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Import your OS X address book contacts into Gmail

Have you ever wondered how to do this, well…look no further as I’ll show you.  It’s simple really.  All you have to do is download AddressBook2CSV Exporter from Antonio Lore‘s website.

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After installing it, simply do the export, and then import into Gmail, which basically needs a CSV file; however, be forewarned…if some fields are empty, it may not look pretty after the import.  It’s easily fixable though.

“Till the next.

Delete unused SMTP servers in OS X

I had numerous unused SMTP servers in my  Apple Mail list, so I decided to tidy up and found the following steps do it (yeah!):

  1. Access the Finder menu and navigate to Go to Folder and type /Library/Scripts/Mail Scripts/.
  2. Look for Manage SMTP Servers.scpt and open it.  (This should open the Script Editor.)
  3. Hit the Run button, then select the (SMTP) servers you want removed.
  4. Hit OK and a message stating the deletion was successful should pop up.

That’s it, now when you go back to Apple Mail you’ll see a nice, pruned list.  BTW, you will only be able to delete SMTP servers that are NOT in use by any of your mail accounts.

Read a file with bash

I had to test our download servers at work right away, i.e., HTTP vs HTTPS, which required downloading a large number of files.  A file list was given to me to work with, like so:

/download/integrations/file1.exe
/download/us/update/patch/file1.exe
/download/us/cab/file1.exe

So I decided to use the bash shell to read each line and run wget quick and dirty.  Here’s the script:

cat c:\\test.txt | while read line; do wget “URL/${line}”; done

While running it I just used the Windows clock to get an approximate time difference.

That’s it!  Hope this helps. 

TED: Ideas worth spreading

You should check out TED.  It’s a website that allows users to watch conference talks from the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers.  In fact, I just watched an interesting video Google founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, gave: tidbits on how Google runs and innovates.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 100 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.

Our mission: Spreading ideas.

BumpTop desktop

I’m not sure if you’ve seen this or heard about it, but this is quite impressive: Interact by pushing, pulling and piling documents…on your computer’s desktop interface. Wow! I’m still digesting (read: thinking/analyzing) how this will affect the computer world. So, just check out the website and video.

image BumpTop is a fresh and engaging new way to interact with your computer desktop. You can pile and toss documents like on a real desk. Break free from the rigid and mechanical style of standard point-and-click desktops. Interact by pushing, pulling and piling documents with elegant, self revealing gestures. BumpTop’s stunning interface makes clever use of 3D presentation and smooth physics-based animations for an engaging, vivid user experience.

Take it easy.