I've used Applescripts for similarly small things. And Automator, too, which is essentially Applescript for Dummies. Nothing big.

D'oh, my PDF-combining thing is in Automator, not Applescript.

Rob, that's really cool, but I can't paste into it? Am I doing something weird? It's exactly the same clipboard content I'm pasting to go to folder in Finder. Being able to navigate like that means the slow loading of the NAS folders is less of an issue--most often I was trying to navigate down a file structure and the last two folders were taking forever.

But not pasting is an oddity.

Gris, I'll take a look at Pathfinder. Thanks for the recommendation.

And I see that I can use Automator to make a folder action, so let's see if what trouble I can cause.

Pasting works for me. What are you copying from?

One terminal trick that might help is the "open" command. It does the same thing that opening a file in the Finder does. So if you know the full path to the file in question you can avoid the Finder altogether.

I open finder, choose Go/Go To Folder and copy the text from there since it's the most recent valid path I had to hand. I can post it here: /Volumes/Oracle/Pictures/Reference and copy it again and try to paste it back (with or without the leading slash) and I get the no-no boop noise.

And for me it's not usually opening files that's the task. It's saving them.

Here's what I'm doing:

choose "Go To Folder"

choose "copy" to copy contents of edit box to clipboard

Activate Safari

Choose "Save"

Hit "/"

Choose "Select All"

Choose "Paste"

Hit the return key

I end up in the parent directory of the path I pasted with the final component of the path in the file name box.

Mac OS X 10.8.2, although I think this has been around a long time.

Looks like it doesn't work in Opera, but I flipped over to Safari and it worked fine.

The apps in which I need it the most are Sublime 2 and Elements, and it's fine there, but Opera is stubborn as all get out. It's #3 on the "I want that to work" list, so although it's frustratingly inconsistent, I am ahead of the game thanks to your info, so I am plenty grateful--thanks!

It might be worth reporting it to the Opera guys as a bug.

That's a thought. I'll hit up their bug forums tomorrow and see if anyone else has called it out.

Fuckity. My vaio says its bootmgr is missing. Won't boot from disk.

Is it one of your backed up devices? Unfortunate if you need to test that.

I just had a chat with TiVo on-line sales. Told them I was disappointed at the idea of having to spend $400 for another lifetime service if I got a new TiVo, after having been a customer for 10 years with one lifetime service...and they have zero incentive to be nice to me, right? I guess it's a balance--will she keep buying new TiVos if she can keep her service, or will she stop buying anything from us (as opposed to buying both TiVos and service like we want)?

I don't know. Can't hurt to try, though.