Jerry Stratton's Blog, page 43

Commemorate Patriot Day with Betsy Ross

The Declaration of Independence overlaid on the Betsy Ross flag.

The Eudora™ Email Client Source Code linked on Astounding Computer History

“Eventually many email clients were written for personal computers, but few became as successful as Eudora. Available both for the IBM PC and the Apple Macintosh, in its heyday Eudora had tens of millions of happy users. Eudora was elegant, fast, feature-rich, and could cope with mail repositories containing hundreds of thousands of messages. In my opinion it was the finest email client ever written, and it has yet to be surpassed.”

To say that Eudora has yet to be surpassed ignores simplicity as a feature. This is a common mistake that many technologists make. Simplicity is very difficult to create and very difficult to maintain. It’s one of the defining features of the Apple ecosystem that makes it so successful. And Apple’s Mail app is a lot easier to use than Eudora.

That said, I do still miss Eudora’s timed email feature, the ability to schedule an email to go out later. Which is why I added that feature as a Swift script for the Mail app that comes with macOS. I’ve included that script in 42 Astoundingly Useful Scripts and Automations for the Macintosh. It’s the third-largest script in the book, and equally as useful. At this very moment I have an email scheduled to go out in four hours; I may need to modify the email before it goes out but it is essential that the email go out, even as is, before deadline.

What the f*** is wrong with Americans?

Do you disagree with the left? Then there’s something the f*** wrong with you.

How to Become a Computer Programmer, According to People Who Did It linked on About Astounding Scripts

“Programmers need life experience, an appreciation for design, and patience working with other humans. Computer Science degrees prepare you for the abstract, the ideal, in other words, things that never occur in real life.”

I’m going to have more to say about this from my own perspective later, but this UpJourney article on how to be a programmer has good advice, as well as a great quote. It’s useful information even if you don’t want to be a programmer full-time, but merely a weekend programmer.

A computer programmer is not defined by what ‘they know’ but by what they build. — Bryan Osima (How to Become a Computer Programmer, According to People Who Did It)

Not quite quotable, but still good advice, is Reinder de Vries’s bit on mistakes leading to insights. If you can remember to see mistakes as an opportunity to ask “why?” you are on the road to mastering life. “Why didn’t it work the way I expected it to?” is a good question for any mistake, not just mistakes in programming.

It turns programming into a worthwhile life skill, like any other art.

Amazing Grace (Common Melody)

Amazing Grace, by John Newton, with melody by Edwin O. Excell, 1900. This is the commonly-known melody for Amazing Grace.

Inkscape linked on Astoundingly scriptable apps

“Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor. Supported features include shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, patterns, and grouping. Inkscape also supports Creative Commons meta-data, node editing, layers, complex path operations, bitmap tracing, text-on-path, flowed text, direct XML editing, and more. It imports formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and others and exports PNG as well as multiple vector-based formats.”

Another astoundingly useful app on the Macintosh is Inkscape. Inkscape relies on X Windows, so you’ll need XQuartz to run it on your Mac. But once you have it you have a full-featured drawing app that is scriptable using Python.

You can edit the colors on a piece of your drawing and even duplicate pieces of your drawing.

You can target any piece of your drawing in a script by giving it a unique name. With that unique name, you can reference it in one line.

Because Inkscape is based on XML, you can manipulate your drawings pretty much in any way you’d like, and turn those manipulations into a script to use on other drawings.

Dominion Electric Corporation Wafflemaker Manual

Dominion Electric Corporation waffle irons are ubiquitous on eBay and in antique shops, but the manuals for them are not. Here’s one that came with the Model 1315A.

Scribus linked on Astoundingly scriptable apps

Scribus is a very nice open source page layout application and includes full PDF creation. It is also scriptable using Python if you need to automate page layout tasks. Scribus is very useful for making documents that need to be shared with other editors, since anyone can get the Scribus application unrestricted.

Scribus is not the easiest page layout software in the world, but it does allow for very easy scripting, using Python. For example, {% cross page save-all-scribus-pages-as "a script to save all Scribus pages as EPS files”. The same logic could be used to save them as PDF files, or to save each layer as a PDF file.

I use the latter to print pre-generated characters for the North Texas RPG Convention; each character is in a layer, and the script traverses through each layer, hiding the previous ones and saving the current one as a PDF. Whenever I make a change, I don’t have to reprint nine characters; I run the script and it reprints them.

I used Scribus to create the wraparound cover for 42 Astoundingly Useful Scripts and Automations for the Macintosh. It is both free and useful.

42 Astoundingly Useful Scripts and Automations for the Macintosh linked on About Astounding Scripts

I find Goodreads very useful for keeping track of what I thought about the books I’ve read. In fact, one of the scripts that I cut from 42 Astoundingly Useful Scripts was one for searching my Goodreads backup. I download the backup once a week, and so have it available for off-line searching; this also allows for more specific searches that the Goodreads website doesn’t allow for.

Here’s an older version of that script.

I cut it because, while that is an older version, I had already covered it, and in addition it would have been the longest script in the book. Part of the point of these scripts is that they can be typed in without too much work (and in fact, it should be a lot easier to type them in accurately than it was to type in the BASIC programs from the BASIC books that inspired me).

That said, I may change my mind in a future sequel. Using Pythonista on the iPhone and iPad, that script is especially useful because I have access to my reviews quickly while on the road.

The media’s Trump hatred causes mass murder

The media’s desperate need to link Trump to all crimes may be encouraging mass murder.