AppleScript: The Missing Manual

The Missing Credits

About the Author

Adam Goldstein is the teenage founder of GoldfishSoft (http://www.goldfishsoft.com), a software company specializing in games and utilities for Mac OS X. He has worked on several books for O’Reilly, including Mac OS X: The Missing Manual (as technical editor) and Mac OS X Power Hound (as co-editor). In his spare time, Adam attends high school in New Jersey, where he is a captain of the Quizbowl team and is engaged in various other nerdy endeavors.

He welcomes feedback about this book by email: [e-mail]. (If you need technical help, however, please refer to the sources in Appendix C.)

About the Creative Team

Chuck Toporek (editor) is the author of Inside .Mac, the Mac OS X Panther Pocket Guide (and all its previous incarnations for earlier versions of Mac OS X), and is a coauthor of Mac OS X Panther in a Nutshell. He’s a senior editor with O’Reilly Media, Inc., responsible for all of the non-Missing Manual Mac OS X-related books published by O’Reilly. Chuck resides in Portland, Oregon, where he spends his free time sipping coffee and enjoying the grandeur of the Pacific Northwest. Email: [e-mail]. Web: http://homepage.mac.com/chuckdude.

Rose Cassano (cover illustration) has worked as an independent designer and illustrator for 20 years. Assignments have ranged from the nonprofit sector to corporate clientele. She lives in beautiful Southern Oregon, grateful for the miracles of modern technology that make working there a reality. Email: [e-mail]. Web: http://www.rosecassano.com.

Ellie Volckhausen (cover designer) has been at O’Reilly for several years, and has discovered that the sooty phalangist from Van Diemen’s Land is the same animal as the Common Brushtail Possum from Tasmania.

Paul Berkowitz (technical reviewer) has tech-edited other O’Reilly AppleScript books, including AppleScript: The Definitive Guide by Matt Neuburg, and has also done some technical proofreading of AppleScript-related documentation for Apple and Microsoft. He is the author of the AppleScript chapter in Office 2004 for the Mac: The Missing Manual. He is well known as the author of over 100 AppleScripts for Entourage—including major script programs for exporting and importing just about everything—and programs for syncing Entourage to Apple’s Address Book and iCal. In his “other life,” he is a classical pianist and Professor of Piano at the University of California in Santa Barbara, where he now lives happily ever after.

John Gruber (technical reviewer) is a freelance writer, Web developer, designer, and Mac nerd. He combines those interests on his Web site, Daring Fireball (http://daringfireball.net), which is widely regarded as “not bad.” John lives in Philadelphia with his lovely wife, Amy, and their young son Jonas.

Lydian Meredith (technical reviewer) has been working and playing with Macs since 1988, in academia, business, and publishing. Currently she runs her own publishing bureau in London and lurks in several Mac User lists, including some for AppleScript.

August Trometer (technical reviewer) is the creator and developer of the podcasting client iPodderX, as well as the creator and administrator of the .Mac portal Web site, dotmac.info. A former restaurant owner, he now works as a software and Web developer. He lives in Indianapolis, Indiana. Email: [e-mail]. Web: http://dotmac.info.

Linley Dolby (copyeditor) spent several years in the production department at O’Reilly before moving to Martha’s Vineyard to pursue a freelance career. She now helps whip technical books into shape for several companies, including O’Reilly and Pogue Press. Email: [e-mail].

Genevieve d’Entremont (production editor) has been at O’Reilly for two years now, but she still doesn’t understand why people are so fascinated by technological minutiae. In her spare time, she reads novels and dreams of spending the rest of her days on a tropical beach, sipping Mai Tais and reading more novels.

Acknowledgments

The Missing Manual series is a joint venture between Pogue Press (the dream team introduced on these pages) and O’Reilly Media, Inc. (a dream publishing partner).

The first person to whom thanks is due is Marcia Palmer, my Kindergarten math teacher, who introduced me to Logo before I even knew how to read. Logo was my earliest experience with computer programming, and I’ve never lost interest.

More recently, I owe a great deal to Chuck Toporek, whose editorial comments on this book were far and away the most thorough I’ve ever received. Chuck was flexible when scheduling became tight, incredibly helpful in getting the book into production, and in innumerable other ways the best editor anyone could possibly imagine.

I also owe tons of thanks to Sarah Milstein, Missing Manual Superwoman, for her own ultra-helpful comments. Without Sarah’s input, this book would have been yet another techy AppleScript guide, rather than a beginner-friendly Missing Manual. (And of particular note, I’d like to thank Sarah for being open to me writing an AppleScript book in the first place.)

The four technical editors also were top-notch. Paul Berkowitz’s insightfulness and personal AppleScript expertise were particularly helpful, as were John Gruber’s wonderfully constructive suggestions. Lydian Meredith brought the helpful perspective of a first-time scripter, and August Trometer’s careful testing caught several important glitches that would have slipped through otherwise. Altogether, these technical editors made the book far better.

My parents, Risa and Eliot, have been amazingly helpful in their own right. They signed my book contract since I’m too young to do it myself, and had few qualms about letting me write a book while school was in session. They offered me endless supplies of food, shelter, and—most importantly—love, without which it would have been hard to write anything at all.

My sister, Hannah, offered all of the above (with the exception of food and shelter). So did all four of my grandparents: Ben, Ruth, Roseanne, and Jim.

Last of all, I am eternally indebted to David Pogue, God of Technical Writing, for his willingness to let a high schooler work with him. Letting me tech-edit, edit, and finally write a book in the Missing Manual series was unbelievably magnanimous of him. And had it not been for the inspiration of David’s own books, I never would have been interested in technical writing in the first place.

The Missing Manual Series

Missing Manuals are witty, superbly written guides to computer products that don’t come with printed manuals (which is just about all of them). Each book features a handcrafted index; cross-references to specific page numbers (not just “see Chapter 14”); and RepKover, a detached-spine binding that lets the book lie perfectly flat without weights or cinder blocks.

Recent and upcoming titles include:

• Mac OS X: The Missing Manual (Tiger Edition) by David Pogue

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• iPhoto 4: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and Derrick Story

• iMovie 4 & iDVD: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

• iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, 3rd Edition, by J.D. Biersdorfer

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• iLife ’04: The Missing Manual, by David Pogue, et al.

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• Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

• Mac OS X Power Hound, Panther Edition by Rob Griffiths

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• Office 2004 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual by Mark H. Walker and Franklin Tessler

• AppleWorks 6: The Missing Manual by Jim Elferdink and David Reynolds

• Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by David Pogue

• Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual by David Pogue, Craig Zacker, and Linda Zacker

• Windows XP Power Hound by Preston Gralla

• Excel: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

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