If you use a Macintosh, and value organizational bliss, then you need to get Yojimbo. It will make you happy. Then, you need to get these AppleScripts that I wrote to rate your stuff in Yojimbo.

I wanted to rate my Yojimbo items just like I do my iTunes tracks. So, I wrote the following AppleScript to do the trick. It works by setting a special tag for the selected items. I personally like the bullet character (option–8), but you can edit the scripts to use any character you choose. If an item already has a rating tag then it is removed and the new tag is added.

Here is the script for giving the selected Yojimbo items a 5–star rating:



After downloading the scripts, put them in your ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Yojimbo/ folder. Then, when using Yojimbo, you should see these scripts appear in your script menu similar to this screen shot. All you have to do is select the items you want to rate, run the appropriate script, and from that point forward you can find items by their star rating. For easy access to your top-rated items make a smart-tag collection that searches by the 5-star tag.



Download the AppleScripts here.

It’s official! I have launched my first Web 2.0 product this month — the delicious:designer. For those not familiar with this project let me explain its birth and purpose.

The beginning of the delicious:designer

It all started about 6 years back when my business partners and I wrote down the core mission of our print business — BIG Images. This included a dedication to technological advancement. As the seed that spawned many projects, it ultimately lead to the development of the delicious:suite technology.

For the past 3 years we have been actively exploring solutions for bringing BIG Images’ product and service to the household level. We started with simple AppleScripts to automate away repetitive tasks. This lead to more advanced programs written for both the Mac OS X and the web. Soon it became a proof–of–concept for a creative designer that put everyone with an internet connection in the driver’s seat of our print production engine — this was dubbed Banner Works. As interest in our little project grew and we earned the attention of everyone from employees at Google to a V.P. of Apple, we realized that the delicious:suite, as we had now dubbed it, had a future far beyond our original design. Thus a suite of applications, destined to bring the creative power of computing to every corner of the internet, was born. The first of which is the delicious:designer.

The delicious purpose

Why would a print company be interested in developing creative design software? BIG Images’ printing niche is rather unknown outside of a few specific industries, and is virtually unheard of at the household level. Most people simply do not know that you can print a 20’ x 100’ banner in a single piece. For that matter, most people do not know that you can print a simple 3’ x 5’ banner as fast and inexpensively as BIG Images’ can. This is because these production methods have mostly been marketed to businesses, not the general public. But that is not the biggest stumbling block. Most people do not have the proper tools to create the computer files necessary to print that large, nor do they even know which to use. This is where the delicious:suite enters the picture — freely accessible software that gives anyone the power to create anything from a Christmas card to a Happy Birthday banner. BIG Images is leading the way in bringing large format printing to the household level. The delicious:designer is our first product towards this end.

The future

The delicious:designer is just the beginning. We are diligently working towards a future that cannot yet be revealed, as we are in the process of seeking venture capital, and patenting our secrets. What I can reveal is this: this software is yours and we are crafting it for you. Currently our publicly-announced projects include a specialized version of the designer for Second Life, and a unique viewer that allows anyone to freely share their designs on any web page. At this early stage we welcome your ideas and insights, your critiques and your creative cravings.

As a young entrepreneur operating a print shop in its fourth year, and starting up a software/technology company, I value good software more than the average person. When I find a quality piece of software that solves a problem with flare and panache, I get giddy. The bottom line is, in my chosen field of capitalist combat, good software saves time and money. At the same time it allows my company and I to produce a higher quality product and service.

SubEthaEdit is one of those pieces of software. You see those three little green men? They come with the software. Every time you start it up they jump to your aid. Its awesome — SubEthaEdit is so good at what it does it feels like these little green men are actually working at your side, cheering you on.

I could tout the brilliance of the application, the lean interface, the perfect balance of customizable elements vs assumed elements, but there have already been plenty of those posts — just ask Google. Just know that when you enjoy our first product, to be released on May 25th, it is written almost entirely using SubEthaEdit.

I just got a new phone — a Motorola v551 — and was rather excited because it is supposed to sync with Mac OS X iCal & Address Book. It failed. I could drag pictures to it and from it, but could not sync data with iSync. iSync gave me an error that the phone, model v555, was not compatible.

Evidently my phone is reporting to my Mac that it is a v555, not a v551. I found this article where someone fixed iSync to work with there misbehaving Motorola v551 cell phone. Taking a que from them I edited my iSync application and changed all references to v551 to v555 and it worked!

There is some risk that this hack will break something, so do not do this if you are feint of heart. So, if you have the same problem, and want to try this out, you can do it yourself by following the instructions below, or just download a fixed version of iSync 2.3 for Mac OS X 10.4.8 here.

To fix iSync so that it can work with a Motorola v551 when it thinks the phone is a v555 try this:
1) Duplicate iSync so you have a backup.
2) Control-Click the original iSync app and click on "Show Package Contents"
3) Go to this file:
/Applications/iSync.app/Contents/PlugIns
/ApplePhoneConduit.syncdevice/Contents/PlugIns
/PhoneModelsSync.phoneplugin/Contents/Resources/MetaClasses.plist
4) Find the row for the v551
5) Change every reference to "v551" to "v555", accept for the icon name, leave the icon name alone.

Launch iSync and it should now correctly connect to your Motorola v551 cell phone.

This is awesome — we gave all the employees of BIG Images iPods wrapped in origami boxes that were folded from $100 bills — and each iPod Shuffle was wrapped in two of these boxes!



If you like it go digg it here.

I am going to let everyone in on one of the Mac's little secrets. It, and software like it, is why all entrepreneurs looking to bootstrap a business NEED Macintosh computers. That little secret is RapidWeaver. Well, it is not a secret in the strictest sense of the word, but most of the Mac people I meet do not know about it so it seems secretive.

Since there are reviews all over the internet about this piece of software I will not reinvent the wheel — I just want everyone to understand why this is a valuable application for a small business.

Simply put — it is THE way to simply and elegantly create a web page for your company with the flare and panache that only Mac software can deliver. Its extensive use of web standards means that Google will index it quite easily.

To quote VersionTracker “RapidWeaver is a next-generation web design application to help you easily create professional looking web sites in minutes. No knowledge of complex code is required, RapidWeaver will take care of all that for you. RapidWeaver now produces 100% XHTML & CSS based websites.”

While certainly not perfect — it has some very annoying bugs and performance issues — it is easy and fast. When you want results and do not want to spend alot of money or time then seriously consider buying RapidWeaver.

And for those times when you have questions the support from the community is unparalleled…I must hand it to the guys at RealMac Software for setting up the tools that encourage such open sharing. Any question can be posted to the bulletin board and are often answered within minutes.

To see what can be done check out BIG Images web site and visit the official RapidWeaver Site Showcase.

My roommate got one of these so he could sit on the couch and use his computer hooked up to his HDTV. Naturally I could not resist and had to play with it (it is odd when things like a keyboard start to seem like a toy). And I must say…this is the most amazing keyboard I have used for a Macintosh. The keyboard is super slim and very light to the touch, and the mouse is very accurate (it jumps around far less than the Apple Optical mice).



What most impressed me was the buttons on the far left & right of the keyboard. With the control panel that is installed with this keyboard you can set any one of the buttons to run an AppleScript or Automator workflow that has been saved as an application. Oh the possibilities! This is a major benefit to a company such as BIG Images where a single button on the keyboard can be programmed to send files to print, or initiate a pre-flight check, or update the FileMaker database based on the currently selected Finder items. As far as a tool to increase efficiency this keyboard is awesome. With a single click of the keyboard you can hide all open applications and open only those needed for a specific workflow. That side of me that seeks to be ever–more organized is seething in anticipation. Now I just have to buy one for myself.

I noticed that a few of you were searching for my iPhoto Keyword Tool application. It has been moved, along with Remote iTunes, to delicious:suite. This is the home base for all of the bits of technology that my business partners & I have developed over time. It all started as an attempt to learn AppleScript & a couple other computer languages to help BIG Images embrace an automated & computerized workflow. As we developed our technologies further they took on a life of their own and we are collecting them all at delicious:suite.