Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Lesser-known facts from Apple's earnings statement



The attention-grabbing numbers from Apple's most recent earnings statement have already made the rounds — US$46 billion in revenue, net profit of $13 billion, 37 million iPhones sold — and all of that within three months. Apple didn't just turn in record-breaking performance for a tech company; only Exxon has ever managed to have a more profitable quarter than the one Apple just reported.
Combing through the spreadsheets on Apple's earnings statement provides some additional insight into the company's overall performance, where its strengths and weaknesses lie, and where the company might be headed in the future. These numbers aren't as headline-grabbing as Apple's profits or unit sales, but they tell an important story all the same.

Research and Development

In three months, Apple's expenditures on R&D totalled a staggering $758 million. This compares to expenditures of "only" $575 million the year before. To get an idea of how much money Apple's pouring into R&D, compare its three-month expenditures to the production costs of Avatar , one of the most expensive films ever produced. Avatarcost $237 million; in just three months, Apple's R&D expenditures are enough to finance an entire Avatar trilogy.
The $575 million in R&D Apple spent in Q1 2011 likely went into the iPad 2, iCloud, the iPhone 4S, iOS 5, OS X Lion, the newest MacBook Air, and a whole host of things we haven't even seen yet. Apple's R&D expenditures for Q1 2012 have increased by an additional $183 million, so the company is still clearly focused on innovating like mad.

Mac sales

One of the few minus signs visible in Apple's sales data was its North American Mac sales. Though sales were up by 19 percent compared to a year earlier, compared to the previous quarter Mac sales actually declined by 6 percent. North America was the only market to see a decline in Mac sales during the quarter, but at the same time only Europe and Asia Pacific had double-digit growth in Mac sales.
Oddly enough, sales of Mac desktops actually seemed to perform better over the quarter compared to portable sales (by trend, not by number of units sold):
Desktops
  • Unit sales up 16 percent
  • Revenue up 15 percent
Portables
  • Unit sales up 3 percent
  • Revenue up 2 percent
Both types of Mac vastly outperformed the year-ago quarter, but the tapering off of portable Mac sales and the overall decline in Mac sales in North America during the Christmas sales period is intriguing. Several factors may explain this phenomenon.
First, there were no significant Mac notebook updates during the quarter; the MacBook Pro's late October refresh was quite modest, and the MacBook Air hasn't been updated since July. Second, the mid-2011 discontinuation of the plastic MacBook eliminated Apple's "entry level" offering; the smaller and less capacious 11-inch MacBook Air costs the same as the old MacBook, but it may not be as attractive an offering to budget-minded notebook shoppers. Larger economic factors may have been at play, too; North American shoppers in particular simply may not have had the discretionary funds for a Mac purchase over the holiday quarter.
While all of those things likely had an impact on sales of Mac portables, I think what we're really seeing here is the effect of the iPad's cannibalization of the lineup. Over the quarter, the iPad outsold all Mac portables by nearly 4 to 1, and outsold all Macs combined by 3 to 1. Apple has admitted in the past that the iPad has "slightly" cannibalized Mac sales, and classified it as a "nice problem to have." It looks like that so-called "problem" is showing signs of getting worse.
None of this is to say that the Mac is in any danger; in a sharp contrast from the rest of the PC industry, the Mac is still seeing unit sales and revenue growths well into the double digits. Whether that trend continues or not is going to depend greatly on the iPad's growth; Tim Cook has said he expects the iPad to eclipse the PC industry eventually , but in terms of both unit sales and revenues, the iPad has already supplanted the Mac after less than two years on the market.

iPod sales

During its earnings conference call, Tim Cook revealed that the company sold a total of 62 million iOS devices in the past quarter. Subtracting the iPhone and iPad from that number yields a total of approximately 10 million iPod touches sold (assuming Cook wasn't also counting the Apple TV as an "iOS device," that is). This means the iPod touch now accounts for almost two-thirds of all iPods sold; the iPod nano, shuffle, and classic combined are now essentially one drop in Apple's massive bucket. Small wonder, then, that Apple's music-only iPods weren't updated at all this year .
The steep year-over-year decline in iPod sales came as no surprise. The iPod reached its all-time sales peak in Q1 of 2009, with 22.7 million units sold. Three years later, the iPod has clearly lost its mojo. With only 15.4 million iPods sold during the holiday quarter, the iPod barely outperformed its sales during the 2006 holidays. Apple sold five million fewer iPods this holiday season compared to the previous year.
As a matter of fact, Apple sold more iPads than iPods over the holiday quarter. This is a sharp contrast to the 2010 holiday season, when the iPod outsold both the iPhone and iPad. In late 2010, iPod sales were a few million units higher than the iPhone and exceeded those of the iPad by nearly 3 to 1. In late 2011, the iPad pulled just ahead of the iPod, and the iPhone outsold the iPod by more than two to one.
As recently as four years ago, the iPod was by far Apple's biggest cash cow; revenues from iPod sales exceeded even Mac sales by a healthy margin during the 2007 holiday season. iPod sales are rapidly falling, however, making it clear that the device is no longer among Apple's high-priority projects.
Given the yearly declines in iPod sales, it's easy to envision a not-too-distant future where the iPod is relegated to niche status. It's unlikely Apple will stop selling the device altogether, as it still addresses markets not served by the iPhone, but the days when the iPod was central to Apple's fortunes are long gone.

iTunes

Apple's revenues from the iTunes Store, App Store, iBookstore, and iPod-related accessories totalled more than $2 billion over the quarter. Look back to exactly ten years earlier, to the first quarter of 2002; quarterly revenues were a mere $1.375 billion for the entire company.
It's long been speculated that the various iTunes-related retail services operate at break-even or, at best, at a modest profit, and the services exist merely to spur growth in Apple's hardware sales. That scenario may have been true years ago, but with a 42 percent year-over-year growth in revenue, iTunes is starting to look like a pretty lucrative business all on its own.

Peripherals

Apple sold $766 million in peripherals during the past quarter. Again, when you compare that to the company Apple was 10 years ago, the difference is stunning; sales of all Macs combined during Q1 2002 amounted to barely over $1 billion. If Apple's sales of peripherals continue to increase by the same rate, by Q1 2013 it'll be taking in nearly as much money from peripheral sales as it made from the Mac in 2002.
If Apple counts the Apple TV among its peripherals, then the device accounted for a fairly significant portion of the overall sales. With 1.4 million units sold during the quarter , Apple's "hobby" would account for nearly a fifth of all peripheral sales.

iOS

Apple sold 37 million iPhones, 15.4 million iPads, and (going by Tim Cook's numbers as revealed during the conference call) around ten million iPod touches over the holiday quarter. That's a grand total of 62 million iOS devices sold in three months — all running the latest release of iOS, not some year-old version of it, and all of them virtually guaranteed OS updates for several years.
During the last quarter, iPhone sales reportedly exceeded sales of all Android handsets, from all vendors, combined . The iPad continues to utterly dominate the tablet market; Tim Cook reported no measurable impact on iPad sales even after the debut of the most popular Android (forked ) tablet so far, the Kindle Fire.
Apple earned almost $34 billion in revenue from iPhone and iPad sales — in three months. Google's revenue for 2011 — all of Google, for the entire year — was $37 billion.
Clearly, Android is winning.

Average revenue per unit sold

Comparing Apple's unit sales versus its revenues gives us an opportunity to see, on average, how much money Apple takes in with each sale in each product category. In turn, this gives us a general idea of which items in each category gain the most sales.
  • Desktop Macs: $1309
With 11 different models ranged over the Mac mini, iMac, and Mac Pro, the average selling price of a desktop Mac is $2072. The Mac Pro's high prices drive that average selling price much higher than the actual revenue/unit number, which leads me to believe that sales of the Mac Pro are negligible at best.
Looking at the numbers, it seems the 21.5-inch iMac is very likely Apple's most popular desktop model, followed by the 27-inch iMac, then the Mac mini. I would be shocked if the Mac Pro accounted for more than 10 percent of overall Mac desktop sales last quarter.
  • Portable Macs: $1254
The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro combine for a total of 9 different models at an average selling price of $1588. The revenue/unit numbers from Apple's earnings suggest that the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro account for a majority of Apple's portable sales, with much lower sales for the 15 and 17-inch MacBook Pro models.
  • iPods: $164
The revenue/unit numbers for the iPod line are lower than the lowest-priced iPod touch, but higher than the highest-priced iPod nano. With the iPod touch accounting for at least 50 percent and as high as 66 percent of overall iPod sales, this suggests that the 8 GB $199 iPod touch is Apple's most popular iPod, with significantly lower numbers of 32 or 64 GB iPod touches sold.
  • iPhones: $659
Unsubsidized iPhones range from $375 for an iPhone 3GS up to $849 for a 64 GB iPhone 4S. With five total models on offer, the average sale price across the iPhone line is $634, lower than the actual revenue/unit numbers in Apple's earnings.
To perhaps no one's surprise, this suggests the iPhone 4S is Apple's most popular iPhone. Given that the revenue/unit average is slightly higher than the $649 price for an unsubsidized 16 GB iPhone 4S, I'd theorize that while Apple's most popular iPhone is likely the 16 GB iPhone 4S, sales of the more expensive 32 GB and 64 GB models must also be fairly brisk to counterbalance the the (admittedly much less popular) iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 on the low end.
In other words, despite being labelled as a "disappointment" by a tech press weaned on months of rumors about a substantially redesigned iPhone 5, it appears Apple sold every iPhone 4S that came off the assembly line.
  • iPads: $593
Between the Wi-Fi only and Wi-Fi + 3G options, the iPad 2 is available in six models at an average selling price of $664. With the iPad's revenue/unit number falling below that, but still significantly higher than the $499 price of the low-end Wi-Fi model, the numbers suggest that Apple's mid-range iPads are fairly high sellers.
Sales numbers of the iPad very likely map closely to the models' prices, with brisk sales of 16 GB models, decent sales for the 32 GB option, and comparatively lower (but still more than satisfactory) sales of the 64 GB iPad 2. Unsurprisingly, the revenue/unit number suggests the Wi-Fi only iPads significantly outsell their Wi-Fi + 3G cousins.

Overall

To put it mildly, Apple's earnings report shows a company in a very robust state of health. While iPod sales are in steep decline and some segments of Mac sales are showing signs of levelling off, the astonishing uptick in iPhone and iPad sales more than makes up for it.
The iPad by itself, in one quarter, brought in more revenue than 230 out of the Fortune 500 companies earn in an entire year.
The iPhone by itself, in three months, brought in more revenue than McDonald's made in all of 2010.
Apple has $97 billion in cash. It could buy an iTunes copy of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey for everyone on Earth and still have $27 billion left over. How about a potentially better use of its money? After adjusting for inflation, Apple is a little over halfway to being able to finance its own version of the Apollo Program , all by itself. If you cut it down to just one mission, Apple is easily capable of building its own spaceport, developing and building its own launch vehicle, training its own astronauts, and sending a team of humans to the moon and back — and it would still have tens of billions of dollars left over.
Apple may not enjoy this level of success forever, but it's showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
at No comments:

The Day Apple Left The Tech World’s Collective Mouth Agape

January 25, 2012 9:05:20 PM

The Day Apple Left The Tech World's Collective Mouth Agape

techcrunch.com

$46.33 billion in revenue. It's a number the biggest and best tech companies in the world can only dream to hit in a year. Apple hit it in one quarter. $13.06 billion in profit. It's a number no tech company would ever aspire to in one quarter because it's ridiculous. The only companies that have ever thought about such numbers are oil companies. And even then, only 3 of them have actually hit it . Ever.

Until yesterday.

I've already tried to give some context to the stunning Q1 2012 results that Apple posted. But the truth is that they're still unbelievable. Perhaps the next step should be to figure out how they could post such numbers.

The simple answer is that Apple's iPhone sales were off the charts. 37 million units sold is mind-boggling when the previous record was 20 million, set in Q3 2011 . A year ago, in the same holiday quarter , Apple sold "just" 16 million iPhones. That was also a record at the time and lead to record revenue and profit at the time. This year, Apple quite simply took things to the next level — and then went a level beyond that.

Because the iPhone is over 50 percent of Apple's revenues, amazing iPhone sales equates to amazing revenues. Again, the simple answer. But to figure out why this quarter was so far ahead of any other quarter, you have to go deeper. It was really a confluence of events.

First of all, this past quarter was set up by the preceding quarter, which saw Apple fall short of Wall Street expectations for the first time in years. But as we noted at the time, this was misleading . Apple surpassed their own expectations (which isn't surprising given that they're always low), but failed to meet Wall Street's simply because Wall Street's numbers were lazy . Analysts didn't take into account the fact that the new version of the iPhone did not launch in the summertime, as it had in years past. Because it did not — and again, the iPhone is about half of Apple's revenue — there was no burst in iPhone sales that Apple usually sees in Q4.

Instead, that burst came in Q1 — last quarter. And unlike previous years, this burst was compounded because Q1 is also Apple's holiday quarter. A new iPhone plus holiday shopping season is apparently like gasoline on a fire. Now we know.

But it would be foolish to think that Apple's big numbers were only about the iPhone. Remember, Apple set new records in Mac and iPad sales as well. The iPad in particular is interesting because while it's Apple's newest business, it's already the second-largest in terms of revenue. This past quarter, 20 percent of revenue came from iPad sales.

The third-biggest source of revenue is Mac sales — they accounted for 14 percent of Apple's revenue last quater. In other words, 87 percent of Apple's revenue last quarter was from products that all saw record sales.

The lone dim spot in Apple's numbers were iPod sales, which continue to decline year-over-year. But because the other businesses have grown so massive, so quickly, the iPod only accounts for 5 percent of Apple's revenues now. Pretty soon — maybe even next quater — the iTunes Store itself will be a bigger money-maker for the company. When you consider that iTunes (including the App Store) was initially set up to be run as a break-even business, this is impressive.

Something else to consider: the iPhone, iPad, and Mac have the highest margins amongst Apple major products. The iPhone 4S, because it is largely based off of the design of the iPhone 4, probably has one of the best margins that Apple has ever seen. That rings especially true when you hear that Apple's overall gross margin for the quarter was 44.7 percent. It's a number so big that Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said he couldn't recall ever seeing a number so high in his 15 years of service. And he was skeptical that Apple would ever hit it again.

That huge margin meant huge profit. In fact, it meant profit the likes of which had never been seen before by a technology company.

And one more thing: Q1 2012 for Apple happened to span 14 weeks. This was unusual, and Apple was quick to note as much in both their press release and on the earnings call. Normally, quarters span 13 weeks (do the math: 13 x 4 = 52). You simply cannot discount an extra week of sales. And you especially cannot discount it during the holiday quarter.

Again, this monster quarter was all about a confluence of events. It was about a new iPhone launch during Apple's typically busiest quarter merged with a newer product, iPad, coming into its own, and the Mac continuing its methodical growth. Add to that amazing margins plus one more week of sales — and the fact that Apple as a whole has been killing it for several years now across the board — and you get a jaw-dropping quarter. It all came together.

Next question: will Apple be able to replicate the magic next quarter? Well, no. The quarter after the holiday one is typically weaker as consumer spending cools. And when you consider that it will span the regular 13 weeks instead of 14, you have two things working against it. Add to that the fact that the iPhone 4S will no longer be a new product, and you have another dip. There could be a new iPad in the quarter — but it may only go on sale at the tail-end. Or it may not be on sale until the following quater — we'll see. Either way, that probably dings iPad sales a bit next quarter too.

But even with all those things working "against" Apple next quater, Oppenheimer still gave guidance of $32.5 billion in revenue. That would be Apple's second-best quarter ever. And again, Apple always low-balls such numbers, so perhaps $35 billion in a more reasonable guess.

In other words, Apple may only have the second-best quarter of any tech company ever in terms of revenue next quarter. And profits may only be near the bottom of the all-time top 20 amidst the oil empires. Boo hoo.

[photo: flickr/ConvenienceStoreGourmet ]

To Top
at No comments:

Spoof Your MAC Address in Snow Leopard and Lion OS X 10.6 / 10.7

A MAC address, sometimes also refereed to as "physical address" is a unique identifier assigned to every network device. Contrarily to the IP address, which can change dynamically, a MAC address is a bit like a serial number intended todifferentiate every network device on the planet. Here's what it looks like : 01:23:45:67:89:ab.

Changing or "spoofing" your MAC address can be desired for multiple reasons and is quite simple to do in Snow Leopard.

In this tutorial, we'll assume you want to change your wireless adapter's physical address.

To find out what is your AirPort card's current MAC address, type this in the Terminal.

ifconfig en1 | grep ether

This means to disconnect all current wireless network connections while leaving AirPort enabled.

Open the Terminal and paste this command :

sudo /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -z

You will be asked for your password to execute this command.

The airport command is part or Apple's Apple80211 framework. Essentially, it's what connects you to Wifi networks. The -z option disassociates from any network.

Tip: You can set up a simpler access to the airport command by creating a symbolic link. To do this, paste the following command in the Terminal:

sudo ln -s /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport /usr/sbin/airport

Next time, you will simply need to type ariport -z to disassociate. You may also use airport -I to get information on your current connection.Once disassociated from the wireless network. You can change the MAC address with:

sudo ifconfig en1 ether 00:00:00:00:00:00

You can of course enter what ever you want as long as it is in the correct format. You can verify with ifconfig en1 | grep ether that your address is changed.

To revert your MAC address back to its default, simply reboot your machine.


at No comments:

replayTV Resumes Electronic Programming Guide

January 2, 2012 7:46 AM

replayTV Resumes Electronic Programming Guide

After the announced shutdown of the ReplayTV programming guide service, we have had many positive, enthusiastic comments about the ReplayTV DVR products and services. In light of this response, ReplayTV and its parent company Digital Networks North America, Inc. have decided to continue the electronic programming guide service pursuant to the terms of your service activation agreement. We thank you very much for all of your support and enthusiasm over the many years these products have been sold.


As we have said previously, the analog programming that the ReplayTV units are capable of recording is in fact likely to be converted to digital signals in the very near future at which point the ReplayTV units will no longer be able to record such programming. We encourage our users to consider digital video recorders that have this digital recording capability as well as additional technological advances which are not a part of the ReplayTV units (all of which were end of lifed by 2006). For monthly subscribers of the ReplayTV service, we are exploring options by which you may continue paying for and receiving such service going forward. We apologize in advance should there be any minor disruptions in the ReplayTV service while we implement the continuation of the programming guide. Thank you. ReplayTV

at No comments:

Hump Day

at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Ditch Hard Drive Clutter with an Organized, Automated Home Folder


By Whitson Gordon Jan 24, 2012 8:00 AM

Ditch Hard Drive Clutter with an Organized, Automated Home Folder

 Your home folder is the base of operations on your computer, where you throw every document, app installer, photo, and other file you'll need later. So why does it look like it's been ravaged by a virtual tornado? Here's how to organize all of your documents so you never have to rummage through a mess of files again.
Icons by David Lanham .
We've already talked about how to clean up and organize your desktop , but your documents folder can get just as cluttered, especially since a lot of what you keep on your desktop is temporary—while your home folder builds up every project you've ever worked on, not to mention half the files you download. Building off of Gina's original document-organizing method , we're going to show you an updated folder structure for your documents, how to integrate it with Dropbox so you have it everywhere you go, and how to keep it clean without ever having to touch it.

Organize Your Folders

The first step in getting your home folder under control is to create a folder structure that works for you. Most of the home folder is already set up for easy organization—you have your documents in one folder, your music in another, and so on. But within those individual folders, things can get cluttered quickly.
Generally, I let my media player manage my Music folder, and my photo manager deal with my Pictures folder (though you can always do it yourself , too). Your Documents folder, on the other hand, is up to you. You could just shove every word document, PDF, and other miscellaneous file in the documents folder and leave it up to your search function, but I prefer to add at least one layer of organization so I know where everything is. This is a little different for everyone, but I've found that these five folders should provide a good skeleton for just about anyone.
  1. Bak : I like short folder names, since I often have to access them with the command line, but you can name these folders however you want. Bak stands for Backup, but don't be fooled: this isn't where your system backups go. Those should reside in the cloud , or at the very least on an external drive. Rather, this folder is for application-specific backups, settings, and other files. That means your Quicken backup file, exported address book CSVs, and stuff like that go in here. In addition, a lot of programs—like the GIMP or PhraseExpress, for example—like to put settings folders in your Documents folder. Usually, you can't change their location, but I don't like them cluttering up the root of my Documents folder. So, I usually hide them and place a shortcut to them in the Bak folder—at least for the ones I'd need to regularly access. You can hide a folder in Windows by right-clicking, going to Properties, and checking the "Hidden" box. Mac users don't really have this problem, so you shouldn't need to hide folders inside your Documents.
  2. Docs : This is where all documents related to current, open projects go. For me, that means HTML files of any articles I'm currently working on, Zip files pertaining to anything still on my to-do list, and so on. You can organize this into sub-folders if you have a lot of documents, though I find that I usually don't need to (since most of my work is online). This folder can fluctuate and change often, and even though we'll automate the process as much as we can, you'll want to go through this folder regularly and purge everything that you don't currently need quick access to.
  3. Docs Archive : This is where things from Docs go when you no longer need them. For me that means finished articles that have been published, past invoices, contracts, and whatever else I might need access to "one day". It is a long-term archive, and you shouldn't be regularly accessing anything in this folder—it's going to get big and unwieldy, and that's okay, because on the few occasions you need something from it, you can just search. I usually like to put a shortcut to Docs Archive in my Docs folder, so I can easily drag and drop old documents to archive them, but that's up to you.
  4. LTS : LTS stands for Long Term Storage, and this is where you dump things that don't really fit in Docs Archive or Bak. This is where I keep ISOs for any live CDs I may need, PDF rulebooks for my favorite tabletop games, guitar tabs I want to store locally, or manuals for my gadgets and other tech. I prefer to keep these things out of Docs and Docs Archive because they're usually more personal than work-related, and I'll usually access them more often. What you store here is up to you, but I found it was a good location for all the things that didn't yet have a place.
  5. Scripts : This is where you keep any scripts, shortcuts, registry tweaks, and other similar things. Even if you aren't a programmer, you may find there are a few things you want this folder for—whether it's AutoHotkey scripts, your Todo.txt file , scripts you need for Geektool or Rainmeter , and so on. A lot of times, the difference between Bak and Scripts can get murky, especially if you don't have too many scripts. If you find that both folders are fairly empty, you can consolidate them into one folder for easier access. I have a lot of random scripts I keep on hand for different things, though, so I prefer to keep them separate. Again, you can tweak this structure to fit your workflow—this isn't set in stone.
I don't usually add folders within any of these folders, with an exception or two. The less clicking you have to do to find a file, the better, so you don't want some big complicated folder tree if you don't need one. I've found that one or two folders deep is all I need to keep everything organized, though depending on how many documents you're throwing into the Docs folder, you may want to split it up into further subfolders. Since most of my work is online, I find that I only ever have a few documents at a time in there anyway, so your mileage may vary.
Lastly, you should have one or two places where you temporarily store files. These days, that's usually your Downloads folder and/or your Desktop . Everyone organizes them a little differently , but I've found that if I need to organize them, I'm relying on them too much. I set Firefox, uTorrent, and other programs to dump their downloads in my Downloads folder, and I usually use whatever it is—an app installer, a .torrent file, or whatever else—immediately, and then it can be deleted. If it's a document or PDF, I'll usually put it right into Docs. Like Docs, this folder should never have too many things in it at once—once you've used it, delete it, or put it into one of the above folders if it has a place there. My Downloads folder is essentially a halfway point between the internet and my documents, so if something's been in there for awhile, it isn't where it needs to be.

Automatically Keep It Clean with Belvedere

Coming up with an efficient folder structure helps out a lot, but constantly having to move files around is kind of a pain. We can automate some of the process with a program like Belvedere for Windows , or Hazel for Mac . We've shown you how to use them before , so we won't go into too much detail here, but you can use a few simple rules to make sure everything stays clean.

For example, my Docs folder gets pretty cluttered after a week or two, due to all the articles I save over the course of a few days. Instead of going in there and moving them to Docs Archive myself, I can set Belvedere to do it automatically. To do so, open up Belvedere's settings and click the plus sign in the bottom left corner to add a new folder. Choose your Docs folder, and create a new rule. Call it whatever you want, and make sure the conditions are "Extension is doc" and "Date last modified is not in the last 7 days". Obviously, you can change the file extension to whatever you want. Under "Do the Following", I set it to move the file to Docs Archive. See the image to the right for an example of this rule.
Now, Belvedere will automatically archive documents of that type that have been in there for over a week. You can tweak the rule as you see fit; I've found that a week is usually sufficient for me. You can also check the "Confirm Action" box in the Edit Rule window if you want it to give you a popup every time it moves files, but this can get annoying.
I've set up a similar rule for my Downloads folder, that moves all week-old EXE files to the Recycle Bin (since these are usually installers that I no longer need). Again, you can do it with whatever file types you want. If you want to get more advanced with it, too, you can—whether that's automatically adding downloaded music to your favorite media player, regularly emptying the recycle bin, and more. Check out our full guides to automating your folder organization with Belvedere and Hazel for more ideas and info.

Sync Everything to the Cloud with Dropbox

 
Lastly, we'll want to make sure all of our important documents get synced to the cloud so we can access them anywhere. Again, we've talked about this once before , but we're going to use a slightly different method. Instead of using our Dropbox as our home folder—since I like the default home folder structure—we're going to use symbolic links to sync only the folders we want. Symbolic links are essentially like shortcuts, except your computer doesn't recognize them as shortcuts—it sees them as the actual folder they're linking to.
On Windows, the process is a tad confusing. We're still going to put the folders we want to sync in our Dropbox folder. This is the only way it works on Windows. Then, we'll create symbolic links in those folders' original locations, so it's like they were never gone, and all your apps will still use the same file paths to find all your documents and settings.
To do this, first grab a folder that you want to sync (we'll use Docs as an example) and drag it into your Dropbox. Then, to create a symlink, you'll need to jump into the command line and run the mklink command using this syntax:
mklink /D C:\Path\To\Link C:\Path\To\Original\Folder
So, in the case of the Docs folder, which now resides in our Dropbox, this would:
mklink /D C:\Users\Whitson\Documents\Docs C:\Users\Whitson\Dropbox\Docs
Now you should see a link to Docs in your Documents folder, which leads you to the real Docs folder in your Dropbox.
In OS X and Linux, you can leave your desired folder (again, in this case, Docs) in its original location, and create a symlink in your Dropbox to sync the folder. Do this with the ln command, which works like this:
ln -s /path/to/original/folder /path/to/link
In which case, you'd run this command to link the Docs folder:
ln -s /Users/Whitson/Documents/Docs /Users/Whitson/Dropbox/Docs
Now, repeat this process for any other folders you want to sync—I sync all my Documents folders and my photos, but not my music, videos, or downloads—and you'll have access to them on all your other machines without messing up your computer's original directory structure. Note that if you're uncomfortable with the command line, you can always use an app like previously mentioned Dropbox Folder Sync for Windows or previously mentioned MacDropAny to create those symbolic links.
Obviously, everything in this guide is subject to your particular wants and needs. If you only have one or two "scripts", you can always just throw them in Bak to make your life easier, or if you find you need another folder for something specific related to your work, go ahead and create it. This is merely a skeleton outline, and should provide you with a starting point for a newly minted home folder with all the syncing, automated cleaning goodness you can think of. Got any of your own tips or modifications to this? Share them in the comments below.



at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)