dougscripts.com

January 2024

January 31 2007 - 5:23 pm

Apple's Web Traffic Up...And Periphery Sites?

According to this MacNN article, "Traffic to Apple's website and the popularity of iTunes continues to surge at a rate greater than many of other top internet companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!" Now, not for nothin', but this site also has experienced a surge of usage over the past six months; I've recently had to purchase more bandwidth to accommodate more traffic, which I have never had to do in five years or so of web presence. So I'm wondering: does this mean there really are more Mac users? And are they hitting other Mac-centric sites in the same proportion?

January 31 2007 - 4:14 pm

Why We Love Mac OS X Hints

Rob Griffiths, Mac OS X Hints' progenitor, recently posted a neat weblog entry at Macworld about downloading some cool free Apple fonts from the Apple iTunes AppleScripts download page. (Fonts from an AppleScripts download page?! Read Rob's article to grok.) In the course of the article, Rob casually mentions This Little Site Of Mine, and I'm much obliged.

Then, today, he's posted a hint about the usability of the new format of Google's image search results page. For those of you who may use Find Album Artwork with Google and are frustrated with the results, the hint is worth a look. Spoiler alert: get yourself SafariStand; I love that thing!

January 31 2007 - 1:58 pm

UPDATED: Tracks Without Artwork To Playlist v2.0

My friends at The Unofficial Apple Weblog posted a hint about Album Artwork that quickly caused a gushing of downloads for Tracks Without Artwork To Playlist. Unfortunately, the earlier version of that script did not account for artwork downloads from the iTunes Store, and thus would generate many false positives. I have corrected this in the latest version. Let me know how this new one runs at your place.

January 27 2007 - 10:15 am

NEW: Google Video Search

Now that Google has finally incorporated YouTube videos in their Google Video search index, Google Video Search may come in handy. It uses your choice of the Song Name, Artist, Album, or Composer of the playing or selected track as the basis for a search of Google Video using your default web browser.

January 23 2007 - 2:03 pm

NEW: Search for Pandora Stations

My Good Friend, Best Man, and Ever-Faithful Correspondent Greg reminded me about the Pandora website: it creates streams of like-sounding songs based on a "seed" track you supply.You create "stations" which stream through your web browser. I've been having a ball with it. Search for Pandora Stations will use the Artist, Album, or Composer of the selected or playing iTunes track as the basis for a search of Pandora stations. If you like what you find, you can add a station to your Pandora account.

January 18 2007 - 1:16 pm

Shubert|it PDF Browser Plugin

In response to yesterday's query, three people suggested using the Shubert|it PDF Browser Plugin. I tried it out and it works great with Firefox. It's free for educational or non-commercial personal use, otherwise you can purchase a site-license.

January 17 2007 - 2:54 pm

PDFs and Firefox

I hadn't realized it until five minutes ago, but Firefox does not open PDFs from the web. Can you tell that Firefox is not my weapon of choice? Instead, it downloads PDFs and then relies on a helper-app--Preview in most cases I suppose, perhaps Acrobat--to display the content. Now, most of the script entries here have a "View the Read Me as PDF" link so you can, well, view the script's Read Me as a PDF before downloading the script. Safari will read the PDF online, without downloading it. So, Firefox users: is there a plug-in or something I can recommend to vistors so that Firefox opens the PDF, rather than having a .pdf turd (if you will) getting downloaded? TIA.

January 14 2007 - 3:56 pm

UPDATED: Search Wikipedia v1.1

I've updated Search Wikipedia to fix its corrupted Read Me file and also to improve the selected-or-playing track routine. This script will use the Artist, Album, or Composer tag of the playing or selected track as the basis for a search of Wikipedia, the result of which will display in your default browser.

January 11 2007 - 3:57 pm

AppleScripts Are Macintosh Only

AppleScript is a Macintosh-only technology. How do I make this any more apparent for Windows users who frequent the site?

Windows users will see this at the top of every page:

Yet I am frequently getting this type of email query (arrived today):

Doug - I'm sure you get way too many questions re: this great script [Make Bookmarkable], but I'm not sure how to begin to use it.
The downloaded zip file has 2 folders + three files. One folder and file are named _MACOSX, there folder and one file are named Make Bookmarkable v2.1 / AE, and the 3rd file is ._Makebookmarkable.

Is this script only for Macs? If not, what do I put into the iTunes Scripts folder?

Do I need to unzip the file or files first?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Here's another, just arrived as I speak:

Hi Doug ?

I?m unable to locate home -> Library -> iTunes -> to load the script. I have Itunes v7.0.2 on a pc, is the script mac based?

*Sigh*

I feel badly for the Windows people who write me. But I don't know poop about the Windows version of iTunes.

January 11 2007 - 3:56 pm

-192 Error...the Finale

Well, I think this thing is nailed.

For those of you who have not been following along: several users have contacted me about a rare "Could not run this script because the required resources were not found. -192" error. This thing is so rare I have probably only seen it once or twice myself in my years of scripting. Here's the problem: my new "Installer" script that accompanies the latest .dmg download packages does not (currently) correctly copy AppleScript Studio apps. Some downloads use the "ProgBar" app, for example. In some download packages, the "ProgBar" app bundle is not completely copied; only its "Contents" folder is copied to your iTunes Scripts folder. This is totally fixable.

But here's the weird thing: when a folder named "Contents" is in your [username]/Library/iTunes/Scripts folder it somehow inhibits other scripts from running correctly.

What will happen is that when you run a script you will see its Splash Screen. None of the scripts from this site have been saved with this option. When you click the Run button, the -192 error appears.

Remove the "Contents" folder from your iTunes Scripts folder and the scripts will run correctly.

Here's what's weirder: create an empty folder named "Contents" in your iTunes Scripts folder and the same error occurs!

I am now updating the "Installer" script to handle AppleScript Studio apps correctly, and then this problem should disappear. If you are experiencing the -192 error, go to your [username]/Library/iTunes/Scripts folder and remove the folder name "Contents". In a few days, downloads which contain an AppleScript Studio application can be re-downloaded and re-installed correctly.

My sincere thanks to Correspondent Christian who figured out the "Contents" folder weirdness.

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