Miscelaneous Mac OS X Tools

AquaCDBurnDeluxe | blog | e-mail | unix-on-mac

This is a page of various applications, unix executables, scripts, and other such quasi-hacks which I have constructed to take advantage of the wide array of automating features available in OS X. We will begin with a full blown application, which can burn data and audio CDs and extract audio from damaged discs:

AquaCDBurn Deluxe Version 0.2 (July 27, 2005)

AquaCDBurn Deluxe Version 0.1 (June 11, 2005)

An earlier incarnation of the application, called AquaCDBurn, which is buggy and has poor audio burning capabilities, is available here, along with a mini-app, Erase, which calls forth the cocoa erase panel:

AquaCDBurn Version 0.6.5

Erase.app Version 0.5

Below are two applescripts that I constructed to convert audio files to Apple Lossless or aac format in iTunes from the desktop using OnMyCommand contextual menu application:

TO-ALAC (July 27, 2005)

TO-AAC (July 27, 2005)

Here we have a series of command-line executables, some of which I have compiled myself, for doing various tasks, everything from burning CDs to putting the computer to sleep:

cdrtools [For burning data and audio to CDs and extracting audio.]

SleepNow [Command-line program for putting computer to sleep.]

alac [Command-line program for converting Apple Lossless to wave.]

mac [Command-line program for converting wave files to monkey audio.]

apeplay [Command-line program for play monkey audio files.]

spacer [Quick-and-dirty utility for removing spaces from file names.]

email [Command-line smpt program for sending email messages.]

And finally, a few useful unix scripts:

ipfinder [Finds wan address from Linksys router and mails it using email executable.]

trash [Moves specified files to OS X trash. Useful replacement for rm.]

threat [Downloads and displays threat level from U.S. government.]

weather [Downloads and displays weather information. Set for Eureka, CA.]

qt-segments [Divides a dv file into 5 minute segments using qt_tools. Not available yet.]