ctrl.altered.mind

Of all the pretty apps that come bundled with Mac OS X, Automator is probably one of the most underrated. The application does a marvellous job of setting up a drag-and-drop front-end to let users create as simple or complex a workflow as desired.

The more you play around with Automator, the more you will see the potential of the application, and the amazing set of scripts that comes with it - scores of workflow elements tied to applications and file types.

The first practical workflow that I created, is one that picks up a bunch of pdf files and merges them into one file. Automator also lets you save your workflow as either a script or an application. Mike pointed me to Mac applications like PDFPen and PDFLab (free) that let you do much more with your bunch of PDF files, but for my simple application I guess I’ll stick with Automator for now
Download my custom PDF Combinator app for Mac OS X

From My First Stre…

I finally caved and bought my first crotch rocket last week. Its a 1993 Honda CBR 600 F2, with a 599cc , 100hp (@12,000 rpm) engine. Too bad its still winter in Minnesota, for this baby is begging to be introduced once again to the road.
More Pictures

There are several noteworthy annotating applications available today, including free and platform-independent applications like Google Notebook. However, nothing beats a solution as simple as composing and sending a quick email to myself, something I am certain I shall get back to, instead of maintaining a whole separate application (or bookmarklet, or browser plugin) to check in addition to email. Hey, even Steve Jobs confessed to doing it this way at last year’s WWDC conference, and revealed that Apple’s Mail app (on OS X Leopard) is going to have a Notes feature that works exactly like this.

As a heavy Gmail user, I have a setup in place that is quite similar and functionally equivalent. I have a Notes label that gets applied through a filter, to every email that I send myself. This way, I can rid the inbox of several unread Notes, and at the same time get a quick indicator in the labels section on the left. Jim’s Tips (which is a great collection if you’re relatively new to Gmail, by the way) has a slightly more elegant solution where they talk about using a custom Contact to use exclusively for sending notes to yourself.

Jims Tips | Gmail Tip #3: How to Maintain Notes

I just received a comment on my previous post about Apple’s unfair attitude - disallowing running OS X as a virtual machine, while happily supporting and encouraging the use of Windows on Macs through Parallels and Bootcamp (which might be a bundled feature for the next big OS X release, Leopard).

The prevention of virtualization of OS X has different reasons, in my opinion. The OS has been optimized to run on Apple hardware, which is a tiny subset of computer hardware that Windows has to be able to recognize. If OS X is opened for virtual machines, Apple will have to inadvertently provide support for hardware that they do not make. This is extra effort with no real benefit for them. In fact, it quite possibly would adversely effect Macintosh sales - this is not something Apple would appreciate, especially when they are trying to increase market share with their switcher campaign.

Supporting Windows on the Mac, on the other hand, is a big plus because a significant section of people cite one or more Windows-only applications as their reason to not consider a Mac. Providing this support takes away from that argument and makes the Mac an attractive option.

Apple is careful to project themselves as an experience provider (as opposed to a software vendor) while making the claim that OS X is the world’s most advanced operating system. The concept here is that with Apple, everything ‘just works’. That may not necessarily be true once you have a virtual system with a whole new hardware ecosystem. Microsoft has been battling that for years - hardware vendors’ lack of updated driver support for example, can fuel the angst toward Windows even when Microsoft is not the real culprit. By locking in to a known hardware configuration, Apple can manage to sell a premium computational device that concentrates on usability like no one else does.

The seventh generation of gaming is upon us, although it is still too early to judge who would grow to become the dominating platform. The presence of expensive consoles such as Sony’s Playstation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 makes Nintendo’s Wii look like an affordable choice for gamers - especially casual gamers who would be strongly attracted to a new interaction experience through the Wii remote. The Wii, however, does not support next generation high-definition media such as HD-DVD or Blu-Ray — a feature that is pretty much being considered a standard for the other gaming consoles, which are expected to double up as media centers in peoples’ living rooms.

While the Xbox 360 has had a full year’s head start  compared to the PS3, it also has a good ecosystem of games to feed the experience further. I got dangerously close to buying a PS3 myself, but backed out when I realized that it would be a good six months before any games that spark my interest, would be available for it. The PS3 is available for purchase today simply because Sony wanted consumers to have the option to purchase a Blu-Ray console (since standalone Blu-Ray players are, in fact, much more expensive than the PS3 itself). The move should ensure a good slice of the market before HD media for movies hits markets. From a gaming standpoint, the PS3 is not quite a lucrative buy yet as there are no games out that exploit the amazing hardware capabilities of the console. That will change in a few months, of course, as major game developers are actually moving schedules to be able to churn out games specifically for the PS3.

Despite this and the fact that the PS3 has not been released worldwide yet, going by sales figures alone, the PS3 seems to be holding itself well in US and Japanese markets, with 687,300+ and 552,993+ units sold respectively. It would be prudent to wait until there is a good selection of games that can help sell the PS3, to judge the grasp of its dominance in the gaming sector.