iQuickText

This is a handy tool that will allow you to do something that you would have expected to be built into the iPhone. This is especially handy when you do not have time to compose a message in SMS. This allows you with just a few clicks to send a stored SMS message to anyone in your address book. You can also save new messages, you are not limited to the messages that come with iQuickText. Another great tool from MerckTech. Get your copy here.

First this is not designed as a definitive guide. But I hope, it is enough to get you going if you need a good way to automate your backups.

I use it to backup this website, among many others, to a local machine, then I have that machine backed up to an offsite service. It is available for Unix, Linux, Mac, and PC. It is native on all but the PC. In order to use it on a PC you will need to follow the instructions at the following website, PC setup instructions. Below are the basic steps to get this up and running on a Mac, Linux, or UNIX system. Once up and running you can backup between any two systems, Mac, Linux, Unix, or PC, at this point it becomes platform independent.

1. Obtain a external drive, Firewire is best but USB will do. Configure it as /Volumes/backup . There is a great writeup on Dave’s Logbook on how to do this.
2. Setup SSH Instructions here
3. Then to backup your home directory from a terminal window execute the following command
   1. rsync -aE –delete ~ “/Volumes/backup/”
      1. parameter a = archive mode
      2. E = copy extended resources
      3. –delete = remove any files on the receiving site , files that have been removed since the last sync
4. Put the rsync command above in a cron or create an Automator script and run it from iCal. I’ll cover cron and iCal launching in a future article, but until then you can google “Mac cron” or “iCal launch Automator” and find all the info you need to setup and run the command from cron.

Questions/comments - Contact Blake

The only thing that I could not find is how to save the captures to a specific folder, so I created an Automator task to handle that. Below is the flow for that workflow.

Application to move screen captures.

iVandal

Well MerchTech has done it again. This is a super app for filling time and just having fun! The best thing of all is that you can take care of anyone or anything that needs it! Check it out on the AppStore.

You will then see a pallet displayed with five boxes of the following sizes 512, 256, 128, 36, and 16 pixels. To create your icons, just drop the picture that you want to use in the 512 box. Icon Composer will now resize in to all the other options. Then choose File, Export, and save. When you open the saved file you will see copies of all your file in the various sizes that you can now use. Just drag and drop them to where they are needed. They will be in tiff format, but that can be changed by just opening and saving as another format.

This is a simple but very useful tool when you need any of these specific sized icons and you will as you progress doing development for the various Apple platforms.

]]> http://www.gonemac.com/main/?feed=rss2&p=293 0 http://www.gonemac.com/main/?p=283 http://www.gonemac.com/main/?p=283#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:46:10 +0000 Blake http://www.gonemac.com/main/?p=283 Well, with the 3GS now in the wild, I must say that it seems to me that the first generation iPhone is getting a bit long in the tooth. I am still using mine but will upgrade to a 3GS soon. I skipped the 3G because I wanted a storage upgrade and it just was not there for the 3G as my first generation is a 16 gig model.

I feel certain that 3.0 will be the last major upgrade for the first generation iPhone. It is just beginning to feel so far behind. The first generation does not have the hardware to carry a new feature like voice commands among other things. It is also three generations back on connection speed, well at least it will be, when AT&T rolls out the upgraded 3G network over the next year.

So I think it will be time to retire my first generation iPhone to jailbreak duty. That is my plan, as soon as the new 3GS is in hand. I am going to jailbreak and have it laying around for quickie searches and maybe even a call or two via Skype.

I am glad that I skipped the 3G, but boy, I sure am ready for this 3GS!

Looks like Snow Leopard will also bring a pretty good bump in performance with the rewriting of most of the remaining Carbon code. Not a lot of eye candy, but it really looks like when you pop the hood the updates are significant. They also really want eveyone to upgrade based on the price. While I am talking about price, well this is probably more in the marketing department, but the family pack is just great! I sure do wish others would adopt this idea.

All the talking heads iPhone predictions were pretty close with the exception of things like the logo lighting up on the back. Who could even belive that one? Apple fights to squeeze every electron from the iPhone battery, so why anyone would believe this one, I just do not know. On a side note, based on the new Palm’s battery live, Apple has gotten it right. Background processes as nice as they might be, just kill the battery. I am seeing and hearing this from the new Palm. Its battery just does not last.

The 3G did not have enough goodies for me to upgrade, but the 3G S surly does. I will be opting for the 32 Gig version, which will give me the amount of memory that I have needed from day one.

All in all, I think this keynote was a good balance, several surprises, and much of what we had already deduced. I will have to give Apple a solid “A” for this presentation. Now if I can just make it until Wednesday so I can get the prod release of 3.0. New hardware will be a month or so away for me.