Author: Mike Hudson

“fast charge” Siri Shortcut

Mike Hudson

Rey Ian Cabanganan shared a handy Siri Shortcut over of the Siri Shortcuts Facebook group which does a good job of optimizing your phone for “fast charging”. Now, obviously, none of the charging technologies is changed using this shortcut. It simply switches off all of the battery intensive functionality on your device. What’s more, to save you the effort of having to switch all the services back on, it will prompt you in 30-minute intervals, so once your battery has reached the required percentage it will switch them all back on again.

Ian appreciates his device knowing who is boss and has added voice acknowledgement of his status. I’ve removed those sections, the rest I’ve left in place.

You can download it from here

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OpenPGP Encrypt Folder Action

Mike Hudson

Automate file encryption

On my MacBook I use the GPG Suite in order to keep my sensitive data secure, including data which I upload to the cloud. Encrypting files is something I do frequently, so I put together a small automator folder action to automatically encrypt files dropped into a specific folder.

For this to work, you’ll need the GPG Suite installed, with a private key setup. You’ll also need to adjust the ‘–recipient’ option in the bash code listed below.

Once the file has been encrypted it deletes the unencrypted copy, so be sure to keep your key safe.

 

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I’m a NCSAM Champion

Mike Hudson

I'm a NCSAM champion

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM)

This October marks the 15th NCSAM which is co-lead by NCSA & Cyber. As part of my role at my current employer, one of my main focuses is on the business and its staff’s Cybersecurity compliance and awareness. This is also something I am pationate about outside of work. Therefore, I have registered to become a NCSAM Champion.
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Siri Shortcut Favorites

Mike Hudson

For sometime now I have been a big fan of the Apple Workflow app, which Apple acquired 2 years ago. So needless to say, I was very excited when I learnt about their intention to bundle the Shortcuts app with iOS 12 back in July. As a veteran applications developer, I like automating things where possible and the Siri Shortcuts app enables just that. With the benefits of it being ‘cross-device’ and also actionable via voice from the HomePod.

The app is amazingly powerful, with third parties updating their apps all the time to support the new hooks.

The social media platforms are awash with Shortcut examples, the best of which I’ve found so far are attached to a conversation on Redit by user Varoeldurr;

It’s not as large as it used to be mainly because I had to delete a lot of them to reduce clutter.

Some of them are self-explanatory, but a few are personalized so they might not make sense to you. I’ll try to explain. It’ll take forever to share each one so let me know if you find one interesting and I’ll share later tonight before I sleep.

From left to right

Music:

  • Say you shuffle your music, you land on a song you love and you want to play the whole album. This will do it. LINK
  • Shuffle a playlist of favorite songs (~3000) LINK
  • Sometimes I listen to an album of an artist I just discovered, so I like it and I want to know where to go next. This will take you to an aggregator that ranks the artist’s top albums. LINK
  • Tweet a song you’re listening to with an album artwork and a YouTube link of your choice (it’ll take you to YT app and you copy a link then it’ll take you back). LINK
  • Shuffle all songs LINK
  • Shuffle albums (you play a random album in full then move to the next random album). LINK
  • Play one song of your choice and then shuffle all songs. LINK
  • Get artwork of your current song LINK
  • Add current album to your favorite playlist (same playlist mentioned above) LINK
  • Similar to the one above except here it asks you for input which should be an artist name LINK
  • Search lyrics of current song LINK. Better shortcut

Keyboard shortcuts:

  • Presents some codes (¯_(ツ)_/¯ etc) LINK
  • Lets you type a setup and a punchline then copies the text to your clipboard LINK
  • Type an emoji and it’ll name it LINK
  • Get a wall of text from your clipboard, find a word and replace with another. LINK

Camera roll:

  • Create a grid from camera roll LINK
  • Combine Screenshots LINK
  • Upload to imgur and copy link to clipboard LINK
  • Save video from Safari LINK
  • Convert video to GIF LINK
  • Select multiple screenshots and delete them LINK

Web:

  • Open a Reddit link in Apollo LINK
  • Same for Tweetbot LINK
  • Download YouTube LINK
  • Download videos from major social networks LINK Updated shortcut
  • Download a file LINK
  • Shorten URL LINK
  • Want to read a NY times or WashPost article and get hit with a paywall? This will take you to an add free webpage of the whole article LINK
  • Show a graph of an Amazon product from CamelCamelCamel LINK

Utilities:

  • Kidnapped and want to ask for help but don’t know SOS? Well, this can save you by sending the signal using flashlight LINK
  • Flip a coin LINK
  • Control center DND has improved but not dramatically. Sometimes you want to turn it on and disable at a certain time. This allows you to do that. LINK

Random:

  • Calculate how many days between two dates LINK
  • Calculate Tip LINK
  • Speak body of article LINK

Edit: Just updated my comment with links. And yes, I used a shortcut to automate part of the process:)

I did want to embed the thread into the page, however – reddit has other ideas..

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Dungeon Punks brings tag team brawling to consoles

Mike Hudson

Dungeon Punks

A throwback to the arcade brawlers of the past but featuring modern fighting game mechanics and engrossing RPG elements, Dungeon Punks is filled with crazy magic spells, custom combo attacks and tag team-inspired tactical mayhem.  Set in a world of magic, mystery and corporate greed, players will discover loot and adventure as they seek to unravel the dark secrets of RezCorp in an effort take down the corrupt bigwigs of the resurrection insurance industry.

“Dungeon Punks is a nod to the classic era of arcade brawlers and beat ‘em ups — when gaming was exciting and challenging, but still entirely accessible; when co-op was new and the camaraderie of a multiplayer adventure called you to the corner store for just one more round; when games were hard, satisfying and best experienced with friends,” said Dan Goldstein, Co-Founder and Developer at Hyper Awesome Entertainment.    “We wanted to make the game that we wished we could play, one that would take the best parts of fighting games like X-Men vs. Street Fighter and put them in the middle of a fantasy adventure full of devastating magic spells, custom combos, powerful weapons, interactive environments, power ups, and of course, rideable laser shooting unicorns…”

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