I use to have all of my music rated in a way that made it perfect for listening to while I was riding my bike.

• 5 = Awesome songs that would get me pumped and that I would never have to skip while riding
• 4 = All the songs that I just really liked to listen to while riding
• 3 = Songs that I like but that aren’t really riding songs
• 2 = The songs that I don’t personally like but other people do
• 1 = Everything that should be deleted

Now my music collection isn’t the biggest in the world, I have 1878 tracks all of which were perfectly rated according to the system above. Until for some stupid reason I decided to run the Autorate program on my entire library.

The autorate program rates tracks based on playcount and skipcount so I ended up with a library full of songs with ratings of only 1 - 3 stars.

I made sure to rate each album as I added it to my library so the task wasn’t so big, it’s now maybe 3 months since I ran autorate and I’m still discovering songs that should be rated 5 but are rated 1.

Moral of the story: Don’t trust anything but yourself to rate the songs you like.

For some reason I’ve developed a craving for sidebars and although I really like my old layout there just wasn’t any good way to plonk a sidebar into it.

There are a few issues with this design at the moment, the main one being that if the browser is resized to below a certain size (i think about 950px) the content is forced to below the sidebar. I do have a fix for this which involves firing some javascript to check the browser size and change the CSS if necessary every time the browser’s resized but for some reason it doesn’t play nicely with my sIFR (which is probably the most frustrating thing to use. ever.).

My website really needs a retune and I need to strip a lot of the useless javascript bloat that is really only used in one place but is loaded into every page… anyway, WOO new design!

	function addEvent( obj, type, fn ) {
		if (obj.addEventListener) {
			obj.addEventListener( type, fn, false );
			EventCache.add(obj, type, fn);
		}
		else if (obj.attachEvent) {
			obj["e"+type+fn] = fn;
			obj[type+fn] = function() { obj["e"+type+fn]( window.event ); }
			obj.attachEvent( “on”+type, obj[type+fn] );
			EventCache.add(obj, type, fn);
		}
		else {
			obj["on"+type] = obj["e"+type+fn];
		}
	}

	var EventCache = function(){
		var listEvents = [];
		return {
			listEvents : listEvents,
			add : function(node, sEventName, fHandler){
				listEvents.push(arguments);
			},
			flush : function(){
				var i, item;
				for(i = listEvents.length - 1; i >= 0; i = i - 1){
					item = listEvents[i];
					if(item[0].removeEventListener){
						item[0].removeEventListener(item[1], item[2], item[3]);
					};
					if(item[1].substring(0, 2) != “on”){
						item[1] = “on” + item[1];
					};
					if(item[0].detachEvent){
						item[0].detachEvent(item[1], item[2]);
					};
					item[0][item[1]] = null;
				};
			}
		};
	}();
	addEvent(window,’unload’,EventCache.flush);

It was posted on his blog in 2005 but I’m sure it ages well.. also I just wanted to post some more code.

Originally found here

Made for a brief chuckle.

By learning from other people’s mistakes and having every small flaw pointed out I became quite an elitist too, but I think when learning how to make websites it’s very important to have a strict set of ‘rules’ that you will always follow.

Here’s my (short) list of elitist rules:

• All code MUST validate
• All code MUST be semantic
• The less markup the better
• WYSIWYG is for losers
• If you didn’t make it yourself then you suck
• You MUST use a text editor and write everything from scratch
• Don’t use images if you can use code to get the same result
• Div abuse is VERY BAD

I used to follow that list religiously until quite recently. Until I realised that it just isn’t practical to do everything perfectly 100% of the time.

Sure I still use a text editor to write my code, I still make sure everything validates, I still think less markup is better and I still think WYSIWYG sucks, but I’ve stopped getting hung up on the things that really don’t matter anymore. Now that I know html and css like the back of my hand I’ve started looking for, and using, things other people have made that I can use to make my life easier.

My latest discovery was the Blueprint CSS framework. Back in the day I would have never looked twice at a CSS framework but lately I’ve needed to turn out a lot of layouts and it really has saved me so much time.

It works by using a pre-made grid stylesheet with a load of class selectors that you can attach to your elements and because you can add multiple css classes you really can build whatever layout you want in a very short time.

The following code is all you need to create quite a useful layout.

Sure it uses a quite a lot of divs but it validates and takes about 5 minutes to make (if that). From here I create a stylesheet that can be used purely for adding the page styles instead of mixing style and layout.

It’s only really useful for more complex layouts but I loooooove using it.

I really just wanted an excuse to post some highlighted code. ha

I had to use ‘*database*’ instead.

The only word I can think of to describe this is: Stupid.

Talk about poor usability. Ah well I never have liked phpBB

The following guide is the steps I’ve taken to get my Macbook Pro back to how it was set up before the format. I primarily use my laptop for web development so a lot of this stuff wont be useful to some people, a lot of the stuff is also just down to personal preference but I’ll include it anyway.

I will keep this list updated with anything new I add to my mac.

Also some of the stuff is Macbook Pro only, sorry about that.

I’ll start with a few of the OS settings I changed.

• Enabled the 2 finger right click options in the ‘Trackpad’ section of the Keyboard & Mouse preferences
• Changed the appearance to ‘Graphite’ and set the highlight color to a nice green
• Reversed the fn key so you have to hold it to change the volume etc.
• Customised the Finder toolbar so the actions menu is displayed
• Set Itunes to use /Music/ as its folder
• Installed all of the updates (there were flippin loads)

Applications

Ok now for the list of application I installed. The order they’re displayed is the order I installed them, which is really just the order that I remembered them.

I will also include the bundles - plugins - ad-ons and scripts that I think are useful for each application.

Some of these things will be explained in more detail at the bottom of the page.

Key:
£ means it costs money (usually not much though)
Purple underline means it’s useful for web development/design
Pink underline means it’s a link to more information provided at the bottom
+ is a link to a free alternate application.

1. Quicksilver - A flawless application launcher.
• Set the hotkey to Command + Enter
• Installed the BezelHUD theme
• Setup an action for posting to twitter
2. Firefox - Possibly the best web browser available.
• Set the download folder to /Download/ instead of the desktop
• Changed a few of the about:config settings
• Installed Web Developer Toolbar
• Installed Firebug
• Installed StumbleUpon - Mainly for ‘Web Development’ and ‘osx’
• Installed Adblock Plus
3. Thunderbird is to email what Firefox is to the web.
• Set the layout to vertical view
4. TextMate - The best text editor ever made. £
• Turned line numbers on. View -> Gutter -> Line Numbers
• GetBundle - a simple way to install TextMate bundles
• Monokai - just a theme that I quite like (save link as then open)
5. Transmit - My FTP client of choice. £+
6. CSSEdit - A brilliant CSS editor. £
7. ColorSchemer Studio - Useful way to experemnt with colours. I can play with this for hours. £
8. MAMP - Really easy way to manage apache/MySQL/PHP and other server stuff
9. CocoaMySQL - A great application for managing MySQL databases. An essential app.
10. Plainview - Easy to use lightweight To-Do list application




11. Plainview - A really well made fullscreen browser
12. MindNode - A great mindmapping application
13. App Zapper - ‘The uninstaller Apple forgot.’ an essential app. £




14. Adium - a great IM app that works with a lot of protocols.
• Installed growl when I was prompted after running Adium for the first time
• Installed the MGS2 Soundset - The standard Adium sounds annoy the hell out of me
• Installed the HUD theme because it’s very nice
• Installed the White Bars status icons because they go really with wit the HUD theme
• I’ve also set each contact’s alias to their first and last names so it’s easy to tell who people are
15. Skype - Good for voice and video chats
16. Quinn - Basically an amazing version of Tetris. (Just realised I forgot to backup my highscores. damn)
17. Reggy - Beautiful regular expressions tester.
18. iShowU - Good app for making screencasts. £
19. CandyBar - Used to change system Icons.
20. NewsFire - Really good RSS reader. It’s now free too!
21. Stuffit Expander - Another missing program for mac.

Utilities

These are apps and things that sit in the menu bar and make life just that little bit easier.

1. Visor - Quake style terminal that slides down from the top of the screen.
2. • I’ve got mine set to slide down with the F12 key. I’ve disabled the Dashboard so the key’s free to map.

3. Fluid - Allows you to turn your favorite websites into standalone applications. Damn useful
4. 
   

5. Caffeine - Keeps your computer awake.
6. FuzzyClock - Displays the time in how you would speak it, eg. “Twentyfive past two”.
7. 
   

8. Flip4Mac - Lets you play windows media files using Quicktime.
9. 
   

10. Little Snitch - Allows you to monitor/allow/block incoming and outgoing connections made by programs.
11. 
    

12. You Control:Tunes - A brilliant little remote control for itunes for the menu bar. The list of features is endless.
13. 
    

14. smcFanControl - Allows you to control a Macbook Pro’s fan speeds.

Commands & Scripts

These are just some useful commands & scripts that do a few cool tricks.

I’ll try to add more to this list over time.

Recent Applications Stack

Create a stack on the dock that contains the last 10 used applications. All one line

	defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }'

Disable the Dashboard

The Dashboard is probably the one thing I never use. So I’ve disabled it to free up the F12 key for Visor

	defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

Can be enabled again using NO as the value

Show Full Path In Finder:

This is a useful tweak to display the current folder path in the Title of a finder window.

defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES

Restart the Finder using the command ‘killall Finder’

Post updates to twitter using Quicksilver

This is a really useful applescript that allows you to update twitter using Quicksilver.

I’ve not been able to locate the original source of this version but I think it’s the best available. I’m not too keen on the one that uses the key chain.

		using terms from application "Quicksilver"
			on process text tweet
				set wordcount to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of tweet & " | wc -c"
				set wordcount to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of wordcount & " | sed 's/^[ 	]*//’”
				if wordcount as integer > 140 then
					my growlRegister()
					growlNotify(”Tweet too long”, “(” & wordcount & “) characters”)
					return nothing
				end if
				set twitter_key_account to “YOUR_EMAIL”
				set twitter_key_pass to “YOUR_PASSWORD”
				set twitter_login to quoted form of (twitter_key_account & “:” & twitter_key_pass)
				set twitter_status to quoted form of (”status=” & tweet)
				set results to do shell script “curl –user ” & twitter_login & ” -F ” & twitter_status & ” http://twitter.com/statuses/update.json”
				– display dialog results
				my growlRegister()

				growlNotify(”Tweet Sent”, tweet)

				tell application “System Events”
					if exists process “iChat” then
						tell application “iChat”
							set the status message to tweet
						end tell
					end if
				end tell

			end process text
		end using terms from

		using terms from application “GrowlHelperApp”
			– Register Growl
			on growlRegister()
				tell application “GrowlHelperApp”
					register as application “Tweet” all notifications {”Alert”} default notifications {”Alert”} icon of application “Twitterrific.app”
				end tell
			end growlRegister

			– Notify using Growl
			– Example: growlNotify(”This is an Alert”,”This is a test of the Growl Alert System”)
			on growlNotify(grrTitle, grrDescription)
				tell application “GrowlHelperApp”
					notify with name “Alert” title grrTitle description grrDescription application name “Tweet”
				end tell
			end growlNotify
		end using terms from
	

To get it working with Quicksilver you need to do the following:

1. Paste the code above into a text editor and change the YOUR_EMAIL and YOUR_PASSWORD to your twitter email and password
1. Or you can just save and edit this file
2. Save the code in a file called something like Tweet.scpt in the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions
   (make it if it doesn’t exist)
3. Set a trigger using the Quicksilver preferences page. Just search for the Tweet.scpt and set the to Ctrl+Opt+Cmd+T or whatever you prefer
4. Restart Quicksilver using the shortcut Cmd+Crl+Q

Firefox about:config tweaks

Because sharing is caring!

Open search in a new tab
browser.search.openintab = true

Set the list of address bar results to something smaller than 12
browser.urlbar.maxRichResults = 5

Enable spellchecking for textareas and boxes
layout.spellcheckDefault = 2

Disable blinking text
browser.blink_allowed = False

Enable middle mouse button pasting
middlemouse.paste = True

Disable the delay when installing addon
security.dialog_enable_delay = 0

Add more recently closed tabs
browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo = 15

Disable select whole url with single click
browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll = True

Enable address bar autocomplete
browser.urlbar.autoFill = True

I’ve tried about 6 times to change it it a fixed wallpaper but it still insists on changing it ever 2 minutes (it just changed again!).

Here’s a picture of the settings it’s using ignoring:

The only bad thing about the new one is that unless it comes out on xbox or mac I will probably never get to play it. Ah well maybe it’s a game I can force my kids to play.

The video is definitely worth checking out, even if you’re not interested in the game.