Turning @ttscoff's Link Bundler into a PopClip extension

Building on Brett Terpstra's link bundling service for Bit.ly, I thought I'd turn it into a PopClip extension. All you need to do is follow Brett's instructions to install the service then install my PopClip extension and you should be good to go.

Here are his instructions

“Installation and Configuration

The installation takes a bit of effort, but it’s not too bad.

You can install the Service by unzipping it and double-clicking the .workflow file. A dialog will pop up asking if you want to install it or open it in Automator. We want to open it in Automator first because we need to make a small edit.

Next, you need an API key.

1. Set up a bit.ly account if you don’t have one

2. Log in to your Bit.ly account

3. Go to http://dev.bitly.com/my_apps.html

4. Click “Manage my apps” and enter your password

5. Copy the Generic Access Token

6. Go back to the workflow open in Automator

7. Scroll down to the first “Run Shell Script” action

8. Find the line at the top that looks like:

bitly_key = ‘xxxxxxx’

9. Paste your key between the single quotes and save

10. Close the file, go back to where you opened it from and double click it again, this time choosing the “Install” option.

”

— http://brettterpstra.com/2013/03/16/a-link-bundler-service-for-bitly/

You can find my PopClip extension here

Permalinking With Squarespace a reply to @MacSparky

This is a very quick post in reply to MacSparky's (David Sparks) post about how he achieves the little infinity (∞) permalink at the bottom of his pages. While there is nothing wrong with the way that he does it, using a little TextExpander snippet, there is a much quicker way to do it. 

All you need to do is open up the Blog Settings of the page that you want to add it to. Click on the Advanced tab, scroll down to the bottom and add this bit of code

<center><a href="http://smithjw.me{permalink}">∞</a></center>

into the Post Blog Item Code Injection section.

The only downside of this is that it will appear at the bottom of every single post on that particular page rather than just for the externally linked pages.

Initiating Screen Sharing or Back to My Mac from the command line

Just some information on how to start a Screen Sharing or Back to My Mac (BTMM from now on) session from the command line.

To launch a Screen Sharing session from the terminal on your local network, simply type

    open vnc://ip.address.of.computer:5900(this is the default Screen Sharing port)

To launch into a BTMM session is a bit trickier. First we need to either find your iCloud Member number or the specific Macs BTMM IPv6 address.

To grab your iCloud member number, open your Terminal client of choice and type

    dns-sd -E

You'll get a readout like this

    Looking for recommended registration domains:
    DATE: ---Wed 01 Aug 2012---
    11:16:33.698  ...STARTING...
    Timestamp     Recommended Registration domain
    11:16:33.699  Added     (More)               local
    11:16:33.699  Added                          icloud.com
                                                 - > btmm
                                                 - - > members
                                                 - - - > 000000000 (This is your member number :D)

Then you can type the following into the command line to start the BTMM session

    open vnc://computername.membernumber.members.btmm.icloud.com1

Another way to launch a BTMM session is to use the unique IPv6 that is given to any Mac enabled with BTMM. So far, that only two places that I've been able to see this address is by opening up the new version of Apple Remote Desktop for Mountain Lion which now also shows your BTMM machines as well as Macs on the local network.

You can then copy the IPv6 address and add it into the open vnc:// command.

This address can also be found after initiating a BTMM session from the Finder, navigating to ~/Library/Application Support/Screen Sharing/, & opening the file relating to Whichever computer that you just BTMMed.

If using the IPv6 address, make sure you put it in square brackets. It won't work otherwise.

    open vnc://[IPv6 address of mac]

^1. On a side note, as has been seen in many posts, you can also use this address to ssh into any of your Macs using the following command

    ssh -2 -6 username@computername.membernumber.members.btmm.icloud.com

Update on 2012-08-01 05:53 by James Smith

You can also grab your member number by typing this into the Terminal

echo show Setup:/Network/BackToMyMac | scutil | sed -n 's/.* : *\(.*\).$/\1/p'

Making multiple 'From' email addresses on iOS my bitch without adding extra accounts

This all came about because of work. I got a call from a client that we regularly work with asking if it's possible to consolidate his some 20 email accounts into one of his Google Apps accounts (this also works with regular Gmail accounts too) while still being able to reply and send from the individual addresses. As it turns out this can be quite tricky but I managed to find an article that outlined the steps perfectly, or so I thought to begin with. 

Firstly, a very quick word on my clients set up so far. With his multple accounts he has set them to forward all messages received to his one Google Apps account. I haven't had any experience with using Google's "Mail Fetcher" so I can't speak to how this will work with that system. I've just tested Gmail/Google Apps' "Mail Fetcher" and it works a ok as well.

The original article is by Nick Cernis on his website Modern Nerd. Let me just say that you should first head over to the article, this is the article, and read it because it's all layed out nice and neatly with pretty screenshots. Once you're done there, come back here and I'll explain the rest. I'll preface the article by saying that on your iOS device you'll need to set up your Gmail/Google Apps account using IMAP and not Exchange. It might be an idea to set up your Mail with IMAP and you Contacts & Calendars with Exchange if you need them.

Are you back? Good, let's procede.

Once you've added the addition addresses into your Mail Settings you might need to restart your device. Now when you go to reply or send a message if you tap on the "From:" field you will be presented with a list of email addresses to send messages from.

At this stage if you tried to send an email from one of these additional address they would still be received on the other end as originating from your master Gmail/Google Apps account. This is where the fun part comes in. I will say that I'm not quite sure why or how this works, but it does :).

Log into your Gmail/Google Apps account, the one that you're using as the catch all account, and procede to Settings -> Accounts. There you will see an option to "Send mail as:". What you need to do is to add in all the addition email accounts that you wish to send email messages from. Here is the relevant Google Help article which explains all the ins and outs of adding multiple "Send mail as:" addresses. If you're sending mail on behalf of someone else it might also pay to read this Google Help article on treating addresses as aliases or not. I chose to add in each additional email accounts own SMTP server and this seems to be working perfectly. You will be sent an email to each of the accounts that you add as confirmation that you actually have the rights to access it.

Once that is all done, when you try to send an email from one of these additonal accounts, it will show up correctly in their inbox as coming from the correct account.

As an added bonus, because all those other accounts are forwarding their messages into the one Gmail/Google Apps account, when you hit reply, Mail automatically fills in the correct "From:" address, just like if you had previously set up multiple inboxes on your device.

If you would like to set this up in Mail.app on your Mac, the process is just as simple. Open up your account settings and add the additional emails separated by commas in the "Email Address:" section.

If this isn't working for you feel free to leave a comment or send me an email :).

As always, hope this helps you.

Clear - A new todo application that isn't like the rest

What happend this morning when I woke up to read my twitter feed? I saw a nice little note from @UseClear saying "Hello New Zealand and Australia :-)". What could this mean? Well, it meant that Clear, the todo app that has had quite a bit of hype surrounding it, had launched.

After using it most of the morning I can say that the video does not do it justice and you need to download it and try it for yourself. Playing with the app on an iPhone 4S is very quick, I mean REALLY REALLY REALLY quick. Adding tasks is a cinch. Just pull down from the top of the screen and start typing. When you check an item off your list you are rewarded with a chime and subtle vibration, both of which can be changed in the settings. 

I'm not going to say anything further about Clear or all the tips & tricks of using it because it is way too much fun finding them out for yourself and I'm sure someone else will do a nice indepth review later today. All I can say is that you should turn your volume up while playing around with it. You'll thank me later :)

Depending on which country you are in it may or may not be available now. Check it out here!

Bonus tip - If you have Tweetbot installed you will get an extra theme :D