Ever wanted to get the path of a file into the clipboard from Finder on your mac.

It’s really bloody easy with Automator, no coding required.

1. Open Automator and create a new “Service”.
2. Set the service to work for “files or folders” in “Finder”.
3. Drag the “Copy to Clipboard” action to the right actions pane,
4. Save the service as (something like) “Copy Path to Clipboard”.
5. Done

Now if you right click on a file in the finder you will get a “Copy Path to Clipboard” menu option, click it and the full file path goes to the Clipboard.

Brisbane Limousine Transfers launched their new iPhone app today, developed by us.  Check it out at:

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/brisbane-limousines/id448621871?mt=8

Free dad from his saggy jocks this Father’s Day

Aussie blokes can finally say goodbye to saggy jocks and holey socks, with the introduction of Australia’s first automated underwear store stocking the brands they love, freshundies.net.

Launched in time for Father’s Day, in just one visit blokes can have their favourite socks and jocks and how often they’d like to receive each to their home or workplace and then sit back and enjoy an automated supply of underwear.

freshundies.net is the brainchild of suburban dad Ben Laughlin who ran out of socks and jocks when his wife struggled to find room and cancelled the bulging supply he’d been receiving from his mum each Christmas for 35 years.

All was well until the supply ran out and Mr Laughlin found himself struggling with sagging undies and patchy socks, and absolutely no desire to waste his time trawling department store underwear aisles.

“Blokes hate shopping at the best of times and have a bad habit of wearing socks and jocks until they fade away to dust.  freshundies.net makes sure they’ve always got something respectable in the drawer,” Mr Laughlin said.

Of course there’s a smart woman behind the scenes, www.freshundies.net Marketing and Distribution Manager, Angela Laughlin:

“We wanted to provide Aussie guys with a price competitive and easy going service so there’s free delivery on orders over $20, no sneaky contract and they can stop the service at anytime,” Mrs Laughlin said.

“Guys can choose from popular colours and brands as well as the freshundies Tradies Pack and Suits Pack each featuring a Chesty Bonds Singlet, pair of socks and jocks.

“And best of all the woman in their lives can also order for them and then look forward to their fella strutting his stuff in freshundies.”

freshundies.net was recently launched and is a secure Australian site offering popular payment options.

ENDS

For further information contact: Angela Laughlin
Marketing and Distribution Manager

Unfortunately we were forced to shutdown CouponGroup today by Sensis.  We are very sorry to all the loyal customers.

If you have ever wanted to change the names of a bunch of file only to find there is no easy way to do it without rolling up your sleeves and writing some sort of script? Well now with the mac Automator and Services it is simple:

1. Open up Automator and choose the Service template.
2. In the actions list, search for “Rename”
3. Drag the “Rename Finder Items” on to the right workflow panel.
4. Choose “Don’t Add” when prompted if you want to add a copy action.
5. Change the Action Type to “Replace Text”
6. In the Options menu, check the “Show this action when the workflow runs” option.
7. Change the Service input option “Service receives selected” to “files or folders”
8. Save the Service with a name like “Rename files”

You will now be able to select file in the finder, right click and choose the “Rename files” from the context menu.

With my new appleTV I wanted to put all my movies into iTunes. Trouble was most were AVI format and iTunes would have nothing of the sort.

Solution: use the SetFile command in the terminal to add the “MooV” file time to your movie files eg.

SetFile -t "MooV" TheMatrix.avi

Ever thought it handy to be able to take a picture of whoever is using your computer?  Great for security, particularly if your laptop gets flogged.

Well I’ve just uncovered a neat solution for my MacBookPro and Mac Air using DropBox (I love dropbox!), the built-in iSight Cam and a little command line app called iSightCapture.

iSightCapture is simply called from the command line to take a snapshot photo using the iSight cam and saves the image as a file.  This makes automation easy.  I did the following (assuming you are a DropBox user, if you are not you should be!):

1. Download iSightCapture and stick it in the folder in /sbin.

2.  Create a basic perl script to call the iSightCapture app (see below).

3.  Create a launchd plist to call this script at login time, plus at 4 hour intervals thereafter (see below).

I chose perl for no reason other than I had another script that I could quickly modify to suit – you can use anything, obviously.

The perl script does two main things.

1.  Creates a file name for the image using the current date and time, so it is unique (unique enough anyway).

2.  Specifies the path that the image will be saved.  In my case a DropBox photos folder.

The great thing about DropBox is it automatically copies any new/modified files in it’s patch up to the cloud, almost instantly.  This is perfect for this application.

The two scripts are as follows:

Perl (save as iSightSnapshot.pl):

#!/usr/bin/env perl
 
# get date/time
my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,
$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime();
 
# tweek the date/time
my $month = $mon + 1;	#Jan = 0 for $mon
my $fullyear = $year + 1900; #year offset by 1900
if ($month < 10) { $month = "0$month"; }
if ($mday < 10) { $mday = "0$mday"; }
 
# generate the command including the image filename and path, customise the path to suit your system
$command = 'isightcapture /Users/ben/Dropbox/Photos/Snaps/mbp/snaps_'.$fullyear.$month.$mday.'_'.$hour.$min.$sec.'.jpg';
 
#run backup command
system ("$command");

Launchd:

(saved in /Library/LaunchAgents and customise the path to your perl script)

 
	Label
	ShapshotAtStart
	ProgramArguments
 
		/Users/ben/Documents/iSightSnapshot.pl
 
	RunAtLoad
 
	StartInterval
	14400

So there you have it, a very quick and easy way to add some security to your system.

Your iPhone UDID (Unique Device ID) is needed if you want to provision an Application for your iPhone for ad hoc distribution or testing without going through the AppStore.

You can find your UDID for your iPhone in iTunes as follows:

1. Connect your iPhone (or iPad etc.) to iTunes and select it under the devices heading on the left.

2.  In the Summary tab for the iPhone, shown in the main panel of iTunes you will see the Serial Number listed.  Click on the Serial Number to revel the UDID.

3.  In the edit menu click Copy to put the UDID in the clipboard.

4.  Paste the UDID into an email or where ever you want to use it.