TM

 Symbolcraft

Time Machine is a really great feature in Apple OS/X that provides an easy way to insure that your files are automatically backed up. It even seamlessly supports multiple backup drives; you can disconnect one and connect another, and Time Machine will make use of the new drive, provided that you select it from the System Preferences for Time Machine.

If you do use multiple backup drives with Time Machine, you may have noticed that it’s a bit of a pain to drill down into System Preferences to enable a new drive every time you swap in a different backup drive. Fortunately Apple also provides AppleScript, which can be used to automate tasks like this.

I searched for a script that would automatically select whichever Time Machine drive I had just connected to my computer. pbeyersdorf over at Mac OS X Hints provided a script that purported to do this, but it was limited to two drives, and it didn’t work in OS/X 10.5.

I’ve modified that script to work in OS/X 10.5 and 10.6, and to support a list of backup drives. After you download the modified Select Time Machine script, just change the drivenames array to the names of your Time Machine drive volumes. Note that the script also requires that you have Growl installed in order to see error and informational messages. In addition, you must enable GUI Scripting, but my modified script will help you do that if necessary.

Have you ever looked up at the Moon when it appeared to be full, and wondered to yourself, “is the Moon full?”

I was wondering this myself the other day, and so I decided to create a web site to answer the question. In the process I learned a few interesting things about the Moon. I invite you to visit my new web site for an answer should you ever find yourself asking this question: http://www.isthemoonfull.com.

I’m pleased to announce Version 1.1 of the Copyright Plugin for WordPress. If you want to insure that your copyright notices automatically display the correct dates in WordPress, then you need this plugin.

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If you’re one of the many right-minded geeks who uses Emacs, you have an advantage over those who use less-flexible text editors. Anyone staring at code all day long will soon suffer from tired eyes. If you use Emacs, though, you can use a macro that I wrote that may help alleviate the problem.

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I believe the human mind is tuned to appreciate fractals. Many natural phenomena exhibit well-defined fractal dimensions, so it seems reasonable that we should evolve neural circuitry that feels at ease when exposed to fractal scenes in views of clouds, mountains, or forests.

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