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 recently switched from Windows to the Mac at home, and was unable to find a comprehensive guide to migrating iTunes from Windows to the Mac. This post attempts to help fill that gap.

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Mount Rainier can often be seen from many places in Seattle, and the two locations are about about 100 kilometers apart. This makes it a nice measuring stick to help Seattleites envision relative distances.

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Published in 2004, this fun, fast-paced modern space opera is vast in scope. It tells the story of how a single human, Fassin Taak, begins to change an ancient balance of power between two galactic civilizations. The multi-billion-year-old galaxy-wide post-civilization of long-lived gas giant dwellers is rumored to own a secret vast network of wormholes, and the nearly galaxy-wide civilization of “quick” species (which includes humans) wants in on the secret. Seer Taak is a kind of emissary to (and explorer of) the Dwellers, and his mission is to find the key to their secret wormhole list in time to summon defenses for an impending invasion of his home world. His exciting adventure is filled with twists, turns, and interesting details about the Dweller world Nasqueron (where most of the action takes place).

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As part of my contribution to the interweb’s effort at locating Matt, who hasn’t posted a topic on Defective Yeti for an alarming nineteen days, I’m setting up a user-aided search tool similar to the one that unfortunately failed to find Steve Fossett. Instead of searching satellite photos of the desert, we’ll be searching through snapshots of board game stores. However, this is a low-budget effort, so I only have one photo so far (of First Pick Games on Stoneway in Seattle). If you spot Matt in the photo, let us know!

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Everybody knows the old children’s rhyme “step on a crack, break your mother’s back.”

I haven’t met anyone who didn’t play that game as a child. Some people with OCD are unfortunately even driven to play that game continuously. So where does this desire come from?

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If you’re a WordPress plugin author, you can reach a wider audience by providing translations of your plugin in languages other than English. For step-by-step instructions on how to do that, read on.

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