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Quick Tip: Automator and Services in Snow Leopard

Written on September 02, 2009 by Mark Crump and 14 people have commented

Originally introduced in OS X Tiger, Automator is a drag-and-drop form of scripting. You can create workflows to easily speed up many tasks. With each version of OS X, Automator has seen some improvements, but with Snow Leopard, it finally realizes its full potential.
It realizes it by allowing you to create your own Services. Unless [...]

Simplify Your Workflow With Dropzone

Written on July 17, 2009 by Chris Ryan and 6 people have commented

The real power of OS X lies in all of the hidden gems beneath what you see at first glance. Technologies like Expose, Spaces, Stacks, Spotlight and others help users tap the power of their Mac, while keeping the experience sleek and elegant. Aptonic’s Dropzone, a third-party application designed to further simplify your Mac experience, [...]

Resource Roundup: Automator

Written on March 02, 2009 by Jon Buys and 6 people have commented

Since first appearing in Tiger, Automator has brought programming to the masses in a simple drag and drop interface. An entire ecosystem has sprung up around Automator, using its ability to create and distribute complex workflows and actions, and the ability for developers to provide Automator with actions specific to their application. If you are [...]

iTunes Tip: Remembering to Rate Your iTunes Music

Written on December 22, 2008 by Nick Santilli and 11 people have commented

My life is busy (and yes, if you’re wondering, it is all about me), and frequently I tend to rip or download music without taking the time to apply ratings to it. Since ratings are one of the best methods for determining the usefulness of your playlists, neglecting to add that information to your tracks [...]

Optimize iPhone Photo Retrieval With Apple’s Image Capture Utility

Written on December 11, 2008 by Bob Rudis and 2 people have commented

Despite the iPhone having a less-than-stellar camera, I wind up taking more pictures with it than any other device we own. This becomes a painful reality every time I connect my phone up to my MacBook Pro since I am reminded that I have enabled the launching of iPhoto whenever there are new pictures to [...]

“Disabling” Launch Services File Quarantine

Written on March 26, 2008 by Bob Rudis and 20 people have commented

Dan Benjamin of The Talk Show fame posted a general inquiry to the Twitterverse on how to disable the Leopard open confirmation dialog that comes up when you attempt to access a recently downloaded file.
This dialog is a one of Leopard’s new security features called “File Quarantine” and is primarily designed to protect users from [...]

Screencast: Automator Plugins

Written on June 27, 2007 by Nick Santilli and 14 people have commented

Since Tiger was released it has seemed to me that Automator was one of the unsung heroes that shipped with the operating system. I’m guessing more people use it than we hear about, but just in case, I wanted to show off the use of Automator when saving workflows as plugins, rather than Automator [...]