On Apple Intelligence

Cross point this article here for my older blog readers:

I have some thoughts on Apple Intelligence’s delay, and why I think people are missing the point entirely.

Check it out:  On Apple Intelligence

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My Morning Workflow with my iPad, Apple Notes, Reminders, and Shortcuts

Experimenting with posting over on Medium.  Seems to be easier, and has some very interesting features.

Anyway, my first post is up over there:

https://medium.com/@zkmtxvfh/my-morning-workflow-with-my-ipad-apple-notes-reminders-and-shortcuts-0b39bcf005a1

Since I have lots of readers here, I figured they might be interested.

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Auto Creating Reminders from Email Messages

In my constant state of trying to make things a bit more efficient for myself. (I'm a big believer in automation, ask anyone that has ever worked with me.) We have computers! Make the computers do work instead of us manually doing things on the computer.  

I wanted to find a way to auto-create a reminder from an email. I assume you can figure out how to create a rule to match an email in Mail.app, but one of the actions you can take on a mail rule is "Run AppleScript".

This AppleScript, given the email match, will create a reminder that links back to the email for you:

using terms from application "Mail"

    on perform mail action with messages selectedMessages

        try

            log "Starting script execution"

            tell application "Reminders"

                repeat with theMessage in selectedMessages

                    try

                        tell application "Mail"

                            -- Fetch subject and message ID

                            set emailSubject to subject of theMessage

                            set messageID to message id of theMessage

                            

                            -- Mark email as read

                            set read status of theMessage to true

                            

                            -- Change email color to blue

                            set background color of theMessage to blue

                        end tell

                        

                        -- Log values for debugging

                        log "Email Subject: " & emailSubject

                        log "Message ID: " & messageID

                        

                        -- Construct reminder properties

                        set reminderText to emailSubject

                        set emailLink to "message://%3C" & messageID & "%3E"

                        set reminderNotes to "Link to the email: " & emailLink

                        

                        -- Create reminder in default list

                        tell list "Reminders" -- Change "Reminders" to your desired list name

                            make new reminder with properties {name:reminderText, body:reminderNotes}

                        end tell

                        

                    on error errMsg

                        log "Error processing message: " & errMsg

                    end try

                end repeat

            end tell

        on error errMsg

            log "Script execution error: " & errMsg

        end try

        log "Script finished execution"

    end perform mail action with messages

end using terms from

You need to change the "list" (see "tell list") you want the reminder to go into.

This will take an email, mark it as read, change the background color of the email to blue, create the reminder, and then exit.

You can't put the "message://" link in the URL field directly with AppleScript, as there is no method within the AppleScript reminders dictionary to access "URL". Shortcuts.app can, but AppleScript can't. (I know, right?)

But I have a Shortcut that I execute from the end of this AppleScript that moves it for me. You can execute the shortcut from the AppleScript by putting this after the last "end tell”.

            do shell script "shortcuts run \"URL Mover for Reminders message\""

            log "Shortcut executed successfully"

There's the shortcut. It'll handle both "message://" and "<message:" links (the latter created by OmniFocus if you moved from OmniFocus to Reminders).

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Apple's AI Challenges in the EU: A Casual Take

So, Apple has stated that it is uncertain if it is bringing some of its AI features to the EU -- there’s a lot to unpack here. They say they're unsure if their AI can meet the EU's strict regulations. Considering how tightly Apple's ecosystem is knit together, it's a valid concern.

Apple has had to make some significant changes to comply with EU rules—allowing other browsers, mail clients, and even alternative app stores on their devices. But it's interesting that the EU hasn't touched Apple's Weather app or other basic utilities. This shows the focus is more on certain competition and user choice where other companies have complained (Spotify, Epic Games)​. (Engadget)​​ (MacRumors)​.

During WWDC, Apple said they want to let other AI and machine learning models onto their devices. There are several presentations about this subject that happened during WWDC, and you can watch the videos on line.  They even rolled out a dev kit for it. This means not just Apple's AI but also others can run on iPhones and iPads. Still, whether this will satisfy EU regulations is a big question mark. The EU's rules are pretty strict, especially regarding privacy and security, and Apple's AI is deeply woven into their hardware and cloud services​ (Engadget)​.

Some EU regulators have accused Apple of "malicious compliance," suggesting they're not allowing AI in the EU to dodge competition rules. I think the real issue is that Apple’s AI is so intertwined with their hardware that meeting the EU's requirements is a tough nut to crack​ (MacRumors)​.

Apple's ongoing struggle with EU regulations highlights the tension between their integrated tech approach and the need for more openness and competition in the market. The future of AI on Apple devices in the EU is still up in the air​ (Gadgets 360)​.

Bottom line -- I don't think Apple is saying "we may not roll out AI in the EU" to be mean, I think they are saying it from a legitimate point of view.  Apple doesn't know if they are going to be allowed to.

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Grabbing a domain name out of a URL using Shortcuts

Recently I needed the ability to grab a domain name (specifically the hostname) out of a URL using Shortcuts.  

I wanted to integrate this functionality into a much larger shortcut, but this blog post will highlight just the domain parsing bit.

This will get you the whole domain name from any given URL from the share sheet.  That being said, I wanted to take it a step further and get just the hostname out of the domain name:

Assuming that there is more than two parts to the domain name, this works.  But if you have and "A" type of url "blah.com" instead of a "CNAME" type like: "www.blah.com", you're going to get "com" as a result.  So your milage may vary.

I couldn't find a good way to do this on the Internet, despite several attempts for people to try and figure it out using regex.  You can then go on to store the result as a variable and then use the variable anywhere else in the rest of the Shortcut.  

Anyway, here's a way to do it.  Hopefully this blog post helps someone trying to figure out the same issue.  It's a little hacky, but knock yourself out.

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Sort emails by year, using AppleScript

So, way back when I was using Thunderbird, I had this awesome plugin that organized my archived emails by year. It was super handy for finding stuff or just taking a trip down memory lane.

But when I switched to Mail.app, I couldn't find a similar plugin that I liked. Plus, even if one existed, I'd have to install it on every new Mac I got. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and whip up some AppleScript magic.

In the code, you can pick a folder (sourceFolder) - in my case, it's "Recovered". You also need to specify your account name, like "iCloud" in my code. If your account goes by a different name, like "Exchange" or "Gmail", just tweak that part.

Then there's this variable called "yearsMailbox" at the top of the code, (in my case "Years") which is basically the folder where the emails will end up based on their years. You can rename it if you're feeling fancy.

You can probably make this more efficient by having it map the year folders one time instead of checking every time it wants to move a message, but I feel you're just playing "AppleScript golf" at that point.  This works.  It works great.  Moving on.

tell application "Mail"

-- Specify the parent mailbox where the year folders are located

set yearsMailbox to mailbox "Years" of account "iCloud" -- Adjust if the path is different

-- List of sub-mailboxes under 'Years', each named with a four-digit year

set yearFolders to every mailbox of yearsMailbox

-- Specify the source folder where emails are currently located

set sourceFolder to mailbox "Recovered" -- Replace "SourceFolder" with the name of your folder

repeat with eachMessage in (get messages of sourceFolder)

set messageDate to date received of eachMessage

set messageYear to year of messageDate as string

-- Check if a folder for the year exists and move the message

repeat with eachYearFolder in yearFolders

if name of eachYearFolder is messageYear then

move eachMessage to eachYearFolder

exit repeat

end if

end repeat

end repeat

end tell

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A shortcut to make a PDF out of a webpage and save it to Notes.app

While on MacOS (and iOS) you can use the Share Sheet from Safari to share a webpage to Notes, it only shares the title, URL, and the favicon to save to a new Note.

I wanted a PDF of the entire page, so I wrote a shortcut to do it.

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/fc9fd9fc28b24f2f8fd56c0b6492a205

Here's a link to it, but also, here's a screenshot, since I know the shortcut links can be somewhat unreliable.

It grabs the input from the share sheet, gets the content of the page, and it saves the contents of the page as a variable called "Title".  Then it creates a PDF from the shortcut input.  It also grabs the URL from the shortcut input

Then I use the output of the variable "Title" in the Text block to grab the Name of the page:

Then it creates a Note with the title of the Note as the "Name" from the Title variable in a folder in my notes called "Scans", appends the URL from the "Get URLs" block and saves that in the Note, then appends the PDF to it.

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Feature I found in iOS8 that I like

Just popped up on my iPhone. 

Because having small monitors is silly

My home desk with a 30in monitor, and a 24 in monitor. Anything smaller than 24 is just child's play.

My iPhone did something useful today, and I didn't even ask it to

Happened to swipe down from the top this morning (Notifications screen) and I noticed that my iPhone told me that it would take about 34 minutes to get to Newark from where I was. 

Now, I've noticed this before, always when I was on the way to work or something where I had an appointment on my calendar with an address in it, my iPhone would estimate the time it would take for me to get there.  But today, I had nothing on my calendar, so how did it know where to estimate my time to?  So I thought about it. 

 Then I realized it was the "Frequent Locations" setting under privacy. I left this on when I upgraded to ios7, because I wanted to see, if anything, what useful functions came out of it. 

I went into there today and I noticed for the past several weekends my family went north to go to the mall, shopping, or something else near Newark, DE.  So the iPhone remembered that and said "okay, well, today is Saturday, so I am betting you are going to go to the mall today." And it gave me arrival time to that location. 

I think it's handy, borderline creepy, but helpful. 

So, I went to a different mall today, in a different direction. Just to screw with my phone. 

Mountain Lion: How to get the most out of iMessage

So, now that Mountain Lion has been released for everyone I thought I'd write a quick blog post on how to get the most out of iMessages (now called Messages) on your iOS device and your Desktop.

If you are an Apple Ecosystem person (iOS + OSX) you'll love it.  Messages is the replacement for iChat and it allows you to have the same conversation with anyone that is in the iOS ecosystem across all your devices all at the same time.

So here's how to get the most out of it.

Open Messages, the icon looks like the above picture.  In your preferences, you need to set up your iMessages account.  I use my iCloud account, (me.com), but you can use any email address I believe.  So, add your iMessages account.  Enter all your email addresses there on the bottom, it may ask you to verify them (at which point Apple will send you an email through the account that you entered to ensure you actually own that account):

The next setting to pay attention to is the "Caller ID".  Pay particular attention here because you are going to want to set that to be the same as your iOS device.  This is the awesome part where everything becomes one.

Then you should be good to go on the desktop.

Now let's setup iOS to be exactly the same.  So go into your Settings in iOS, and go to Messages.  It should look something like this:

Tap on that with your finger.  Take a look at the settings and set those up how you want them.

But you'll see a section that says something to the effect of "Send & Receive":

Note: I am using the developers preview of iOS 6 to take these screenshots, so your screen will look different.

Go in there and add all the same email addresses that you added on your Desktop.  Also, on the bottom, you will see "Caller ID".  Set the Caller ID to be the same as what you put on your Desktop.  On your iOS devices, I'd suggest NOT setting it as your phone number.  I set mine as my iCloud email address, as that address has my phone name right in it and it's pretty obvious to the recipient who is sending a message.

Repeat this process if you have multiple OSX Desktop machines (laptops), iPads, iPhones, whatever.

After this process is complete, whenever you have a conversation through iMessage, it'll be the same on all your devices.  Desktop, iPad, iPhone whatever.  When people answer you back, it'll go to all your devices.

This allows you to start a conversation on your Desktop, pick up your iPad, go to a meeting, have the same conversation going on seamlessly, no syncing with anything, and keep going in the same conversation.  Have to leave the meeting to go somewhere?  Pick up your iPhone, because the conversation will be exactly the same.

If everyone in the ecosystem did this, it would be a seamless network of interaction between everyone.  I love it.  I hope that Apple will streamline this setup process a little bit, (like unifying the phone number and email address, and allowing the setup of the accounts in one place, and those settings pushed through iCloud to all devices, so that everything is the same)

One more thing.

Open up Facetime.  Open up your preferences in Facetime, and set everything up the same way.  That way, your Facetime is also ubiquitous everywhere.  

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Yield Thought, this guy swapped his MacBook for an iPad+Linode

Yield Thought, I swapped my MacBook for an iPad+Linode:

This guy is nuts. I could never do this. Even though 99% of my work is done via screen @ work as well.

Interesting though.

(whoops)

MacOSX Flashback Trojan is covered by ClamAV

So called because it looks like an Adobe Flash Installer. There seems to be a ton of news around this Trojan on various Mac-related websites. http://www.tuaw.com/2011/10/19/trojan-variation-disables-mac-malware-protection/ for instance.

We wrote protection for this in ClamAV about 5 days ago.  I know a lot of Mac users run ClamAV, so I just thought I'd throw this out there.

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Android isn't free, unless you are the end user.

Android isn't free.

Apparently Google has found that out that a free OS isn't free.  It's going to cost you legal fees.  Being sued by everyone under the sun, Google has found itself in a sticky predicament, and has to defend itself with patents.  However, Apple still holds the patent on multitouch, so we'll have to see how that all works out.

So they bought Motorola Mobility.  yes. That division of Motorola that almost shut down and is nearly bankrupt -- and they paid 12.5B for it.  Srsly.

Even Balmer says Android isn't free.  Awhile ago.  http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/05/21/steve-ballmers-claim-android-isnt-really-free/

Unless you are the end user, when you can download and compile Android "for free" for use on your phone.

Should be interesting.

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Apple's "known bad" Xprotect file is now automatically updated

Very technical term I used there in the subject.. I know.

Apple just released Security Update 2011-003, in which they check for the MacDefender Malware, which I wrote about here.  But the most interesting part of the update is this paragraph:

File Quarantine
Available for:  Mac OS X v10.6.7, Mac OS X Server v10.6.7
Impact:  Automatically update the known malware definitions
Description:  The system will check daily for updates to the File
Quarantine malware definition list. An opt-out capability is provided
via the "Automatically update safe downloads list" checkbox in Security Preferences. Additional information is available in this.
Knowledge Base article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4651

Where apparently, Apple has built in an automatic updater to their anti-malware file, in it's most basic form, giving Apple the ability to directly protect their OS against the newest Malware.

If you don't know what I am talking about when I say "anti-malware file"  I suggest you read this post as well.

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Locking your screen on OSX

Friend of mine tipped me to this (thanks @englishlfc).  People have asked me in the past about this, basically, how to lock your screen (Start your screen saver) using a keyboard shortcut on OSX.

On Windows you can mash Windows-L and it will lock your screen.  Or Ctrl-alt-del, enter.  (God it pains me to watch people hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and then MOUSE to "Lock Screen"... GRR!!)

My solution in OSX has always been to set my bottom left corner of my screen to "activate screen saver".  Then I could just move my mouse to that corner, and viola, locked screen.

But @englishlfc was looking to the same thing with the keyboard, and there are a ton of ways of doing it in Applescript, but it's even easier with Automator.

So, go open Automator, and select new "Workflow".

You'll get a blank screen that looks like this:

Select "Utilities on the left, and then find "Start Screen Saver" in the next column:

Drag "Start Screen Saver" over to the right:

That's it.  Save it as an "Application" in Documents or Applications.

Then go to System Preferences and set up a Keyboard Shortcut to activate that App:

Simple.

I did it a bit differently.  I used Alfred's new "Global Keyboard Shortcut" functionality to activate the app.

Done.

Maybe this'll help someone.

Want to know how to do this in Applescript?

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Mac OS X Lion iChat supports Yahoo Messenger video and voice chat

As the title of the article title states, Apple's OSX iChat client on OSX 7 Lion supports Yahoo Instant Messenger adding to support for AIM, GChat, and standard Jabber.

This is a welcome addition and stands to keep chipping away at the other major Instant Messenger clients, but, why is there two separate video chat clients for the Mac? (Facetime, iChat)

It would seem to me that it would make more sense to combine these two.

• Facetime traverses NAT (etc) better than iChat


• Facetime uses less bandwith


• Facetime is now "HD" (as Apple calls it), leaving the "quality" issue behind (iChat's resolution was better than Facetime, as Facetime is faster on the network)


• However, iChat does support up to 3 video calls at once (and like, 10 audio)

Anyway, I hope they fix this before OSX 7 is released finally.  I'd love to have one app that covered both IM and Mobile Video Chat.

Appleinsider has a great breakdown featuring some nice videos of OSX7 on their site here and here.  Check it out if you are an Apple user like me.

Other notable features of OSX7 I think:

• No Front Row


• Java runtime is not installed by default, it's a download now.


• Rosetta support (so support for running PowerPC apps on Intel machines) is gone.  Meaning that Apps should be smaller in size.


• Migration Assistant now supports helping Windows users move over to the Mac (smart)


• OSX Lion was given to a few researchers for review, so they can beat it up.  Very nice work.  I hope Apple rewards the researchers in some way.

H.264 is being dropped from Chrome

Chromium Blog: HTML Video Codec Support in Chrome.

Key sentence from above article:

"Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies."

Key comment from Slashdot on above article:

"This serves two strategic purposes for Google. First, it advances a codec that’s de facto controlled by Google at the expense of a codec that is a legitimate open standard controlled by a multi-vendor governance process managed by reputable international standards bodies. (“Open source” != “open standard”.) And second, it will slow the transition to HTML5 and away from Flash by creating more confusion about which codec to use for HTML5 video, which benefits Google by hurting Apple (since Apple doesn’t want to support Flash), but also sucks for users."

Google, just when I started to like you again.  I turned away from you for about a year and a half because you pissed me off with the Buzz thing.  Now you go and do this.

One step forward, two steps back.

iPhone 4 goes to Verizon too.

Finally, after long last, the iPhone is coming to Verizon.

I probably could go on Ad nausem about the new iPhone, but I'll just cover the bullet points

• The antenna is redesigned, and as a result the buttons are moved slightly down on the left, so some cases may not fit.


• CDMA, not LTE.  Which means you can't talk and surf at the same time. (Feature that I use a lot)


• You can use the iPhone as a wifi hotspot (so like a mifi) for up to 5 devices.  Nice.


• Coming February 10th for GA.  Advanced ordering for Verizon Customers on Feb 3.


• Otherwise, it's the iPhone 4.

This will be nice.

Macworlds 2010 App Gems Awards

Macworlds 2010 App Gems Awards | Mobile | Macworld.

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Macworld’s list of the best iOS apps from 2010.  Some really nice stuff here, good to see that I have most of them and use them quite often.

If you are an iOS user, check it out.