Listen to Articles with Siri Shortcut

Today I read an article on SSPai.com. The author shares several apps to "listen" to the articles from the third-party sources, all of which achieve the feature with the "read-later" function.

Hide Files or Folders with Automator Service

Image source

Download "Hide Files or Folders" v1.1

In Unix-like OS, the name of a file or a folder beginning with "." means that the object is invisible. However, Finder doesn't allow the user to add a dot "." in front of the filename:

Ez ImgBurn -- Make Bootable Drives or Memory Cards from Image Files

Download v1.1

Sorry, ImgBurn, I steal your name.

If you need to make a bootable USB drive or memory card, you might hear of a popular burner --Etcher, but this stuff is ridiculously big [1]:

macOS 的文字 (字幕) 檔轉碼工具 HanzConvert & Convert Text Encoding to UTF8

Mac App Store 連結

九年前，我曾經寫過一篇文章 "SRT 字幕檔轉碼"，直到今天都是本站的熱門文章 (汗)，可見大家深受字幕檔亂碼之苦 (雖然這不是正版用戶會遇到的，囧)。當時我只是把我使用的例行步驟寫出來而已，並沒有想過要把這一套步驟的體驗做好，甚至自動化。這些年過去了，由於播放軟體的進步，很多軟體都能讀取不同編碼的字幕檔，故我也很少為文字編碼的問題操心。

Flatten PDF with Automator

Download v1.0 (For single-page PDFs)

Download v2.0 (Please see the update below)

PDF (Portable Document Format) is a popular document format, which can be treated as a kind of digital paper, including contents (e.g. texts and images) and very stable / unchangeable layout. Many businessmen take it as a "safe" format, and researchers use it to compose academic documents, because many productivity softwares can export vector-graphic images in PDF [1].

Take Labeled Photos

Quick sharing. Today, I read an article on SSPai.com, which complains that all photos taken with iOS built-in camera app will be saved in "Camera Roll", so it would be more and more difficult to classify the increasing photos in the iPhone. Apple suggests the users to create different "albums" to organise their photo libraries, however, the taken photos are not automatically added into some specific album, so it needs to be done manually, which is very annoying.

So, I build this Siri shortcut to approach this function.

修正 iPhone 相機照片無故旋轉的問題

有時候，你會發現在 iPhone 上拍的照片 (我不清楚 Android 手機是否有一樣的問題) 傳到電腦中會出現旋轉 90 度、甚至是上下顛倒的怪事。事實上這個問題存在已久，在比較新的作業系統中 (比如 Windows 10，而 macOS 在我的印象中沒發生過)，其預設的圖片瀏覽軟體已經解決了此問題，但考慮到目前 Windows 7 的用戶依然非常多 [1]，且 macOS 也不是完全與此無緣，故這次來講一下問題的起因及解決方法。

Merge Images with ImageMagick & Automator

Download v1.0

"Merge Image" is an Automator workflow to automatise the image combination tasks on macOS.

"Merge Image" 是一個 Automator 工作流程，用來將合併影像檔的流程自動化。

QR Image Reader

Download v1.0

QR Image Reader is a Siri shortcut to retrieve the information of the QR code in an image file. The built-in Shortcut action of QR code reader supports QR code scanning with the camera only, so it has nothing to do with a QR code in a picture.

如何將捷徑 (Shortcut) 備份匯入至舊版 Workflow 裡？

我在以前的文章提過，我是個 Apple 常青族，家裡的 Apple 產品大多有點年紀了，所以如何讓老機重生，或是讓它們發揮餘熱就成為我繞不開的課題。今次的主角是 iPad mini 1，這是我媽用剩不要的機器，我在拿到它時已經過時好幾年了，而且這代的螢幕一直都廣受批評，因為當時不久前 New iPad (iPad 3) 已將螢幕升級到視網膜螢幕，而這貨居然不是用視網膜螢幕？！更糟糕的是這傢伙老了以後螢幕四角會出現泛紅的現象 (如下圖)，這種問題連我的 iPad 1 都沒有 .... (經不起時間的考驗啊，就叫你們不要用友達的面板嘛！貪便宜的後果就是這樣！)

File Module -- File Renamer

Download v1.0

A file module of iOS shortcut to batch renaming multiple files.

一個提供將檔案批次重新命名的 iOS 捷徑檔案模組。

File Module -- Archive or Unarchive

Download v1.0

A file module of iOS shortcut to archive or unarchive files, which includes the multi-file support.

一個提供多檔案支援的壓縮或解壓縮的 iOS 捷徑檔案模組。

Shortcut (Workflow) Backup

Shortcut (Workflow) is an amazing app to automate a series of features of iOS or some iOS third-party apps. After Workflow had been acquired by Apple, it became free to download and the file syncing service was transferred to Apple's server.

Notice Pin -- Pin Some Information on the Notification Center or Lock Screen

Download v2.0

Sometimes, we have to access some important information frequently in the phone under some circumstances. This demand is usually temporary, and not involved with security concerns, e.g. the boarding time and location on the transportation ticket, the shopping list in the notes app, and the reminder for ourselves to do something in a very short time. If we still need to unlock our phone over and over again during this time period, that could be very annoying.

Open sciprj file -- 雙擊開啟 sciprj 檔案

下載 v1.0

這篇文章是 "如何快速開啟軟體不支援檔案關聯的特殊文件？(以 sciprj 檔為例)" 的後續，起因是今天我在寫文的時候突然發現用右鍵的 Automator service 去開啟檔案實在挺蠢的，雖然省了一些步驟，但還是沒有雙擊開啟快啊！於是我就把 UI scripting 的程式碼修改一下，做成一個 Droplet，只要把 sciprj 檔的開啟軟體指定給這個 Droplet，就可以連到 SciDAVis 並用其開啟該檔了，就是這麼簡單。

如何更新 (升級) 由官網安裝包安裝的 Python

我知道這文章名取得很饒口，原因是我也不知道該怎麼寫比較好 ....

不知道大家是怎麼安裝 Python 的？如果是 Linux 用戶，直接在套件安裝程式裡面更新 Python 就好了，而 Windows 我沒在用了 .... 所以本篇文章是以 macOS 用戶的升級方法為主，也算是給我自己做個備份。

Info LivePhoto -- Hidden Information in LivePhoto

Info LivePhoto workflow download

Recently, I found an iOS app really interesting: LiveUseful, which can make a live photo with some information (photo or texts) behind it. You could spend a little money to support the developer, or use my "lite" version.

如何快速開啟軟體不支援檔案關聯的特殊文件？(以 sciprj 檔為例)

製作該文件的軟體居然不支援雙擊或右鍵選擇打開？

如果你跟我一樣是個科研人員，而且又同時是個 Mac 使用者，應該都會遇到沒有科學作圖工具的困擾 (如果你是寫 Python、R 或 Matlab 處理數據的高手，那當我沒說)。

Ez ZBar -- QR/Bar Code Decoder Patch

Download v1.1

Sometimes, we might need to acquire the information from the QR/bar code on the screen, e.g. some streaming videos made by Chinese teams. Due to some reason I don't quite understand, QR code is extremely popular in China, which has already penetrated the whole life of Chinese (in China).

Ez Folder Sync

Download v1.1 (macOS 10.10 required)

A easy way to sync or backup files between two folders, even the folder is located in another Mac.

This application is inspired by an article on SSPai.com, and I build a GUI of the script and add something new.