Damon Clinkscales

I would like a basic Mac app (let’s call it ‘Squeaky’) which automatically keeps my desktop clean via some simple, configurable rules. If I start with a clean desktop, after a week of working, my desktop looks like this:

I’d like to be able to automagically sort files into folders by File Name Pattern, Kind, Date Created, and Date Modified. An example might be to grab all the image files on my Desktop and store them in a folder called Images. These would be swept automatically at some interval (configurable).

I’ve registered a domain for the application: squeakyapp.com (as in squeaky clean), but I am of course open to some other name for the app. My original codename for the project is ‘crap app’, so perhaps that would work.

I’d also like a manual cleanup option which would let me sweep all files into a file named Stuff-. This would be especially handy when I’m about to give a presentation and put my laptop on the big screen. 🙂 Sometimes though, I just want a clean desktop to think more clearly. It’d be neat if I could ‘press a button’ and voila, clean desk.

I figure this would be worth at least $10 to people who need it, perhaps more if it was well done.

Known Implementations:

• Hazel ($21.95) [I think this probably does much more than what I’m asking for, and as such, the cost is more than I would expect. However, it’s the best thing that I know of to solve the problem.]
• Clean (command line utility by Ross Andrews)

Please let me know if you know of other existing solutions or if you would like to create this application. My computer and my brain would thank you greatly if you could help keep my Desktop squeaky clean.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the iPhone, AT&T vs. Verizon coverage maps, and dropped calls. I have certainly experienced dropped calls here in Austin during the holidays. I was even contacted by an AT&T Social Media Manager (ATTNicole) to get more details about my dropped calls. This is nice and I’m glad she is asking. But I thought to myself, what we really need is a web site which delivers this info to the cell phone companies en masse.

A site like Time Capsule Dead, but for dropped calls.

Initially, it’d be a database app with the following fields:

Carrier:
Date/Time:
City:
Nearest Intersection:
Phone Hardware:
Firmware Version:

The data could be collected, aggregated by geographic location (city, or even mapping the intersection) to help find hotspots of FAIL for a particular carrier, time of day, and location.

What say you?

Known Implementations:

Mark The Spot (AT&T only, data not public) (hat tip: @maczter)

Related:

OpenSignalsMaps (Mashable article) [added 2/14/2011]

Gizmodo article about Mark The Spot (hat tip: @maczter)

Sensorly – an app which collects phone data and builds real coverage maps from its users’ phones (hat tip: @lennysan)

(photo courtesy of Cosmic Kitty)

I think someone should number the local businesses for a given market area. Or perhaps, you focus on a thinner slice like Restaurants. The objective of this would be to provide a very easy to remember number to use to look up information about a local business. Find a decent short domain that has to do with local or location (haven’t really looked much at this yet, I just had the idea this morning while walking the dog). Something like goloc.al would be good, although I’m not Albanian. At the site, it’d be easy to peck in the number and get more info, kind of like those real state signs with a short code and a phone number.

Give each business a short number and offer them a simple way to print up laptop stickers, bumper stickers, small signs, etc., with their logo and their “golocal number” (for lack of a better term). Here in Austin, maybe BuildASign and Go Local Austin could deliver some parts of this. Although, Go Local Austin is focused on locally owned businesses only and this idea would be generally applicable to all businesses in the market.

You could limit it to 1000 businesses per market so that the numbers were always 3-digit (super easy to remember). Four digit numbers are easy to remember as well, but to create some exclusivity and a “rush to register”, you could limit the size of it. So, let’s say you’re a local business like Tacodeli and you decide to sign on to the program. goloc.al would print up some “I LOVE Tacodeli” stickers with their logo and a reference number and give these to Tacodeli. They would then hand them out to their repeat customers and biggest fans. Perhaps goloc.al could hold contests where users take pictures of their own stickers or signs they’ve spotted out in the wild.

(please forgive my lack of graphical prowess)

The web site would provide a basic page about the business and could provide all of the usual info: hours, location, map. A coupon should be made available from time to time for site users. Of course, the site could also offer search and roll up the businesses into markets. Here, it’s probably very similar to sites like Yelp or Citysearch. You may figure out a way to differentiate here, but I don’t know what it is right now.

You could also provide an SMS service to respond based on the number and market you’re in. Text to “12345” –> “austin 372” to look up business #372 in the city of Austin to get more info (such as hours & a map link, etc.)

The primary benefit of this numbering approach is the simplicity of just needing to remember one number. Not every local business is going to have a good web site/domain and some don’t even have one at all. This is one value which Citysearch and similar services offer is to give local business a “place on the web” when they may not have the wherewithal or inclination to create their own site. This could provide that feature, but with the added marketing benefit of an easy to remember number. This also means that the Citysearch’s of the world could use some variant of this idea to drive more traffic to their site.

Known Implementations: None.