3:59p.m. I Won on Blingo!

Yay! I won a $10 iTunes Music Store gift certificate on Blingo! Dude. So neat! :D

3:27a.m. Fun With Automator

I have been fiddling a bit with Automator and have written a couple of mini applications. They are highly specialized (I have no idea if they would help anyone other than me).

The first one is for those who use Del.icio.us. It backs up your del.icio.us bookmarks to text file on your hard drive, which is useful if you depend on your bookmarks. If for some reason del.icio.us should go down or disappear (very unlikely), you’ll have all of your links which you could access on a different bookmarking system, such as Scuttle. The backup app will run every couple of days in the background. Yes, I know it’s odd that I’ve thought this whole thing through.

Backpack is a great service, but it’s still missing a few features in my opinion. It does not give the option to use Markdown or any real way to use your pages off your computer, lets say, in your personal organizer.

I have been thinking about trying out the Hipster PDA, but it seemed useless if I was already using Backpack as my PIM. Who wants to write out what they have already typed out? So, I tried to combine the two…

Essentially I made an Automator app that takes the most recent Backpack email you’ve received in Mail and turns it into an Hipster PDA-printable Microsoft Word document. So, you email yourself the Backpack page that you want to add to your Hipster PDA, run the action, and then just print the newly created Word document on an index card.

I think I’ll post at least the del.icio.us back up automator action in the extras in a little bit.

Off to school. I’m a bit scared of my huge scary monster Physiological Psychology test that I have this afternoon. I get to look over maybe a hundred flash cards over and over again until four o’ clock. Wish me luck!

3:57p.m. On and On and On

I am one step closer to knowing why some of the sidebars aren’t working: it may have something to do with the way my server is caching the files, or rather, not caching the files.

Does anyone know anything about why a rails install would prevent some files from caching? Or something in Typo that might prevent certain sidebars from caching?

I cracked and purchased the five dollar Backpack subscription. love all the integration with my mac, between Quicksilver, and iCal, I just went for the $5 discount they offered randomly. I really hope they give users the option to exclusively use Markdown. I think I could really get into it if they do.

I think I had other things to say, but I can’t remember. Gr. Tonight I didn’t do anything all that wonderful, just fiddled with the look of my desktop and fully integrated the exit’s admin section to Typo’s admin sections.

Which reminds me, I wish there was a plugin to add delimiters to selected text, as in TextMate. You know, select some text, type a parenthesis or a bracket, and have a pair of parentheses or brackets surround the selected text. Maybe it exits. Ever heard of one?

3:49a.m. Fun With Backpack

I just applied the Backpack Typo sidebar component patch, and it worked like a charm.

If you use Quicksilver and Backpack, I’ve got a tip for you. I first read a hint from this guy suggesting you could do this, and I decided to figure it out. Here is a quick all-text way to add to your ToDo’s without ever having to use the mouse.

For this, you need to have the Apple Address Book Plugin and the Mail plugins installed. Next, go to the Backpack page you want to add a ToDo to. At the bottom of the page, you’ll see an odd looking email address. Add this email address to a new contact in your Address Book. I named my contact “Backpack”.

Next, go into your Quicksilver’s catalog preferences and make sure that it is collecting your address book contacts:

After that, go into the Action preferences, and under the “text” selections, make sure that “Email To…(Send Directly)” is checked:

Finally, go to the Command preferences and select “Switch to Text Mode” for the “Spacebar behavior” option:

Now invoke Quicksilver, press the spacebar, and write

todo: homework

Hit tab, and type in “email” or “send” until the “Email to…(Send Directly) option is selected. Hit enter, and type in the name of your Backpack page contact, until it is selected. It should look something like this:

Now hit enter again, and it will send your new ToDo to your backpack page, no mouse needed. After a couple of times your hands will get totally used to it, and you’ll be addicted to adding ToDos. :-)

3:51a.m. Attack of the PIMs

The online PIM (personal information manager) has become quite a popular thing recently. I’ve noticed quite a few of them popping up. After trying each of the following out for at least two minuets, here are my quick observations.

• MyPIMP

  • Awesome logo and name. I just love that hippo.
  • Includes a calendar.

• Remember The Milk

  • Simple layout.
  • Seems to be more of a task manager.

• Goowy

  • Has 2 GB of email storage.
  • Sexy OSX wannabe flash setup with “widgets”.
  • Calendar.

• Ta-da List

  • Super simple layout, it’s only got one function.
  • Ruby On Rails.
  • Eventually should have a pretty dashboard widget.
  • Already has a Typo sidebar component.

• Backpack

  • Pretty layout.
  • Ruby On Rails.
  • Is based on having different “pages”.
  • Content can be added via email.
  • Already has an amazing dashboard widget.
  • Has a Quicksilver plugin.
  • Has a Typo sidebar component patch.

At this point, the most important things to me are a dashboard widget and Typo integration. I don’t really see the point of using a PIM that doesn’t somehow integrate with your computer, specifically with a widget. I don’t need email or a calendar, I basically just use the to-dos at this point. So for now I’m going to stick with Backpack. It’s has a very unique style which I’m trying to get used to–but still, I’m just using it for to-dos, and maybe a couple of reminders. Once my host is awake, I’ll get around to switch the ToDo section to Backpack.

What’s even cooler, though, is the D * I * Y HipsterPDA Planner. Basically you can print out these awesome PDFs onto index cards and make a sexy professional HipsterPDA. It sounds so silly but the only reason I’m not using yet is because I’m simply not a fan of calendars you have to fill in with the date, I like the ones where it’s been done for all twelve months already.

It’s obvious that I’ve spent far too much time talking about getting organized instead of, you know, actually doing work. So I’ll get back to doing work now.