In Search of Random

Randomline

Random On This Day

SomeDays

MTPhotogallery (cron job can update randoms)

MTRandomEntries

Recent Comments List

My goal is to take some of these plug-ins and techniques and have the mac.fiveforks.com home page be dyanmic, interesting, and a summary of new things on everyone’s blogs.

Combining the OtherBlogs plug-in with the Recent Entries code, I can have summaries of recent comments from all blogs. In this way, people leaving comments get some recognition and comments are more likely to be found.

Thumbnails On The Fly

MovableType’s manual mentions supporting thumbnail creation when uploading pictures if ImageMagick is installed.

A google on ImageMagick lead to this entry by Scott Hacker: birdhouse.org: ImageMagick. That saved me a lot of time, because it pointed to a Mac OS X install version. Now all Fiveforks bloggers can do this…

… upload an image file into their blog, create a thumbnail size, and have the thumbnail zoom open to the larger photo. Thanks to ImageMagick! (Kind of like installing a gorilla to swat a fly.)

Random Rotating Images

Random Image Rotation: A List Apart

Create a folder full of images and include the php script above in the folder and you get random rotating images. (Hit the refresh button and the picture below will change.) Now if I can figure out how to make them links that pop up larger versions of the images…

I chose a bunch of photos and exported them with iPhoto using a constraint of 300 x 300 max. In that way all random photos are the same size by either width or height.

TimeCopy for Palm

My Palm’s clock gets out of synch by several minutes each month. I attend a lot more conference call meetings than physical meetings which requires more precision (and shorter reminders.)

I did not like ClockFix’s auto-adjust approach (and it cost $6.95.) I prefer TimeCopy’s synching approach better. TimeCopy installs a conduit and synchs up the Palm with your PC’s clock. (My PC synchs up with an atomic clock time server.)

TimeCopy on PalmGear.com

For the correct time visit www.time.gov.

Terminal Commands

Use mac-oriented ditto instead of cp.

ditto = copy files and directories

ls = list directory

cd = change directory

store shell scripts in ~/bin

set a script to be executable with +x

chmod +x ~/bin/backup.sh

Garmin Etrex Venture Quick Instructions

Garmin eTrex VentureYou only need to use three buttons and all can be used with your right thumb.

1. Power/light – Lower button on right.

2. Page button – Upper button on right.

3. Click-stick – front left.

1. Turn on. Hold power button for 2 seconds.

2. Allow 3 satellites to be found.

3. Use Page button to go to main menu. (Look for Find flag.)

4. Use click-stick to move to the Find flag.

5. Click the Find flag (pressing in on click-stick.)

6. Choose “Favorites” to find subset of Waypoints.

7. Scroll to the destination Waypoint and click.

8. The “Goto” button will be highlighted. Click it.

You should now be on the compass. You can turn off the navigator by pressing the power button for 2 seconds. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to turn back on and just page directly to the compass with the page button since the GPS is already looking for the last waypoint. Use the page button to go to the main menu if you want to change destinations.