A quick and easy one for Alfred: a command which toggles AirPort on/off.

If you are using Alfred 0.9.9 (or better), you should be able to download this ZIP file and import it!

If you are using an earlier version of Alfred, follow these instructions:

AIRPORT=`networksetup -getairportpower AirPort | grep Off`; if [ "$?" = "0" ]; then networksetup -setairportpower AirPort on; MSG="AirPort enabled"; else networksetup -setairportpower Airport off; MSG="AirPort disabled"; fi; /usr/local/bin/growlnotify -m "$MSG" -a "/Applications/Utilities/Airport Utility.app" AirPort status

Create as a terminal script and configure it to be silent. I also borrowed the icon from AirPort utility for the script (Alfred for “airport” and then use Reveal in Finder on it; Get Info; click Icon and ⌘C; click the icon area in Alfred and ⌘V).

I wrote this little scriptlet to change network location in OS X using Alfred, but you could trigger it using whatever method you wanted.

If you’re using Alfred 0.9.9 or later, you should be able to download this ZIP file and import it!

if you using an earlier version, follow the instructions below:

/usr/sbin/scselect 2>&1 | /usr/bin/grep -i {query} | /usr/bin/cut -c 4-39 | /usr/bin/xargs /usr/sbin/scselect

UPDATE 2011-06-11: I have significantly improved the script to work around a bug caused by the 3Connect profile (3Connect is pants FYI), as well as use growlnotify to tell you if the change worked or not. It also allows substring matches (anchored at the start) so you can use “auto” for “Automatic”. If you have more than one profile that starts with a matching substring, the behaviour is currently undefined.

MSG=`/usr/sbin/scselect 2>&1 | /usr/bin/egrep -i "\({query}" | /usr/bin/cut -c 4- | /usr/bin/cut -f 1 | /usr/bin/head -n 1 | /usr/bin/xargs /usr/sbin/scselect | /usr/bin/sed -E 's/.+ \((.+)\)/Location changed to \1/'`; if [ "$MSG" = "" ]; then /usr/local/bin/growlnotify -a /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Network.prefPane -m "Unable to change location" Error; else /usr/local/bin/growlnotify -a /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Network.prefPane -m "$MSG" Location changed; fi;

If you want it without Growl notifications, use this version:

usr/sbin/scselect 2>&1 | /usr/bin/egrep -i "\({query}" | /usr/bin/cut -c 4- | /usr/bin/cut -f 1 | /usr/bin/head -n 1 | /usr/bin/xargs /usr/sbin/scselect

It’s slightly convoluted as it’s case-insensitive. To use it, create a Terminal/Shell script entry like this:

Now you can just type “location work” or similar into Alfred to change network location. I’ll add Growl-confirmation support when the next version of Alfred is released :)

However, building the Distribution version of the app gave me this warning:

“The CodeResources file must be a symbolic link to _CodeSignature/CodeResources”

which I duly ignored. However, the Application Loader (used to push the new binary to the App Store) also complained about that and wouldn’t upload it.

It looks like Dropbox’s replication may have been to blame for the symlink stopping being a symlink, so the solution is to use the handy new selective sync option in Dropbox and not sync the build/ directory between my machines (which is pretty much pointless anyway and certainly generates a lot of network overhead when you build). Having done that and built a clean copy it worked fine.

http://b.oooom.net/shrink.php?api=1&url=

Means: Can’t reach the HTTP proxy you have configured. Maybe you should turn it off.

1. Install the following packages using the cygwin setup tool:
   • gcc4
   • make
   • openssl (needed for runtime, not for building)
   • openssl-devel
   • zlib-devel
2. Download and extract the tarsnap code.
3. Run ./configure (this seems to be much slower on cygwin than on other more UNIXy platforms)
4. Run make all install clean

Tarsnap should now be installed and you can use it in the normal fashion – create a host key with tarsnap-keygen and then get backing up!

Edit 2009-12-16: checkers from #tarsnap on EFnet has written a post with scripts for Linux and Cygwin tarsnapping at http://www.bluebottle.net.au/blog/2009/tarsnap-backups-on-windows-and-linux

You may also wish at add --prefix=/ to the configure command line, as /usr/local isn’t in the default path.

This method lets you use one keystroke to edit a mail in gvim and when you close gvim, it’s put back into the Outlook compose mail window.

You will need:

• AutoHotkey, a keystroke mapping/scripting application
• My script (below)
• gvim for Windows

Method:

1. Install AutoHotKey
2. Install gvim
3. Install my script into AutoHotKey (it appears at the end of this post). Note that my script has the gvim path hard-coded in and you may well need to change it.
4. Configure your Outlook to use plain text for composing mail.
5. Press Win-V with an Outlook compose window open and when the cursor is in the message pane

Serving suggestion:

• Goes really well with Outlook QuoteFix
• gvim will be opened with the contents of the message window
• Edit your mail in gvim and when done, save and quit
• Your edited message is put back into the Outlook message window.

Additional notes:

• At the moment, this only works with one mail at a time, as the file for the mail is statically named. If you try Win-V in a mail while you have another already opened, Bad Things will Happen.
• You may want to adjust your vimrc file so that it uses the “mail” filetype for editing; I also have a mail.vim file with macros and things in it which I tell it to load for this. I pinched it off the web, I’m sure you can find it. The required vimrc lines are below.
• If the cursor isn’t in the message pane of the Outlook compose window when you press Win-V (or if it moves there before you close the gvim window), things will probably go wrong.
• I’ve tested this with Outlook 2003, gvim 7.2 and AutoHotkey 1.0.47.06.

Here’s the optional vimrc line:

autocmd BufRead */outlook.txt :source $HOME/vimfiles/mail.vim

Here’s the script itself:

#v::
SetTitleMatchMode, 2
IfWinActive, Message (Plain Text)
{
    WinGet, ActiveWindow, ID
    SendInput ^a
    Send ^c

    clipboard = %clipboard%

    FileDelete, %TEMP%\outlook.txt
    FileAppend, %Clipboard%, %TEMP%\outlook.txt

    RunWait, C:\Program Files\vim\vim72a\gvim.exe %TEMP%\outlook.txt

    FileRead, Clipboard, %TEMP%\outlook.txt

    WinActivate, ActiveWindow
    Send ^a^v^{HOME}
}

I tracked this down to it sending Expect: 100-continue in the headers of the request it sent to its server. However, it was going via our web proxy at work, which is Squid. Recently I upgraded Squid to 2.7, and this seems to be the cause of the problems. Squid 2.7 is less forgiving about that particular header (which is apparently an RFC violation on the part of the client).

It’s easily fixed by adding ignore_expect_100 on to your Squid configuration.

tail somefile | ccze -A -o noscroll | grep ...

-A makes ccze output ASCII sequences, and -o noscroll turns off the scroll option – whatever that is exactly. The man page says it’s a good idea to turn it off if you’re redirecting the output. Omitting it seems to make the output appear in lumps :)

For example, keep an eye on squid logs omitting all MSN crap:

tail -F access.log | ccze -A -C -o noscroll | grep -v gateway.dll