Putting a Spotlight on EasyFind

On 24th November I was grumbling because Spotlight wasn't going to do what I wanted it to. The problem is that I want to search for text in multiple .php files, and while Spotlight can apparently be made to do it (it doesn't index .php files by default), you can't guarantee that it will find all occurrences of what you are looking for because it might not have indexed the files yet.

I concluded that I needed something else and I found it in the shape of EasyFind from DEVONtechnologies.

It's freeware and you can get it to search for file and/or folder names and/or contents for words, phrases etc. You can't search meta-data like you can with Spotlight, but who cares. The big advantage is that it does the search when you ask so you can rely on it to find everything.

A really nice feature is that you can tell EasyFind what file types to search in not one, but five lists, each of which has a checkbox next to it. The reason that I like this so much is that I usually want to search .php files but sometimes I also want to include any .html and .shtml files that may be in the project folder (and sub folders). There are also times when I want to include .css and .tpl (template files). By grouping the files onto the five different lists I can easily control which files EasyFind is going to search when I set it in motion.

It manages to search my larger projects with two or three hundred files in a matter of seconds and displays the results as a list of file names along with date last nodified, files size, and location, sorted into whatever order I choose. All I have to do then is to drag and drop the ones I want into Smultron and I'm off.

Oolite - Too Real?

I'm not going to keep rattling on about Oolite but I had a 'strange' experience last night that's kind of interesting:

I haven't mentioned this before but the fact is that I had to give up normal work about 10 years ago when I got CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). It means that I'm unemployable because while there are days when I'm fine, there are many other days when I'm 'useless'. Working Monday to Friday would be impossible (I wouldn't be there half the time) and as I never know how I'm going to be on any given day it's also very difficult for me to plan anything or commit to deadlines. I always have to make contingency plans and/or reserve the option to back out at the last minute.

Anyway, back to Oolite. One of the new features is that you can convert some of the cargo space into passenger berths and at any given space station there are usually about half a dozen people wanting to get to other systems. The prices they are willing to pay and the times by which they need to be there vary. So, after checking the star charts to see where they want to go you can choose whether or not to take the contract to get them there.

Having spent a while running back and forth between Lave and Zaonce I'd added various upgrades to my ship and had a couple of thousand credits in the bank. I observed that there were two passengers wanting to get to systems that were about five systems away. So I decided to convert some of the cargo hold, take the contracts and plot a course that would allow me to buy and sell a few things along the way.

Suddenly, the whole thing changed because rather than flitting happily between systems trading goods in my own sweet time I was now under pressure to meet a deadline. It ceased to be fun and I nearly bit Dee's head off when she interrupted me to ask if I wanted another cup of tea. The sense of relief I felt when I dropped the passengers off (on time) at their destination was so huge that I sold the passenger berths (at a loss) and have vowed never to take on any more.

Too realistic?

Oolite until 2am

It's over two decades since I achieved Elite status on the Commodore 64 version of Elite. For the benefit of the uninitiated, Elite was a space trading game. In a nutshell, you start out on a space station with a very poorly equipped Cobra MkIII spacecraft and 100 credits. You buy some stuff and fly to a new system where you hopefully sell it for more than you paid for it. The game has two major elements, the first being the trading part with maps and data about the systems to give you all the clues you need to decide what to buy and where to go sell it to make a profit. The other element is the flying which involves docking with rotating (2001 style) space stations and doing battle with pirates who are out to steal your cargo.

There's a lot more to it than that and if it grabs you, which it did me, you end up leading a parallel life that can become strangely real. I still remember the baffled look I was given by workmates who asked what I'd been up to at the weekend when I told them, without thinking what I was saying, that I'd swapped the rear beam laser on my Cobra for a mining laser and been out harvesting asteroids.

Anyway, the point is that after a long absence from computer games - I gave up on them after a number of bad experiences with Windows 95 games that reconfigured my PCs graphics display to the extent that I couldn't do any proper work on the damned thing - I found myself wondering if anybody had ever reworked Elite for the Mac. Thus I discovered Oolite, a version for OS X written in ObjC (hence the name).

They've done a really nice job of it too. All the old charm with updated graphics (20 years ago they were wire-framed) and a bunch of new features. Consequently I was up until 2am last night shipping computers and foodstuffs between Lave and Zaonce in order to save up for a beam laser and an ECM system (don't leave your home galaxy without them).

Chances of me getting any 'proper' work done between now and Christmas: not much.