Blog

  • Automator: The Unsung Hero of the Mac

    There is an app that comes standard with Mac OS X – in fact, it’s been there for many of the operating system’s iterations – that is, for me, an unsung hero of the power of the Macintosh.

    It’s called Automator. According to Apple,

    Automator is your personal automation assistant, making it easy for you to do more, and with less hassle. With Automator, you use a simple drag-and-drop process to create and run “automation recipes” that perform simple or complex tasks for you, when and where you need them. (source: apple’s mac 101)

    Mac users can access Automator by typing “Automator” into the Spotlight search (top right in the menu bar).

    Why I love Automator

    As webmaster for SKKSA, I need to prepare hundreds of photos to go online in a single update of our website’s gallery. When a photo is taken by our photographers, the hi-res file size is over a megabyte, making it unwieldy for use on our website (we try to optimize it for as many users with varying Internet connections and technologies). Furthermore, I need photos to have meaningful file names so that I can easily manage them once they’re on our server.

    Enter Automator: I design workflows in Automator to take a bunch of photos I’ve dropped into it, and re-size them by a certain percentage factor. Then I arrange for Automator to rename the files sequentially, appending a number to the prefix, and then the named description (usually the name of the event). Clicking “Run workflow” sends this wonderful robot into action, and it diligently executes the workflow I designed.

    This process saves me at least two hours’ work.

    But Automator goes beyond simple file tasks. You can use it to design PowerPoint and Keynote presentations, rotate images, even execute system tasks such as operating the iSight camera within an app like iPhoto.

    Automator is just another reason why I’m in love with the Macintosh, and why I can’t imagine life without my beloved MacBook Pro.

  • Arthur C. Clarke – Islands in the Sky

    Space-travel was certainly a complicated affair – so complicated that it sometimes depressed me. Then I remembered that these men didn’t seem any cleverer than I was: they were highly trained, that was all. If one worked hard enough, one could master anything.

    –Arthur C. Clarke, author of “Islands in the Sky.”

  • Research in Motion: A Lesson in What Arrogance Does to You

    It seems like the famous BlackBerry maker, Research in Motion, just cannot catch a break. But then again, I don’t think they can afford to take a break these days. Their recent earnings call for Q1 2013 sent tech blogs into a frenzy, spectating the imminent death of the company that made mobile email possible.

    Here in South Africa, it’s difficult to perceive the BlackBerry brand in any sort of financial trouble. Almost every second person can be seen immersed in a Bold or a Curve, texting away on the device’s “killer app” – BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). South Africa, after all, is often capsulated as an entity seperated from the rest of the technological world (I’m reminded of SA comedian, Trevor Noah, remarking that “the rest of the world goes in one direction… and we go this way…”).

    Yet the truth is that, worldwide, Research in Motion has not managed to keep up with the explosive force of Apple, Inc’s iPhone (arguably the device that started the smartphone app revolution) and Samsung’s Android-powered phones (the carbon copy versions of Apple’s innovation). Nokia, another struggling smartphone brand, has managed to set a path that could help redeem themselves as a leading smartphone vendor: they’ve partnered with Microsoft, using Redmond’s Windows Phone 8 operating system on their new hardware.

    But RIM, despite seeing the signs right before their eyes, did nothing to counter the iPhone’s force when Steve Jobs announced his vision of the mobile revolution to the world. The Canadian company continued to use their (by now) outdated business practices, churning out sub-par phones marred by aged software, slow hardware and appalling industrial design. In essence, they were arrogant.

    RIM thought that their dominance in the mobile email revolution would be sufficient to help them ride-out the iPhone storm.

    How wrong they were… now, 5000 talented engineers and Research in Motion workers will be laid-off in one of the company’s biggest employment shifts to-date. Furthermore, they’re delaying their already-late redemption effort, BlackBerry 10 (a new operating system and series of phones) to “early calendar-2013.” In fact, some are even speculating that RIM might go the Nokia route, and use Windows Phone 8 through a Microsoft partnership.

    But the Waterloo, Ontario-based company has already dug too deep a trench for them to get out of swiftly; now, only time will tell if they can get back to the high they were once at. For me, my days of BlackBerry might be coming to an end now too – I was one of those “fans” who had decided that, before jumping ship to iPhone, I’d see what BlackBerry 10 would be like. I’d give it a last chance. But this delay is the last strand – and for many, Apple’s upcoming sixth-generation iPhone, being heralded as the “biggest consumer electronics launch in history”, may be the salvation we’re waiting for after the horrors of the BlackBerry.

  • A Definition for “Geek”

    Sometimes people think of a geek as the introvert in the corner of the party, or the comic-book collector who goes to Star Trek conventions, or the professor in thick glasses holed up in her laboratory. But to me, at least, geekiness is all about passion. It’s about choosing science and technology or another intellectual pursuit, and devoting your life to it. History’s ultimate geeks are the men and women who sacrifice their lives on the altar of science, risking failure to pursue an obsession.

    –Angela Saini,  author of Geek Nation: How Indian Science is Taking Over the World

  • Ray Bradbury on writing

    “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

    – Ray Bradbury

    Bradbury is one of my favourite sci-fi writers. He wrote unrelentlessly until his death a few weeks ago, forever imbuing his passion for the art and the genre into his large collection of work.

    His most famous novel,  Fahrenheit 451, illustrates a dystopian future not unlike the reality we’re experiencing today.