Schinckel.net

Well, using my limited AppleScript skills, I’ve created a system for blogging via ecto from my palm. Using the MacNoteTaker Conduit, and a Folder Action Script, ecto creates & posts a new post for each new file in the monitored folder. Now all I need to do is ‘fix’ the Conduit so it handles deleted files a bit better. However, since the Conduit was written for a different development environment, I’ll have to get the original working first. Oh, and this post was done directly from my Palm. Well, the paragraph above was, anyway. Bugs to get rid of:

• Doesn’t do much parsing of the data. Paragraphs don’t seem to exist. Fixed: Used property body text instead of entry body.
• Use an alternate form of getting the date. MacNoteTaker date-stamps all new files. I’ll use this. Done.
• Parse the first line to get the post title. Done.

Well, a strange thing just started happening – when I start the Terminal (OS X), my ~/.profile is no longer executed. I guess there’s something wrong! I can still just do a source .profile and it runs okay, so there’s no problem there. It is being executed for other users, so it must be an issue with me somewhere! Edit Aha! A quick Google turns up the fact that ~/.profile is not executed if ~/.bash_profile is present. I suspect that the PalmOS development tools installer must have created this file – there was nothing new (for me) in it, so a quick rm ~/.bash_profile fixed my problem.

I bought a Palm the other day. I remember when they were still called Palm Pilots, and I really wanted one then. I was in Officeworks, looking, as I do, through the ‘Soiled & Damaged’ section. I got some half-price DVD+R discs the other day, just because someone had opened the packet and used one. Anyway, I digress. There was a Palm Zire 21 for sale at about 33% off, and I just couldn’t resist. I went home and checked that it would sync well with iCal and Address Book, and became aware of the ‘Mobile Phone’ issue (apparently data loss can occur when a nearby phone rings), but decided to buy it anyway. I’m pretty keen to do some developing on it – I’ve got Python on there, but I want to code a nice database front-end for all of my Touch stuff, that interacts with the Address Book details, and another for Roll marking and Marks Book keeping at school. So, I’m currently funnelling a whole lot of stuff, and will spend a bit of the next holidays coding, I hope.

Just as a bit of a test to see how this thing works, I’m posting an image to Flickr, and having it appear here, hopefully.

And while I’m at it, here’s what I’m listening to right now…

To Her Door from the album “Under The Sun” by Paul Kelly

I remember a song a guy I went to boarding school with had a cassette single with four versions of a song called Lately. The lyrics were something like:

Lately I’ve seen that look on your face, And you don’t cry anymore. And I just don’t know what to do, anymore. Oh Baby, Oh Baby, I want you here, with me.

Anyway, I’ve never heard the song since, nor been able to find it on the web. But lately I’ve been rather busy with Touch, and haven’t done much coding, other than entries for the New Scientist enigma, and since those ones haven’t been drawn yet, I’m not going to share the answers. I have played around with some new apps, and I’ll list them here:

• The new version of Ecto, a blogging program is out
• NewsFire, an RSS Aggregator
• OmniWeb 5.0, a Web Browser
• VLC, a movie viewer
• ManOpen, a man page viewer.