Randy Walker

The roomie and I, along with some friends, are headed up to Zehnder's Snowfest this year so I thought I'd take a look at the website. I must be trapped in some sort of temporal loop.

Jim Whimpey brought up a complaint about flags in OS X Mail:

Why does Mail have these much too subtle flags instead of full colour labels like the rest of the OS!?

Jim Whimpey via Twitter

I figured I'd tackle the problem because I imagine other users have the same issue. I've made some OS X services to assign flags with matching message backgrounds. These services just contain a few lines of AppleScript that change the flag and the background color of the selected messages. If you want to take a look, you can open them in Automator. Here's how you use it.

1. Quit Mail if it's running.
2. Download Full Color Flags

3. Extract the contents to ~/Library/Services/

   

4. Optional: Assign keyboard shortcuts to the Services.

   

To use these, open Mail, select a message or messages, then go to Mail > Services and choose your desired flag.

And this is the result:

This solution works for me. There is no guarantee that it will work for you. I am not liable if it does not work for you or if it damages your computer or data. Proceed at your own risk! You may use this solution free of charge for any purpose.

• 5 avocados
• 10 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 1/2 cup blue cheese crumbles
• 3-4 scallions, finely sliced
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice (about 2 limes)
• hot sauce to taste
• salt, to taste

Cut avocados in half and remove the pit. Scoop the flesh into a gallon-size zip-top bag and remove most of the air. Squish the avocado until it is mostly smooth—chunks are good!

In a bowl, combine the avocado, bacon, scallions, lime juice, hot sauce, and salt. Gently fold in the blue cheese. Put plastic wrap directly on the surface of the guacamole and chill for 2 hours. Serve with tortilla chips and/or carrot sticks.

If you enjoy cake but don't want to make a whole one, make individual servings of cake with the following recipe.

3 2 1 Cake Mix

• 1 box angel food cake mix
• 1 box cake mix (any flavor)

Combine ingredients thoroughly. Store in an airtight container.

3 2 1 Cake

• 3 tablespoons 3 2 1 Cake Mix (see above)
• 2 tablespoons water

Put ingredients in a microwave-safe container such as a coffee cup. Mix to combine. Microwave mixture for one minute. Top with frosting, fruit, whipped cream, jam, or whatever you like.

It's called "3 2 1 cake" because it's 3 tablespoons of mix, 2 tablespoons of water, 1 minute in the microwave. Thanks to my Grandma for sharing this with me!

If you're running Boot Camp, it can be a pain to restart your Mac running Windows: you either have to go to Startup Disk preference pane and change your startup disk or you have to remember to hold down the "option" key when you start up your computer and then click on your Windows disk to start from it.

From the Windows side, it's easy: Apple provides a Boot Camp app that runs in the task bar. All you have to do is right-click it and choose "Restart in OS X" and you're good to go. Why can't it be that easy under OS X?

With the AppleScript I came up with, it is!

Be advised that I am not an AppleScript expert. I pieced this together from code snippets I found on the Internet and changed to meet my needs. It works for me. There is no guarantee that it will work for you. I am not liable if it does not work for you or if it damages your computer or data. Proceed at your own risk! You may use this code free of charge for any purpose.

set adminpass to "YOURPASSWORDHERE"
 
tell application "Finder"
	set iconPath to (get name of startup disk) & ":Applications:Utilities:Boot Camp Assistant.app:Contents:Resources:DA.icns" as alias
end tell
 
set askRestart to display dialog "Restart in Windows?" buttons {"Cancel", "Restart"} default button 1 with icon iconPath
set doRestart to button returned of askRestart
 
if doRestart is equal to "Cancel" then
	quit
end if
 
if doRestart is equal to "Restart" then
	do shell script "bless -mount /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/ -legacy -setBoot -nextonly; shutdown -r now" password adminpass with administrator privileges
end if

Open This Code in AppleScript Editor and change the text YOURPASSWORDHERE to your administrator password. If you've changed the name of your Boot Camp volume, you'll need to change BOOTCAMP on line 15 to the name of your Boot Camp Volume.

Once you've done this, just save as an Application to somewhere convenient then drag it to your Dock. When you click on it, you'll get this:

Click the "Restart" button to restart your Mac running Windows or click the "Cancel" button to quit this app.