Citegeist

How to save a PDF Gmail attachment in Google Docs

// June 2nd, 2009 // 7 Comments » // Web Stuff

I really love the new PDF viewer in Gmail.  It allows me to open a PDF attachment and read it in my browser without having to save it to my computer first.  What I found annoying is that there is no “Save in my Google Docs” button in the viewer, even though the bright little logo exclaims that the online view is brought to me by Google Docs.  Phooey.  Here’s a workaround:

1. Open the email with the desired attachment.
2. Copy the link next to the attachment icon labelled “View.” (files <2MB will work).
3. Over in Google Docs, click Upload.
4. In the “Or enter the URL of a file on the web” box, paste in the link that you copied.
5. Click upload.
6. Google Docs will think for a minute, then tell you that it failed.
7. Reload your Google Docs homepage, and as long as the file wasn’t too large, it will appear there.  MUAH HAH HAH!
8. (Hint: in the Google Docs file list, if your document’s icon is not the PDF icon, and if Google Docs tells you that the document is not available offline, the upload did not work.)

This only seems to work for PDFs that are under 2MB.  Files that are over 2MB will stay stuck at the “We are converting your file for use with Google Docs” page.  This doesn’t work for PPT or PPTX attachments of any size, or for files not supported by Google Docs, such as video or images.  YMMV, certainly.

Mac Magic: a Skulk of Firefoxes

// May 6th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // Macintosh, Web Stuff

I recently started using the gmail interface for my work email.  Since it’s possible by default to run only one instance of Firefox on a Mac at a time, this left me unable to keep an eye on the gmail account that I use for professional development.  Doing this is easy enough in Windows using icons that launch different Firefox profiles, but the Mac solutions I found only taught me to create differing profiles, not how to launch them simultaneously. This post details how to create two or more Firefox profiles AND use them at the same time.  Each profile maintains different bookmarks, extensions and saved tabs.

Step 1: Create your second Firefox profile

In Terminal, type this command to bring up the Firefox Profile Manager:

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin --profilemanager

Firefox Profile Manager

Click the Create Profile… button to do just that.  Be sure to uncheck “Don’t ask at startup.”  This will allow you to use your regular Firefox icon (in your Applications folder) to launch the Profile Manager.

Step 2: Create scripts to launch each profile

Launch the Script Editor and paste this into a new script:

do shell script "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -P profilename &> /dev/null &"

where profilename is the name of the second profile.

Save this as an Application Bundle in your Applications folder, or wherever you like to store applications.  When you save the bundle, be sure to uncheck the “Startup Screen” box, or the script will ask you what to do when you launch it.

Repeat this step to create an Application Bundle for your default profile, using this string:

do shell script "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -P default &> /dev/null &"

Step 3 (optional): Assign an icon to your new application bundle

Like many things Mac, changing the icon of any file is easy and intuitive–once you know how it’s done.

1. Find a file or application with the icon you wish to use and press Cmd+I to open its information pane.
2. Click the icon in the top-left corner of the information pane.  It becomes highlighted.  Press Cmd+C to copy the icon to the clipboard.
3. Find your application bundle and press Cmd+I to open its information pane.
4. Click the icon in the top-left corner of the information pane. It becomes highlighted.  Press Cmd+V to paste the icon.
5. Close both information panes.

non-highllighted icon

highlighted icon

Step 4: put your new Firefox icons on your desktop, in your dock, or your favorite place to launch applications.

Extra credit:  Install Quicksilver and launch your custom Firefox icons from the keyboard.

Other tips:

1. I initially used the bitsy Firefox as the icon picture on both profiles.  This quickly became confusing but was easily remedied.
2. Once any Firefox profile is launched, you will not be able to launch another instance unless you have an Application Bundle that launches a different profile.  Be aware that if you launch plain vanilla Firefox you’ll get warned that Firefox is already running.  This makes the two Application Bundles necessary.

The tangled web I wove: This Lifehacker post on the topic is what set me down this path.  Along the way, I finally ran across a MacRumors thread that gets the scripting syntax right.  Now, if only I’d run across Asa Dotzler’s post on this same topic, I could have spent a few hours on Sunday doing something else, but feeling much less accomplished.

Update on an observed quirk: I added icons to my dock to launch my custom Application Bundles, but they behave weirdly.  When they are launched, their respective dock icons do not have the dot next to them, indicating that they are running.  There are, however, two additional Firefox icons at the bottom (dock is at left).  These icons do have the “I’m running” dot.  Huh.

Parallels Drag and Drop Goodness, or: Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way

// January 3rd, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Macintosh

Drag n Drop
Originally uploaded by cindiann

I was much chagrined to note that the music application on my new phone, the LG Voyager through Verizon wireless, would not run under the Macintosh operating system. All my favorite music has been ripped as mp3s into iTunes; for a while my only recourse seemed to be to install the Verizon app on my home PC and copy music from there.

Then I tried installing just the USB drivers from Verizon in Windows XP that I run on my Mac under the emulation program Parallels Desktop. I can map drives in Parallels; even better, when I have to get to a folder under Mac OS that I haven’t yet mapped, instead of having to stop the virtual machine, add a drive mapping, and restart the virtual machine, I could open the folder in question in Finder and simply drag the files to the appropriate Windows Explorer window.

Ta da! I’m copying my music to my phone now…

PS You don’t need to install the Verizon VCast application OR Windows Media Player 10 to access your Voyager as a USB drive. Plug the phone into your computer via its USB cable, then on the phone, touch menu > Tools & Settings > Tools > USB Mass Storage. When you’re done, click Exit on the phone to eject (the usual Windows method of safely removing hardware doesn’t seem to work, at least for me). Bonus: while your phone is connected to the computer, it’s also charging!

One last tidbit: Before you put the Voyager into USB Mass storage mode, you must enable it as a USB device in Parallels: Devices > USB > LG USB Modem. (when it’s in USB mode, it will be labelled USB MMC Storage). If you turn on USB Mass storage mode and all the phone will do is shut itself off, check this setting.

How to remove the QLOUD plug-in from iTunes

// December 7th, 2007 // 6 Comments » // Macintosh, Web Stuff

I posted this to the My Music application discussion page on Facebook today:

I had to reinstall the My Music app (which I had uninstalled because it never worked right) in order to click on the “Remove the plug-in” link. It took me to a page, not an uninstaller. Here is the text, so that you, too, don’t have to reinstall the app:

Windows Users
1. Quit iTunes. (Or Windows Media Player)
2. Go to Start > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs
3. Then select the Qloud plug-in and click “remove”.

Mac Users
1. Quit iTunes.
2. Go to your home folder.
3. Select the following: Library/iTunes/iTunes Plug-ins/ and delete the folder called “Qloud Plug-in”.

Noah, it would have been nice of you to reply to this thread with these instructions instead of a link to the app, thereby boosting its statistics…

Noah is (presumably) one of the developers. He had made a snarky reply to someone asking how to uninstall the iTunes plugin.

Dude, if you want people to use your softare, 1) make it easy and 2) be nice!

After spending an hour in the ninth circle of Windows configuration and upgrading hell last night, I have very low tolerance for developer hubris. I know how ironic this is, working in a library, where information products can be counterintuitive at best, totally counterproductive at worst. Yeah, working on that.

</rant>

Search your library’s catalog from the Firefox Search Bar

// October 14th, 2007 // 5 Comments » // Libraries, Web Stuff

This. Rocks.

Edward Vielmetti at Ann Arbor District Library sent me a message via Twitter pointing me to a post on his Superpatron blog detailing a Firefox extension that let’s folks search the AADL catalog right from within the Search Bar. Long story short, tonight he blogged about a way to add ANY library catalog (though I love that he calls them “online book finding systems”) to your Search Bar.

I followed the steps below, and my Search Bar now looks like this:

(Notice that I added a search to EKU’s catalog as well as a search for UK’s Encore installation).

Here’s how:
Install this plugin in Firefox (click the Install Now button).
Restart Firefox.
Go to eQuest’s Guided Search page.
Right-click in the top search box and choose “Add to Search Bar…”
Give it a name that makes more sense to you, if you like, then click OK.
Now it’s possible to search eQuest from your Firefox Search Bar, without first going to eQuest’s main page.

You can do the same for UK’s Encore by visiting this link.