Links of Note 2015-12-05

Very interesting take on the iPad Pro.
Can the MacBook Pro Replace Your iPad? — Fraser Speirs

Revive Save As… and delegate Duplicate to the Option key
Put Save As Back on the File Menu

Might become a very good resource for LaTeX.
LaTeX Boilerplates · Plain-text Document Production System

Comprehensive coverage.
The Ultimate Guide to Personal Productivity Methods - Todoist Blog

macosxguru

Blogging with blot.im

A couple of months ago, it occurred to me that I needed a better home for iPadpedia.net than Tumblr.

I didn't know what I meant by "better home." I struggled with that for a while, finally I came up with a list of features which would make me happy. There were:

1. Write in Markdown.
2. Less friction. I wanted it to be as easy as possible to write something and publish. I wanted to increase the frequency of my postings and wanted to thus reduce the friction in the process.
3. Customizable themes. I wanted my blog to look a certain way, and wanted to be able to achieve that easily.
4. My domain. I wanted to be able to use ipadpedia.net. The absence of this feature would be a deal-breaker for me.
5. I wanted the creation of a RSS feed to be automatic.
6. I wanted it to be possible to monetize the site with sponsorships.

That is about all I had. A whole slew of competitors in the marketspace could help me do all of this. They varied in price. They varied in complexity. They varied in their support of third party clients to post to the blog. It was quite a plethora of choices which meant that there was the associated anxiety of making decisions. I liked squarespace.com, but didn't like the absence of a third party API. I looked at ghost.org. They did what I wanted. In most cases, they did a lot more than I wanted and the added complexity was somewhat off-putting and scary. I tried medium.com, didn't like their licensing details. I thought the better idea was to control my content and cross-post to medium.com. Be a part of the social network in medium but control my own content.

In the process of this search, I ran into blot.im. The basic premise of blot.im instantly spoke to me:
"Blot creates a folder in your Dropbox and publishes files you put inside."

That got my attention. "I can do that," I thought.

The price was very reasonable. $20 a year.

I was in. I paid up and moved ipadpedia.net to blot.im.

It is fantastic so far. An easy way to blog. The Blot folder in Dropbox has my site contents, in markdown files. The folder has two sub-folders: Drafts and Public. I can put files into the Drafts folder and check out how they look, I can make final edits to them and then move them over to the parent folder and they are posted to the blog. The Public folder can contain attachments and images which get posted to the blog.

I have a basic choice of themes, which I can customize to my needs. Chris helped me with the themes. Chris also pointed out that the customization of the themes is done entirely in CSS. There are competitors who provide an easy interface for customization with zero CSS knowledge, blot.im does not. Chris knows CSS, so I was set. I am happy with the way it looks. It is mobile optimized too.

Advantages of blot.im:

1. Moved over the domain, ipadpedia.net without any hiccups.
2. Customizable look.
3. Easy dropbox integration.
4. Abiity to preview posts from the draft folder.
5. The act of posting couldn't be easier. Move a markdown file to the Blot folder in Dropbox and that is it.
6. Write in markdown. Post.
7. Schedule posts.
8. Use any editor you want. I use a Sublime Text 3 project to handle the markdown files. It has two folders: Blot and Blot Drafts. I write and brainstorm in the Blot drafts folder. When a post is ready to be posted, I move it to the Drafts folder in Blot. Preview it in Safari. If everything is ready, I move that file over to the parent folder, Blot. Done.
9. Supports tags.
10. Supports tables. I am liking creating tables in Typora, and they render great in blot.im.
11. Excellent support. I ran into a couple of bugs. The developer fixed them quickly and kept me informed of the progress. And the bugs got fixed.
12. Supports Google Analytics, Disqus comments.

I am sure that there are a lot more capable blogging solutions in the marketplace. For my needs, blot.im has been perfect, and I noticed that I am posting a lot more.

I recommend it heartily.

macosxguru at the gmail thingie

Links of Note 2015-11-28

Interesting research. Surreal experience.
Bob Dylan Plays a Private Concert for One Fan | Kirkville

Terminal voodoo to speed up your Mac.
How to speed up your Mac in El Capitan? | defaults-write.com

Disk Utility

Adding Keyboard Commands to Disk Utility

The Disk Utility app has been redone in El Capitan. It now has the ability to fix a hard drive even when it is the boot volume. It has also lost the repair permissions function. I am assuming that Apple thinks that it is not necessary anymore. Worryingly it has also been redesigned without keyboard commands. We need to fix that.

No Keyboard Commands for you

I am going to show you how to add keyboard commands for three menu items: Mount, Unmount, and Eject. Mount and Unmount are a toggle. When a disk is unmounted, the Mount function is active. When it is mounted, the Unmount function is active. Eject works well with disk images.

Launch System Preferences. Go to the Keyboard preference pane. Choose App Shortcuts from the left menu. Now click on the plus sign.

Click on plus sign

You are going to get a popup sheet from the top of the window. The Application pop up menu should have Disk Utility listed, choose it. If it doesn't go to the bottom of the list and choose Other…. It will give you a Finder window. Go to the Utilities folder in the Applications folder. You will find Disk Utility there. Select it. Type in the menu item name that you want to add a keyboard command to: In this case, it is Unmount. Add the keyboard command, ⇧ + ⌘ + U. Click on Add and you are done.

Unmount it

Now add another, Mount, follow the same procedure. This time Add Mount to the Menu Title and the keyboard shortcut ⇧ + ⌘ + M.

Mount it

The last one. Same routine. Add Eject to the Menu Title and the keyboard shortcut ⇧ + ⌘ + E.

Eject It

This is how the shortcuts menu looks when you are done.

Disk Utility Redone

We can now add keyboard commands in this way to any menu items which don't have them. You can see the keyboard commands I have added to the Finder in the screenshot above. I leave it as an exercise for you to add those on your own.

Note: Sometimes menu items have the ellipsis following them. You type an ellipsis on the Mac by typing ⌥ + ;, like this…

macosxguru at the gmail thingie

Links of Note 2015-11-22

Less mousing. More keyboard shortcuts.
Smarter keyboard shortcuts for Finder - BrettTerpstra.com

Another person who shares my distaste for Word.
Scrivener vs Word | Briar Kit Esme