So, after some investigation and experimentation, here are the tools so far for my “Remind Like Water” project.

• Remind
• Growl
• iCal
• Quicksilver

A tiny Applescript is also used, but only due to iCal’s apparent inability to deal directly with a shell command script.

This project isn’t complete by any means, but these are the first steps, seeing if my idea is feasible.

Remind

I created a “Remind” folder in my home folder, as well as making a ~/.reminders file via Terminal.

Inside the Remind folder are several files for various purposes:

• birthdays (family and friends)
• home (non-work appointments and errands)
• local (hometown events)
• office (work meetings and events)
• recurring (daily and other tasks)
• seasons (http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/Earth_Seasons)
• sports (baseball games)
• sunrisesunset (http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/Remind_Cookbook)
• tv (weekly television shows)

All of these are included in .reminders with lines that look like:

INCLUDE /Users/robert/Remind/birthdays

Growl

Installed the growlnotify utility, which enables me to interact with the Growl notification system, running Remind commands, the results of which are displayed in Growl message windows.

iCal

Created a new event called “Remind” that is scheduled for 05:00 and repeats every day. It uses an alarm to run a script (unfortunately an Applescript is necessary) called whatupdog.scpt

whatupdog

This command, once Remind is set up properly, serves to get your current day’s reminders, then display them in a Growl sticky message:

remind ~/.reminders | growlnotify -s

Just to avoid any directory and portability issues, here’s what it will look like with all the pathnames added (assuming everything is in the same place on your system):

/usr/local/bin/remind /Users/robert/.reminders | /usr/local/bin/growlnotfiy -s

I put that line in a file called whatupdog which is saved in my ~/Scripts folder and made executable via chmod.

Also there is an Applescript that contains only this line:

do shell script "/Users/robert/Scripts/whatupdog"

saved as whatupdog.scpt in the same spot.

Thanks to the iCal alarm mentioned above, I would then get a sticky Growl note every morning — and since iCal handles alerts even if the computer is asleep or off, I theoretically won’t miss anything.

Quicksilver

This will eventually be used to append events and to-do items to the various ~/Remind files.

More to come.

kGTD is pissing me off. :)

Generally speaking, it has done a serviceable job during my recent experiments, even if it has (understandably) slowed down as dozens of projects and scores of actions are added.

But where it’s beginning to fail is on the recurring actions. There’s some sort of screwy thing going on during syncing where random recurring items are either “completed” out of repetition (and thus existence) or are kept moving to the next day.

This is not acceptable for a system that is supposed to be trusted; unfortunately, since kGTD is apparently not going to be updated with the still-unscheduled appearance of OmniFocus, I am forced to look at other options.

I think I have three or so choices (which isn’t to say there aren’t others), not counting sticking with kGTD for now. None of them is ideal; all of them will be supplemented (and thus improved) by using Quicksilver as the main entry method.

1. Anticipating Leopard’s coming improvements, trying an iCal-only system even though its current slowness is a big drawback.
2. Cobbling together something with Remind, as I’m well-familiar with its syntax and could get back up to speed pretty quickly.
3. Switching over to the quickly evolving iGTD.
4. Some combination thereof, e.g. using Rem2ics and iCal to Remind.

More later. It’s time to get my muffins prepped for baking. :)

In Quicksilver, you can choose whether or not to show its icon in the menubar and/or the Dock. It’s tempting to keep the Dock clear and choose only the menubar (or live dangerously and not show either ;).

One reason, at least, to show it in the Dock is in case Quicksilver locks up with the spinning rainbow beachball of death. Having the icon in the Dock will make the application available in the Force Quit Applications dialog box, which it isn’t with just the menubar icon.

Naturally, you can kill the QS process via the command line, but this is a little handier.

Merlin Mann’s new episode of the Merlin Show posted yesterday teaches very powerful Quicksilver-Fu, enabling you to access the menu items of any application, as well as introducing the concept of proxies. These techniques belie the mistaken impression that Quicksilver is “merely” a program launcher — it is an application master. ;)

What isn’t clear in the ‘cast is the settings, downloads, and brand of incense you need to burn in order to make all of that happen. I’m pretty sure the below covers everything, but let me know if I missed something.

In Quicksilver

To start, you’ll likely need to have “Enable Advanced Features” turned on in the latest-greatest version of Quicksilver.

First, to enable proxies in QS preferences… Under Catalog > Quicksilver, turn on “Proxy Objects”, “Internal Commands”, and “Internal Objects”.

To access menu items (and enable the Show Menu Items action), go under Plug-ins > All Plug Ins and scroll down to turn on “User Interface Access (+)”.

In System Preferences

Then go under your Mac’s System Preferences, to Universal Access, and turn on “Enable access for assistive devices” at the bottom.

When you’re subscribed to a number of music blogs, as well as coming across cool new indy songs accidentally or buying stuff via iTunes, it can be somewhat daunting to keep up with what you’ve been into lately. Rating songs helps, of course, but I’m usually too buried in code to bother with it. (With Quicksilver, however…)

Pondering this, I created a new playlist in iTunes called Lately Awesome. Choose “Match all”. The rules are:

• Date Added is in the last 2 weeks
• Play Count is greater than 2

Naturally, you’ll want to tailor this to your own needs. Expanding it to 1 month results in sixteen songs for me. YMMV.

Anyhow, Lately Awesome produced three songs:

1. “Flathead” by The Fratellis
2. “Rockin’ Date” by The Micragirls
3. “Start Swimming” by Summer Hymns

Coincidentally, all three songs were added on 1/30, and all are from this year or last, which makes sense.

“Flathead” is the song from the new iPod adverts. They do seem to err on the side of catchy. ;)

“Rockin’ Date” has the female rock vibe of the 5-6-7-8’s, but more raw and distorted. A good combination of elements.

“Start Swimming” I heard of from 3hive (which has become a great source for new music for me), and their description of “textured, mellow pop songs that seem to fit the band’s name” is apt. This would go well on a seasonal playlist you listen to in the depths of winter to thaw your soul a little. Straight-ahead song, no surprises, but good vibes — like America with less of a box-of-wine aura.