Video From iPhone Straight to Apple TV

I was thinking it would be nice to watch a video I’d just recorded with my iPhone on the Apple TV. But it’s kind of a pain to do that. I’d have to run the iPhone upstairs, plug it in, wait for it to sync, add the video to a playlist…

Alternative: I could upload the video to YouTube, but you have to fill out the fields to upload and it seems sometimes my Apple TV loses track of my YouTube account. Or at least loses access.

So I’ve got a Rube Goldberg alternative that makes it really simple from a user perspective - once you’ve done the upfront legwork. Just email the video to yourself, if it’s short enough. Let your Mac automatically grab the video from your email and drop it into iTunes.  My Apple TV seems to immediately sync on its own when new content is added to a Playlist that’s set to sync.

I’m using a pretty straightforward AppleScript and a rule configured in my Mac’s Mail program. Here’s what happens:

• I email the video to myself with the subject atv.
• The email arrives.
• A Mail-based rule sees the subject and kicks off an AppleScript that copies the video file to the Automatically Add to iTunes folder in my iTunes Music folder.
• The video gets added to my iTunes Library.
• The video is added to a Smart Playlist.
• The Apple TV is set to sync with the Smart Playlist.
• The video is synced to my Apple TV.

That looks like a lot of stuff but the Mac will do all the work. There are only a couple things you need to set up:

• Create a Smart Playlist and tell Apple TV to sync with it
• Create a rule in mail and have it run the AppleScript when a matching email comes in.

Then all you do is email yourself the video. If you open Finder and look around in your iTunes Music folder you’ll see a folder called Automatically Add to iTunes. Anything that gets dropped in there gets added to your library, so that’s where the script copies the file.

I threw this script together quickly, there’s nothing fancy, no error checking - so feel free to post any enhancements.   My intention is to provide an example of what can be done easily with AppleScript and Mail rules.  It might help someone accomplish other tasks similar to this one.

Here’s a link to the script and screenshots of a Mail rule and sample Smart Playlist settings.   The script was saved as a text file.  You need to change the path in the third line of script to reflect your user name. You also need to save it as an AppleScript using AppleScript Editor.

In the Mail rule you need to change the path to where you saved your AppleScript.

Mail Rule Screenshot:

Smart Playlist Screenshot:

You might come up with something more sophisticated for the Smart Playlist…

Finally - here’s a look at the AppleScript, which you can download.

Other tricks with Mail: Pick a Playlist by Email - Retrieve a File by Email - Mail a File Dropped in a Finder Folder

CDFinder - Catalog Your Drives and Disks

Don’t let the name fool you, CDFinder isn’t just for CDs. It can catalog your thumb drives, external drives, internal drives - and DVDs too.  This allows you to view the content of your media without powering up the drive or bringing it online.

Drives have started piling up around here. There’s a Drobo that helps a little, but I can think of four loose 3.5″ drives that have stuff on them. And a couple of portable USB drives. And piles of CDs and DVDs.

There’s also an offline G5 that I want to retire. I forget what’s on there from time to time so I use CDFinder ($39.99US) on my Macbook to take a look. CDFinder catalogs the contents of all kinds of files allowing you to view them when their host drive or disk is offline. Images, video, text, Adobe pro stuff - it can even index EyeTV files.

CDFinder is a big help with images. The application can generate thumbnails to help you sift through your content. Geotagging features let you add location data to your images and view them on various mapping services. Commercial CDFinder customers use it for managing large libraries of various types.

CDFinder developer Norbert Doerner stays busy adding new file types and features to the application. It can generate thumbnail images for many file types, including video formats.

You can assign labels to files and other custom fields. If the drive is online you can select a file and press the spacebar for a Finder-like preview.

I don’t have Spotlight indexing my Drobo, but I’ve got a CDFinder index so I can quickly search for files.

I have little faith in the longevity of optical media, so I don’t have tons of CDs and DVDs to index. But I’ve got a few too many drives lying around. CDFinder can be a great help in getting your data organized -  and spotting what needs to be backed up.

I may not be the primary target audience of this product, but I can see where it could be useful and convenient for people with growing libraries of digital media or file archives at home. One thing I’d really like: The ability to tag files for removal and have them deleted when the drive is online again.

There are other products that perform similar functions. The CDFinder website has posted comparisons to other products - providing information on how they stack up.  Clearly CDFinder is a mature product with sophisticated features, like the ability to import catalogs from other indexing products.

The trial version lets you index 25 media items, that’s plenty to let you know how the product works. Keep in mind that CDFinder isn’t shareware, Norbert requires payment if you’re going to use it, even if you’re under 25 indexed items. Different licenses are available, including “Joe Average User.”

I started a small screencast for this post and it crashed on me. But Norbert at CDFinder has you covered with this walk-through video.

Random Filenames for Digital Photo Frame Images

Many of the digital photo frames on the market still don’t have the ability to shuffle images and display them in random order.   A couple people I know have frames and want to mix up the photo stream a little. The first time I ran into this issue I used a Windows utility called renamer to assign random names to the image files. But what about a pure Mac solution?

There is one, and you don’t need anything other than OS X to get it done.  Skip to the screencast if you prefer - otherwise here’s what you do:

Place the files to be renamed in one folder. It’s best to have them all in one folder without subfolders. If you have images scattered inside subdirectories you’ll have to make some adjustments to these instructions.  USE A COPY OF YOUR ORIGINAL IMAGE FILES,  there’s no reason not to.

Open the Terminal from your Utilities folder in Applications. Type cd followed by a space. Then drag the folder containing the files from Finder to the Terminal window. Hit return. The Terminal prompt should update to indicate you’re now in the directory containing the images.  This folder should NOT BE THE SAME AS THE ONE YOUR ORIGINALS RESIDE IN.  Sorry for that, but it’s important.

Finally, type the following command in the Terminal:

for i in *.jpg; do mv $i $RANDOM.jpg; done

The command is case-sensitive.  If your images have names ending .JPG you’ll need to adjust the *.jpg part of the command above to use a capital JPG.

Hit return and your image files are renamed using random numbers.  Copy them to the digital photo frame and your images should cycle randomly.  Thanks to this thread at Mac Rumors Forums.

I’ve included a screencast for those not familiar with Terminal.  Be careful in the Terminal.  You can delete files accidentally and they won’t be in your Trash !  See this warning for more information.

Restore the Master Library Container in iTunes

Remember when iTunes used to have a Library container that you could select as the basis for a search of ALL your content? That was nice. Now if you want to search for a TV show in the library you need to click on the TV Shows node before initiating a search.

If there were a keyboard shortcut to select each container I’d use it, but I don’t see any such shortcuts. Thanks to the king of AppleScripts for iTunes I’ve pulled together some pieces that give me a solution.

If you really miss the all-inclusive Library container you can add it back into iTunes using an AppleScript application provided by Doug Adams called Change Hidden iTunes Preferences. From there you can script selection of that container or you can go a step further: I’m using TextExpander to kick off a script that facilitates iTunes searching. The script can select the Library container or go on to select a container like TV Shows, Movies, or Podcasts. The extra step is only required if you prefer to have search results limited by media type.

The commands to select the Library container were provided by Doug. When hooks for selecting other containers weren’t readily apparent (maybe they’re there and I didn’t see them) I moved on to another strategy: Selecting the Library and then scripting arrow key presses to move down the tree. So far that works ok. Last step: Place the cursor in the search box. Doug’s page on automating keystrokes helps there too.

The simple script, shown in the screenshot, can be kicked off with a keyboard shortcut. For me it means not using the mouse, and that’s worth the effort. Still, the script isn’t working 100% of the time. For example, if the Library node is already selected it fails. Needs a little work…

Reboot or Sleep a Mac from your iPhone

Sometimes Murphy is just a little too lazy to go upstairs and reboot a Mac that needs rebooting. With an iPhone or iPod touch you don’t need to leave the sofa.

Today, Murphy was watching tv on the iPhone via EyeTV’s iPhone app. It started to lock up so a reboot seemed like a good idea. Murphy has Touch Term installed on the iPhone. And the Mac is set to accept SSH sessions. One tap to connect and one command to start the reboot was all it took. Here’s what you need:

• First, go to Sharing in your System Preferences. Turn on Remote Login. This allows your Mac to allow incoming SSH sessions.
• On your iPhone install Touch Term, or some other SSH client. Murphy remembers getting Touch Term for free, but now it starts at $3.99. You might want to comparison shop for similar products.
• Next, configure Touch Term to connect to your Mac, either by name or ip address.
• Once you’ve connected just type the command to reboot your Mac, and press Return. Here’s the command:    sudo shutdown -r now

Murphy took the extra step of creating a shell script to run that command, so there’s less to type when it’s time to reboot.  That’s all there is to it.

You might want a command to send your Mac to sleep instead of rebooting it.  This command should accomplish that:   osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to sleep'

Of course, you can always try something completely different.  A long time ago Murphy wrote some posts about using the Mail app on a Mac to trigger events.  Murphy has Applescripts on the Mac that do different things when emails come in with certain characteristics.  Scripts that adjust iTunes, retrieve files, or put the Mac to sleep.  The whole thing was based on a post here.

Some of these scripts had issues with different updates to OS X and changes to Mail.  Your results may vary…

I haven’t looked into other ways to reboot my Mac from the iPhone, so if you’ve got a good way let me know.

As always, be careful when using the Terminal.