Archive of April 2008

Converting a block of text to an audio file with OSX

For me, remembering a large amount of information is a nightmare. Typically it is in written prose, so doing this isn't so bad.

The other day I discovered how to convert a large amount of text to an audio file easily, faster than real time and on OSX.

The voices in Leopard are infact quite excellent. I feel that this is the first OS which has done it right, not that I have actually tried that many.

This basicaly involves using Automator to get the contents of a text document, convert it to text and save it in a file somewhere.

To do this requires only three steps, that is of course that you exclude opening Automator...

In Automator, choose a "Custom" action from where you are first prompted, then add "Get contents of TextEdit Document" from the "Text" part of the library, then "Text to Audio File" from the same place.

What you will have now is a two stage process which will be listed in the main part of the window. You now need to decide what to call the new file and click "Run".

This will create a .aiff file, which can be quite readily imported into iTunes and iPodded.

What I have found though is that putting full stops/periods where you usually would, such as after "et. al." isn't so well liked. So in this case I would recommend only using full stops/periods at the end of sentences.

For you great enjoyment; heres a sample.

Source: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080427091554310

How come traffic comes to a standstill after an accident?

Supposedly it is human nature to overlook accidents.

The trouble is that it runs everything to a standstill even hours after the accident has taken place.

This morning at about 10am a car collided on the A3 into a large chemical filled lorry. By 7pm this still hadn't cleared.

I'm confused whether it is human nature, plain nooseynes, or inconpitence that caused the problems.

Why Photo Upload Sites Suck

Today I eventually got around to sending off some prints to PhotoBox today.

PhotoBox is an internet based photo printing service. The quality is of the same as high street retailers such as Boots or Jessop's, but the convenience of doing them from home.

The trouble is that the pinacle part of their business. Uploading the photo's themselves are terrible. Firstly they provide a terrible Java Applet, which is broken. Then there is the option of FTPing the files, but although this will allow you to login and upload files, these files seemingly do not show up in your account. Another broken part.

So you are left with a slow and tedious single file uploader, which firstly doesn't show how much is uploaded but doesn't make it exactly easy to upload bulk amounts of files.

For something which accounts for at least 50% of the whole business plan, it really is quite terrible, and that is why photo upload sites suck.

iPod Touch Jailbreaking

Eventually, I got around to doing it.

I had been avoiding it for ages, mostly giving the excuse that I'd play with it far more than I probably should given the time I realistically have. I was right. I did.

I Jailbreaked using ZiPhone with brilliant results. It took seconds to do and I was up and running with my own apps very soon after.

The only issue to this point that I had seen was that OSX wasn't so nice (as in responsive) until I had physically rebooted my iPod. This wasn't a problem though, as after this all was fine.

After playing around with Installer.app (which is installed with the jailbreak) I installed quite a mass of software. Most of which is music/game related, here is my current roll of apps:

1. Drummer
2. Pianist
3. Guitarist
4. Contrasense (a car game using the Accelerometer)
5. Terminal (obvious, surely?)
6. AcceleroLog (a graphing app which shows what you do with the Accelerometer, quite neat)
7. MobileChat (Apollo doesn't seem to work, and for this I've seen no problems)

I will most probably sort more apps out in the future, although I cannot yet see myself developing my own. What I have seen myself doing is putting the 3rd party apps on a separate Dashboard, apart from Installer, MobileChat and Terminal, all of which have nice looking icons...

I would all round recommend Jailbreaking your iPod if you haven't already. The wealth of apps is quite substantial, and the risk of damaging is non-existant.

NetNewsWire Nuggles

Several times I day I use NetNewsWire. Its what I use to read all the feeds that I am subscribed too. 47 Infact.

What I am finding though is that certain feeds stop working. One of these is "Random Acts of Reality". Which is a blog by an Anonymous London Ambulance crew member. This one in particular seems to stop working after I subscribe the first time.

I'm not sure though whether it is the blog, or NetNewsWire, as it just recently happened with "Small Net Builder".

It really is quite irritating. But separating the line between being the blog's fault or NetNewsWire's is rather hard.