Treadmill Said I Weighed This Much

Steak..It's Whats For Dinner

Like most people I make a few New Years resolutions. Whether or not I actually keep them, well that’s a different story. This year I’ve decided to actually post my resolutions on the blog so maybe someone out there will remember them and somewhere down the road ask “Hey how’s (blank) going?” and I’ll reply “Eh, kind of dropped it”. From then on you can call me lazy or whatever you need to say to get me back on my resolutions. Sound like a deal?

My first resolution is the same as 99.998% of people — lose weight. Not a lot of weight, I’m going to turn into Skeletor or anything but I do want to lose a few pounds. Along with that comes working up the muscle a bit. It’s time to put that gym membership to work.

Second on the list is to learn something new. To fulfill that resolution I’ve decided to take up photography. I’ve already got a pretty nice camera that lets you set a lot of things manually but also does RAW images. Not a bad start.

Third — One picture a day for a month, to start. I might go longer but to get the hang of it and see if I can actually pull through with us I’ll start off with only one month. Plus it gives me a chance to work on my photography skills and you, the readers, can follow my progress in a way. Some of the pictures might be random but hey, it’s a picture.

So that’s my list. Not very long but I think if you keep it short it’s easier to actually stick to it. Maybe I’ll add one more to the list, post more in the blog! =)

What’s your New Years Resolutions?

-Celo

• CustomizeGoogle - CustomizeGoogle is a Firefox extension that enhance Google search results by adding extra information (like links to Yahoo, Ask.com, MSN etc) and removing unwanted information (like ads and spam). All features are optional and easily configured.

• Firebug -Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page

• FireShot - FireShot is a Firefox extension that creates screenshots of web pages. Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify web captures and insert text annotations and graphical annotations. Such functionality will be especially useful for web designers, testers and content reviewers. It’s possible to choose whether you want to capture entire web page or take screenshot of only visible part of the web page.

• Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer - If you use Firefox on more than one computer, you’ll want Foxmarks. Install Foxmarks on each computer, and it works silently in the background to keep your bookmarks and (optionally) passwords synchronized. Foxmarks also keeps your data backed up and safe from computer failures. If you’re away from your computer, Foxmarks allows you to access your bookmarks online by logging into my.foxmarks.com.

• IE Tab - An extension from Taiwan, features: Embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox.

• Live HTTP Headers - View HTTP headers of a page and while browsing.

• MeasureIt - Draw out a ruler to get the pixel width and height of any elements on a webpage.

• Regular Expressions Tester - Testing Tool for regular expressions with color highlighting

• S3 Firefox Organizer - S3Fox Organizer helps you organize/manage/store your files on Amazon S3.

• SearchStatus - Display the Google PageRank, Alexa rank and Compete ranking anywhere in your browser, along with fast keyword density analyzer, keyword/nofollow highlighting, backward/related links, Alexa info and more.

• ShowIP - Show the IP address(es) of the current page in the status bar. It also allows querying custom information services by IP (right mouse button) and hostname (left mouse button), like whois, netcraft. Additionally you can copy the IP address to the clipboard.

• UrlbarExt - Extends the Location Bar with set of commands to (Make Tiny URL, Copy URL, Search site, Go up, Tag pages easily, Navigate through sequential URL’s, View page cached version, Unblock filtered websites and Surf anonymously using online phproxy servers)

• User Agent Switcher - Adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of the browser.

• Web Developer - Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.

• YSlow - YSlow analyzes web pages and tells you why they’re slow based on Yahoo’s rules for high performance web sites.

And so there you have it! If you have some add-ons that you like to use, name them in the comments and I’ll check them out.

-Celo

If you’re not familiar with Automator here’s a description from the always resourceful, Wikipedia: Automator enables the repetition of tasks across a wide variety of programs

Now that you sort of have an idea of what it is, lets get started!

For this example I’m going to be scaling my engagement pictures as well as renaming them.

When you first open Automator you’re greeted with the welcome screen. You’re presented with a few choices of how to being your “workflow”. For this example we’ll just choose Files & Folders. The content should be coming from “my Mac” and Automator will ask you for the files or folders now.

Automator Options

Select Folder

After you’ve selected your folder you’re now ready to start creating your workflow. The layout is pretty simple. On the far left you have different categories for different actions that are shown to the right of that. On the far right we have the workflow layout.

Workflow Layout

The next step we want to add to our workflow will be “Get Folder Contents”. You can find the action in the middle pane between the categories and your workflow. Double click to add the action to add it to the workflow.

Get Folder Contents

The next action you will want to add is “Scale Images”. When you double click this action Automator will advise you to add an action to copy the current images to a new folder since it will be editing the originals. Select “Add” so if anything major happens we still have the originals to start over with.

Scale Image

A new window will be shown to select a new folder to copy the images to. For this example I’m going to create a new folder for the resized pictures. Once you’re finished with that your workflow should look like this:

Almost Done

The last action we’re going to add to our workflow is “Rename Finder Items” since my original images are named IMG_(some random number). After adding the action, change the option in the drop down menu to “Make Sequential”. Next, you want to select the option “Add number to new name” and type the name you would like in the text box. I chose Engagement_Photos in case I want to upload and display on a website the file name is already formatted without any spaces. If you’d like you can change what number starts and if the number is placed before or after the new name. It should look a little like this when you’re finished:

Rename Files

When you’re done click “Run” in the top right-hand corner. Automator will start the workflow and after a few seconds (or minutes, depends on how many pictures are being resized) you’ll have a new folder with your resized and renamed images.

Pretty simple right? Mess around with different actions and you’ll soon start finding ways to finish tasks and save time.

-Celo

I’ve recently stumbled across a nifty application called “Fruux ” after they started following me on Twitter. Fruux is a pretty simple program that will sync contacts from your Address Book, calendar events from iCal and your favorite bookmarks from Safari. Fruux is currently in early public beta with plans on introducing selective syncing, future support for iPhone’s and a web application to be able to view/edit your contacts/calendars/bookmarks from any computer.

You can download Fruux directly from here .

Another great program I use to sync files between Mac’s is Dropbox . It’s easy to install and works great. Plus you can also install on PC’s as well.

(Those of you who use Firefox like myself and want to sync your bookmarks, check out: Foxmarks

-Celo

The battery calibration for the PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD) and any model of MacBook or MacBook Pro has been updated because of a new battery released with this computer. With these computers, follow these steps to calibrate your battery:

1. Plug in the power adapter and fully charge your PowerBook’s battery until the light ring or LED on the power adapter plug changes to green and the onscreen meter in the menu bar indicates that the battery is fully charged.
2. Allow the battery to rest in the fully charged state for at least two hours. You may use your computer during this time as long as the adapter is plugged in.
3. Disconnect the power adapter with the computer still on and start running the computer off battery power. You may use your computer during this time. When your battery gets low, you will see the low battery warning dialog on the screen.
4. Continue to keep your computer on until it goes to sleep. Save all your work and close all applications when the battery gets very low, before the computer goes to sleep.
5. Turn off the computer or allow it to sleep for five hours or more.
6. Connect the power adapter and leave it connected until the battery is fully charged again.

Tip: When the battery reaches “empty”, the computer is forced into sleep mode. The battery actually keeps back a reserve beyond “empty”, to maintain the computer in sleep for a period of time. Once the battery is truly exhausted, the computer is forced to shut down. At this point, with the safe sleep function introduced in the PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD) computers, the computer’s memory contents have been saved to the hard drive. When power is restored, the computer returns itself to its pre-sleep state using the safe sleep image on the hard drive.

Posted by email from selfmadecelo’s posterous

Sent from my iPhone

Posted by email from selfmadecelo’s posterous

Sent from my iPhone

Posted by email from selfmadecelo’s posterous

Posted by email from selfmadecelo’s posterous