A Bash function for Markdown bloggers

I store all of my writing as separate Markdown files. A basic tagging system^tag adds more "searchability," and I can quickly locate any file with Spotlight^spot. Given the amount of time I spend in T

Quick Tip: clean up your MultiMarkdown tables

The table syntax in MultiMarkdown is intuitive and can be really fast to work with. Much faster than coding HTML tables, to be sure. Unless you're pretty religious about your spacing, though, the plai

Quick Tip: throttling parallel batch processes in Terminal

Quick tips are random posts regarding something I discovered on my way to something bigger. They usually get longer than "quick" would imply, for which I refuse to apologize.

It starts out with mdfin

Duplicating Safari browsing sessions between Macs

Hey, you're just in time for another "stupid trick of the day" script. I have good reason for this one, and it only took me about 8 minutes to set up. It will take me longer to write about it than it'

Automated HTML5 video encoding revisited

A little while ago I approached the subject of scripting automated encoding for HTML5 video formats. I started using the process regularly as I built the Blogsmith Bundle video site. Pretty soon I got

Address Book search and Skype from the command line

Here's a neat little command-line utility for searching your address book: aboo. It's not complex... it just takes a single word or phrase and searches your Address Book entries' names for it. It can

Quick calculations in Bash

This is probably going to seem stupid, but every time I decide to do something in Bash that should only take me a minute, I end up losing an hour. I obsess over "better" ways to do everything. Not sur

VoodooPad log navigation plugins

These VoodooPad Script Plugins are the result of two opposing traits of mine: laziness and curiosity. Laziness because, well, why should I have to move my hand all the way over to my mouse to go to th

Things tasks from the command line

If you're a Things.app user (and a Terminal user), I've got a quick function for your .bash_profile that will allow you to quickly add todo items to your inbox with notes and natural-language date par

Answer Skype with a hotkey

If you use Skype and happen to be as clumsy as I am, you may have run into this at some point: you see a call come in, you fumble for your headset, you go back to your mouse, find the cursor on your b

HomeControl: Local Mac control for iPhone

I tried out a tip recently for controlling a Mac via Mobile Safari on your iPhone, and it got me thinking, which is often dangerous. I put together this little web app today as a proof of concept (tha

Clear sticky Growl notifications with a keyboard shortcut

I ran into a question yesterday that didn't seem to have an obvious answer: how can I clear a stack of sticky Growl notifications using only the keyboard. It's not been any secret that I'm a fan of ke

Taskpaper Date Scripts

4 quick scripts for TaskPaper users tonight, specifically for handling dates quickly. If you've used my other TaskPaper scripts, you know you can use natural language to set start and due dates, and t

A Quick VoodooPad Script Plugin - Go To Today

This script may not be of use to many people, but I'm finding it so handy today that I figured I'd post it in the hopes that someone who needs it finds it. It's really only useful to people who use V

fk: redux

Just a quick change to my post on the bash function fk that I've been using. A small modification has greatly improved its usability: make the cancel option always be first in the menu. Just move "Can