Synchronize and backup Address Book contacts with Dropbox

         OS X      address book · minitip

A nice way to synchronize contacts between your Macs without having to buy a MobileMe account is to have them on your Dropbox. Basically, it boils down to moving the folder containing your Address Book data on your Dropbox, then adding a symbolic link to it so Address Book will know where to find its data. Let's go on bash! Move the folder: $ mv -v ~/Library/Application\ Support/AddressBook ~/Dropbox/ Add a symbolic link:

So what could I get at McDonalds? (.com)

     

I've been meaning to try and learn Ruby for a few months now, since I've discovered _why's (poignant) guide. As often when it comes to programming (and about everything, really), nothing replaces practice. Combine that with an idea that floated in my head, and here's what gives: http://sowhatcouldigetatmcdonalds.com/ The concept The idea for this website popped up as I was chatting with fellow students; something along the lines of “hey, wouldn't it be cool if you had a website that'd told you, like, you know, say, for $24 you can have a bunch of big macs, 12 large fries and a sundae?

Application icons

         OS X

Just a quick follow-up to this post about changing application icons: Someone actually found this post by Googling for “creepy preview icon osx”. I love it. :D You can find an astonishing number of great icons on DeviantArt. There is actually a whole category for Mac OS X icons, and given DeviantArt usual level of quality, most of these are insanely good. Hats off to this nifty little customization for nostalgic users by the way.

Alfred: it's like Quicksilver, but better

         OS X      alfred · quicksilver

I recently started to use Alfred, first along Quicksilver, then as a full replacement. For those of you who never used any of these two, they act like Spotlight on steroids: invoke them with a shortcut, type in a few letters, and let the fun begin. Quicksilver lets you do the basics (launch programs, open folders…) and way, way more. A simple example? You can type a picture name, then use Quicksilver to resize it at your will, then re-invoke Quicksilver to send it to someone in your Address Book.

Let's go away for awhile

     

Due to an internship in Canada, I might not post on this blog as often as I liked. I already let it without any posts while we were fully in the exams period, but I'll try to resume a normal activity as soon as I come back. Update: as I'm probably going to learn and work on Ruby on Rails, I might blog about it. We'll see!

Photocard - a Java postcard generator

           java · linux

As a school project, we recently finished Photocard, a Java application for Linux that allows you to design postcards (‘we’ as in a couple of other students & me). Basically, Photocard listens to /media/ for an USB key, lets you chose a blueprint for your card (that might contain text and pictures), then drag and drop pictures into that blueprint, retouch them, and print your card (actually save it to /tmp/).

A keyboard shortcut to change files colours in the Finder?

         OS X      minitip · OS X

My usual habit (some would call it an intermittent OCD, but meh) of sorting and organizing files and folders to a great extend and my almost as severe relentless longing for optimisation recently met in an existential question: is it possible to colour files in the Finder through a keyboard shortcut? OS X lets you add colours -or “labels”- to a file by right-click or in the Finder's File menu. GUI are cool, but get in the way of efficiency once you know your keyboard inside and out.

Seitunes 1.0

         OS X      OS X · Seitunes

Seitunes v1 is here! I think everything I need it to do is in here. I'm not planning on adding new features in the near future - if anything, I'll concentrate on optimizing performance. Sei what? Seitunes is a command-line interface for iTunes. It allows you to see what's playing in iTunes and control it (play, pause, set volume, toggle shuffle, select a playlist, set song rating) from your terminal.

Fix ncurses in OS X 10.6.3

         OS X      curses · OS X

In response to my blog post about the issue affecting arrows under OS X 10.6.3, Jonathan Groll pointed out that copying the ncurses libraries from an old 10.6.2 install would fix the problems. It works, but manipulating libraries in that way still feels a bit wrong to me. And that's without even mentioning the security implications of getting these libraries from “somewhere on the internet” if you don't have them laying around anymore.

Get database size in phpMyAdmin

         UNIX      minitip · phpmyadmin · sql

It looks like phpMyAdmin doesn't include a way to see how much space takes the MySQL database. I found that a bit weird, but hey, if phpMyAdmin doesn't do it, let's cut to the chase and go SQL! The most straightforward way to get your database size from phpMyAdmin is the following SQL query: SELECT table_schema "Data Base Name", sum( data_length + index_length ) / 1024 / 1024 "Data Base Size in MB" FROM information_schema.