Little Spikey Land - mac

Here's a low-tech/high-tech solution for checking your mail under OS X remotely, using the standard Mail program in OS X:

checkmail script

It's low-tech in that it's just a basic shell-script, but high-tech in that I suspect it will only be useful to people who are happy with the commandline and ssh.

To use it save the script to your mac and make it executable (chmod +x checkmail.sh). Then from another computer you can ssh to your mac and run the script to see if there are any new messages. This is only really useful in a situation where your mac is not too far away. In my case I use it to see if I have new mail, when I am using my laptop downstairs (away from my mac).

Most of the work is done using the osascript command, which communicates with the Mail application. I am sure with a little work the script could be extended to read the titles of the messages and list who they are from too.

Example output:

[iMac:~] john% ./checkmail.sh 
Mon Sep  6 17:51:22 BST 2004
Checking mail
INBOX: 0 unread
JPL: 0 unread
Psion: 0 unread
SB: 0 unread
Outbox: 0 unread

posted at 5:56 PM John

Steve Ballmer with an iPod.

posted at 9:17 PM John

Well today I bought some drawings inks. They are from Winsor & Newton and are the same ones I remember my Mum having when I was a child. They still have the same pictures on, like a spider in a top hat for the black ink:

Anyway, I've done a couple of drawings that came out ok, using the inks. The first one is of another girl and the second a very minimalist version of Florence (my cat) (a pattern seems to be emerging in my drawings). I think the picture of the girl came out quite well, although as usual I chickened out on trying to draw her hands.

Whilst scanning/resizing these pictures on my Mac I thought I'd give OS X a bit of a stress test and watch a DVD in the background too. Photoshop slowed down a bit, but was still usable. The DVD played back perfectly at half-size, with the soundtrack never missing a beat. Seeing as I chose to watch 2001 it was quite good fun listening to "Also Sprach Zaruthra" (sp). If my iMac was a bit faster (G3 400Mhz) I am sure I'd be watching DVDs and working all of the time...

Edited on: Saturday, October 11, 2003 1:39 AM
posted at 1:38 AM John

Well I finally took the plunge and upgraded to MacOS X. I know that Panther (OS X.3) is out in about 2 weeks, but I went for Jaguar (OS X.2) as I didn't want to wait. When it comes down to it Jaguar runs Java 1.4 and that's what I really want.

So far I am impressed with OS X. It's really nice being able to force quit programs that freeze and not take the system with down too. It's also pretty looking ;^). Oh and my favourite little feature is that when you drag an item off of the Dock (to remove it) it then disappears with a little cloud of smoke and an accompanying sound! I think it's the little touches that will make OS X fun.

My only niggle is that Safari (Apples custom built browser) won't do google queries from the main page, but it will from it's built in google search box thing. It's a bit bizarre, as Internet Explorer handles this fine. I suspect it's partly my setup, i.e. connecting through a Windows 98 box. I do also get similar problems with my Linux box, so I am not too worried.

Beyond that my scanner, cd burner and graphics tablet all work fine. The graphics tablet lets me use Inkwell, which is quite good fun, but I'm not sure how useful it will be in "real life". I did have to get a new USB serial adapter, but that was only £20 from Expansys so not bad.

I also got JPL running and it seems to work pretty well. Considering I have been developing it on entirely different operating systems it runs well. At least now I can fix some of those little problems (mainly with GUI elements). Anyway here is a screen shot of it running.

Edited on: Friday, October 10, 2003 7:59 PM
posted at 7:56 PM John

I wrote a little java version of the MacOS program called "Stickies", which lets you leave virtual post-it^TM notes on your screen. It's called Jammies, because Jam is sticky and I couldn't think up a better name. I have it setup so that it starts up when I login. It should remember how it was when you left it (including whether it was minimised or not). It's only a tiny program so Java is probably overkill. Maybe I should write a tiny C version for Linux...

... just uploaded a version which slightly simplifies changing colors and closing notes.

Edited on: Monday, October 06, 2003 12:35 AM
posted at 9:51 PM John