Random Stuff....

iPhone/iPad iOS6 Passbook and the iTunes Store Error

2012-09-21T00:53:00.002-07:00

There's an application in iOS6 called Passbook, which initially I could not get to work as it kept throwing an error saying that it “Can’t connect to iTunes Store”.

My initial thoughts was that either something had not been turned on at Apple, or that this was a feature that was not available in the UK. However, last night I tripped over a really good post over at MacWorld which provided a fixed the problem.

I won't repeat the details of the fix here as you can read all about it at: Fix Passbook's App Store error in iOS 6.

Having now fixed Passbook so that it can connect to the iTunes Store I've discovered that there is very few supporting Apps for it currently in the UK. No doubt this will change over time.

Upgrading to iOS6 on the iPhone and the iPad

2012-09-19T12:58:00.002-07:00

I installed iOS6 on my iPhone and iPad this evening. It was a relatively painless process and only took around an hour or so to download and install. All went well.

I must admit that I am a bit disappointed with the outcome. The new map application lacks detail, and the satellite imagery is very poor, reminiscent of Googles from about 4 or 5 years ago. The map system also seems to be very slow. The 3-D building rendering feature is only available in central London, nothing in cities such as Glasgow or Newcastle. And the attempts to render the bridges in Newcastle in 3-D are quite amusing.

The 'wavy' bridge of Newcastle - I wouldn't fancy driving on that road or bridge

The new version of Siri seems to be much better. It is now possible to ask it for the location of pubs and places to eat, and cinema times, in the UK. Rather amusingly when asking for restaurants it comes up with some very strange suggestions, including a French Polisher, plus a number of off-licences (liquor stores), and some supermarkets.

The Passbook feature doesn't really work for me at the moment. And I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to be doing to get it working.

One bonus feature is the new Clock application on the iPad. Very nice.

Oh, the irony - travel and getting an Internet connection

2012-09-11T10:19:00.001-07:00

Just reading about today's announcement of the new 4G mobile phone service (called EE) in the UK and what struck me is that the phone companies are talking about rolling out of service that will cover 40% of the population by Christmas, and yet today for the majority of a journey travelling across the country on a train I had no Internet connection at all. This just goes to highlight that 40% coverage of the population doesn't mean 40% coverage of the country, as at present the phone companies claim over 90% coverage of the population with 3G and yet I had nothing (not even edge) for hours on end.

In other news - I'm staying in a hotel in Leicester called the Belmont and it doesn't have any Internet availability at all. No Wi-Fi, and not even ethernet in the rooms.

Location:New Walk,Leicester,United Kingdom

When information really matters....

2012-09-11T06:14:00.001-07:00

Madness at Birmingham New Street train station in the UK. Train arrived with five minutes to get to my connecting train. The train arrived on platform 4 and I had to get to 12a. Up the stairs and along the bridge heading past platforms 5, 6, 7 etc. in search of 12. Got to platform 10, no more platforms, just a note saying "to get to platform 12 go via 5 and 6".

Back to 5 and 6, down the stairs, no signs to 12. Ran along the platform, asked a Network Rail employee who sent me up another set of stairs, and along a bridge to 12, just in time to see the train leave. Why don't they have more signs?

Spoke to some really helpful people in customer services who have given me a number to ring.

Now on platform 12a waiting for the train to Leicester.

A simple be of signage would have meant I would have made my train.

Apple Automator and language translation

2012-08-13T08:50:00.000-07:00

There is a possibility that within the next year I will moving aboard and so I have been researching the country to which I may be moving.... The only problem is, I keep encountering webpages and bits of text in languages I don't undertand. Luckily for me there are a couple of translation solutions...

First, there is the 'translate this webpage' feature in Google Chrome (full details here on how to turn it on), and second I wrote a Mac Service using Automator that takes selected text and translates it using Google Translate.

The set up with Automator is fairly simple.

Start Automator, select 'Service' as the type of action you wish to create. Set 'Service received selected' to 'text', and 'in' to 'any application'.

Drag a 'Run AppleScript' from the lefthand column in to the Automator workspace and then add the following AppleScript code:

on run {input, parameters}
  -- the following 2 lines should be on one line
  set output to "http://translate.google.com/translate_t?text=" 
    & urldecode(input as string) & "&langpair=auo%7Cen"
  -- above 2 lines should be on one line
  return output
end run

on urldecode(x)
  set cmd to "'require \"cgi\"; puts CGI.escape(STDIN.read.chomp)'"
  do shell script "echo " & quoted form of x & " | ruby -e " & cmd
end urldecode

Finally, drag a 'Website Popup' action from the lefthand column to the Automator workspace. All done.

Your final set up should look like the image below.

Finally, save the Automator action and it should appear in the Service menu (either in the Application Service menu, or in the 'ctrl' click menu) when text is selected in any program. Just select the Service and a window should pop up with the translation, as shown below.

Facebook and RSS Feeds.... Gone! A solution?

2012-08-10T07:12:00.000-07:00

I blogged about this a few days ago over at Scitable - RSS is finally dead.... (Well, it is in Apple's Mountain Lion 10.8) and it attracted a comment or two, and some traffic on Google+.

The post on Scitable was a little 'tongue in cheek' as I don't really believe RSS is dead as it has an important role in moving information around on the Internet, but these days it doesn't seem to be so prominent and it seems to be more of a 'behind the scenes' type tool than the 'in your face' type technology it was a few years ago. (When was that last time you heard some one say "oh, and don't forget to subscribe to my RSS feed"? You're more likely to hear some one say "don't forget to follower me on twitter", or "don't forget to friend me on Facebook".)

However, today I have been driven totally nuts by the lack of an RSS feed from a Facebook group that I wanted to follow. No feed. Nothing! (I can understand why Facebook has done this, they want us to always go to their site, but it is nonetheless maddening.)

After lots of searching and finding lots of advice that is now out of date due to the changes in the way Facebook works, and also looking at a number of RSS apps in Facebook (none of which appeared to do what I wanted them to do), I finally came across http://www.wallflux.com/ which allows you to generate a RSS link to a Facebook group. Success!

Now I have the RSS link I can create an "If this then that" (IFTTT) recipe that will automatically email me when any changes are made to the Facebook group page.

Result!

(Although I must admit I am not too happy in having to rely on two third-party tools, which could easily break. I would rather have a direct RSS feed from Facebook to Apple Mail.)

AppleScript, Calendar and Day One journal App

2012-08-08T06:25:00.002-07:00

Yesterday in a blog post (AppleScript, Reminders and Day One journal App) I talked about using AppleScript to transfer completed Reminders from Apple's Reminders App to the journal software Day One.

Since then I have been playing around with using AppleScript to snag selected appointments in Apple's Calendar program for copying to Day One.

As Calendar doesn't have any specific AppleScript commands to copy the currently selected Calendar appointment I had to use System Events to perform a menu-based copy command to get the appointment details to the clipboard.

Anyway, below is the AppleScript I finally came up with. Please feel free to use and adapt as you want....

tell application "Calendar"
  activate
  delay 2
  tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "k" using {command down}
    keystroke "c" using {command down}
  end tell
end tell
delay 2
set eventText to the clipboard
set entryText to ""
set para to paragraphs of eventText

repeat with itemNum from 1 to (count of para)
  set theLine to item itemNum of para
  if theLine starts with "scheduled" then
    set dateStr to theLine
    set dateWords to words of dateStr
    set monthNum to (convertData("August"))
    -- the following three lines should be on one line
    set dateStr to ((monthNum as string) & "/" & 
     (item 2 of dateWords) as string) & "/" & 
     (item 4 of dateWords) as string)
    -- end of three lines that should be on one
    set entryText to entryText & theLine
  else if theLine starts with "Location: " then
    set entryText to entryText & theLine
  else
    if theLine is not equal to "" then
      set entryText to entryText & theLine
    end if
  end if
  set entryText to entryText & "
"
end repeat

-- the following two lines should be on one line
set timeString to (((item 6 of dateWords) as string) 
  & ":" & ((item 7 of dateWords) as string) as string)
-- end of two lines that should be on one

-- the following three lines should be on one line
set shellTxt to ("echo \"" & entryText & "\" |
  /usr/local/bin/dayone -d=\"" & dateStr & " " 
  & timeString & "\" new")
-- end of three lines that should be on one

do shell script shellTxt

on convertData(theMonth)
  -- the following three lines should be on one line
  set monthList to {January, February, March, 
    April, May, June, July, August, September, 
    October, November, December}
  -- end of three lines that should be on one

  repeat with i from 1 to 12
    if theMonth = ((item i of monthList) as string) then
      set monthNumber to (text -2 thru -1 of ("0" & i))
      exit repeat
    end if
  end repeat
  return monthNumber
end convertData

Again, I wrapped the above code up as a Service by using Apple's Automator program

AppleScript, Reminders and Day One journal App

2012-08-07T04:52:00.001-07:00

One App that I have being playing around with recently is journalling (diary) program called Day One from Bloom Built.

I have never kept a journal before, and I am not really sure why I decided to start keeping one now, but as I thought I would give it a go I looked around for something suitable.

Day One attracted me as it seemed simple to use, and has a great interface, however the two 'selling' factors were the possibility of scripting it using a command line interface (CLI), and the fact that it had mobile versions, that sync, for the iPhone and iPad.

On thing that I am also quite keen on is the use of GTD, and I wanted some way to link GTD in with my journal, specifically, I wanted to link Apple's Reminders program (not a true GTD package, but has the advantage of syncing between desktop and iPhones and iPad), to Day One.

As Day One has a CLI, and Reminders can use AppleScript then I had a solution! By using Automator it was possible to create a service (a small script that sits in the services menu on a Mac) that could run an AppleScript to take completed tasks from Reminders and create entries in Day One. Problem solved!

Below is the AppleScript code that I used in Automator:

on run {input, parameters}
  tell application "Reminders"
    if (count of (reminders whose completed is true)) > 0 then
      set todoList to reminders whose completed is true
      repeat with itemNum from 1 to (count of (reminders whose completed is true))
        set reminderObj to item itemNum of todoList
        set nameObj to name of reminderObj
        set compDateObj to completion date of reminderObj
        if (body of reminderObj) is not "" then
          set bodyObj to " Notes: " & body of reminderObj
        else
          set bodyObj to ""
        end if
        
        set dayInt to day of compDateObj
        set monthInt to month of compDateObj as integer
        set yearInt to year of compDateObj
        set dateStr to ((monthInt as string) & "/" & dayInt as string) & "/" & yearInt as string
        set remDetails to nameObj & " " & bodyObj
        set timeStr to time string of compDateObj

        -- the following should all be on one line
        set shellTxt to "echo \"" & remDetails & "\" |

             /usr/local/bin/dayone -d=\"" & dateStr & " " & timeStr & "\" new"
        -- end of material that should all be on one line

        do shell script shellTxt
        --delete reminderObj --uncomment this line to auto delete completed todos
        
      end repeat
    else
      set output to "No completed reminders"
    end if
  end tell
  
  return input
end run

Please feel free to use the above code.

About this Blog

2012-08-07T04:29:00.001-07:00

So, what is this blog all about?

Well, in simple terms, it is just a random collection of things that don't fit in on any of the other blogs that I do. By that I don't mean it's just going to be a general dumping ground of material, but a collection of odds and ends, snippets of code, photographs etc.

If I get bored with it all I'll just delete it….