Militant Canadians

I got a DVD in the post today from Play (Last Star Fighter - sweeet!) which had come all the way from Canada. I know this because it had a sticker on the side saying "Only for sale in Canada - Security device enclosed!". Needless to say I opened the case with some caution. I had visions of a maple syrup bomb going off in my face, but no, nothing.

I took out the DVD all was fine. Then I noticed an RFID chip. My first reaction was one of mild disdain - how is that going to stop international DVD sales? But, I thought with increasing fear, this RFID could be really strong, beaming out the location of this illicit DVD to a Canadian spy satellite! I await a call from the Mounties, they always get their man....

Applescript to make an iCal event from an email

So after much gnashing of teeth and swearing about Applescript I got my little app to work. I have an Act-on key binding which triggers a script. The script takes the email and dumps it into iCal, for further correction (e.g. setting date/time of the event). If I was feeling brave/stupid I'd get the script to parse out the date, but I really don't want to do that! The script was based on a mail to todo item script I found.

using terms from application "Mail"
on perform mail action with messages selectedMessages
try
set theCalendar to "WorkEvents"
repeat with mail in selectedMessages

set theSummary to the subject of the mail
set theDescription to the content of the mail
set theDate to the date received of the mail

tell application "iCal"
make new event at the end of events of (every calendar whose
title = theCalendar) with properties {summary:theSummary,
description:theDescription, start date:theDate}
end tell
set read status of the mail to true
delete the mail
end repeat
on error errMsg number errorNumber
display dialog ("An error occurred:  " & errorNumber as string)
end try
end perform mail action with messages

end using terms from

The following script does similar work, but creates a todo item instead of a new event. It also doesn't delete the original mail.

using terms from application "Mail"
on perform mail action with messages selectedMessages
 try
  set theCalendar to "WorkEvents"
  --say theCalendar
  repeat with mail in selectedMessages
  
   set theSummary to the subject of the mail
   set theDescription to the content of the mail
  
   tell application "iCal"
    --set theCalendar to choose from list every calendar with
 prompt "Choose name or cancel"
    make new todo at the end of todos of (every calendar whose
 title = theCalendar) with properties {summary:theSummary,
 description:theDescription}
   end tell
   set read status of the mail to true
   --delete the mail
  end repeat
 on error errMsg number errorNumber
  display dialog ("An error occurred:  " & errorNumber as string)
 end try
end perform mail action with messages

end using terms from

iCal appointments from Mail

Some links for making iCal entries from Mail using Act-On

http://kleinware.net/software - Didn't work, or I didn't set it up right.
http://www.cyberhq.nl/2005/12/10/mail-yourself-ical-todos.html - Became the base of my script.
http://www.hawkwings.net/2005/10/04/fuhgeddaboutit-make-a-to-do-from-an-email/ - Didn't work, or I didn't set it up right.

Email woes

So I was watching a video of a talk given by Merlin Mann about "Inbox Zero" and it's got me thinking. I have a lot of email. A LOT.
In fact much of my day is spent dealing with mail. It comes at me from all directions, and can get to be too much. I can't "just check" my mail - it will always trigger some sort of action (writing another mail, usually). I know this annoys Chloe, too, something must be done! So I've decided to put some of Merlin's ideas into action.

First I deleted all the mails from various lists I'm on. They're archived at CERN so if I need to I can trawl them online, but I don't think I ever will. It was quite satisfying deleting over 6000 mails that were of no real direct relevance to me.

Next I created two DMZ regions in my CERN and Bristol mail accounts, and put all the mails in those two inboxes into them. My inbox is now slimline. One day I'll sort through all those mails (or just delete them if I don't go into the DMZ's much in the next month or so).

Third I've taken it on myself to delete any mail that comes my way once the appropriate action has been taken. I've also set the email check time to 30mins instead of 5. I might up that to an hour depending on how things go... If it's urgent people can still get me on IM (though maybe that will change in the future...).

Next is to set up the Mail Act-On rules and see how they go. I'm also going to write a little automator script to take an email and make it an entry in iCal.