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Linked List: May 3, 2005

Tuesday, 3 May 2005

Automator ‘Run Web Service’ Parameters ★

Jon Rentzsch has an absolutely killer tip regarding Automator’s Run Web Service action. It’s neat, but you have to hard-code the parameters; there’s no obvious way to use the results of the previous workflow as input to be used as the parameter for your web services call. What Rentzsch discovered is that the parameter field for the Run Web Service action can be specified as a snippet of AppleScript, which you can use to access the results of previous workflow steps. Excellent.

Backpack Launches ★

The guys at 37signals have launched their new Backpack web service. I got to test it, and it’s a very slick UI for a web app. The idea is that you use it to organize related information — lists, notes, reminders, images, files — together on a single web page. Definitely worth checking out. This is leading-edge web app UI design.

xScope 1.1 ★

Sweet update to The Iconfactory’s $15 screen measurement/inspection utility for designers. My favorite two changes pertain to rulers: they can now be nudged one pixel at a time using the keyboard arrow keys, and they now (optionally) display the current mouse cursor position.

iMac G5 Speed Bumps ★

Best news: they all come with 512 MB of RAM.