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The Grab Bag

Unsupported Watson Tools and add-ons

Name/Purpose: Remove the [CC] from the TV Listings grid
Description: If don't want the TV Listings tool to show you the [CC] on the grid, open up the Terminal utility and type the following single line, then hit return. (To turn it back on later, change the 1 to a 0.)
defaults write com.karelia.watson tv.ignoreCC 1
Download: None
 

Name/Purpose: Additional SiteSearch sources
Description: Here is a repository of additional sources for the SiteSearch tool, either created in-house and not yet ready for prime time, or contributed by third-party developers.
  • Easy Download: Drag the link onto the popup menu of sources in the SiteSearch window.
  • Manual Download: Click the link to download to your desktop, and then put them into your home folder -> Library -> Application Support -> Watson -> SiteSearch folder. (create any of these folders that don't exist.)
    (Safari Beta users: You will need to option-click on the links to force the files to download to your hard disk, then rename them to have an extension of ".plist" instead of ".txt".)
Download: CNN, contributed by Wesley Ray Hall
E! Online, contributed by Wesley Ray Hall
 

Name/Purpose: Dialectizer add-on for "Translation" tool
Description: Add this file to your system to access the popular Dialectizer service, which "translates" English into a number of made-up languages and accents such as Cockney, Elmer Fudd, and Swedish Chef.
  1. After downloading, navigate into your home folder,
  2. then the Library folder,
  3. then the Application Support folder
    (create this folder if it doesn't exist),
  4. then the Watson folder
    (create this folder if it doesn't exist),
  5. then the Translation folder
    (create this folder if it doesn't exist),
  6. and put the dialectizer.plist file there.
Download: dialectizer.plist
(Safari Beta users: You will need to option-click on the link to force the file to download to your hard disk, then rename the file so that it has an extension of ".plist" instead of ".txt".)
 

Technical Notes and Tricks of the Trade

Name/Purpose: Change the frequency that a tool updates itself
Description: Some (but not all) refresh themselves on a periodic basis. From the terminal, you can change the number of seconds between a tool's main refresh updates. For example, you can change the eBay tool's update frequency if once per minute is too often for you. The general form is this, as a single line:
defaults write com.karelia.watson identifier.ToolFrequency seconds
... where identifier is one of the identifiers listed below that corresponds to a tool, and seconds is the number of seconds between updates. For example, changing eBay's frequency to every two minutes would look like this:
defaults write com.karelia.watson com.karelia.watson.ebay.ToolFrequency 120
The list of tool identifiers (you can figure out which they correspond to!)
  • com.karelia.watson.Amazon
  • com.karelia.watson.ebay
  • com.karelia.watson.Exchange
  • com.karelia.watson.Google
  • com.karelia.watson.image
  • com.karelia.watson.Meerkat
  • com.karelia.watson.Movies
  • com.karelia.watson.Packages
  • com.karelia.watson.phone
  • com.karelia.watson.PriceGrabber
  • com.karelia.watson.recipes
  • com.karelia.watson.Reference
  • com.karelia.watson.stocks
  • com.karelia.watson.Translation
  • com.karelia.watson.TV
  • com.karelia.watson.VersionTracker
  • com.karelia.watson.Weather
  • com.karelia.watson.yahoo
  • com.karelia.watson.ZipCodes
Download: None
 

Name/Purpose: Change the frequency that Watson connects to its "Home Base" to check for news and updates
Description: If you run Watson all the time, but don't want it to connect to its "home base" server as often as it does (usually every 6 hours), you can set this to a different value.
defaults write com.karelia.watson WATSON_CONNECT_INTERVAL seconds
... where seconds is the number of seconds between updates. For example, changing Watson to check only once every 48 hours would be (let's see, 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, makes 60 * 60 * 48 = 172800)
defaults write com.karelia.watson WATSON_CONNECT_INTERVAL 178200
Download: None
 

Name/Purpose: Avoid the Proxy Server
Description: If you are using a proxy server on Mac OS X to filter Web content, you may wish to disable this for Watson, since the filtering may interfere with Watson's ability to parse Web content. To force Watson to ignore your proxy settings, paste the following line into the Terminal, as a single line:
defaults write com.karelia.watson WatsonIgnoreProxy 1
(To restore it, you can change the 1 to 0.)
Download: None
 

Name/Purpose: Open a Specific Tool
Description: To open Watson to a specific tool, you can use LaunchBar, or from the Finder, you need to do a little bit more work.

If the tool is a downloaded tool -- that is, not built into Watson, but contributed by another developer:

  1. Navigate into your home folder -> Library -> Application Support -> Watson
  2. If you want to open that tool directly from the dock, just drag the icon representing the tool you want to the dock, and you are done.
  3. If you want to create a double-clickable file to open the tool, Option-Command-Drag (that is, drag with the Option and Command keys down) the icon representing the tool you wish to launch to your desktop or some other location. (The cursor will indicate that an alias is being made.)
If the tool was included in Watson:
  1. In the Finder, control-click on the Watson icon, and choose Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. A new window will open up with the single folder "Contents" in it.
  2. Open the "Contents" folder.
  3. Open the "PlugIns" folder.
  4. If you want to open that tool directly from the dock, just drag the icon representing the tool you want to the dock, and you are done.
  5. If you want to create a double-clickable file to open the tool, Option-Command-Drag (that is, drag with the Option and Command keys down) the icon representing the tool you wish to launch to your desktop or some other location. (The cursor will indicate that an alias is being made.)
Download: None
 

Name/Purpose: Using the Background Image
Description: Some users have asked how to use the nighttime image from the installer file on their own hard drive for a folder background. You can view the file in the Finder by making sure the Watson volume is visible on your desktop, and then choosing Go to Folder... from the Go menu, and typing in:
/Volumes/Watson 1.x.x/.background
(replacing the appropriate version number of Watson you have)... Then, drag the "backdrop.jpg" to your hard disk, and then use Show View Options to set that as a folder's background image.
Download: None
 

Name/Purpose: Disabling or Removing Individual Tools
Description: Watson comes with a number of tools with the application, and additional tools (or updates to built-in tools) are stored separately outside of the application. To remove tools from the Application itself, choose Show Info with the application icon selected in the Finder, then choose "Plugins" from the popup menu. You can either un-check an item to make it inaccessible, or click on a single line and click the "remove" button to remove it permanently. You should also look in home -> Library -> Application Support -> Watson for updates to the tools you wish to remove, or for tools you may have downloaded and installed later.
Download: None
 

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