Tiny Applescript: toggle iChat status

This script toggles your iChat status between (away, "totally walking around") and (available, [whatever you had as your available status before]). It even works with Current iTunes Song(!).

If your status is available, then it writes your status message to a hidden file (.temp_iChat_status) in your preferences folder and changes your status to away and your status message to "totally walking around". Conversely, if your status is away, it reads whatever's in that temp file and sets it as your status message and makes you available.

Attach this to a keystroke trigger (via Quicksilver or the like) and life is grand.

Here's the script. And there you go. Here's a unicorn from Eeyore's Birthday in Austin.

Today I pulled this from the trash for you

 

Tiny AppleScript: play iTunes video in QuickTime

I really dislike viewing videos in iTunes. It's clunky, there's no support for multiple displays, I'm picky.

I wrote this little script to open and play the selected item in QuickTime, increase its played count by 1 (which marks podcasts as played in iTunes), and pause any music you might be listening to.

tell application "iTunes"
set theTrack to item 1 of selection
set theFile to (get location of theTrack)
set theCount to get (played count of theTrack)
set played count of theTrack to theCount + 1
end tell
tell application "iTunes"
if player state is playing then
playpause
end if
end tell
tell application "QuickTime Player"
open theFile
activate
play document 1
end tell

Ahh, that's better. I set this up with a Quicksilver trigger and am no longer grouchy. Ever. Download the script. For some reason, the playpause (or play, or stop, or anything else I tried) wouldn't work if I put all of the iTunes stuff in one tell block...so that's why there're two of them.

Tiny AppleScript: add current track to playlist

Three lines, real simple:

tell application "iTunes"
duplicate current track to playlist "srsly partytime"
end tell

And then you can create a Quicksilver trigger to run the script; so, anytime you hear something and think "yo, that's my JAM" you don't have to leave the keyboard to make sure it gets in the rotation for your upcoming birthday party. A couple of tracks that should be on there right now:

1. Crystal Castles - "Crimewave"


2. Foals - "Olympic Airways"

Psychedelic Soda from Brazil

Guaraná Antarctica, apparently the most psychedelic soda in the history of man--I mean, come on, look at the label:



It kinda tastes like apple and, um, Rock Star. And(!), guarana is apparently a berry that has three times the amount of caffeine as coffee. Some labels might call it "guaranine," but that just means caffeine derived from this berry.

Seriously, it makes there be a guy kite surfing inside your stomach. And perhaps also a river of lava. Basically, your insides turn into paisley Katamari Damacy. And my favorite pizza place delivers it.

hot glue sliders google rank #1 soon!

hot glue sliders
hot glue sliders
search for the phrase hot glue sliders

WELCOME CRAWLBOT OVERLORDS!



CRAWL ME, ROBOTS!@#

"hot glue sliders" is a very popular search among the blank generation and I can take it over leave it each time.

Don't drink the water

Getting some take-out Indian food yesterday, I decided "y'know, I'm going to try one of the drinks in the case that's not a mango lassi." This was not a good idea. The guy told me it was a little sweet, like lemonade, and a little spicy, too. I thought that sounded alright.

According to all-knowing Wikipedia, "in Hindi, 'Jal' means water and 'Jeera' means cumin." That ain't no recipe for lemonade. It's still sitting on the table and I've still got the heeby-jeebies from the taste. I guess I'll take the vaguely insulting advice from the rudest waitress I've ever come across. "People like you like the mango lassi." That's right, whitey, jal jeera is for somebody else. Sniffle, sniffle in my gastrocultural incompatibility

corncat dashboard widget in two flavors

I know this is what everyone has been waiting for. Here it is. Corncat, in dashboard widget form. I even made two versions! One with border and one without.

This cat will eat corn on the cob every time you hit that F12 button. Now that's unconditional cuteness. Corncat will probably make you happy. If you have one of the original prototype editions of corncat widget, please update to one of these as the file sizes are much more reasonable (i.e., 300K as opposed to 2MB).

Corncat animated .gif originally ganked from here. If you come across any problems with it, please let me know.

After 16 months, its about time

I finally saw Steve Jobs in person this morning. This isn't really a big deal, but I've been working for the iTunes Store here in Cupertino for the last 16 months without crossing paths with my celebrity CEO and it was beginning to feel a little silly.

I think this post may epitomize the "minutia" tag. OK, Steve, we're both busy people, so let's get back to work now.