shards mvr

  • Wow; the new Spatial Audio feature (AirPods) is cool - though rather disorienting in some situations; here’s how to control it: support.apple.com/guide/air…

  • Oh for the love of… Zoom on Mac may be recording you even when you’re not using it. How many “oops” does one org get?!

  • quick way to get notified that your other Mac (maybe a server?) has some software updates available: swupd_remote_check.sh

  • A Hack to Index Notes, for Quicksilver

    First: A few presumptions; this is a hack:

    • You have at least some grasp of operating at the (Mac) command-line; ex: in Terminal.
      • For instance: ~ (tilde) is an abbreviation is for your homedir.
    • You know what Quicksilver is.
      • (Yes; Far as I know, it’s Mac only.)
    • Debugging your setup is up to you; at the moment, I have extremely limited availability to help.
      • Feel free to drop a note; on the off chance it’s possible, I will try to help.

    How to set it up

    1. A (bash) script to list the Titles of your Notes:
      • The code is in separate section below.
      • Save the script to ~/dump-note-titles.sh.
      • chmod it, to be executable: 
        chmod u+x ~/dump-note-titles.sh
      • Run it once, to seed the output file: 
        ~/dump-note-titles.sh
      • Open the ~/titles-from-notes-app.txt file which it generated.
        • It should have a list of the Titles of your Notes.
    2. Keep this up-to-date, via cron:
    3. Config QuickSilver to use this new “index”:
      • Add a Catalog entry, using File & Folder Scanner.
      • For the Path, select the ~/titles-from-notes-app.txt file generated by the script above.
      • For the Include Contents setting, select Text Lines.
    4. Config a new Quicksilver Action, to open Notes by title:
      • Open Script Editor.app.
      • Paste the code in - see the separate section below.
      • Save it, as open note by title.scpt (File format: Script), to your Quicksilver Actions directory.
        • Which is usually here: ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions/.

    How to use

    • Fire up Quicksilver.
    • Start typing some substring of a Note Title.
    • Select the Title you want from the results.
    • Select open note by title as the action.

    bash Script ~/dump-note-titles.sh

    #!/bin/bash
osascript \
	-e 'set outFilePath to (((path to home folder) as text) & "titles-from-notes-app.txt")' \
	-e 'tell application "Notes"' \
	-e     'set nameList to name of every note' \
	-e 'end tell' \
	-e 'set outFile to open for access file outFilePath with write permission' \
	-e 'repeat with theName in nameList' \
	-e     'write theName & return to outFile as «class utf8»' \
	-e 'end repeat' \
	-e 'close access outFile' \

    Applescript open note by title.scpt

    using terms from application "Quicksilver"
	on process text ThisClipping
		tell application "Notes"
			show note ThisClipping
	end process text
end using terms from

    (Yes; I do intend to put this in a repo, where it belongs.)

  • clean up sensitive (Mac) Preview files

    It’s handy to print things to Preview - maybe you want to save the “security” questions and (random) answers from a new site registration, to a secure place (like 1Password) and now you’re wondering where that temporary file is - with that sensitive info.

    So; fire up a terminal:

    find $TMPDIR -type f -mmin -1440 -iname \*.pdf\* -print0 | xargs -0 -L1 -t -I% mv -i % ~/.Trash/; open ~/.Trash/

    Notes:

    • start find with these options / arguments:
      • in $TMPDIR - your own user’s dir for temporary files
        • (which will automatically get cleaned up - eventually)
      • -type f - we want to find files only
      • -mmin -1440 - files modified in the last 1440 minutes (1 day); tweak as you like
      • -iname \*.pdf\* - files of with an extension of pdf*
      • -print0 - output results null-terminated (to handle “special” chars)
    • | - pipe results to xargs, to process them using these options:
      • -0 - handle null-terminated input
      • -L1 - process one item at a time (if any)
      • -t - show commands as they’re executed
      • -I% - in the ensuing command, replace % there, with the resulting filename/s
    • mv - move these files, with the following options:
      • -i - interactive prompt (instead of overwrite)
      • % - the source filename, substituted by xargs
      • ~/.Trash/ - destination dir; put them here
    • open ~/.Trash/ - open (in Finder), for your review

  • Quicksilver

    I’m amazed how useful Quicksilver still is. I’ll be blogging more about it shortly.

    In the mean time, here’s a quick description of how I use it (and there many features I don’t use).

    • start typing the name of thing, and get it
      • thing can be a: file, app, command, function, …
      • the typing can be - in the middle of the name of what you’re looking for - multiple discontiguous parts of the name - great for getting to specific things quickly - it can even be a typo - which you define as what you meant; powerful - as you type, potential matches are shown for your selection - and it learns: as you make choices, those are rated higher than other potential matches
    • it doesn’t matter where thing lives
    • you define what to do with thing; like:
      • search for thing; with DDG, in a local doc repository, …
      • send thing, to be processed bything2
      • add thing as an argument to a command; in a shell/terminal, or AppleScript, or, …

    Best part: It let’s me have a thought about thing, type that in, and move directly to what I want to do with thing. All without remembering where thing is, which app to open, and all that ancillary stuff - which often results in moving my thought process from what I intended to do, to how to do it. Or, sometimes, forgetting it altogether.

  • log4j is not the problem

    The central problem, is the enormous jenga tower that we’ve built:

    • Full of dependencies that virtually no one understands.
    • Dependencies generally chosen, for expedience.
    • Chosen by coders at all levels of in/experience.
    • Driven by “ship it now”, and “move fast and break things”.
    • With management rarely caring about risks - until one becomes a public crisis, which can no longer be ignored.

    Predictions:

    1. These crises will get both worse, and more frequent - bad actors (*), have noticed how vulnerable everything is.
    • (* Bad actors of all stripes, not “just” in tech - and some have state-level resources.)
    1. Even still, there will be little fundamental change in how we write & deploy code - because most of the people making these decisions haven’t felt it. Yet.
    2. The “powers that be” think they’re insulated from the pain. It may not be long til they find out how wrong they are.

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