Automator-Service to add Task to Wunderlist

Wunderlist Logo
I started using the fantastic app “Wunderlist” for my personal Task Management on the Mac, of course with synchronisation to iPhone and the web.

Before I used to write all my To-dos simply into the Stickies.app – which worked, but was not too flexible. While migrating all pending Tasks from my notes, I realized that I’d love to be able to use the right-click-contextmenu to send the current text selection to Wunderlist. As I have done similiar things already for image manipulations, etc. using an Automator Service, I knew where to start for my new requirement :)

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OS X: Create ZIP archives without hidden System files

ZIP from Mac to Windows

It’s a common problem between Mac and Windows users, when you create a ZIP archive under Mac OS X, that it will contain a bunch of unwanted files, which you don’t want to have included in the archive. In OS X’s Finder you won’t notice that, because the Finder is hiding them from you. But they will show up on the Windows side after unzipping the archive.

OS X Standard ZIP Archive with hidden Files

Fortunately there is quite a simple and straight-forward solution for Mac OS X to create so called “Clean Archives”, using a predesigned Automator action.

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OS X: Delete single objects from Time Machine backups

OS X Time Machine IconI already posted a step-by-step guide on how to delete old backups from your Time Machine drive in order to free up space. What I did not mention in that article was how you can delete single files & folders from within backups, if you want to have even more free space available for future backups.

The steps to do so are slightly different – especially the fact that you do not navigate to your backup drive in Finder, but use the Time Machine application instead.

Here are the instructions, if you want to delete specific files & folders from existing Time Machine backups:
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Project Server 2010: Export Status Report Responses using Excel

ProjectServer2010 LogoMicrosoft didn’t spend too much time on the “Status Reports” module in Project Server 2010, leaving it with many disadvantages and even a somewhat not so intuitive handling. This affects especially the extraction of Responses to Status Reports – which you can only export to a non-editable Word template.

Having not found any better solution on the internet for improving the retrieval of Staus Report responses (except a scheme of the required tables), I decided to make my own SQL-Query to do so.

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Project Server 2010: How-to add Notifications for your Users

ProjectServer2010 LogoUnfortunately Microsoft’s Project Server 2010 doesn’t allow an administrator to set default settings for Notifications for all Users. They basically would have to go into their “Personal Settings > Settings for my Alerts and Reminders” themself and set the notification settings for Tasks, Status Reports, etc.

And as we all know: the User’s won’t do it.

So I had to figure out a way how I can “force” my Users to receive certain Notifications. After various Google Search Queries I had to realize, that there is no other way than digging into the database directly (although NOT SUPPORTED BY MICROSOFT!) and add the reminders for my Users manually (if this is not true, please let me know!!).

  • Affected Database:
    • ProjectServer_Published
  • Required Tables:
    • dbo.MSP_REMINDER_SUBSCRIPTION
    • dbo.MSP_REMINDER_DEFINITION
    • dbo.MSP_RESOURCES

Step 1
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Windows 7: How-to Hide the Libraries Icon and Window-Previews

Win7 Libraries FolderOn my new corporate computer installed with Windows 7 OS, these two things bugged me from the very beginning: how can I remove this unnecessary “Libraries” folder from the desktop (still didn’t figure out what it is for) and how I can disable these window preview hovers (because I know in which window I have what information).

Windows 7 Taskbar Preview

It turned out that I am definitely not alone with both requests – at least that’s what Google told me when querying these topics. But more suprised I was about the fact, that both settings need to digg into the RegEdit and are not standard OS features.

Anyway, here’s what to do:
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