As you can see if you take a look at my tag-cloud, I really like AppleScript. It is so easy to implement simple tasks with a few lines. Most in OS X included applications support it and also many others. Shell scripts are also includable. It is so easy if you compare to other systems. Most parts of Linux are of course highly scriptable which I really like. It is a bit catchy to get into that but surely remunerative. Anyway, with AppleScript it is really easy to take the first steps. You can tell application “Finder” to empty the trash. Just as I wrote it.
tell application "Finder" to empty the tash
Or lets say "Hello World".

You can control many apps and your system. But not only that. It can handle variables, loops, functions and whatnots.

Take a look if you want to get more out of your Mac. There is a great page with many resources: http://macscripter.net/

I also recommend this free book for AppleScript starters by Bert Altenburg. http://www.fischer-bayern.de/as/as4as/AS4AS_e.pdf It teaches the basics. And with the help of the functionlist (+shift+o in the scripteditor) you have the knowledge to create quite useful, individual tools.

I wrote an other little AppleScript for someone. It creates events in iCal as a countdown. First, you can choose one of your calendars. Then enter the start- and enddate. It will count down and say every day “x days left”. I tested it with my local date format, but it is supposed to work anywhere since the Mac knows his date format.

on run

tell application “iCal”

set cal_list to {}

repeat with x from number of calendars to 1 by -1
set the beginning of cal_list to name of calendar x
end repeat

set cal_list_string to “”
repeat with x from 1 to number of calendars
set cal_list_string to cal_list_string & (x as text) & ” – ” & item x of cal_list & return
end repeat

end tell

display dialog cal_list_string default answer “”
set cal_number to text returned of result as number

display dialog “start date” default answer “”
set anfangsdatum to date (text returned of result)

display dialog “end date” default answer “”
set enddatum to date (text returned of result)

repeat with anzahl_tage from 1 to 99999
if anfangsdatum + (anzahl_tage * 3600 * 24) is enddatum then
exit repeat
end if
end repeat

tell application “iCal”

tell calendar cal_number

set x_date to anfangsdatum

repeat with x from anzahl_tage to 0 by -1
set x_date to x_date + (3600 * 24)
set event_summary to “x & ” days left”
if x is not 1 then
set event_summary to “x & ” days left”
else
set event_summary to “one day left”
end if
make new event at the beginning with properties {summary:event_summary, start date:x_date, end date:x_date}
end repeat

end tell

end tell

end run