Jason Whong: Renaissance Man-in-Training

Applescript is a wonderful thing. You can use it to tell pretty much any program on the Mac to do anything.

Some people say it has a natural language that makes it more approachable by non-programmers. That’s fine if you are editing someone else’s Applescript, but it can still be a challenge if you are starting from scratch, because you still have to learn the syntax. There may even be two or three ways of saying something; I don’t know this.

All I know is that it took me all of two minutes with the Applescript dictionary for Safari and a few google searches to come up with a script that I can use to perform actions in a facebook game, roughly every two minutes.

tell application "Safari"
repeat
set URL of tab 1 of window 1 to "http://example.com/"
delay (110 + (random number from -5 to 5))
end repeat
end tell

And with that, while other people are wasting their time logging in to do this action of little consequence, I can go on with the rest of my life.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Applescript, Safari, development

I am a patient guy, for the most part.

The only think I am really impatient about is when a computer is too slow.

For years, it seems I only ran into these things away from home. At the departmetn of motor vehicles. At work. It didn’t seem to matter where. So at home, I always had a computer that didn’t make me wait. And it’s not like I was spending top dollar on computers. I like to hang on to computers for at least four years before I replace them.

Well, my PowerBook didn’t make it into its fourth year, because it got rained on. It’s a long story, but basically if we had air conditioning in this house, my windows would have stayed closed, and I would not have had a problem with my laptop. (Though its 640 MB limit of RAM was irking me slightly, I knew i could have dealt with it for at least another year.)

Because I have lined up some freelance work, I have enough money to replace the laptop with a new Mac mini. Some of you may think I am nuts to go for what is essentially a low-end Mac. Here’s why I chose the mini:

1. I already have a good 21-inch CRT that I picked up at a county government surplus auction for $12. It’s not calibrated, but a decent CRT at least displays all the colors, unlike the latest low-end iMac, which uses a Twisted Nematic LCD panel (making it less useful for toning photos).

2. If I get enough money later, I can use an Apple Cinema Display like the one I have at work. (Yes, I know, I could connect one of these to a new iMac and use it as a second display. But, why would I want to do that?)

3. If I decide I want to use the Mac mini for work, I can stick it in a bag and connect it to a monitor there. Or I can bring my $12 monitor and leave it at work. (This might be useful when covering LPGA or NASCAR.) I would not feel comfortable lugging around an iMac, and since I would also not feel comfortable leaving it places, I’d be doing a lot of lugging when covering some events.

4. It’s cheaper, but it doesn’t suck all that much. My only regret is that it can’t run Civilization IV, because of its relatively weak 3D graphics support. Boo.

5. It’s not really the low-end Mac, because I got the faster Mac mini available (2 GHz), with the DVD burner on it, so I can store the gigabytes of photos I’ll be taking on blank DVDs. Also, I upped the RAM to 2 GB, which is a bit out of character for me as a DIY type, but I am not really interested in opening a Mac mini. I’m really not.

So, why am I writing about patience? Because I ordered this thing Sept. 1 and it’s still not here yet. It shipped (likely from a Taiwanese factory) on Sept. 5 and was handed off to FedEx Ground on Sept. 6. FedEx says it is scheduled to arrive tomorrow, which is good because one of my freelance deadlines is coming very soon. Y’know. The freelance deadline that inspired me to buy this thing. The one that is paying for it.

And every time I wait for my backup computer to do something (it’s a six-year old iBook 500MHz with a screen that doesn’t always turn on), I get even more impatient, knowing that I’ve paid for something better, but because I wanted to save $20 on shipping, it’s not here yet.

I just looked at the terms of the Apple Store’s employee purchase program (for employees of certain corporations). It says I can sponsor the discounted purchase of 6 computer/monitor combinations and 10 iPods per calendar year for friends and family.

So, if you are looking at getting some computer gear, please talk to me and see if I can save you some bones. I talked to one friend of mine today and calculated he’d save $90 on a MacBook Pro and iPod; another friend would save at least $200 on a Mac Pro.

Since I don’t want to be accused of cheating, we have to be friends or family for you to take advantage of the discount.

In under 12 hours, the keynote presentation at Macworld Expo will begin. Everyone likes to talk about rumors or speculate about new products before one of these keynotes. I am no exception.

I’ve been out of the Mac biz for several years now, so I am not privy to the kind of information that could be leaked. But I’ll speculate anyway:

• Few people expect it, nor do they lust for it, but Apple will announce their entry into the HDTV business. It seems like a logical progression, since Dell is doing it. But Dell is a name known for inexpensive, reliable computers that run Microsoft Windows. Apple is a personal technology company, so it only makes sense that they would use their weight to go after a market which should see a lot of growth soon. Most households do not have HDTVs, and most people do not have televisions capable of receiving digital signals. So when people decide to upgrade, they will have another choice. I expect that most of their HDTV sales will be to people with iPod or Macintosh computers, because these people are already warm to the idea of buying entertainment technology from Apple.
• This TV will also be smart enough to tell you whether you’re actually looking at an HD signal. Many people who buy HDTVs don’t know enough about how to get HD signals into them, so they end up not realizing the benefits of their television. So the TV will be helpful and say “Hey, this is a standard def signal!” in some way.
• Apple will announce something that makes its new Macintosh computers even more compatible with Windows software. No idea whether that means they’re making WINE part of the OS, kind of like they did with KDE, or whether they’re going to ship dual-boot computers (unlikely because it might limit their ability to sue Microsoft, though they already share a lot of patents.)
• (duh) New Macintosh computers will be announced, as well as new iPods, and updates to various software. Mac OS X 10.5 will be demonstrated.
• Maybe Apple will do a 30th Anniversary Mac. (If anyone wants to buy my Twentieth Anniversary Mac, drop me a line. It still works.)
• Apple will not announce that it is going for IT sales, but IBM will announce that they are investing a bunch of money in Apple and making Lotus Notes Server a Mac OS X Server-only product. Then IBM’s sales force will try to sell Lotus Notes and Mac OS X Server.
• Apple will announce that Mac OS X 10.5 will ship a week before Windows Vista. Oh, and they’ll announce that a Macintosh is not required in order to run it. You can run it on any Intel or AMD machine. Its system requirements will be slightly lower than Vista’s. But it will not allow other vendors to sell Mac OS pre-installed on computers. Yet.
• Apple will test Photoshop CS3 on one of its own computers using Mac OS X versus Photoshop CS3 on one of its own computers running Windows Vista in order to prove that a Mac is still the best choice for running Photoshop… since the advantages of PowerPC optimization will be lost, they need to prove themselves in this arena if they intend to sell Macs to designers, who can just switch to Windows.
• If Apple introduces a phone, it will be like a Windows Mobile device except it’s also an iPod and media player.

Well, that’s about all I can think of. We’ll see how good I am at guessing. Remember, I don’t have any inside knowledge, and I intentionally tried to stay away from the topics that are getting the most buzz. I just think that the announcements are going to be bigger as Apple continues to move away from the Mac as its moneymaker. Which is not bad for the Mac, beacuse more people are buying them now than ever before.