Soroush Javidi

Splitweet icon for Fluid.app (and What is Splitweet)

soroush — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 16:12:08 +0100

Something that I had found some time ago was SSB applications. SSB stands for Site Specific Browser, and is basically an Internet browser dedicated to a single website. For example, You could have an SSB on your desktop, which when you double-click, takes you directly to your email account (say, Gmail), and no where else. It's not meant for surfing the Internet, but dedicated to one website that you frequent.

I'm not a big user of SSBs, I use one for Remember the Milk and now recently Splitweet. I use Fluid.app on Mac, and Mozilla's Prism on Ubuntu Linux. With Fluid, you can assign an icon to your SSB, which then shows up in the Finder and the Dock, should you put it there.

I couldn't find any icons for Splitweet, so quickly created one myself, which you can download on Flickr. I think this is much better than the original pixelated icon that shows up, which is basically the website's favicon. If you are Fluid user, make sure to check out the great Fluid Icons group on Flick, which has a very nice collection of icons for most web apps out there!

What is Splitweet?

I found Splitweet by chance last week. Basically, it is a web app that lets you use multiple Twitter accounts, as well as following certain keywords that are discussed on twitter (they call it 'brand monitor'). Twitter's search is good for this purpose as well, but it's nice to have it consolidated in one single view. I've been very happy with it so far!

As a comparison, also check out Hahlo, which is meant for mobile phones and Matt, which again lets you post to multiple Twitter accounts. The design of Hahlo is for the smaller screen of mobile phones (such as the iPhone), so works great as an SSB sitting in a corner of the screen. If you don't use multiple Twitter accounts, or don't want to follow any keywords, then Hahlo + Fluid is a great combination. The wonderful web designer Dan Cederholm seems to agree as well!

Do you use SSBs? What web apps do you use it with?

You can follow me (@hyperreality) on Twitter as well.

Compress PDFs in Mac OS X 10.5

soroush — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:53:32 +0100

I needed to create a PDF from a Word document recently and found that the resulting PDF was 12MB! I noticed that the images inside the document were the cause. In Word 2003 in Windows I know that there is a Compress Pictures button that will remove cropped areas and compress the image. I was using Word 2008 for Mac which unfortunately doesn't have this option. Also, the Print dialogue in Mac OS 10.5 doesn't provide a 'compress PDF' option as it did in 10.4. A search on the Internet gave the following options, which I would like to share here.

Note that this only works best when you create a PDF (or already have a PDF) with images inside it. The methods described below compress the images and thus reduce the file size, which will look OK on screen, but may have lower quality when printed. (In most cases, this won't matter, as you need to email the pdf or put it up on the web!)

Method 1: ColorSync Utility

Open up ColorSync Utility. Drag your PDF document to the dock icon of ColorSync Utility, which will open it. From the Filter drop-down menu in the bottom, choose 'Reduce file size' and save the document. Done. (via MacKB.com forums)

Method 2: Preview

Open your PDF in Preview, select File > Save As and from the Quartz Filter drop-down select 'Reduce file size' and save the document. Done. My preferred method(via Apple support pages)

Method 3: Automator action

Add a 'Compress PDF' option to the Print dialogue to simplify things. I haven't tried this method, but will certainly make the process of creating smaller sized PDFs much easier! Download the Compress PDF Workflow.

I think these are very straight forward and quick ways to compress those heavy-sized PDFs. If you know of any other methods, please share.

Drag-scrolling in Firefox 3 (Mac) out of the box

soroush — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:51:31 +0100

I found a nice feature in the Mac version of Firefox 3 the other day, which I hadn't seen mentioned before. What feature am I talking about? Scroll-dragging. You know, similar to most PDF readers like Adobe Acrobat. You click a part of the page and a hand icon grabs the page and you can move up and down through the page.

I noticed that by holding down command+option, the cursor changes to a hand icon and you can then click on a part of the page and scroll-drag. It's not the most brilliant feature, but there are times when I want to control my scrolling, or to scroll down at very small increments, and this is useful.

I have to add, I haven't installed any extensions like the Grab and Drag Firefox extension (found via Lifekacker), and have only noticed this on the Mac version of Firefox. I've tested it by using Ctrl+Alt on Windows and Linux versions, and didn't get the same result (I have the same extensions on those machines as well),

If you're using Safari, Doug Bowman mentioned (long ago), that the shareware plugin Saft enables the same feature (and more!) for Safari.

Happy scoll-dragging!

How to Enable Threaded View in Mail app.

soroush — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:54:00 +0100

I really like Gmail's threaded view for emails, it really helps me to view emails in an organised manner and reduces clutter and chaos in my mailbox. I like it so much that I get annoyed when somebody changes the email subject in the conversation (thus causing a new thread to be created).

I know that you can enable threaded views with Mozilla Thunderbird, but wanted to do the same with Apple Mail. I first thought of right-clicking on the column above the emails, as you would do with Outlook, but that didn't work and after some searching, I found how to do it:

In the menu, click Views and select Organise by Thread. That's it! So simple, but took me a while! Now I can enjoy Gmail-style threaded views!

Hopefully, this will be of use to somebody else as well.

It took a while, but it was worth it

soroush — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:28:22 +0100

I never thought I'd get to write this on my personal website, but I finally am! I'm talking about this very website. I've been planning to have my own website for, let's just say, a few years but never went ahead with it. But in January, I finally started to think seriously about this, and 5 months later (too long) and sorou.sh is released.

I wanted to host this on a Virtual Private Server (VPS), which would give me full control of the server, but it also meant that I had to spend some time learning the ropes and getting things ready. I then thought about content and the website elements followed by the design, which I wanted to have a simple but unique look.

Creating and implementing the design didn't take as long as it took to configure and fine-tune my content management system (CMS) Drupal. Drupal is very powerful and flexible, and while it works great out of the box, you need to spend some time to get things more customised.

I also spent some time implementing the portfolio section of the website, which was an interesting experiment with Drupal. I'll hopefully write about that some other time.

The important thing is that it's all done now! Well, I think I'll find things to tweak and perfect, there's always something!

How To Use Plaxo to Sync across Applications and Platforms

soroush — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:09:05 +0100

The new version of Plaxo (Plaxo 3.0) was announced some weeks ago, with syncing capability across multiple applications (e.g. MS-Outlook, iCal, Google Calendar, etc.). Syncing includes contacts, – which is what Plaxo was doing initially – notes, tasks and calendar items. So far so good, but what can we do with it? Well, let me describe the problem...

The Problem

If you happen to work across multiple platforms, e.g. a Windows PC at work and a Mac at home and use a mix of programs to manage your task and calendars on each, then you will start having trouble having the data in sync across all of them. A simple solution is to use a web based product like Google Calendar, but for some reason there's always Outlook at the workplace and of course, the mobile phone syncs through Outlook! Hence the problem.

So, here I will explain how I use Plaxo to sync MS-Outlook, Google Calendar, Thunderbird and my mobile phone together. (I'm not interested in syncing tasks and contacts, but given Plaxo's flexibility I'm sure it can be done by adding a few extra steps to what I describe below.)

My Previous Setup

I had come across the The Holy Grail of Synchronization some time ago, which I was using before Plaxo 3.0 was announced. Actually check out the solution given at the Internet Duct Tape, it's very comprehensive! The solution uses ScheduleWorld as the central hub for keeping everything synced. Unfortunately for me, it didn't have the ease of use that Plaxo 3.0 has (for me anyway). The web interface felt clumsy and I had trouble syncing two calendars to outlook. So Plaxo came to the rescue...

I've included a simple diagram, inspired by Internet Duct Tape, which similar to the mentioned weblog, was created in gliffy. However our synchronisation 'plan' is no where as complete! The texts Work and Personal refer to two calendars which we will use in the instructions below. It is assumed that Work is originally on Outlook and Personal on Google Calendar. Thunderbird will be a point where data from the other calendars are viewed, and occasionally updated. Now onwards...

The Plaxo Solution

OK, so if you're interested in keeping your calendars (and task and contacts) in sync using Plaxo, this is how to achieve it: 1. First sign up with Plaxo. 2. If prompted to add 'Sync Points' don't do it now, and leave that to later. 3. Log in to the web based interface. You will see a column for contacts to the left and calendar in the centre. 4. At the very bottom of the screen, click on Add sync points. A box will pop up were you'll be able to configure Plaxo 3.0 against different applications. So...

Sync with Google Calendar

Choose Google from the list and click Next. Put in your Google username and password (assuming you trust Plaxo with your data) and then click Next for Plaxo to retrieve your GCal data.
From the three options given on Choose how to synch... choose the third one, i.e. Sync my calendars and let me choose which folders to sync with.... A further options will appear.
For each Google calendar that you have (left column), you can choose a corresponding folder on Plaxo (right column). So for your, say, Work calendar on GCal, choose new folder from the corresponding drop down menu, and do the same with the, say, Personal calendar on GCal. Once you click Start Sync, this will create folders with the same name in Plaxo. This will be a starting point to match other calendars to.

You should now be able to see your calendar entries from your Google account on the web based interface.

Sync with Thunderbird

I have to say, I couldn't find a direct Plaxo solution for syncing calendar items with Thunderbird, only contacts. I would add that Thunderbird doesn't have a calendar, but it can be added as an extension called Lightning. Now, I assume you have that extension and that's why you're interested in having it synced with the rest of your applications! Since I couldn't find a direct solution for use with Plaxo, I kept my old setup, where Google Calendar acts as a middle man between Thunderbird and Plaxo (or whatever else). In other words, you would want to sync Thunderbird with GCal, and let the previous configuration between GCal and Plaxo take care of the rest. OK, so now that it's clear what we're doing, follow the instruction on BFish, it's clear and easy to follow! Once you're done setting that up, come back to complete the rest... (I'm waiting!)

Sync with MS-Outlook

Right, go back to the Plaxo web based interface and click on add sync points at the bottom of the screen again. Now choose Outlook from the list and click Next. You will be prompted to download a software. Do so and install it.
Throughout the set up process, you will be asked your Plaxo username and password. It will then try to sync the data. Since this is the first time, you will a dialogue box where you can choose what items to sync. I went ahead with calendar, clicking Sync my calendar with Plaxo
Now click on Show extra options, where you will see two columns. The left side shows your Outlook calendars (usually there's one called 'Calendar' unless you have renamed it) and on the right column you will see the calendars on Plaxo. If you have followed the instructions so far, you should have a Work and a Personal folder on Plaxo. Make sure they correspond to one of your calendars on Outlook. (for example, Work can correspond/sync to 'Calendar' on Outlook. You can then choose new folder on Outlook to correspond/sync with Personal.
Once your done, click to sync. You'll see all the info on Outlook (assuming it's your Work calendar) syncing to Plaxo and all the info on Plaxo syncing to Outlook.

You will now have a Plaxo toolbar on Outlook. There are most likely icons that you won't use. On the toolbar, click on 'Plaxo', and then 'Options'. Go through the General and Advanced tabs and remove all buttons that you don't need. Some will appear with the emails you receive. I have to say, I'm very glad that Plaxo gives you the option to choose what you want to see on the toolbar! Also, in the 'Options' and under the Synchronization tab, make sure the Automatically sync... is ticked. This will make sure that Plaxo will work in the background to update everything.

Sync with mobile phone (Windows)

If you can connect to the Internet through your mobile phone, you can go to m.plaxo.com to view the mobile-friendly web interface. Or, you can sync your phone with Outlook (most of the do on Windows) and you'll have all your appointments pour into your phone!

Summary

So, there you have it! My way of keeping several calendars on different platforms and applications all synchronised together using the new Plaxo 3.0. I'm sure there are other ways, some maybe even easier, of achieving this but having used this setup for a while now I've found it very convenient. Also, if you try syncing notes and tasks using this method, please share your thoughts in the comments.

Stikkit widget for Netvibes and iGoogle

soroush — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 02:20:46 +0100

For a while now, I've been playing the Stikkit API and trying to find a way to quickly add and view todos without having to go the website itself. If you're a fan of Netvibes or iGoogle for a quick overview of your favourite web content, then you may be interested in my Stikkit widget! Here are the features:

View todos, in a list and also with details showing as a tooltip
Control the number of todos being shown
Search by tags
Create Stikkits
Check off Stikkits that you've done.

Here are some screenshots: See your todo Stikkits. The details are shown in a tooltip. You can also check off todos that you've done (image above).

Write a stikkit... simple!

Change the settings as you wish. Add your API Key and choose how many undone todos you want to view. You also put in a tag, to only view Stikkits with a specific tag.

This widget is meant to make it easy to quickly view a todo, or post a Stikkit before you forget it! Also note that only Stikkits that are todos are shown, so peeps, bookmarks or calendar items are not shown. Don't forget, you'll need your Stikkit API Key.

Where to get the Widgets?

Add it to Netvibes:

What about iGoogle? Add the widget, but be warned that the tooltips won't show (it's a UWA thing).

What's Stikkit anyway?

For those who are not familiar, Stikkit is a website where you get to keep intelligent todos. You type in your todo in plain English and it will then recognise the important points of the todo, for example when you should do it, who you should call/see or if it should remind you... and no need to fill these in separate textboxes, which feels like filling out a form rather than jotting things down.

The technical details

The widget was written using Netvibe's API called UWA, which for someone who's good at Javascript is so easy to work with. It should take only a few hours to code the whole widget and put it together. However, I'm not good, so it took a few days! :P The good things about UWA is that once you write the code, it'll [theoretically] work with not only Netvibes, but also iGoogle and the Dashboard on Mac and even weblogs.

6 Valuable Greasemonkey Scripts for Flickr Users

soroush — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 23:03:27 +0100

Having used Flickr for a while now, it might seem that it's lacking some tiny features that would make using Flickr much more easier and enjoyable. As an active Flickr user, you may want a boost with commenting, viewing comments or browsing the photos. Well, I've been using some Flickr oriented Greasemonkey scripts that did just that, and have been so handy, that I decline to use Flickr on a browser without these scripts! (ok, that might be a bit extreme!) If you are an active Flickr user without these Greasemonkey scripts, I would definitely recommend them.

First of all, I'm assuming that you're using Firefox and have installed the Greasemonkey extension. Now we'll continue!

1. Viewing photos : Greased Lightbox Ever visit a Flickr group pool and want to quickly scan through the photos with a bit more details than the tiny thumbnails? Greased Lightbox does just that! Click on an image, and it will open on the same webpage, so you can see a larger version. It also dims the rest of the webpage for better focus. Now, if you press the left arrow or right arrow keys on your keyboard, it'll go to the previous or next photo allowing you to quickly browse the photos in larger size. Press the + key to zoom in, or 0 key to see the original image size instead of fitting it to screen. What's more, Greased Lightbox is handy on google images, or just any website where clicking an image takes you to another page. This way, you just view it in the same webpage!

2. Replying to Comments: Buddy Icon Reply This script is useful when you want to reply to comments made on your photos. Two links appear next to each comment made, one called "name reply" and the other "icon reply". Now if you want to reply to someone's comment, you click on one of the links and the appropriate string will be entered in the comment box for you. Use "name reply", if you'd only want to get someone's username, and "icon reply" if you'd like to have a small icon of the user in your comment. I find that this helps in quickly scanning photos for replies to a comment. Also, if someone has a long or unusual username, then you don't have to worry about mistyping it. See the example above to see it in action.

3. Commenting: Refer Comment With this script, a signature style text will be appended to the end of your comments showing where you came from to see the particular photo. It's always good to know where your visitors found your photos, and many Flickr users have this script installed, so you'll always know where they found the photo. See the example below to see how it appears. I think it also helps with groups that ask you to leave a link back to their group. This does it automatically!

4. Contacts: Style Contacts From the author of the script:

This Greasemonkey script adds styling to: 1- photos of your contacts/friends/family and your photos in group pool 2- comments from your contacts/friends/family, from you and from the photographer of the current photo.

If you have lots of contacts, this will help quickly and visually find their photos in a group pool by the coloured borders that appears around the photos. Also, if your friends leave comments you'll be able to quickly find it, again from the border that appears on one side of the photo. Replies or comments from the photographer of the photo also appear in bold. See the first example, where the comment is in bold. It all helps visually to find comments in a long set of comments!

5. Viewing your comments: Follow Comments Have you ever gone to the "Comments you've made" page to track discussions on your recently commented photos, only to find it's populated by photos and comments from 3 or 4 months ago, which you're not necessarily following anymore? That's where the Follow Comments script comes in. It allows to to view the comments you've made since your last visit, or to view those photos with less than 10 comments since you made yours. You can also filter comments so that only those from your family, friends, contacts or favourites are shown. It takes a short time for this script to load the "Comments you've made" page, but once it's loaded no more hunting through comments to find the one you want!

6. Submitting to groups: Multi Group Sender Ok, I guess this is the most convenient of all the scripts I've mentioned! If you want to submit a photo to several group pools, you have to do it one by one. With this script however, you select multiple groups from a list and they will submitted to the groups in a batch. Confirmation on whether the submission was successful or not will also be provided by the script. Also, if you find yourself submitting to a particular set of groups, then this script will also save that selection for quick access later on. A big time saver!

I think these are the most useful scripts for Flickr. You can browse the Flickr Hacks group to find more Greasemonkey scripts that you think may be helpful to you. For example, there's a script that adds smiley faces and one that adds a rich text editor to the comment box. But I don't think they'd be adding to convenience.

If you're a Flickr user with a love for Greasemonkey scripts then share your favourite scripts that make your experience on Flickr even more enjoyable!

How to stop old podcasts from downloading in iTunes

soroush — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 10:33:48 +0100

A very short and quick tip here!

It's happened to me that when I click on the Refresh button in the podcast section of iTunes, not only do new shows start to download (which is a good thing), but so do some old shows from way back as 6 months ago! I've found that irritating, as I have to go and cancel the download and delete the files that have been put in queue (the ones in grey colour).

Well, I've just found a solution:-
Right click on any (or selection) of podcasts that you think are old and select Mark as Not New. On the other hand, if you would want the old shows to download (or you accidentally selected a new show), just right click again select Mark as New. Short and simple!

Edit: After playing with this more, it seems that the 'Mark as Not New' option behaves like the old 'Mark as Played' option, which toggles a blue dot on and off. I think it just a stroke of luck that the old podcasts stopped downloading, because they're back up again... and I had to click Refresh, and then delete all the grey coloured items. It went through all the dates from August 2006 to January 2007 and I deleted every batch and it's finally stopped [hopefully!].

5 Quality Games from Kongregate – The Flash games community (+ review)

soroush — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 02:33:32 +0100

Without a doubt, everybody needs a break every now and then in their work! For someone who's work depends on using the computer, that break could be visiting a news website, checking personal emails or playing a little online game. In my opinion, not all online games are interesting and it's very hard to come by some quality games. On occasions, I've found a few on Digg's gaming page. But recently, I heard about Kongregate and it's great! I've loved it so much that I've put it on the list of my daily websites! (Usually play a bit a night!)

The Review

Kongregate's website has been mainly designed by the talented Jason Santa Maria of Happy Cog Studios. Maybe one of the reasons that I love this website is the respect I have for the work of the crew at Happy Cog! You can read more about the design in their portfolio. In a nutshell, what I'm trying to say is that it's a treat to visit this website and play games. The way Kongregate works is that game developers upload their games to the website, and the revenue generated from advertising is shared with those developers. Here's an excerpt from them:-

Kongregate operates with an understanding of how difficult it can be for talented game developers - from the aspiring gamesmith to the independent studio - to get the recognition and compensation that they deserve. That's why Kongregate shares microtransaction and advertising revenue with contributing developers, who retain the full rights to their games.

As a member you can vote on games you like, create a list of your favourite games and participate in the forums. I think it is this community feature that makes sure good games are popularised, and also its developer encouraged to create more great games. Games are categorised by type and also the usual suspect: tags!

5 Interesting Flash Games I liked

I wanted to share some of the games that I have found interesting to date:-

1. The Fancy Pants Adventure: World 2 demo – Seems like an easy adventure game, but it's a bit tricky as you have go through the level and find the right doors. It was also voted as a hot game! (This game uses the keyboard)

2. Warbears – This is basically a puzzle where you control four warbears and have to find a way to save some hostages. The order in which actions are taken have an effect on the outcome of the game. I found it addictive, and couldn't stop till I solved it!

3. Hovercrafty – This is a little action game where you have to control a hovercraft with your mouse by slinging a rope and grappling to poles to maneuver. I like this game, but it can become frustrating, when you start missing the poles one by one and start to go 'in deep water' (or out of orbit as I like to call it!). You'll have to play to understand this frustration! : )

4. Paths 2 If you like thinking puzzles, then you'll like this! Basically, you have to move a ball from A to B... but there are obstacles to avoid. To decide how the ball avoids those, you have to use a pen and draw a path. You may also control the obstacles, e.g. turn them. This games requires good thinking and a quick hand as you sometimes need to be very quick with your mouse.

5. The Missile Game 3D HS – a fun game using the mouse where you are a missile traveling inside a tube and have to avoid obstacles! The game starts out slow and easy and becomes really fast quickly! Interesting game and your eyes will go round in circles after some time! : )

Bonus 6. Age of Japan Ok, I had to include this one! This is basically like a vartion Bejeweled and uses Japanese items that have to be matched and removed. The graphics are very nice on this game. I hope you enjoy playing these games. If you find a game that you enjoyed playing on Kongregate, share it here.