a view from afar

Just got myself a shiny new 24" iMac. (Seriously - they are VERY shiny - I can see my face in it, which is not a good thing.) I transferred my user account across but decided to leave the apps - I wanted to install them by hand to see what I actually use. Well, this is what I can't live without...

(Note: I keep updating this from time to time as I add and remove programs)

So, I was finishing off the list of programs I use on my Mac, which started off just as bullet-pointed plain text (I typed each program in as I installed it). This being the interweb, I figured it'd be a bit flash if you could click on the program names and be shown their web sites.

Half way down the page, doing this by hand, I got very bored.

Goal: I want to select a URL, select Shiira > Services > Markdown URL and have the title of the page at that URL used as the name of a Markdown link. (For some reason, I started using Markdown, not Textile.)

Easy? Well it is if you know how.

I thought this would be straightforward, but actually there are a couple of minor issues. (Updated with a tip on fixing the problem where moving focus back to the host machine would cancel dialog boxes.)

I like to stay pretty current with ports - generally it avoids Big Update Day where you realise you need a 0.0.0.0.0.1 update of something but most of the dependencies have seen several man-years of development in the mean time. Here is a launchd script to drop in /Library/LaunchDaemons (I called it org.macports.port-selfupdate.plist):