There’s a slow, steady fall of snow outside today: it’s a dense, heavy snow. Rhonda and I enjoyed dinner at Greenview Inn Friday night; I had the duck. Yesterday, we check out Bellview’s December cheese plate, which was “Santa and Friends.” We supplemented with some salami from Bagliani’s and some sardines for me.

TineeOwl iPad mini

My general rule of thumb is that an apple-branded case or folio is probably the best for my usage; I’ve largely stuck to Apple iPhone cases (most recently, a Beats case) and Apple’s Magic Keyboards and Folios for iPads. I have a nice green Apple folio for my iPad mini, which I like a lot.

The thing about the mini is, it begs to be carried around and not stuffed in a bag. I like to keep it in the car with me, on the passenger seat when it’s empty, and put it on the counter when I’m making drinks and things.

Apple’s folio has a great texture, but you don’t want to get it wet or stain it. One of the things that make their folios great–magnetic connection to the device–keep it from being reliable protectors in the event of a drop.

Enter the TineeOwl Arctic case. It’s more of a wrap-around phone cover, a clear rubbery plastic case that protects the back and sides of the iPad, with a decent lip to keep the screen from contacting a table or desk surface if you lay it face down.

The TineeOwl Arctic has grooves for the iPad’s TouchID wake/sleep button and the Apple Pencil, so it doesn’t interfere with the Mini’s helpful touch features.

It can feel a little rubbery when you’re reading and holding the device from the side; the edge of the case will pull away from the device, depending upon how you’re holding it. That can feel cheap and one imagines serial removals of the case will one day render it too stretched out to be useful. On the other hand, in a landscape of overpriced accessories, TineeOwl’s pricing is such that you don’t worry about it.

And hey: now I can see the six-color logo sticker on the back!

FastScripts

FastScripts is a utility from Red Sweater Software (purveyor of Mac-assed Mac apps, including the excellent MarsEdit) that collects your AppleScripts and gives you access to them via Finder’s menu bar. You can set a global keyboard shortcut to expose the menu, and even per-script shortcuts, and search your scripts. I’ve tried pushing a lot of my favorite Applescripts to Shortcuts, but in cases where I’m just executing scripts via Shortcuts, why bother?

One of my favorites is this script to create what I call a “classic” Finder window: no sidebar, toolbar, nuthin.

tell application "Finder"
    activate
    if (count of Finder windows) = 0 then
        make new Finder window
    end if
end tell

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Finder"
        try
            -- Toggle the Toolbar
            if exists menu item "Hide Toolbar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1 then
                click menu item "Hide Toolbar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
            else if exists menu item "Show Toolbar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1 then
                click menu item "Show Toolbar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
            end if

            -- Toggle the Status Bar
            if exists menu item "Hide Status Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1 then
                click menu item "Hide Status Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
            else if exists menu item "Show Status Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1 then
                click menu item "Show Status Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
            end if

            -- Toggle the Path Bar
            if exists menu item "Hide Path Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1 then
                click menu item "Hide Path Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
            else if exists menu item "Show Path Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1 then
                click menu item "Show Path Bar" of menu "View" of menu bar 1
            end if

        on error errMsg
            display dialog "An error occurred: " & errMsg buttons {"OK"} default button 1
        end try
    end tell
end tell

Bellview Winery’s San Marco ’23

Bellview owner Jimmy Quarella said the ’23 San Marco was just bottled, but it’s not for sale in said vessel as it has to settle a bit. It is, however, on tap at the winery, and after a taste yesterday, I couldn’t help but commit to a growler to take home. It’s a dry red, medium-bodied by my tastes. I’ve had San Marco blended into other reds they concoct, but this is my first time having the pure distillation.