If you’ve got a CSV file to work with, you can open it using Excel, Numbers, CSVEdit, or any text editor of your choice. If you don’t want to enter the actual digits of the serial number from the front of your paper bond, you can simply use zeros instead, with the correct prefixes and suffixes.

The denomination codes are:

• 50 = L
• 75 = K
• 100 = C
• 250 = R
• 500 = D
• 1000 = M
• 5000 = V
• 10000 = X

The series codes are:

• E Bond = E
• EE Bond = EE
• I Bond = I

So for example if you have a $100 I bond without the serial number digits, you can edit the CSV file so that the Serial Number field for the bond reads “C00000000I”.

I’m continuing work on 1.2, albeit at a slower pace than 1.1 since some contract work, another app, and a new baby has taken priority over 1.2 development for the time being.

In other news I’m making good progress on Hamilton 1.2 so stay tuned for some screenshots and feature updates soon.

I just fixed a silly bug that in some cases would prevent a button from showing up in the “Demo Expiration” dialog box to let you enter in a license code once your 30 day trial has expired.

Hamilton version 1.1.1 is now available with a fix in place. If you’re using 1.1 please upgrade as soon as you can.

Sorry!

- Steve

Download 1.1 today!

Here’s what’s new in 1.1:

• Support for E Bonds
  Hamilton now supports the E series of US Savings Bonds that were issued between 1941 and 1980. Many of these have already reached maturity the bonds issued in the late 70s are still earning interest.
• Search
  I added a toolbar to the application window that has a new search field to let you quickly search by serial number. If you’re looking for a specific bond or a few bonds with similar serial numbers, finding them just got a lot easier.
• HTML Import & Export
  Hamilton can now import HTML files generated by the US Treasury’s online Savings Bond Calculator, and can also export a HTML file that let’s you load your bonds back into the Savings Bond Calculator. It’s your data, use it where you like it!
• More CSV!
  When exporting to CSV more information about your bonds is exported than just the Serial Number and Issue Date.
• Improved Error Handling
  When importing CSV, HTML, or creating bonds by hand - errors with serial numbers and issue dates are handled much more gracefully.
• Printing
  You can now print a basic report of your savings bonds (or just the selected group) and their information and value
• Better Groups:
  You can now create a new group simply by dragging a selection of bonds to the list of groups. When groups are created their name is automatically selected for editing so you don’t have to double-click them right away to rename them either.
• More Clear Value Label
  The total value label in the lower right-hand corner of the application window now only shows the total value of the bonds in the selected group. It no longer shows the total of the selected bonds, some people found this confusing and it wasn’t always easy to tell what the value was representing.

Link as Tiny URL
Just a variation of the “Clipboard to Tiny URL” I posted recently that works with the URL of the frontmost window in Safari instead of the clipboard:

	tell application "Safari"
		set longURL to URL of front document
	end tell

	set cmd to "curl http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=" & longURL
	set shortURL to do shell script cmd
	set the clipboard to shortURL as text
	beep

Open Selected Yojimbo Bookmarks
I use this with Bare Bones Software’s excellent Yojimbo information organizer. What this script does is iterate through the list of selected items in Yojimbo, and open any Bookmark items in your default browser. I bookmark a lot of blog entries and articles in Yojimbo, and often want to open a few of them at once. I use FastScripts to have this run when I press Command-Shift-O.

	set myURLs to {}

	tell application "Yojimbo"
		set selectedItems to the selection

		repeat with currentItem in selectedItems
			if the class of currentItem is bookmark item then
				set myURLs to myURLs & the location of currentItem
			end if
		end repeat
	end tell

	repeat with currentURL in myURLs
		open location currentURL
	end repeat

Download: URLScripts.zip (2kb)

If you’re buying US Savings Bonds, be sure to check out Hamilton so you can keep your bonds organized and always know how much they’re worth.

Clipboard to Single Line
This script takes the contents of the clipboard and converts the text to a single line. This is great for copying a street address from a webpage or document and then pasting the result into Google Maps or whatever.

Here’s the source:

	set addressString to the clipboard as string
	set text item delimiters to return
	set textItems to text items of addressString
	set addressString to ""
	repeat with i in textItems
		set addressString to addressString & i & " "
	end repeat
	set the clipboard to addressString

Clipboard to Tiny URL
This script calls tinyurl.com using curl, and turns a long URL on your clipboard into a short one. The contents of the clipboard are replaced with the short URL.

Here’s the source:

	set longURL to the clipboard
	set cmd to "curl http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=" & longURL
	set shortURL to do shell script cmd
	set the clipboard to shortURL as text
	beep

Download ClipboardScripts.zip (4kb)

I created a little demo app to show how it’s done. The demo app simply loads a URL into a WebView instance that I setup in Interface Builder, the AppController class I wrote handles all the printing work. In Hamilton the WebView isn’t even visible, and I generate the HTML to be printed on the fly as a way to generate simple reports. You could probably even do something more interesting using XSL or by pulling content from a database.

Download the Xcode project: WebKitPrinting.zip (36kb)

A screenshot of my WebKitPrinting demo in action:

Got comments or ideas for how to improve this? Please, let me know!

If you’re looking to learn more about Savings Bonds Tom’s Book and website are invaluable resources, be sure to check them out.