How to import voice memos into Things

I usually write new ideas into the Things app on my iPhone straight away, but sometimes it’s better to just dictate into the Voice Memo app instead of typing. Here’s how you automatically add those voice memos to the Things inbox:

1. Add the folder /Users/<your username>/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Voice Memos to Hazel.
2. Enter these settings:
   

   Here is the script:

   1. tell application "Things"
   2.    set props to {name:"Voice memo"}
   3.    set newToDo to make new to do with properties props
   4.    set notes of newToDo to "[filepath=" & POSIX path of theFile & "]TITLE[/filepath]"
   5.  
   6. end tell

Now, every time you make a voice memo on the iPhone and connect it to your computer a note titled “voice memo” with a link to the sound file will be added to the inbox in Things.

If you don’t have Hazel you can achieve the same thing by setting up a folder action on the voice memos folder. But you will have to modify the script.

Dictating on a Mac with Dragon NaturallySpeaking

As I have mentioned before I’m not a big fan of MacSpeech Dictate. So I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking in Windows XP running under Parallels Desktop 4 when I need to dictate something. It’s working very well, but it is of course very tedious to have to copy and paste everything I dictate from Windows back into my Mac applications. Luckily Tim Harper has made tightvnc-dns, a Windows application that reroutes the generated keystrokes from Dragon NaturallySpeaking back to the Mac side. You can’t use Dragon to edit the text you dictate this way, but for shorter pieces of text it is very practical. Read the rest of this entry »

Measuring pixels in OS X

I know there are standalone applications for this, but when I need to measure something in one of my applications I find it easiest to just use the screenshot functionality built into OS X. Just press Command-Control-Shift-4 and drag to measure.