Have you ever been away from your Mac, then come back only to find that your co-worker has stolen your favorite Apple pen? Well, I am going to show you how to catch them in the act by creating a Mac "spy cam." For this how-to, you will need to create an Automator workflow, AppleScript, and some Mail rules. So, cue the James Bond music, and let's begin.
Continue reading Mac Automation: create a Mail-triggered "spy cam"
Some of you news hounds may be aware of Newseum, the "interactive museum of news." Every day, they publish the front pages of over 600 newspapers from several companies. Wouldn't it be cool to get just the ones you like delivered to your (virtual) door as a single PDF? Automator to the rescue!Welcome to the 3rd Microsoft Office 2008 automation post. Previously we covered automating Excel 2008 and Word 2008, now we shine the spotlight on PowerPoint 2008. In this how-to, I will show you how to create an Automator workflow to automate the daunting task of applying animations to the slides and converting a presentation into a QuickTime movie file. Continue reading Mac Automation: automating Microsoft PowerPoint 2008
This is the second part of Mac Automation: automating Microsoft Office 2008. In this how-to, I will show you how to create an importer for Microsoft Excel 2008. This importer will allow you to type text in TextEdit.app (or other text editor) and import it into an Excel file.Continue reading Mac Automation: automating Microsoft Excel 2008
Many people have criticized Apple for not updating their AppleScript language documentation regularly (myself included). Scoff no more, because Apple updated their documentation yesterday. The last update to the AppleScript language documentation was on May 5, 1999 -- almost 9 years ago. When Microsoft released Office 2008 for Mac, they did something that I must applaud -- they joined the ranks of Mac developers creating Automator-able applications. When you do a search in Automator for "Microsoft," it will reveal all of the Automator actions that ship with Microsoft Office 2008. There is lots of great stuff included, so we'll be covering some of it in this four part Mac Automation series. I will take you through how to automate each of the Microsoft Office applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage.Continue reading Mac Automation: automating Microsoft Word 2008
Apple has been on a tear for the first two months of 2008, releasing over 20 software updates. What's been lacking, lately, is a descriptive explanation of the changes. While OS 10.5.2's description was pretty well documented, it wasn't exhaustive.Don't have time to read that Word, Pages, or TextEdit document at your desk? Why not listen to it on your iPod instead? In this Automator how-to, I am going to show you how to create an audio file using text that you have in an open document, then sync that using iTunes to your iPod or iPhone. 
iPods are great. They allow you to take your complete music library on-the-go, along with some iPod games, and movies. But what if you are in the middle of reading, say, your favorite blog (you know, us), and you want to go somewhere? Well, you certainly don't have to stop reading! I am going to show you how to use Automator to create a workflow that gets the current text from Safari and syncs it to your iPod as a new note.Continue reading Mac Automation: Save websites to iPod for later
I am sure that everyone has forgotten other peoples birthday's from time-to-time (*raises hand*). Luckily, with Mac OS X's built-in Address Book and Automator, you can automate the remembering and sending of greeting cards by e-mail -- thus eliminating the awkwardness of forgetting. In this how-to I will show you how to create a birthday field in your Address Book contacts, and how to send an e-mail birthday greeting when the time is right. 
Here's a task that most computer users run into on a daily basis: cropping and dealing with small image tweaks. This could be a daunting task if it were not for the Mac and Automator. In this how-to, I will show you how to make a small Finder plug-in that will allow you to manipulate images quickly. Please note, some of the actions required for this how-to are dependent upon Pixelmator being installed. Continue reading Mac Automation: image tweaking plug-in for Finder
Now that you've been introduced to Automator, let's let's get into the "nitty-gritty." In the previous Automator post, we learned how to make a workflow that would take photos from your camera, import them into iPhoto, then allow you to e-mail them. Let's look at the three ways in which you can save this workflow for later reference.
Now that you have downed the Egg Nog and feasted on the holiday food, it's time for the worst part of Christmas ... importing and organizing all those photos. Thanks to Automator and iPhoto, this task can be extremely easy. In this how-to, I will show you how to import your photos, carefully tuck them away in a new photo album, and e-mail them to friends and family. This tutorial assumes that you are using Mac OS X Leopard, and iPhoto 08; however it may work with Tiger and iPhoto 06.A few people commented on my first Mac Automation post that they didn't understand Automator. This post will clear that all up.
| # | Blogger | Posts | Cmts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dave Caolo | 49 | 0 |
| 2 | Cory Bohon | 45 | 5 |
| 3 | Mat Lu | 37 | 4 |
| 4 | Erica Sadun | 32 | 1 |
| 5 | Scott McNulty | 32 | 1 |
| 6 | Michael Rose | 29 | 19 |
| 7 | Brett Terpstra | 21 | 0 |
| 8 | Mike Schramm | 19 | 4 |
| 9 | Robert Palmer | 12 | 20 |
| 10 | Steven Sande | 11 | 7 |
| 11 | Joshua Ellis | 6 | 4 |
| 12 | Christina Warren | 6 | 18 |
| 13 | Nik Fletcher | 3 | 1 |
| 14 | Chris Ullrich | 2 | 1 |
| 15 | Victor Agreda, Jr. | 1 | 3 |
| 16 | Jason Clarke | 1 | 1 |
| 17 | Lisa Hoover | 1 | 1 |
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