Category: Technology

Computer Repair Tools from the Kitchen

I was doing some repair work on a laptop computer today and realized I had not yet shared one of my most significant homemade tools for this kind of work. It’s simply an ice cube tray with each cube numbered in permanent marker.

Computer parts in an ice cube tray

I put screws and other small parts in the tray as I disassemble each section of the computer. If I’m following a numbered repair guide I try to match the cube number to each step. Otherwise, I just fill the cubes in numerical order as it makes sense. Reassembly is a snap and there’s no losing or mixing up those tiny screws.

Oh, and while I’m snatching kitchen items to use as tools, cookie sheets make great parts trays for longer-term projects. The whole project can be shelved to get it out of the way and then easily resumed without parts getting misplaced.

Loading WordPress’ Thickbox Only When Needed

I like to use Thickbox on my site to display images and videos in overlay windows. In WordPress, it’s easy enough to use wp_enqueue_script( ) and wp_enqueue_style() to load the built-in version of Thickbox. It automatically takes care of including jQuery, putting the css in the header, and the javascript in the footer.

But there’s no need to have the bloat of Thickbox and jQuery loading on all pages when most of them don’t even use it. That’s why Joost de Valk detailed a nice tip to only load thickbox when needed by checking the page content for references to it. All it takes is a few lines of code in your functions.php file.

Unfortunately, you end up with some broken images because the built-in Thickbox defines their locations in thickbox.js as relative paths: Continue reading Loading WordPress’ Thickbox Only When Needed

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[This information in this post is out of date. Please see Gravatar, AppleScript, and the OS X Address Book Revisited for more current information.]

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

[This information in this post is out of date. Please see Gravatar, AppleScript, and the OS X Address Book Revisited for more current information.]

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