PHP

Every now and then I find myself needing to automate some web requests, either to download using something a little more robust than a web browser, scrape some web content, or to maintain a session. That automation can be a bit of a pain if there’s a form submission involved, because it means opening up the page source, finding the form and any connected javascript code, and figuring out what fields are submitted.

A little utility I just put together does that for you: Post Grabber detects POST data and generates an equivalent “curl” command that can be used in shell or Automator scripts.

Post Grabber works with its own internal browser, so it can intercept POST submissions directly. That means it works with HTTPS, unlike the traditional web sniffer approach.

Download the app, or see the source on GitHub.

Seeing that I refuse to be tied down by the shackles of corded peripherals, I use an Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Mouse. Unfortunately we had an issue with our rechargeable batteries this week and I was left without a functioning mouse. Rather than go buy more batteries I decided to try to get by with just my keyboard, which worked out surprisingly well.

The network is a key component of any web application, whether it is used to download JavaScript, CSS, and HTML source files and accompanying resources (images, videos, …) or to reach web services (XMLHttpRequest and <forms>).

Yet having offline support for web applications can be very useful to users. Imagine, for example, a webmail application that allows users to read emails already in their inbox and write new messages even when they are not connected.

The mechanism used to support offline web applications can also be used to improve an application’s performance by storing data in the cache or to make data persistent between user sessions and when reloading and restoring pages.
Demo: a To Do List Manager

To see an offline web application in action, watch Vivien Nicolas’ demo, which shows a to do list manager working online and offline on an N900 running Firefox:

A QuickLook plugin for CSV files

Quick look CSV files for Mac OS X 10.5 and newer. Supports files separated by comma (","), tabs (" ") and pipes ("|").

In order to use this Plugin, go to the Downloads page and download the file QuickLookCSV.dmg; double click that, in there you will find the actual Plugin named QuickLookCSV.qlgenerator.

Place the Plugin into ~/Library/QuickLook/ to install it for yourself only, or into (Macintosh HD)/Library/QuickLook/ to install it for all users of your Mac. If the QuickLook-folder does not exist, simply create it manually.

The plugin will generate Icons for csv (comma separated) and tsv (tab separated) files and show a preview, along with some information (like num rows/columns).
OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

A new version complied in 32 and 64 bit plus supporting Snow Leopard's new "public.comma-separated-values-text" UTI has been included since Version 0.3.1.

I wanted to start with the finding of duplicates. Now you could use a program like fdupes or dupes.py (discussed a few weeks ago). Those aren’t ideal. In the past I’ve used Doug’s Applescripts. He has several useful scripts. One is Remove Dead Tracks which gets those entries where the file is long gone. (I don’t know how that happens – it’s usually stuff I don’t want anyway) His other famous script is Corral iTunes Dupes which I’ve used in the past to find duplicate tracks.

I have only been using LB for about two days now, using its 30 day trial. I think I prefer the UI to QS but it’s not a major thing. The one thing I discovered the hard way is that you really have to open up the index for LB and tweak a lot of the settings before using it. The manual isn’t entirely clear on this point, but for some things you have to manually add items to the index. So for instance you can run any shell command (including custom scripts you may have) but you have to manually add each command to LB.

While most of my scripts I have added to iKey being able to type them is actually surprisingly convenient for the less used ones. (Much as running an application works faster with LB/QS as opposed to opening up a long list of applications)

Many think that LaunchBar is underpowered compared to QS. However I was surprised at how many actions it does support. Thus far I’ve yet to find a QS feature I use that isn’t in LB. There are also some very nice ways of rapidly adding ToDo entries to iCal. I was in the process of writing some scripts to do this. But now I think I’ll just use LB. (Assuming I buy it)