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Google Voice Applescript Alert (GVoiceAlert)

I have created a way for an applescript to notify you when a new message from google voice is received. I have been very frustrated by the fact that I could not get an notifications when a new message arrives. I have tried FLUID to make a google voice notification app with Growl. It worked for a little while but now I can not for the life of me get it to work again. So I developed this very simple applescript/automator workflow which:
1) reads the first message from your google voice account,
2) determines if it is an unread message, and then it
3) says the name of the person who the message is from.
4) When you have read the message, the script will not say it.
5) It is on a loop, and checks every 5 minutes, and will automatically quit after 60 hours, but you can change that.

Here is the link to my google group where I have posted it. I am looking forward to any comments you may have. Thanks!
Link to my Google Group

Pics from My trip to the UK

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Maximillion Beta 1.0

Maximillion is an Ichat Bot that I have been working on. This bot is written in applescript and can do the following:
-Automatically Answer chat requests
-Provides a menu to the chat
-User can select "Email" which will allow the user to type in a message in the chat and that message will go to an email address
-User can select "SMS" which will do the same thing as email, but send to an SMS address. There is a routine to validate who who want to be able to send SMS based on the user handle
- There is a "Yell" function that when called the computer calls out to anyone in the area

Here is a link to BETA 1.0

In addition to the general functions, there are also admin functions-
- Call an automator script to send a photo from the web cam to an email
- Shutdown the computer
-Cycle the Mail app
- Send the system stats to the admin email
- Display the computers IP address to the chat

One thing to note, the way that I have been able to accomplish this is by setting the status messages appropriately, which drives the necessary responses. So for example, when a user selects email to send, the status message changes to something unique to that chat, thus allowing the next entry by the user to be captured and sent to email. As some of you may know, when using applescript in Ichat, every entry into the chat starts the script over from scratch. Setting the status message allows a variable that can be used between chat entries. In a future version, i will track user status via an external file, but right now I thought it would be interesting to have it all in one applescript.

Ill also be moving a lot of the configuration to a config file, such as validated SMS users and admin addresses, so that those are not resident in the script itself. In this version of the code I have removed all identifying information.

I haven't really done a lot of thorough testing, I think right now it can only handle one chat at a time, which i think is fine for now, but I am working on the next rev to be a bit more robust. Also, the code is messy, but I wanted to get something out these for people to look at and see how they like it.

My New MAC!!

After 10 years I have finally made it back to Mac. I can't believe that I ever left. It is a 15in unibody mac and its last years version of the 2.66, but really not much different than this years version, other than the battery life is a little less. OSX has come long ways since my last mac. Its amazing. I have already put together an Ichat Applescript application to manage my chats and notify me when I am away (post soon to come). I bought Aperture for my photography and I am going to try it for a while ( I was using Nikon NX and was very happy with it.) I also got parrallels which is one of the most amazing applications I have ever used. Its is a virtualization package that lets me run windows, or most any system, seamlessly on my mac. So seamlessly that windows applications appear in their own window, right next to the Mac apps. I am very impressed with it.

I bought the computer from MacMall and it came with a bunch of mail in rebates. On interesting thing about my purchase, is that a few weeks after I sent in my macmall rebates, I received a letter saying that the rebate had been rejected for some reason. Obviously I wasn't too happy about this so I sent them an email. I received an email back shortly telling me to disregard the denial letter and that my rebates were approved (mind you that these rebates totaled over 200$.) While It was probably a mistake I would recommend to everyone to follow up if their macmall rebates are denied.

Healthy Bachelor Food

I though I would share what I think is the ultimate in healthy bachelor food. I basically came up with this after visiting Japan. There are some dishes there where you boil your food in water. It was easy, fun and nutritious. So for the last few years, or whenever I have been single along the way, I have been boiling my food which has turned out to be not only healthy, but time efficient.

So these are the main staples:

Usually it is brussels sprouts, broccoli crowns and vegetable fed chicken, thies. All frozen. When I am ready to cook I simply fill a pot with water and throw 3 or 4 pieces of chicken (vegetable fed chicken is usually a lot smaller than normal, chicken fed chicken.)

I put it on the stove and bring it to a boil.

After about 15 or 20 minutes hard boiling, I add the brussel sprouts.

Then 10 minutes later I add the broccoli

I then get it back to a hard boil and its done. I pull the chicken out and take the skin off then strain the vegetables.

And there you go!

The real benefit to cooking this way is that you can go off and do other things while its cooking. It would be VERY hard to burn anything.

Magnolia Cemetary, Charleston South Carolina