Use Audacity To Convert Multiple Files To MP3

 In Audacity, select Tools->Macros.  That brings up the Manage Macros window.

In the list of macros, select MP3 Conversion.  

Down at the bottom, where it says "Apply macro to:", click the "Files..." button.

In the "Select files for batch processing..." window, select the files you wish to convert, and click the Open button.

Google Will Delete Content More Than 2 Years Old

Details are here - About your activity and storage quota 

Emacs is adding BOM 0xFEFF to your XML file

When you open an XML file in Emacs, it tries to detect the encoding and may display Chinese characters.   If you look at it hexl-mode, you will also see that Emacs has secretly added 0xFEFF to the beginning of your file.  Nasty!

The solution (or workaround) is to use file-find-literally when you open the file.

(Ref: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/189061/emacs-automatically-adding-bom-to-xml-file/516465#516465)

Black Screen When Using Mac OS X Screen Sharing

Sometimes you can get stuck at a black screen when remotely sharing a screen via Mac OS X Screen Sharing.

To get unstuck, SSH into the remote machine and kill the loginwindow process.

See this article: Fix "Black Screen" on VNC

Add Border To Ubuntu Terminal Window

Create ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css

to contain

/* Decorations */
UnityDecoration {
    -UnityDecoration-extents: 28px 1px 1px 1px;
}

Ref:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/448204/how-do-i-add-a-border-around-windows-but-keep-the-current-theme

Mac OS X Finder Shows Unknown Shared Computers

Sometimes the Mac OS X Finder will show unknown computers in the Shared section of the sidebar.

These are the result of having SMB file sharing enabled.

To remedy this, go into System Preferences, Sharing, File Sharing, Options.  Uncheck "Share files and folders using SMB", and click Done.


ref: https://www.cnet.com/news/unknown-shared-resources-showing-in-the-finder/

How to subscribe to a YouTube channel as an RSS feed

1. Go to the YouTube page for the channel.

2. View the source for the page.

3. Search for 'channel-external-id'.  Copy the string for that attribute, e.g. UC5nVgiv6elz5GnS6MTr1tVA

4. Create a URL with the channel_id, like this:

https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC5nVgiv6elz5GnS6MTr1tVA

5. Use that URL to subscribe in your favorite RSS news reader.



From: How to Get an RSS Feed for a YouTube Channel

How to Disable iCloud Photo Syncing in OS X Photos

Go into System Preferences, iCloud, and un-check Photos.  Also go into Photos options and uncheck all that too.

http://www.howtogeek.com/214782/how-to-disable-icloud-photo-syncing-in-os-x-photos/

Make Emacs use bash shell path on Mac OS X

By default Emacs ignores your .bash_profile on Mac OS X.

Here's how to tell Emacs to go do a login so that your PATH customization is available to you when you M-x shell (and other shell-y things like M-x compile and M-x grep).

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/purcell/exec-path-from-shell/master/exec-path-from-shell.el

Found at :

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6411121/how-to-make-emacs-use-my-bashrc-file

wc - pure Python implementation of classic Unix word count utility.

As part of my ongoing Python Power Tools project (a pale imitation of Perl Power Tools), I have implemented a pure Python wc.

https://github.com/glanois/code/blob/master/python/ppt/wc.py

This supports a -files0 option, so you can pipe wc.py the output of any program that produces filenames separated by null characters.  For example, find and ack, when using the -print0 output option.

Mac OS X Finder - How To Set Column Width(s)

"Right- or Control-click any grabber handle for a pop-up menu with three options: Right Size This Column, Right Size All Columns Individually, and Right Size All Columns Equally." (found here)

AT&T UVerse DNS Lookups Slow

AT&T UVerse DNS lookups were ridiculously slow.

On Mac OS X, use command line command "dig <hostname>" to test.  ("dig -h" for options.)

Solution:  Configure router to use Google DNS servers - 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

See this Reddit.

[SOLVED] Python difflib - POSIX default format or Gnu normal format?

It seems that difflib (and its example program) do not output differences in the POSIX default format (see http://www.unix.com/man-page/POSIX/1posix/diff/) or the Gnu diff normal format (see http://www.gnu.org/software/diffutils/manual/diffutils.html#Normal). I wrote a pure Python implementation of the classic Unix "diff" program to produce output in the classic POSIX default format: https://github.com/glanois/code/blob/master/python/ppt/diff.py

Use ack inside Emacs

Paste this into your .emacs, reload it, and M-x ack:

;; https://code.google.com/p/emacs-nav/issues/detail?id=91

(defvar ack-command "ack --nogroup --nocolor ")
(defvar ack-history nil)
(defvar ack-host-defaults-alist nil)
(defun ack ()
  "Like grep, but using ack-command as the default"
  (interactive)
  ; Make sure grep has been initialized
  (if (>= emacs-major-version 22)
      (require 'grep)
    (require 'compile))
  ; Close STDIN to keep ack from going into filter mode
  (let ((null-device (format "< %s" null-device))
        (grep-command ack-command)
        (grep-history ack-history)
        (grep-host-defaults-alist ack-host-defaults-alist))
    (call-interactively 'grep)
    (setq ack-history             grep-history
          ack-host-defaults-alist grep-host-defaults-alist)))

Microsoft Word - Find Next/Previous

In Microsoft Word you can easily find the next/previous occurrence of a search string with Ctrl-PageDown and Ctrl-PageUp.

You are using the Select Browse Object controls to do this.

Details here:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/getting-from-here-to-there-in-word-documents-HA001042963.aspx

Customize Python IDLE Theme

See http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=657799

The magic is in ~/.idlerc/config-highlight.cfg

Outlook 2007 - Make flagged emails from a .PST show up on the To-Do Bar

Go into the .PST properties and enable "Display reminders and tasks from this folder in the To-Do Bar".  Then restart Outlook.

From this article:  Make that PST show up on the To-Do Bar

Erase Free Space on Mac OS X

In order to erase all free space on Mac OS X, use Disk Utility.

Secure Empty Trash on Mac OS X

Right-click on the Trash icon in the dock, hold down the command key, and then select "Secure Empty Trash". If you want to always securely delete files, you can enable this setting by going to Finder > Preferences and then selecting "Empty Trash Securely" under the Advanced tab.

Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 drivers for Mac

You can now use your Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 on a Macintosh.  Someone figured out that the S1500M drivers for Mac OSX will work with an S510:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4391068?tstart=0

How to use ImageMagick to convert files from one type to another

mogrify -format jpg *.png

Saving your eBay search as an RSS feed

eBay used to give you an orange RSS button on your search results.  That has disappeared recently.

The remedy is to add &_rss=1 to the end of your search URL.

From this article:  How to restore RSS functionality to your eBay searches

How to add an AppleTV radio station to favorites

While listening to the station, hold down the Select button on the remote.  It will ask you if you want to "Add Station to Favorites".

To remove from favorites, do the same thing again (hold down the Select button).

Outlook 2007 Remove Attachment From Email

Open the email.

On the ribbon, go to the Message tab. 

In the Actions section, select Other Actions->Edit Message.

In the body of the email (which is now editable) select the attachment. 

Press the Delete key.

From the Office menu, select Save.

How to add a Paste Special (Unformatted Text) keyboard shortcut to Microsoft Word

Pre-2007: Select Tools -> Macros.

2007:  Click Macros on the View ribbon.

Type PasteSpecialUnformattedText into the Macro Name box and click Create. This launches Microsoft Visual Basic.

Replace the auto-generated code with this.

Sub PasteSpecialUnformattedText()
   Selection.PasteSpecial DataType:=wdPasteText
End Sub

File -> Save Normal

File -> Close and Return to Microsoft Word

Pre-2007: Select Tools -> Customize -> Keyboard…

2007: Select Office button (at the top left), then click Word Options.  Select Customize, then find Keyboard shortcuts and click the Customize button next to that.

In the Customize Keyboard window, select Macros.  Then under Macros, select PasteSpecialUnformatted Text.

Click in the "Press new shortcut key" field, and press your desired keyboard shortcut. I use Ctrl+Shift+V.

Click Assign.

Click Close.  This closes the Customize Keyboard window.

Then click OK to close the Word Options window.

(Originally found these instructions here.)