HeySage

MenuCalendarClock is an iCal compatible menu bar calendar and clock developed by Objectpark Software. This application is invaluable for those who are constantly forgetting the date. The MCC icon provides a constant reminder of the day’s date in the menu bar. MenuCalendarClock can be configured to display one of three different calendar icons and a myriad of different time formats.

Of course the killer function is the instant access to iCal. Clicking the menubar calendar icon displays a small calendar with your scheduled items and To-Dos. Double clicking any day will launch iCal.

Realistically, The Sage finds it much easier to monitor his calendar by launching iCal via Quicksilver. This way there is no need to leave the keyboard and start clicking with a mouse. Regardless, whether you use the iCal functionality or not, MCC is a welcomed addition to the menu bar.

MenuCalendarClock is shareware. The basic feature set is free while the advanced feature set is $19.95. You may download MenuCalendarClock from ObjectPark Software’s site.

Technorati Tags: MenuCalendarClock, OS X Menu Bar

One of the things that has always bothered The Sage about iCal is the inability to share your calendars without a .Mac account. Well, Joe over at pknet.com has offered a donationware solution called CalTalk.

Caltalk makes it easy to share, browse, and subscribe to iCal calendars. All you need to do is

1. Install CalTalk on your computers
2. Open the app
3. Check “Share my calendars” and…
4. Double-click the names of other peoples’ calendars you would like to subscribe to.
   • If the calendar is password protected you will be prompted for a password

You can set the refresh rates via iCal and can choose to omit or include alarms and To-Dos. Since version 1.1 Joe has enabled password protection of calendars.

The Sage finds the functionality invaluable. He uses CalTalk to share calendars with his wife so as to prevent from scheduling conflicting events. You to might find the ability to share iCalendars useful too. If so, you can download CalTalk from Joe’s website

Technorati Tags: CalTalk, Software Review, Share iCal

In this episode The Sage shows you how to search Google from Quicksilver (difficulty level: intermediate).

You can watch this episode here

Many power users find Quicksilver at the center of their OS X universe. Quicksilver is a freeware application and is described (by the elusive developer) as a unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data. It has been stated that Quicksilver is the greatest productivity application ever. If you are not familiar with Quicksilver, LifeHacker and 43 Folders have wonderful introductions to this obscurity known as Quicksilver.

Now, to the tutorial.

This is really simple and can be done in about ten seconds. Here we go.

1. Launch Safari
2. Google Search for ***
3. Press ⌘D to bookmark the search. Title the bookmark GS (or whatever you would like). The bookmark title is what you will type in quicksilver to initiate the search.
4. Close (⌘Q) or Hide(⌘H) Safari.
5. Launch Quicksilver (⌃SpaceBar) and rescan the catalog (⌘R).
6. Type GS and tab past Search For… and start typing away. Whatever you type will be searched for and the results will be displayed in Safari (of course you can do this with Firefox too).

The Sage uses this little trick daily. The Sage hopes that it helps you too.

In this episode The Sage shows you how to have your Mac read your RSS feeds to you (literally), using Safari and Text to Speech (difficulty level: intermediate).

You can watch this episode here

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) has revolutionized the way we consume our news. RSS a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as blogs, news feeds or podcasts. Since the release of Tiger (OS X 10.4), Safari, Apple’s native browser, has had built in RSS detection and display functionality. Thus, you can customize and compile your feeds from directly within Safari. Combine this with the Voice Over utility (to be vastly improved in Leopard) in OS X, and you can create a literal RSS reader. This may seem unnecessary and possibly ridiculous but, it is very useful when you cannot look at the computer screen (e.g. getting ready for work), yet you want to read your feed. Keep in mind that you can use each of these OS X features alone or in combination with other applications.

So, onto the tutorial.

What are the steps. The first thing we need to do is to subscribe to some RSS feeds. Once we do that, we need to bookmark and organize the feeds within Safari. From here it is only a matter of highlighting the articles and utilizing the Voice Over Speech Service. To stream line this process we will create a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences. Let’s get started.

Let’s begin by setting up a dedicated folder in the bookmarks bar to hold all of our RSS feeds.

1. Press ⌘⇧B to show the bookmarks (it will hide them if they are already showing).
2. Click on the BookMark button on the left hand side of the bar (this opens up the bookmark configuration page).
3. Press ⌘⇧N to create a new bookmarks folder. Type in any name you would like (might The Sage suggest RSS).
4. Click on the BookMark button again to return to the browser.

Next we will add a couple of feeds to our RSS folder in the bookmark bar

1. Open Safari and navigate to any site with an RSS feed (preferably one you would like to subscribe to, how about heysage.com).
2. Click on the RSS button in the Menu Bar (this will display the RSS feed in Safari).
3. Bookmark the feed by pressing ⌘D or going to bookmarks/add bookmark.
4. Continue steps 1-3 and add as many feeds as you like to the RSS folder.

Now the RSS reader is set up. To view your RSS feeds click on the RSS folder in the bookmarks bar and select any individual feed or select view all RSS articles. In the right hand sidebar you can search articles, sort articles, configure the article length displayed, and control which articles (temporally) will be displayed. When new articles are published a number will appear in parenthesis next to “RSS” in the bookmarks bar. The number indicates the number of new articles in your folder.

To have Voice Over read your feed all you need to do is highlight the text and select Safari –> Services –> Speech –> Start Speaking Text. For the sake of the tutorial we will set up a keyboard shortcut to initiate the reading. Creating the shortcut is easy.

1. Go to System Preferences and select Speech.
2. Click on the Text to Speech tab at the top of the window.
3. Click on the Set Key… box and press any key combination you like (e.g ⌘⇧⌅) and click OK
4. You are ready to go.

(you might want to change the default voice. The Sage recommends Victoria although Vicki is probably second best.)

Now head back to Safari

1. View your RSS feed (see above if you already forgot).
2. Highlight the desired text by clicking and dragging (if you hit ⌘A you will highlight the sidebar too. Unfortunately the Voice Over reads it before the articles. Nonetheless, you will likely get into your articles more quickly by selecting all of the text than you would if you take the time to select only the article text).
3. Press ⌘⇧⌅

Presto, you now have Vicki (OS 10.4s default voice) reading your feed to you. The voice can bother some people but you may find this quite handy. You would probably rather hear the news that you are interested in, being read by Vicki, than the news you are not interested in, being read by Matt Lauer.

It is worth noting that Voice Over can be used with any text. This means documents, stand alone RSS readers, eMail, you name it. By combining the power of Quicksilver proxies and a few keyboard shortcuts you can pull up all of your RSS articles and have it being read in seconds.

The Sage would love to hear your comments or suggestions. You may also request a tutorial. If you have any question The Sage is more than happy to answer them (as long as he knows the answer). To contact The Sage click here.

IMAP-IDLE is a plugin for Apple Mail developed by Michael Rothwell.

But what does this gem do you ask? Well, IMAP-IDLE provides IDLE support for IMAP accounts in Mail.app. But what does that mean? A simplified way of explaining it is that any new mail received by the mail server will be immediately delivered to your inbox, rather than waiting for your email client to ping the server every X number of minutes.

You might find yourself asking, why would I want this? Well, you might not. If you find yourself continually distracted by email, RSS feeds, and the thingamablob, this may not be a good idea for you. The Sage started using this plugin when testing a PHP mail script on one of his many websites. With this plugin mail will simply arrive in your inbox rather than you having to press ⌘⇧N to check for new mail.

Anyways, The Sage has been using this plugin for almost six months now and he has not had a single problem. This current build appears to work flawlessly. The only drawback (if there are any) is that this plugin will not work if your mail server does not support the IDLE command. Also there is no UI at this time but the README file clearly explains how to install via the command line.

In the end, if you feel that you need your email immediately download IMAP-IDLE. Now!

Technorati Tags: IMAP-IDLE, Apple Mail, Apple Mail Plugin

In this episode The Sage shows you how to add tasks to iGTD via Quicksilver (difficulty level: intermediate).

Quick side note. In this episode The Sage decided to embed a flash version of the movie. In order to get the video to fit on the page the resolution had to be decreased. Thus, the video is a little bit small. The Sage tried to compensate by zooming into the quicksilver dialog but the resolution is quite poor. The Sage will decrease the screen capture area in future episodes to alleviate this problem. The traditional quicktime link is here.

iGTD is a donation ware application developed by Bartek Bargiel that incorporates some of the concepts of the Getting Things Done methodology and makes them easy to implement in your every day life. Think of it as an OS X way to organize your life by context and project.

One of the greatest things about iGTD is that it integrates with Growl and Quicksilver, two of The Sage’s favorite Mac applications. To add a task to iGTD via Quicksilver the steps are as follows.

1. Choose a context, project, due date, and priority rating for your task. In the screencast the context is Computing, the project is HeySage, the due date is today, and the priority is urgent.
2. Launch Quicksilver (⌃spacebar)
3. Type . to launch text edit mode in quicksilver
4. Type @ and the context (e.g. @Computing). You do not need to type the entire context. You only need enough for iGTD to recognize it as unique.
5. Type the project name enclosed by brackets ([HeySage])
6. Type the name of the task (e.g. Create iGTD to Quicksilver ScreenCast)
7. Type !! for urgent. The scale ranges from !! (urgent) to ??(not urgent).
8. Type #theday (e.g. #friday or #today or #sat etc. etc.)
9. Tab to the Action pane in Quicksilver.
10. Type p to display, “Put into iGTD Inbox” and hit ⌅

That’s it. Let’s summarize

@Com [HeySage] Create iGTD to Quicksilver ScreenCast !! #today

This may seem a little daunting at first but becomes extremely useful.

Technorati Tags: iGTD, Quicksilver

In this episode The Sage shows you how to prevent yourself from falling prey to phishing scams using some of the built in features of Apple Mail and Safari (difficulty level: easy).

You can watch this episode here

There are several features within Apple Mail and Safari that should be used routinely to ensure that you do not fall into phishing scams.

So What are They

Let’s start with Mail.app

When placing a link on a web page or in an email, the link can be created so that it says whatever the author would like. For example you can make a link that says WHATEVER and have it link to the heysage homepage. This ability is used and abused to trick unsuspecting users into phishing scams.

For this reason it is good to check out the true address of the link before clicking on it. Don’t take the text for granted and assume that it states where the link will take you. To check the link destination in apple mail:

1. Place your cursor over any link (denoted by blue text and an underline).
2. When you do so the link address will be displayed in a small window by the link

You can also inspect the long header in the email message by pressing ⌘⇧H. Look through the information to gain information about the message (be careful, some of this information can be easily spoofed).

Now, assume you blew it and clicked on the link in the email message. There are some features in Safari that can still save you.

In Safari.app

1. Activate the status bar by pressing ⌘/ (this is deactivated by default)
2. When you hover over a link the status bar will display the URL of the link. By using this information you can potentially avoid visiting undesirable locations.

Another “good practice” is to check the Verisign Secured SSL Certificate to verify the authenticity of the site. In the podcast example, the VeriSign link redirects back to the same phishing site rather than to VeriSign’s site.

Of course there are a number of other things that can be done to keep you safe from the phisherman. One of the easiest ways to protect yourself is to disable Rich Text or HTML email. Plain text email is not as nice to look at, but it is certainly safer. As a general rule it is always better manually enter the URL instead of following an email link.

Hopefully this is of help.

Technorati Tags: Phishing Scams, Apple Mail Security, Protect from Phishing Scams, Safari Security

Markdown is an easy to use syntax that allows text conversion to XHTML. The wonderful thing about Markdown is that it allows your to compose your prose in an easy to write and easy to read text format. The goal of John Gruber’s Markdown program is to make text as readable as possible. Ultimately, markdown is a software tool, written in Perl, that converts the plain text formatting to valid HTML.

In order to utilize markdown formatted text in your blog there are several steps that must be taken (for the sake of this article all steps will be discussed with reference to WordPress although markdown can be used with a variety of blogging platforms).

1. Download and install PHP Markdown 1.01f from by Michel Fortin.
   • This involves unzipping the markdown.php file and uploading it to your WP Plugins Directory (home/wp-content/plugins) and activating it via the WP control panel.
   • You will have to disable the visual editor in the user preference pane in Wordpress.
2. Compose your prose utilizing the Markdown Syntax.
   • The best way to familiarize yourself with the ins and outs of markdown are to look at someone else’s text. There are excellent examples on John Gruber’s website Daring Fireball. You may view this posting in markdown here.

TextMate offers great support for Markdown and blog publishing via its blogging bundle. You can write your prose and preview them using the preview engine built into TextMate. There are some very handy keyboard shortcuts for adding syntax elements. For example highlighting text and pressing ⌃⇧L will convert the text to a link to whatever is on the clipboard. If nothing is on the clipboard a dummy link is inserted. If you have configured a blog in TextMate you can drag and drop an image into a blog.markdown document and the image will be uploaded to the server and the markdown formatted link to the image will be added to your document (this is extremely convenient).

Of course there is another way to implement markdown in your work flow. You may opt to write your prose in Markdown and use humaneText.service to convert it to XHTML and then upload to your server. This prevents you from having to install PHP Markdown 1.0f on your blog. Using this method you can benefit from text format of markdown and then convert it to valid XHTML prior to posting.

The Sage encourages everyone to enjoy in the wonderful world of John Gruber’s Markdown. You will find that it is extremely convenient and allows your to focus on the thing that is most important. Your Writing

Technorati Tags: Markdown, Wordpress, Tutorials, HumaneText.service, TextMate

Ever since AnandTech announced that they were able to outfit a dual “WoodCrest” MacPro with the pin compatible “Clovertown” chips, The Sage has been waiting. And waiting. And waiting. With the release of the new 8 core Mac Pro only one question remains. When are we going to see a Cinema Display with Front Row support and a built in iSight?

Technorati Tags: Mac Pro, Hardware, 8 Core, iSight, Cinema Display

HumaneText.service is a handy little tool that allows you to convert Markdown to XHTML and vice versa. Installation is a snap. Simply download, unzip, and store the .service file anywhere that you would like. Congratulations, you now have a system wide Markdown conversion utility. All that is left is to select some XHTML formatted text and hit ⌘-⇧} to convert it to Markdown. Select the same text and hit ⌘⇧{ to convert back to XHTML.

This tool is quite useful. Be careful though, some applications have shortcuts that override the humane text services (e.g the conversion key commands will cycle through open tabs in Safari, etc.).

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Humane Text Service