a quick example demonstrating how to get data from the system using AppleScript within Java:

import javax.script.*;

class Test {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws Throwable {
    // before running, select a contact with an image in Address Book.app
    String script = "tell application \"Address Book\"\n"
                  + "   set contacts to selection\n"
                  + "   set contact to item 1 of contacts\n"
                  + "   set photothing to image of contact\n"
                  + "end tell";

    ScriptEngineManager mgr = new ScriptEngineManager();
    ScriptEngine engine = mgr.getEngineByName("AppleScript");
    Object retval = engine.eval(script);

    // prints: java.awt.image.BufferedImage
    System.out.println(retval.getClass().getName());
  }
}

while the shipping product was largely written by Mike Swingler, this was my intern project in 2007.

from The New York Times, a neat infographic:

note how the number of edges emanating from a company is an indicator of its health¹. Kodak has been dying since the commoditization of the digital camera. Nokia started to crumble when the iPhone went global. conversely, HTC is doin' all right—they even split last year.

filing lawsuits is an indicator that you've lost your innovative edge. losing the lead, you're exploiting what's left out of your inventions and legacy until you've finally converted all your integrity into bankruptcy. the news will enjoy adding their spin as well, further complicating things.
whether founded or not, these impressions taint your reputation. they damage your business.

Can you name a company you admire that spends its time enforcing patents, instead of innovating? Remember the pirate flag you flew over Apple's headquarters when you were building the Mac? Is Apple part of the Navy now?Wil Shipley

who cares if someone took your ideas to build a competing product? that's how the market works. build the better product—it can't be hard if all your competition can only manage plagiarism.

I hope this passes soon so we can get back to creating the future.

Flash evangelist Lee Brimelow made his little poster showing what a bunch of Flash-using web sites look like without Flash without actually looking to see how they render on MobileSafari. Ends up a bunch of them, including the porno site, already have iPhone-optimized versions with no blue boxes, and video that plays just fine as straight-up H.264. iPhone visitors to these sites have no idea they’re missing anything because, well, they’re not missing anything. For a few other of the sites Brimelow cited, like Disney and Spongebob Squarepants, there are dedicated native iPhone apps.

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner put together this version of Brimelow’s chart using actual screenshots from MobileSafari, the App Store, and native iPhone apps. The only two blue boxes left: FarmVille and Hulu.John Gruber

pretty damning that Brimelow could only find two good examples for his Apple roast, including the porn card he chose. I'm on the fence on the Flash debate, but I keep finding it harder and harder to justify.

one difference between Mac OS X and Windows these days is that I'll upgrade Milami's macbook in a recliner with a glass of wine, confident that she'll be able to use the new environment just as easily as the previous version. she may not even notice that things have really changed.

I'd come up with a witty Windows analogue, but we don't have a machine that runs it anymore.

I was really looking forward to Finer Things in Mac, but lately the information that's shown up there has either been something I'd get from Mac OS X hints or underinformed tidbits (that readers wind up correcting, though many remain errant). occasionally, you find a gem.

despite my high hopes, it failed to beat my signal to noise requirements. maybe my parents will find it useful.

in Safari, this is the context menu for a link:
 

wouldn't it be nice if, when interacting with a link that will open in a new window, the "Open Link in New Window" option was "Open Link in Current Tab/Window" instead?

nowadays I only have one thing that holds me back on OS X and as much as I try to get over it, it still trips me up. that thing is application-centric switching.

the interface that does exist has some pretty maddening inconsistencies. ⌘ + ⇥ can be thought of as moving an app to the top of your attention stack. when you select it, its neighbours change and switching becomes a case of most-recently-used. unfortunately, ⌘ +` works more like traversing a list, neighbours never change. these two actions should be acting the same!

application switching is almost never what I want. thanks to Spaces, nowadays I can break tasks up by desktop and most spaces will not have more than one window per application, but at the end of the day what I really want is something like this:

only show visible windows. obvious which app they belong to. easy to tell what windows they are. if I want to go to a window or app that is not visible, I can use the Dock.

I'd accept being able to override the ⌘ + ⇥ key binding, being given the necessary WindowServer access to get the needed information (without resorting to dirty hacks), and writing it myself. that would be ok.

all but two of my friends have an iPhone or intend to buy one.

one has a Pre, and appears to be a strange mixture of enamoured with and annoyed by it (especially Palm's constant attempʦ at iTunes integration¹).

the other has both a G1 and a FreeRunner. he's not especially bothered by the battery life or speed, and appreciates the hackability. to put things in perspective, he's also the only friend that dœsn't use a Mac²: he lives on Ubuntu.

as far as I can tell, this is fairly representative: the G1 finds iʦ home mostly with the freedom fighters.