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Linked List: October 30, 2006

Monday, 30 October 2006

Mac OS X Screen Locking Tip 

Not news, but maybe news to you: you can use Keychain Access’s system-wide menu bar item to trigger your screensaver in “make me type my password” mode.

ThisService 1.0 

So like two days ago I said to Jesper via AIM, “Here’s an idea: make an app that takes a script as input and generates a service as output, so that you can turn simple scripts into system-wide services.”

Here it is. Excellent. Freeware, donations accepted. Stand by for some example scripts from yours truly. (You can already use Markdown and SmartyPants with ThisService.)

SpamSieve 2.5 

Best email spam filter for the Mac, period. My stats for October to date: 12,875 total spam messages, 9 false positives (at least that I caught), 60 false negatives. So, on average, I get 441 spam emails per day, but only 2 slip past SpamSieve. Everything I wrote in this review of SpamSieve back in January 2005 still stands — I love it.

TextMate: Nib File Dialogs Driven by Scripts 

Oh, this is clever: the latest development build of TextMate includes a tool that lets you present dialog boxes using nib files for the UI (i.e. you can make them using Interface Builder). It’s not a C/Obj-C API, though — it’s just a simple shell tool that gives you the state of every control in the dialog as a property list when you close the window, so you can drive the whole thing from a simple Perl/Python/Ruby/shell script.

I’m not aware of any other “present a dialog box using a nib file” scripting implementation like this.

Boarding Pass Security Hack 

Here’s the post on Chris Soghoian’s weblog where he explains the hack. Soghoian is now soliciting donations for his legal defense.

SoundSource 

Freeware menu extra from Rogue Amoeba that lets you switch sound input/output sources from a system-wide menu. If you find yourself frequently visiting the Sound panel in System Preferences, SoundSource could save you a lot of clicks.

Why Apple Doesn’t Have a Blogging Policy 

Chuck Von Rospach (who until recently worked for Apple):

The reality is, Apple employees can blog, and do. I know a few dozen. Most of them simply don’t telegraph their affiliation. Not because they can’t, not because they’re afraid to, but because they’ve seen what happens to people who DO (like me). They don’t WANT to be Apple bloggers. In my discussions with various ones over the years, if Apple DID in fact “legalize” blogging, I’d say 90% of them would continue to fly under the radar and do things the way they are today. Very few of them WANT to come out of this particular closet.

Dave Winer on Apple’s Blogging Policy 

Dave Winer:

Shortly after Jobs took over at Apple, I got a call from him. I had never spoken with him before or since, and I had no idea the call was coming. I have spoken with Bill Gates a number of times, I’ve talked with ex-Presidents of the United States, with candidates for President, I even spoke once with Bill Clinton when he was the sitting President, but I was never so nervous as when I was talking with Jobs.

Sending XHTML as ‘text/html’ Considered Harmful to Feelings 

Brad Fults’s point-by-point response to Ian Hickson’s “Sending XHTML as text/html Considered Harmful”. (Via Zeldman.)