We would love to add support for Exchange address books. But unfortunately, up until now we haven’t been able to figure out how to get access to this data. Apple’s developer documentation is rather sparse in this regard. Actually, the entire documentation only mentions that Exchange support has been added at the application layer. There is no mention of a developer API. We currently use Apple’s AddressBook.framework API to access the address book data, but obviously this API doesn’t provide access to Exchange address books.

Not seeing my Exchange contacts in LaunchBar has been nagging me for months, but I always assumed I had missed something on the configuration. I finally Googled it tonight, and saw it is a long standing issue. This comment is from November 2009. Hopefully Objective Development can get it figured out, or Apple can expose the right APIs.

∞ Permalink

I always enjoy reading what other people are AppleScripting as it usually gives me some ideas about how to better use my Mac. I use LaunchBar as my application launcher, so Brett Terpstra’s script didn’t directly hit the sweet spot of fixing a problem I had, but it did get me thinking about what I do when I want to hide the current application.

I didn’t have any tricks, so shortly after reading the post, I wrote this dead simple AppleScript to hide the frontmost app:

tell application "System Events"
    set current_app to name of first process where frontmost is true
    set visible of process current_app to false
end tell

Just as I was about to assign this to a FastScripts keyboard shortcut, it occurred to me that I was probably over-thinking it and OS X had to already support this functionality in some way, right?

A Google search later confirmed it: Cmd-H hides the current app, and for bonus points, you have Cmd-Option-H which hides all apps except for the current app.

Two great keyboard shortcuts I was previously unaware of. Thanks, Brett. It all started with your post.

∞ Permalink

Personally I use MobileMe, but if you are looking for a good discussion on all the solutions to sync Yojimbo across multiple Macs, this recent Yojimbo Google Groups thread is the one to read.

∞ Permalink

I’ve got to say that I love the idea of a marketplace for short, digestible content that is only as long as it needs to be. I just downloaded two Singles in anticipation of an upcoming plane flight.

Update (2011-01-28): Plane trip is completed, and I really enjoyed both of the Singles I read: Homo Evolutis and Beware Dangerism. I think John Gruber got it right when he said this could be Amazon’s app store for articles. It is a no brainer to shell out a couple bucks for good content.

∞ Permalink

Delicious never seemed to live up to its potential and keep up with the pace of innovation on the web, but I still liked using the site. It was hard not to be nervous about it though given it seemed like it was always priority 999 in Yahoo’s web strategy. Between that feeling and my increasing trust issues with any service that is totally cloud-based¹, I decided to abandon my use of it a couple months ago. Instead, I began to store all of my bookmarks in Yojimbo, and I can’t say I have looked back once.

When I made the move, I checked out a couple of the Delicious to Yojimbo scripts that are out there on the web, but I never did a full import of everything because the scripts only got me 90% of what I wanted. I have had on my someday / maybe list to write a better Applescript for the import, but haven’t done it yet. I suppose that just got moved up on the priority list.

That said, I’d recommend if you have anything on Delicious, you do what I did tonight and get a full XML dump of your Delicious bookmarks. It might take all of 60 seconds.

It’s pretty simple. Just drop into Terminal and execute the following command (replacing yourusername and yourpassword with your individual info, of course):

    curl -u yourusername:yourpassword  https://api.del.icio.us/v1/posts/all > delicious-bookmarks.xml

That will give you everything from your Delicious account in one XML file that can be parsed at will in the future.

∞ Permalink

Keith Peters compares the font rendering of a Kindle, iPad, newspaper,  magazine, and a paperback book under a USB microscope.

I wonder how many years before e-ink becomes indistinguishable from paper media.

∞ Permalink

Let’s be honest. “Sent from my iPhone” really means “I’m not going to bother to proofread and correct this because it would take me an extra 30 seconds.”

This made me laugh out loud.  So true.

∞ Permalink

Another great comic from The Oatmeal.

I’ve heard this explanation a million times, but it’s amazing how injecting a little humor into it solidifies the usage rules into your brain.

∞ Permalink

Nice infographic from the folks at Newsweek.

∞ Permalink

Amazon’s strategy is as sensible as any I can think of for the Kindle–make it more like a book and even less like an iPad, thereby catering to all the folks who want the equivalent of a relatively cheap, highly portable digital paperback rather than the costlier do-it-all device that is Apple’s tablet. For all the people who do their electronic reading on the iPad and/or smartphones like, um, me there should be plenty of customers left who want a dedicated device–at least for now.

Bingo.  Pre-ordered mine last night.

∞ Permalink