GPS Geolocation in Safari on iPhone OS 3.0
I just updated my iPhone to the shiny new OS 3.0. Apple did a great job addressing a few shortcomings and adding new features. Others have already told about the common features so I won’t rehash them here.
But let me tell you about my favorite new feature: Safari can now get your GPS location via javascript! [ Continue reading GPS Geolocation in Safari on iPhone OS 3.0 … ]
Filling Mac Address Book Pictures with Gravatars
This is a multi-part tutorial series on using Gravatar from AppleScript to update your Mac Address Book pictures automatically. These pictures then sync to your iPhone for Gravatar goodness on the go.
I’ve had some AppleScripts to work with Gravatars and Address Book hanging around in rough form for quite a while. But I was recently prompted to clean them up and write these tutorials when Matt Mullenweg posted about Gravatar on his blog saying that “we need a better way to get Gravatars into your Apple address book / iPhone.” I hope that the documentation and tools from this project will be used for other creative Gravatar integration projects.
We’re about to put all of what we learned in part 1, part 2, and part 3 together to make our working script. [ Continue reading Filling Mac Address Book Pictures with Gravatars … ]
Detecting When Gravatar Has No Image
We’re on our way to building an AppleScript to update all of the contacts in your Mac Address Book with pictures from the Gravatar service. This is part 3 of the series.
Part 1, Gravatar, AppleScript, and Address Book Pictures, introduced the topic and ended with a short AppleScript to construct a Gravatar URL given an e-mail address.
Then in part 2, Setting an Address Book Picture with AppleScript, we built a script showing how to successfully set a contact photo in Address Book.
Now we need to detect when the Gravatar service does not have an image on file for a given e-mail address. [ Continue reading Detecting When Gravatar Has No Image … ]
Setting an Address Book Picture with AppleScript
In part 1, Gravatar, AppleScript, and Address Book Pictures, we covered the basics of getting a Gravatar URL with AppleScript. The end goal is to automatically update all of our Address Book pictures with Gravatars in one fell swoop.
There are a couple tricky things we need to solve to reach our goal. They aren’t difficult; just not well documented, if at all.
In this post I’ll show you how to update a contact picture with AppleScript. [ Continue reading Setting an Address Book Picture with AppleScript … ]
Gravatar, AppleScript, and Address Book Pictures
I’ve always been a fan of adding photos to the people in my Mac Address Book application. It’s a nice personal touch when the photo appears on e-mail messages from people I know. And now that I have an iPhone, those photos sync to the phone and show up in my contacts and when I get calls.
But wouldn’t it be nice if we could add photos to our contacts without doing them all manually? Well, that’s where Gravatar and a little AppleScript will do the job. [ Continue reading Gravatar, AppleScript, and Address Book Pictures … ]
President-Elect Barack Obama Uses Hide-a-Pod
Back when I created my little Hide-a-Pod site joke, I never would have guessed it would get dragged into presidential politics.
In fact, I had been thinking the phenomenon had just about died down with newer Zune models and traffic to the site tapering off. Then 9to5 Mac brought it back up as an explanation to reports that president-elect Obama was seen with a Zune.
So maybe our next president was just protecting his iPod … but all as part of his plan to bring the country together by carrying both devices.
I often get more laughs out of what others do with Hide-a-Pod than the original joke. Nice job 9to5.
What Makes Some People Bald?
We picked up an old book at a garage sale titled The Book of Wonders. It has a copyright of 1914 by Presbrey Syndicate, Inc. The description on the inside cover reads
“Gives plain and simple answers to the thousands of everyday questions that are asked and which all should be able to, but cannont answer.”
It’s been the source of some good laughs. This is our favorite entry. It explains that baldness is caused by wearing hats, just as flowers die if you block them from getting enough air circulation. 
Lazy Lawn Mowing
Sometimes a low-tech solution to automation is all that is needed to save a lot of work. Although I now use robotic lawn mowers, you might still enjoy the story of how I once turned my gas-powered walk-behind mower into a work-saving autonomous mower. My neighbors certainly found it amusing. (More on that later.)
This simple hack cut my mowing time to about a third of what it used to be. I’m not sure of the exact cost because most of the parts were scrounged. Even the mower was a $30 garage sale special. In total, I probably spent less than $50 for the whole project, including the mower.
[ Continue reading Lazy Lawn Mowing … ]
The $8 Tomato Report
Okay, I feel a little odd posting this because I have personally made jokes regarding those who blog about their cheese sandwich. But I just have to tell a little story about my lunch.
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- One slice of this huge tomato fills the bread.
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- Look how large and red these tomato slices are.
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- That’s a big tomato. It may not be perfect on the outside, but it was perfect on the inside.
Actually, it’s more about being a garden geek.
[ Continue reading The $8 Tomato Report … ]
WordPress & My iPhone in the Garden
I just had to try the new WordPress application for the iPhone. So I snapped a couple photos while out in the garden gathering lunch and wrote this post.
It connected to my blog effortlessly and allowed me to easily add categories, tags, and a photo.
Great job WordPress team!
I only have a couple minor gripes that I hope will be addressed later:
1. It would be easier to type if the application supported landscape mode and the wider keyboard that provides.
2. It’s too bad WordPress does not extract and store the GPS information along with the other metadata it grabs from photos.
I would love to hear comments from others who have tried it. How has it worked for you?
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MacUpdate Promo Deal of the Day
