A quick post - Bandwagon, which offers automatic backup of iTunes song files and associated library data and syncing across computers has just released a new ftp version of their software. In return for letting you know about it - it actually looks super useful - I can get 6 months free to try it out, and bring back a full review for you. Check it out.

[UPDATE] I’m 2.06GB out of 45 GB backed up after 3 days. So far so good.

In order to geotag my photos, I used to use a homebrewed Automator workflow that used the currently selected photo in iPhoto, and opened it using GeoTagger (an applescript based app from Craig Stanton) which grabs the current coordinates of your view in Google Earth and embeds the coordinates into the EXIF info of your photos. For some reason it would take an age to launch the first time around, and was generally unreliable (the workflow that is, not Geotagger).

When geotagging photos using track logs, the only real choice is GPSPhotoLinker. I love the fact that GPSPhotoLinker also embeds city, state and country info into your photos as well as regular lat and lon coordinates, but it will only take input into photos as hand-keyed text when not using GPX track logs; i.e. there is no integration with any external mapping programs. After several weeks of hand typing coordinates out of Google Earth and into GPSPhotoLinker, I decided an Applescript was in order to do the job for me, and sorted something out last weekend which, by using UI scripting (i.e. it manipulates menu items and enters text on your behalf), grabs the current co-ordinates from Google Earth and inputs them into the ‘Manually Enter Coordinates’ dialog in GPSPhotoLinker, and then presses the Apply Button. This saves me at least 20 seconds a photo, which makes it worth it for me, and by using the Keyboard pane in System Preferences you can assign it a hot key for instant access in iPhoto.

If you are happy not embedding the extra info into your photos, and GeoTagger works for you, then I’d stick with it. Otherwise, if you were having trouble with it, want a different way of adding GPS info into your EXIF headers, or would like to add the extra data into your Photos that GPSPhotoLinker offers, then take a look at this script.

Usage:

1. Drag the photo(s) you want to tag into GPSPhotoLinker’s Manual Mode (from iPhoto or wherever else)
2. Find the position the photo was taken in Google Earth
3. Make sure the photo or photos are selected in GPSPhotoLinker
4. Run the script
5. You’re done.

Download the script here. Credit is given to Craig Stanton to the first part of the script which gets the co-ordinates from Google Earth.

Or, the code is below if you want to integrate into your own workflow in some way:

tell application "Google Earth"
set viewInf to GetViewInfo
set coords to {latitude of viewInf, longitude of viewInf}
end tell
set long to (text item 2 of coords)
set lat to (text item 1 of coords)
activate application "GPSPhotoLinker"
tell application "System Events"
tell process "GPSPhotoLinker"
-- GUI Scripting statements:
click menu item "Manually Enter Coordinates…" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Special" of menu bar 1
set value of text field 1 of window "Manual Coordinate Entry" to lat as text
set value of text field 2 of window "Manual Coordinate Entry" to long as text
click button "Apply" of window "Manual Coordinate Entry"
end tell
end tell

Sometimes you just don’t want a specific application on your mac to be showing in your Dock. One that’s been bugging me for the last week or so is the app provided by IPEVO for their Skype USB phone. The app is good - it connects with Skype as you would expect, but it has to be running the whole time for the damn thing to work, which means it shows up when you hit Command-Tab to cycle between running programs, and is available in the Dock too.

Considering I don’t need to change the settings in this program pretty much ever, this is fairly pointless. However, a quick bit of googling got me to the following hack - break the app open by right clicking on it then selecting ‘Show Package Contents’, navigate to the Info.plist file and open it in your preferred text editor. Then add the following lines at the end of the keys and strings:

<key>NSUIElement</key>
<string>1</string>

And Bob’s your Uncle. One thing to bear in mind - this also removes any way of selecting the application when open, other than double clicking it in the finder, and removes any menus for that app when in focus. As such it’s best to keep a backup copy hanging around so that you can open that, make any changes to preferences etc as need be, close it and reopen the hacked version for day to day use.

NB - don’t blame me if this screws anything up.

I just wrote a review about Keyword Manager, an iPhoto plugin which I’ve found truly indispensable for keeping my keywords in iPhoto up to date and accurate, whilst saving time (and keystrokes). It’s pretty ground breaking for my iPhoto Library actually, signs of organisation are showing…

Read the review…

The ‘upgrade’ is coming along smoothly. I have moved all written content that’s worth keeping across from the old site, which you can now find under http://newformula.org/words/

The downloads section is the next to be tackled. As all of the icons that I have made aren’t quite complete yet, I am weighing up whether to either do the icons page in stages or keep nothing on it and release it all in one hit. As Sony Ericsson and Motorola Icons are pretty much complete I might get them online first and then add to them later. We’ll see.

I also wrote up a new overview of a great little program in beta called teleport, which is perfect for those who have multiple macs and want to control them from just one keyboard and mouse.

Teleport, which is still in beta and from abyss software, is a genius little app. It’s aimed at mac users who have more than one machine and want to use one without switching to the other machines keyboard or mouse, i.e. those with a desktop and laptop side by side at work.

You specify one side of the screen on the machine which a keyboard and mouse or trackpad is connected, and when you move your mouse across that boundary, it ‘teleports’ the cursor control across to the other mac, and makes keyboard functionality transfer too.

Read on…