MSP Recreation: Roller Garden Skating and Blading

Roller Garden - MSP - Saint Louis Park

We're suffering through a snowless winter with 3 children who're reluctant to learn to ice skate. This site was surprisingly hard to find, but it looks like an option for snowless recreation. Another new one is tubing at Afton Alps, but only for children > 5 yo or taller than 42".

Indoor inline or roller skating places aren't well represented in the search world. I used Google, Froogle, Yahoo business search, the paper Yellow Pages and our family memory. Each one added something. Only the print yellow pages correctly listed the Wooddale (Woodbury) Rec Center as a local site for roller/inline skating and for parties. I'll have to add a number of the discoveries to the MSP rec page I maintain.

kw: rollerGarden, inline, rollerblading, rollerskating, roller skating, MSP

OmniOutliner Pro: Heir to MORE 3.1!

The Omni Group - Applications - OmniOutliner - Professional

Based on OmniGroup comments posted to MacUpdate, it's clear that this release of OmniOutliner is a deliberate decision to deliver much of the writing/outlining functionality of MORE 3.1. (OmniGraffle would be a variant of the graphical portions of MORE.)

They've even implemented a variant of MORE styles. This help file entry tells a veteran that this is a very well designed Mac application:

By default, when you attach a file to an outline it gets embedded into the outline. This means that a copy of the attached file is actually put inside the outline file itself. If you subsequently move the file around, or send it to someone else, the attached file will move with it.

If you attach a folder, or hold the control key while dropping a file, an alias to the file or folder will be created instead. The alias behaves just like an alias in Finder, as a pointer to the actual file. This means you can change the file or move it around, and OmniOutliner will try to follow the changes. Of course, if the file is deleted, gets moved to a network drive that is then disconnected, or otherwise goes where OmniOutliner can't find it, the file reference in the outline will become useless. Also, if you want to send the outline to someone else and have the file references stay valid, you'll need to put them all into the same directory structure and send them the whole mess.

You have to love a vendor who writes documentation like this.

This product is a cross between a database/spreadsheet, a wordprocessor, and an outliner. Given my history w/ MORE I'd be dishonest if I didn't buy it. So I have. (List price is $70, I paid $40 for the academic upgrade price.)

This looks to be my primary writing tool for OS X. I'd expect that if Apple announces an iWorks wordprocessor, and if the Apple file format is not completely impenetrable, that OmniGroup will support that file format. It does support RTF import/export so Nisus is another possible complement.

I'll update with more experience. If it works well I'll look at OmniGraffle integration too.

Wanted: An AppleScript for Safari that will open a viewed page in Firefox (OS X)

Apple - Discussions - Looking for: Open in Firefox AppleScript

From a post to the Apple Discussions Forum:

I use Firefox on Windows, but Safari on my Mac. (When Camino gets to the same Gecko engine as FF, and thus gets the web site support FF 1.0 now has, I'll probably switch to Camino on my Mac. I like Omniweb, but it has the same constituency problems as Safari.)

Although Safari works well most of the time, there are some sites, where I'd really like to use FF. Blogger, for example, provides its superb wysiwyg Compose editor only to the most recent FF/Moz release. Safari users are stuck with a barebones editor, Camino gets the previous Mozilla editor (for its version of Gecko).

Firefox on the PC has an "Open in IE" extension that lets me view some poorly implemented banking sites in IE. We need a similar "Open in FF" function for Safari. That way I could mostly work in Safari (for now), but switch to FF when I need it. (Ugly fonts and all.)

Has anyone done an "Open in Firefox" AppleScript for Safari?

Update: "Camelot" quickly replied with the script:

tell application "Safari"
set theURL to URL of document 1 -- get the current URL
end tell

tell application "Firefox" to Get URL theURL

For those who know even less AppleScript than I, this is what I did.

Wow. This works just as you described. It will help with Blogger and those other pages that don't quite work in Safari.

For those who know even less AppleScript than I, this is what I did.

1. Located the AppleScript folder in my Applications Folder.
2. Launched script editor and pasted in above (second example)
3. Saved script in my personal Library/Script/Safari folder.
4. Saved script again as an application. Unchecked StartUp Screen, checked Run Only. (This step is useful for LaunchBar integration, otherwise ignore it.)

Since I have the script icon on my toolbar (forget how I did that) I can click there and launch the script.

I also extended the script so FF would come to the front (not sure if this the right way to do so):

tell application "Safari"
set theURL to URL of document 1 -- get the current URL
end tell

tell application "Firefox" to Get URL theURL

tell application "Firefox"
activate
end tell

Lastly, by saving a copy of the script as an application, I had something that when I click on it just opens in FF. Then I configured Launchbar to index my scripts folder. Now when I activate launchbar and type 'OIF' FF launches.

I can start a post in Safari, and finish it in FF.

I can start a blog post in Safari, do Launchbar OIF, then complete editing it in FF. Works great.

The OS X browser wars: Camino

The Camino™ Project

I use Firefox on Windows. Great browser, though until web sites get caught up it's very helpful to have the "open in IE" extension.

On OS X I mostly use Safari. I like the fonts and readability, I like the compact use of space, I like the OS X services integration. I also use Firefox, but the font/layout is not appealing. I like Omniweb's ability to visualize the windows/tab tree and manipulate it, but horizontal tabs don't work on an iBook display.

The biggest drawback of Safari is market share. It gets support out of proportion to its market share because of the "Mac Factor" (OS X use is much higher in geeks than in the general population), but it's definitely behind Firefox. Blogger has a terrific wysiwyg-like HTML editor (Compose), but it's only available in Firefox (yeah, IE too, probably Mozilla but I don't use Moz).

Camino 0.82 is a cross between Firefox and Safari. It's the browser that Apple should have gone with. It's really very elegant. I tried it out on Blogger, but I got the old HTML editor -- not the new Compose editor. Better than what I get with Safari, but it's not 'Compose'. I think Camino uses an older version of the Gecko, so there's hope that when it gets to release 1.0 there will be a Mac browser with the web constituency of Firefox.

My newest high tech addiction: wire bound notebooks

Froogle Search: National Brand college ruled notebook

As I descend ever further into the depths of senile decay, I am ever more susceptible to the blandishments of paper. At one point in my life I resisted this temptation, for work on paper is often lost. I have at last come to feel, alas, that much of my work is better lost.

The paper can be used on takeoff and landing. It can be used when I don't have an outlet. The display space is enormous -- I can scatter papers over a wall. A 10 foot display is too costly for me (though I'd like to try a VR display if they ever make it to the mass market). Paper is rigidly linear, I know things won't move around on me. It requires little or no cycles for me to do data entry; it has no distractions. It doesn't ping me. It doesn't lure me into email or the net.

Ahh. Great innovation that paper. But wait ... legal pads are bulky, pages get scattered and lost. The pad doesn't fold well. What is to be done?

Wire bound notebooks by National Brand! Micro-perf pages can be separated easily and are pre-punched. It is a good thickness at 60-80 sheets and it stores well side by side in magazine racks (the wire spines intermesh). The spines and covers are robust. It is tough, durable, reliable, lightweight and portable. I can return months later and parse out my scrawls.

I think I'm in love.

Update 11/18/07: I'm not alone.

Resolved: that the Mead (or Cambridge) one-subject notebook, 8-1/2” x 11”, action planner format, side bound, double wire spiral bound, side perforated, 80 pages, 20 lb. bond, white paper, rule lines printed in gray and maroon; catalogue number 06064 or MEA06064; or the Cambridge Executive Action Planner Limited Notebook, otherwise identical, Cambridge catalogue number 20568208—

PhotoPresenter: iPhoot viewer

Update: I downloaded and installed this app. Don't bother. The web site said it was compatible with iPhoto 4, but the executable warned otherwise when I started it up. It ignored my cancel request and brought me to a menu I could not quit form. I had to kill it via the OS X application list.

PhotoPresenter

If you have to manage multiple iPhoto Libraries, this viewer lets you see what's in each one without loading iPhoto.

GraphClick - Free OS X Graph Digitizer

GraphClick - Free Graph Digitizer

You have the picture of a graph but not the corresponding data? GraphClick is then simply the best way to solve the problem! You just have to click on the graph, and the obtained coordinates of the points can be directly exported into any other application.