Posted on by mwhybark

iKey / background control of playback in iTunes

I’ve been looking for a way to control audio playback to a background application for a while, so that I can transcribe without a bunch of wrist-burning mouseclicks, and found the following method, which unfortunately depends on iTunes.

Why is that unfortunate? Well, iTunes insists on copying the 650mb-plus audio-capture files to the music library before it will play them back. A small hassle, I guess, but an advantage for QT player.

So, forthwith:

1. Download and install iKey, formerly YoupiKey. Do not set it to be activated by default at boot.

2. Make three Applescripts. They are the simplest scripts ever, and here they are:

playpause.scr:

tell application ‘iTunes’
playpause
end tell

rewind.scr:

tell application ‘iTunes’
rewind
end tell

fforward.scr:

tell application ‘iTunes’
fast forward
end tell

I saved these files in a folder I created: ~/Library/Applescripts/iTunes

3. in iKey, select the ‘Universal’ set, and from the menubar select Shortcuts > Script > Run script from file. Name the shortcut as the scripts are named (i.e., ‘playpause’). Now click the tab labeled ‘Script,’ and ckick the pull-down menu with the bold question mark. ‘Select…’ will appear.

4. Navigate to the location of the appropriate script and select it from within the dialog that opens when you click ‘Select…’. The script name will then appear in the pulldown.

5. Click the tab labeled ‘General.’ Click the checkbox labeled ‘Keyboard’. The ‘Key combo’ text box will highlight. Press the key combination you wish to control the script. I used ‘Command-space’ for playpause.scr and command-arrows as appropriate for FF and RW.

6. Repeat until you’re happy with the results.

Now, I can directly control the audio playback of iTunes without having to swap to iTunes and have to click out of Word while I’m typing, which is just a huge benefit. Of course I need to make sure that the audio file is opened and ready to play within iTunes, but since I don’t really want the files added to the iTunes library on a permanent basis, that’s fine with me.

I do not want iKey activated by default at boot because Command-Left Arrow and Command-Right Arrow are the default forward and back controls in many interfaces, from the Finder’s filebrowser windows to Safari and IE. You may not care, but it was driving me crazy for a bit this afternoon as I looked up a spelling in the middle of my transcription session.

I didn’t see a way to exclude a given app from the ‘universal’ set in iKey.

Posted on by mwhybark

Wallstreet recovery saga

Dan Shoop is helpfully taking the time to provide pointers. I post this here (as well as in the other threads I have going on these difficulties) to get some Googlejuice and to create a wider footprint for other frustrated Wallstreeters that will be facing this after they dutifully apply resets, creating this problem.

He recently presented on bare-metal recovery for OS X. His opinion (I think) is that when the Wallstreets were reset (shift-fn-crtl-power) it zapped a Wallstreet-specific boot component which he refers to as XCOFF. Below are the steps that I’ve abstracted from his recovery recommendation, as yet untested.

1. swap the 10gb / 2 partition drive into the local bay to rule out wonkiness in the exp bus connection as regards the XCOFF/nvramc

2. reboot into OS X 10.2 installer CD

3. reformat HD to 7gb/2+gb in DU

4. Set startup disk to OSX 10.2 installer CD. shut down

5. reboot into OSX 10.2 installer CD in single-user mode (must be a cold boot!)

6. Create a synthfs filesystem and mount the internal drive and backup drive using autodiskmounter.

7. bless the intended boot drive locally. Using ‘bless -device’? Unsure.

8. restore from backup. CCC won’t work, Shoop states (possibly because we’re booted into a flavor of the OS that can’t run it).

9. backup in place, use nvramrc -f to copy the Wallstreet’s nvramrc file from the CD to the internal HD.

10. bless -folder

11. Reboot.

—

I have research to do:

step 6: filesystem creation and mounting (the backup drive may not be mountable at this juncture)

step 7: clarifying the command

8: no backup tool has been specified. You note a commandline binary is needed but psync and ditto are unavailable from the install cd. Dan mentioned rsyncx.