumes. By saving it as an “Applet”, I can have the script auto-load and boot up and mount the backup volume.

MacFive News 11-2003

Congratulations to Kelly on making Blog-Of-The-Week with her Pumpkin Seeds Mystery posting. Carol’s Pedicure posting earned the previous B.O.T.W.

The mac.fiveforks.com home page has been updated and includes the following features:

1. Every hour the home page automatically updates to show new posts. So going to mac.fiveforks.com is a great way to see if there are any new articles.

2. The “newspaper column” format includes each Web Log (blog) and the most recent two postings with day and date.

3. The photos on the page “rotate”. Every time you come back or press the refresh button in your browser, they change. Danny claims he pressed the refresh button until they “ran out”. That’s not possible…. I don’t think.

4. The total number of blog entries (articles) is included next to the blog title.

5. The total number of comments to an entry appear next to the entry.

You’ll also notice that most of the blogs have a “Recent Comments” section. Great way to spot new comments to older articles that you might otherwise miss.

Enjoy! Keep posting!

Harmony Central

Where Greg goes to get chords…

Harmony Central??

I’ve used that site, and it’s predecessor OLGA, for years. I don’t have the patience to read sheet music. I just want to play songs. So I’ve learned the basic chords on both guitar and piano and go from there. If I want to play a song, I look on harmony-central to see if they have the chords, and as long as I know how the song goes, I can usually play it on either instrument just by knowing the chords. — GW

iTunes Windows Discovers Blue

iTunes Windows discovered the Blue iMac on the network and listed its shared library. (See snapshot.) So at the moment I am listening to Cat Stevens on the Dell laptop being served from the Blue Mac. The same 3-year-old iMac is hosting this site and the kids are currently playing the SIMS on it. Sharing only works on the same subnet since version 4.1 when Apple realized they had shipped (with 4.0) the ability to discover and broadcast tunes anywhere on the net. Within days, hacks were released that let you go across subnets (or anywhere on the internet.) I needed it because my network has two subnets: 1 wired 1 wireless.

iTunesOnDell.gif

Now playing: Longer Boats by Cat Stevens

Happy Birthday Bruthu T!

There once was a bruthu named Ted,

Who wanted an iPod for his head,

But he spent all his doughs,

To watch GIANT TV shows,

“Maybe next year” is what he said.

“Thank you Susan!” is what he said.

ipodstraight10162003s.jpg

Will iPod Be the One Thing?

The iPod is more popular than ever with the release of Windows iTunes. This announcement from Toshiba is amazing: “Additionally, Toshiba said it is also considering production of 1-inch drives. Such drives are small enough to be encased in a CompactFlash card form factor.”

I was thinking about cell phones, palm pilots, GPS, and wallets (credit cards, money, photos, i.d.s) Surely it will all converge into a single thing and that thing could be an iPod. Apple has built a method of keeping large data files easily updated on your “thing”. That includes music and photos. (People carry photos in their wallets.)

They’ve got address and calendar info updating via iSync like a Palm. How hard can it be to stick a phone and some GPS in there?

None of this bodes well for checks, but my Apple stock should go up.

In Search of Random

Randomline

Random On This Day

SomeDays

MTPhotogallery (cron job can update randoms)

MTRandomEntries

Recent Comments List

My goal is to take some of these plug-ins and techniques and have the mac.fiveforks.com home page be dyanmic, interesting, and a summary of new things on everyone’s blogs.

Combining the OtherBlogs plug-in with the Recent Entries code, I can have summaries of recent comments from all blogs. In this way, people leaving comments get some recognition and comments are more likely to be found.