Another Script Helper

As noted earlier, the music files which have been added to the Kitchen computer are on an iMac. In order for the Kitchen iTunes to play them, the iMac volume containing the music files has to be mounted on the Kitchen computer.

Originally, I went through the Chooser to connect to the iMac. When you do this you can check which remote volumes you want mounted at startup. But I didn't like this method. The Keychain kept asking for a password and I'm not usually around when the Kichen computer starts up (it's started automatically via Energy Saver, a couple of minutes before the Krups coffee maker fires up). So, I wrote a simple applet that I stuck in the System folder's Startup folder.

mount volume "afp://username:userpass@192.168.2.101/iMain"

[upm] click to open in Script Editor

The username and userpass are the administrator's info for the iMac.

I also put an alias to this applet in my OSA Menu and Drag Thing dock—both of which I highly recommend for any OS 9 System—so I can manually run it if/when necessary.

Radio Fave

At my house we really like the stream from Radio Paradise. They have a nice mix of old and new rock and very often some surprises; to a jaded radio guy like me, it's very refreshing.

Additionally, they stream song info of the current song so iTunes 2.0.4 can display it (many streams do not). Plus, they have a website that allows you to see the current playlist and the last six hours of songs, and older playlists are archived. I especially like a "Mini Playlist" floating window you can open from any of their pages that does a META refresh every couple of minutes and keeps updated with the last four songs.

I wrote a script that opens the Radio Paradise stream in iTunes then minmizes iTunes, and opens Radio Paradise's Mini Playlist window using Internet Explorer. IE has a nice little AppleScript dictionary. If you know some JavaScript you will like its do script command. I know I do.

property rpstreamURL : "http://205.188.245.131:8048/"

tell application "iTunes"
	try
		open location rpstreamURL
		set minimized of front window to true
	end try
end tell
tell application "Internet Explorer"
	Activate
	try
		do script "window.open('http://www.radioparadise.com/modules.php?name=mini&op=playlist','miniPlaylist','width=410,height=80,resizable=1');"
	end try
end tell

[upm] click to open in Script Editor

I got the URLs required by just copying the links from the Radio Paradise page. I did have to check the page source for the JavaScript code, but it was just a simple window.open function. I also changed the dimensions of the window so it would display the full window and without scroll bars. Here's how the desktop looks after running:

Radio Paradise is in the house

This would make a good Startup folder script if saved as an applet. Currently I manually fire it as a compiled script from OSA Menu.

If this relatioship with Radio Paradise gets any cozier, I will be increasing the text size of IE (I don't believe this is 'scriptable, however) and making the window larger so it's readable from the food-prepping end of the kitchen.

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