Skip to Content

Free TUAW iPhone app -- try it now!
AOL Tech

automator posts

Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Productivity, Freeware

BatchRename'em 1.0: Mac utility to easily rename your files

Haven't gotten around to using Automator for all of your mundane, joyless, repetitive tasks? Need to rename a large number of files with a large amount of hurry? BatchRename'em is the Mac utility for you.

As much as we cringe when an application uses "'em" in its name, BatchRename'em makes up for it with its simple effect. The application allows you to batch rename files and folders in a number of ways, including:
  • Make Sequential
  • Add Text
  • Replace Text
  • Change Case
  • Add Date or Time
To get started, double-click the BatchRename'em icon. You'll be met with a finder window where you can choose any number of files simultaneously. After you've selected the files you wish to rename, a drop down menu is presented, and you can choose the rename function that suits you. Hit continue, and BatchRename'em goes about its business.

All in all, BatchRename'em is a quick, sparse tool, with a simple, easy to use interface that harnesses the built-in power of Automator without being too complex. BatchRename'em is a free download for Mac OS X, and is confirmed working on Tiger (it has yet to be tested on Leopard).

Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Productivity

Do-It 1.0: Major iCal time-saver


iCal is a great calendaring app, but if you're a heavy user, you'll sympathize with us when we say it drives us nuts. Really, the most troublesome part of using iCal is adding events. Lots of unnecessary clicks and options that you can hide and show combine to slow you down when you're creating an event. Something that should take ten seconds takes forty.

So we went in search of something to speed the process up--and we found it. Do-It is an Automator app that has a single screen for entering iCal events, and it is much faster that iCal itself. Almost every option is there, though recurring events aren't implemented. Do-It is definitely going in our dock.

Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Apple, Freeware

Automator Automation podcast available

automator logoTech columnist and author David Pogue has released a short podcast (4 MB) covering tips and techniques for using Mac OSX Tiger's Automator application to - you guessed it - automate such tasks as backups, zipping up applications (say for email or ftp transfer) and even setting alarms for automation processes. It's pretty interesting and touches on the raw drag-and-drop-programming muscle that Automator can flex.

Via MacMinute.

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio