Mac Geekery

I was having quite the problem with trying to install programs from the command line: Bash would complain I didn't have libraries installed that I most certainly did, and pkg-config was no help, since it apparently wouldn't talk to X11 or Bash at all. Nice. Those are hours of my life I'll never get back.There's more »

My work requires my undivided attention in several places at once. I enjoy multitasking, and switching back and forth is not a problem for me. However, I need to be hyperaware of instant activity in Jabber, email, and in many different web locations. If I'm not, I'm not helping our customers to their full due, nor immediately attentive of co-workers' needs and questions.

The main issue is email--I need to know when email's work-related, and when such email is from supervisors.

Thanks to celsuis1414.com, I was inspired to use OSX's Speech capacities in order to make these distinctions in a way that doesn't startle the way an on-screen message might. I've found that on-screen notifications, as in windows' making themselves frontmost, interrupt my typing and my line of thought, while sound does not. Anything more intrusive than Growl is a jolt. Quirk of my brain.

Following the sound creation directions at celsuis1414.com, I first opened System Preferences and set the system voice (Vicki) and speaking speed of speech. Then I opened iTerm and used the say command to convert text to speech.

I created several .aiff files, annoucing pertinent emails:

say -o site5.aiff "Email from work"There's more »