TannieSpace

[Updated: 2009-12-11: I no longer recommend Shopper, as of version 5.0. This paid app started to display ads and other cluttering info. See my newer post for more info ]

I generally make a shopping list when I go out buying groceries (about once per week). I used to go nearly every oter day, and spent money on food I hoped I could eat (but usually couldn't) which turned into one big waste pile which didn't feel good, money and waste wise. I put myself on a 'shopping list diet' basically, not buying anything that's not on the list. I check the pantry and the fridge before I go out and note what I need to buy. I read somewhere that if it wasn't important enough to put on your list while checking pantry and fridge, it's certainly not important enough to buy in the store just because you see it.

I do stray from this a bit, sometimes, when in the store I remember I need to buy dog-cookies (not in my pantry, so I don't see that I need too) or better, when they're on sale. I want to have a good enough stash of dog-food and treats for my dog. So occasionally I will stray from the list a bit, however, in general, the list really works. I have basically cut my grocery spending by at least 40% (yes, I did overspent horribly on groceries for a while).

For my shopping list making I've used Shopper for iPhone since September last year (and I admit I've strayed from the list a lot until last month, nothing to do with the program). I love the way it works, though I have flirted with other programs in the meantime. See, what I missed was the option to set the price based on store (to see where I could get the best deal). Realising today I had never e-mailed them to tell them that, I went to the website and found an entire page about Shopper v3 with all the functions I missed.

Now I can't wait for it to come out. I'm sure I'll love it. I love Shopper v2 for its simplicity already. Can only get better... ;)

I wanted an easy way to shorten my URLs through one of the URL-shorteners out there. I liked bit.ly, because it's nice and short, has an easy to navigate web-interface (without a mouse) and I can use its magic with my terminal (cURL).

I also very much like TextExpander and after googling a bit, I ofcourse found an Applescript for TextExpander and Bit.ly. That link also shows how to set it up in TextExpander, very handy! The script does not however use your actual bit.ly account so you can keep track of the URLs you shorten. I tweaked it and made adjustments and it took hours and ofcourse, then I find this which is almost exactly what I had, except with URL-encoding (yummy). The only problem with that one was that I couldn't get it to have the URLs show up in my recent history. The 'history=1' didn't seem to work.

I tweaked some more and came up with something that completely does what I want. I use OmniWeb so I replaced the

set the PageURL to (the clipboard as string)

with

tell application "OmniWeb" set PageURL to address of active tab of browser 1 end tell

If you use safari, use

tell application "Safari" set PageURL to URL of front document end tell

I've made this as readable as possible, the '¬' do matter in Applescript.

tell application "OmniWeb" set PageURL to address of active tab of browser 1 end tell

set login to "YOUR LOGIN" set api_key to "YOUR API KEY" set the EncodedURL to urlencode(PageURL) of me

set curlCMD to ¬ "curl --stderr /dev/null \"http://api.bit.ly/v3/shorten?format=txt&longUrl=" ¬ & EncodedURL & "&history=1&login=" & login ¬ & "&apiKey=" & api_key ¬ & "\""

\-- Run the script and get the result: set bitlyURL to (do shell script curlCMD)

return bitlyURL

on urlencode(theText)
set theTextEnc to "" repeat with eachChar in characters of theText
set useChar to eachChar
set eachCharNum to ASCII number of eachChar
if eachCharNum = 32 then
    set useChar to "+" else if (eachCharNum ‚↠42) and (eachCharNum ‚↠95) ¬
    and (eachCharNum < 45 or eachCharNum > 46) ¬
    and (eachCharNum < 48 or eachCharNum > 57) ¬
    and (eachCharNum < 65 or eachCharNum > 90) ¬
    and (eachCharNum < 97 or eachCharNum > 122) then
        set firstDig to round (eachCharNum / 16) rounding down
        set secondDig to eachCharNum mod 16 if firstDig > 9 then
            set aNum to firstDig + 55 set firstDig to ASCII character aNum
end if
if secondDig > 9 then
    set aNum to secondDig + 55
    set secondDig to ASCII character aNum
end if
set numHex to ("%" & (firstDig as string) ¬
 & (secondDig as string)) as string
 set useChar to numHex
end if
set theTextEnc to theTextEnc & useChar as string
end repeat
return theTextEnc
end urlencode

ETA (2010.09.30): bit.ly changed a few things so I changed the script above to reflect that