(From 2003)

In my quest to de-StuffIt my life as much as possible (spawned mostly by the .bin debacle on the initial launch of 7.0 and subsequent brouhaha), I got a hold of Scott Anquish’s OpenUp application, which handles most of my decompressing needs, apart from .sit files. Very spiffy.

Anyhow, I’ve been using the Get Info windows in the Finder to make OpenUp the default for all my formats (usually doing each one as I download an example from wherever). I would have preferred to use the contextual menu (right-click) “Open With” to do it, but of course it would only apply that one time.

Just now I decided just for the heck of it to try holding down the Option key while I had the contextual menu up. Why did I try this? One of the cooler features of Mac OS X is for menus (popup, menubar, etc.) to change dynamically while they’re selected/open by holding down modifier keys. Glory be, the funk’s on me bobble, the “Open With” submenu changed to “Always Open With”. Saves a more lengthy trip to Get Info.

If you haven’t already, explore your applications’ menus and see if there are some fun Option key alternatives. Option is your friend. :)

There’s been a bit of uploading on the Code page. Enjoy!

AppleScript

agoogleplex - search Google with a selected headline in NetNewsWire.

anentry - emails a selected NetNewsWire headline to whomever via Mail.app.

Perl

howquaint.pl - have your computer greet you when you open a terminal window.

musearch.pl - search macupdate.com from the CLI.

vtsearch.pl - search versiontracker.com from the CLI.

Shell Scripts

grabcamino.sh - grabs most recent nightly build of Camino and opens it in default decompression program.

grabgutindex.sh - grabs most recent index from Project Gutenberg.

grabmetar.sh - grabs current METAR weather for use in a flight sim.

I whipped up a quick AppleScript to let me email a selected headline from within NetNewsWire. It’s called ‘anentry’ and can be downloaded (along with a README) here:

http://www.celsius1414.com/anentry

Obviously requires NetNewsWire and Mail.app. Could be repurposed by whomever to use another client. Enjoy!

The exact opposite World Series matchup I was hoping for is now going to take place…and will do so probably unwatched by me. Tom said it best today:

….That is the memory I will take with me into the off-season this year. Not the memory of Oakland losing three straight, nor the Cubs doing the same, but rather a moment of mid-season, when the game is at its lazy best, game after game, under the azure sky in the spring sunshine.

Goodnight, baseball, I will see you when you wake in February.

Billy Goat Hex Alive And Well