A fairly significant limitation to SMB filesharing for OS X

MacInTouch Home Page

[Jann Linder] Samba limits filenames to 26 characters. Since Mac OS X now correctly displays Windows and Samba servers in the Networks file window, users may inadvertently utilize the SMB method of logging on to Mac OS X servers from Mac OS X clients; this prevents them from seeing any files with names longer than 26 chars and anything they attempt to save this way will be corrupted in the filename to a shorter version - if it allows them to save at all.
The only way to tell if you are using the Mac OS X file-sharing vs the Mac OS X Samba windows file sharing is the fact that you will have a login box which asks for 'SMB/CIFS filesystem authentication', and it will ask for 3 pieces of information: A Workgroup/Domain, a Username and a Password. If this is the case, then filenames are limited to 26 chars and you cannot see longer filenames.

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I'll have to test this! Since NTFS supports much longer file names I never thought OS X SMB sharing would truncate filenames. I find this hard to believe.

AirPort Extreme Base Station Firmware Upgrade (5.5)

Apple - Support - Downloads - AirPort Extreme Firmware 5.5 for Mac OS X: "AirPort Extreme Firmware 5.5 for Mac OS X"

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Pretty extensive list of changes. I'll wait to see what the bugs are.

Nice description of digital camera dynamic range

TidBITS: How to Buy a Digital Camera

For pictorial photography, dynamic range usually matters more than resolution. It doesn't matter if the sensor is able to resolve fine detail on an object if you cannot see the object at all because it is buried in shadow. You can do a quick-and-dirty test of dynamic range even in a camera shop by systematically underexposing photos of a photographic grey scale. I found the dynamic range of the SD-10 to be remarkable. If highlights are correctly exposed, shadows can be 10 to 11 stops darker yet still retain some coarse detail. The pair of screenshots (linked below) from Sigma's PhotoPro software show how easily and effectively this detail can be extracted. This photo was exposed perfectly for the highlights. The dark version shows a normal dynamic range, about what a colour slide would have shown. The light version shows additional detail in the shadows that was recorded by the sensor and brought out by the Tonal Adjustment sliders.

...(Note that with a digital camera, increasing the "ISO" speed does not make the sensor more sensitive, it amplifies the signal and, at the same time, it amplifies the noise. "ISO" 100 is normal for most cameras and speeds up to 1600 are commonly available, but any speed over 400 is not likely to look very good.)

Some cameras offer a choice of metering modes - spot, segment, averaging - so you can choose the one most likely to be accurate for the picture you are about to take. This is the sort of silly featuritis that makes so many electronic devices difficult to use. There is no point to trying to figure out how to set the meter to read a scene the most accurately, it's as fast and more certain to take a quick test picture and adjust the control that nudges the automatic exposure up or down. Automatic exposure-bracketing is almost as useless: there is rarely reason to bracket exposures when you can identify the correct exposure when you make it. The SD-10 dedicates push-buttons and primary display space to both of these "features."

Something else I can't see worrying about is how the camera reproduces colour. As I explained in "Colour & Computers" in TidBITS-749, this is tantamount to complimenting or castigating an amoeba on its figure. There is even less reason to worry about the colour reproduction of lenses. If a lens tints the image that it projects onto the sensor, the tint will be systematic and slight, and it will be corrected automatically by whatever software converts the raw image into a usable one...

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One in a series of hard core digital photography articles printed in Tidbits. I've learned something with each one, and I'm not a complete novice.

There's lots of fine commentary in here. The author is writing about a very high end camera, but the commentary is relevant to every digital camera. I ended up thinking we really need to move away from the anachronisms of film photography and adopt new imaging parameters. The ISO control may be the worst of the bunch.

We're fine with 6 MPixel sensors for all the pictures I'm likely to do. Let's see the focus change (sorry) to dynamic range, image stabilization and light sensitivity. Forget the darned megapixels.

Mac OS X Power Tools - A comprehensive list

Mac OS X Power Tools

Riipping DVDs on OS X

The Cult of Mac Blog: "Update: Alexander Malov writes, 'Just saw the entry on DVD ripping in OS X and their method is over-complicated to say the least. It is much easier to use MacTheRipper to rip the DVD (simple, almost one-click process) and then compress for burning
(if nessesary) using DVD2OneX. Then burn using Toast. Voila.

It is also possible to rip DVDs using DVDBackup."

Photoshop Elements 3: Scanning alone may justify purchase

Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 Review: 3. Operation: Digital Photography Review

Divide Scanned Photos

Scanning multiple photographs with a flatbed scanner typically leads to a big image consisting of the photographs with white space in between. The Image -> Divide Scanned Photos command automatically detects each photograph, rotates it, crops away any white borders, and opens each image in a separate window. The command is equivalent to the The File -> Automate -> Crop and Straighten command in Photoshop CS.

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I wonder if VueScan does this? This feature is such a huge time saver it alone may justify purchase of PE 3. Note the Mac version doesn't include the Organizer features; also the Mac version has some serious security issues (won't run well in non-admin account, of course I suspect the XP version has even more severe security issues -- but no-one really runs XP other than in an admin account).

Sima CT-2 Video Signal Processor: Defeat macrovision copy protection

Amazon.com: Camera & Photo: Sima CT-2 Video Signal Processor

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This is a curious sort of device. When one reads the marketing description it's hard to see what it's good for. On reviewing the user commetns the value is rather more obvious -- it defeats Macrovision protection. So you can, if you're an honest sort, copy your old VHS video tapes to DVD. Or, if you're dishonest, you can make copies of rental DVDs and videos.

... what yu really need is a unit which will fully override both types of Macrovision, and to my knowledge, the only thing available is the SIMA SCC-2 Color Corrector 2. This thing is expensive ($150-200 bucks), but it's worth it if you have a big video collection you'd like to transfer to DVD-R. I hope this helps anyone out there who bought a bunch of VHS tapes and simply wants to transfer a few to DVD. Jeez....

It must be interesting to market a product who's primary value can never be described! The device does not seem terribly high quality. Some reviewers indicate they had to transfer the audio on a separate cable.

The future is now: Amazon and Google are the cutting edge

Amazon as a network OS

The Amazon Simple Queue Service offers a reliable, highly scalable hosted queue for buffering messages between distributed application components. The Amazon Simple Queue Service reduces the costs associated with resolving the producer-consumer problem that arises in distributed application development. Such costs include increased application development time, and potentially significant investment in server and network infrastructure to support distributed application messaging. Amazon has already invested in the large-scale computing infrastructure that runs the Queue Service, and since the Service's interface is exposed via Web services, integration with applications is fast and easy.

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I've been a bystander for some serious networked application development; at one point we used IBM's MQueue. This stuff is non-trivial. So now Amazon is providing a network queueing service?

Very strange. Who would ever depend on it? What's to stop it from vanishing? What the heck are they up to? I have to assume it's the first step is something rather larger.

Ask Jeeves -- time to reealuate?

Ask Jeeves - Ask.com

I've not used ask.com in years. They did quite well in a recent BBC test. Their contextual searches do seem to work now -- an understanding of phrase "meaning" rather than phrase string match. I'll have to figure out how to use them.

Twenty steps to fixing a troubled OS X Mac

macosxhints: Twenty steps to help diagnose and fix system issues

Why one must take problem reports with a grain of NaCl

Mac OS X 10.3.6

David Biddix
I wrote yesterday about my Other World Computing Mercury 400 FireWire Drive ceasing to work after I installed the 10.3.6 patch. I talked with OWC Tech Support today (Tuesday) about the issue and he had me run through several diagnostics, including one where we unplugged the FireWire cable from the drive. It lost power.

Tech support had me then trace my power connection for the drive, and I discovered that my toddler son had turned off the power strip to which it was connected (the power strip has no on/off light to show if it is on). He had me go ahead and update my firmware drivers (downloaded from the OWC site) as a backup plan, but my drive mounts perfectly.

It took only 5 minutes to complete the call...OWC Tech Support is first rate, and I appreciated the tech not laughing while I cleaned egg off of my face.

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Kudos to David for fessing up. I've done something similar myself.

So the OS X firewire problem may only be with the Inito chipset.

Film Scanning with PhotoCD

MacInTouch Home Page: "I'm a professional potter and I frequently need scans of my 35 mm color product slides. Kodak's Photo CD (NOT Picture CD!) has proven to be the best and the cheapest. One vendor I have used is Imagers out of Atlanta. They will put 100 scans on a CD and each scan is recorded in 5 resolutions, all for under $1 per slide. You just keep sending the same CD back to them until it's full. They even offer overnight service. I have also had a local photo store send my slides and CD off to Kodak for about the same price, but that usually takes 7-10 days."

Competition is good: A9/Amazon, Yahoo, Google, Firefox

A9.com Home Page

If only we had this kind of competition in productivity software. Alas, Microsoft has left much of the software world a barren desert. OS X has not provided great productivity software alternatives because Microsoft Office rules there too.

Not so on the net.

Amazon/A9, Firefox, Google and Yahoo are all in a complex and intense struggle that's increasingly interesting.

In the past few weeks:

1. I switched to Amazon/A9 because Amazon has put together an excellent Firefox toolbar. It uses Google search, but it has a number of fascinating and subversive features. Amazon is leveraging their review infrastructure and their customer knowledge in fascinating win-win ways. Privacy shmivacy. (I made my last stand for privacy in 1994, when it was obvious that privacy was doomed if we didn't act. We didn't act.)

2. I switched my web site and blog search engines from Google to Yahoo because Google is having serious indexing problems. They are not indexing Blogger -- their own property. If I had time I'd short Google stock. They're a great company, but they are heading for a rough patch.

3. Google's GMail is great. I love it and I'll happily pay for it -- esp. when they add IMAP support. I'm looking forward to their image and backup solutions. Now if they can only fix their search. Above all -- will they make Firefox their core browser?

4. Firefox, my Win browser of choice for about 8-10 months, is moving from strength to strength. Their extension collection is becoming amazing. Bloglines has added some nice extensions. Google has been oddly quiet. The Amazon A9's ability to share data and bookmarks effortlessly between platforms is highly subversive -- it may drive me to Firefox on the Mac as well as on my Win machines. I also like the ability to pass notes around. Now we need a Palm client for the Amazon repository that Firefox/A9 builds. Hmm. I wonder if AvantGo could be set to pull down that data ...

Ahh. I do love a fight like this. Bring it on guys.

Amazon.com: Electronics: Seagate Firewire/USB external $120 w/ rebate

Amazon.com: Electronics: Seagate ST3160024A-RK 160 GB External USB 2.0/FireWire Hard Drive

A few points of interest here.

1. I got this referral via Macintouch. Macintouch is a superb OS X oriented site with loyal readers. They make referral money from Amazon and they make good referrals -- like this one. Nice win-win.

2. This is an amazing deal.

3. I never thought of Amazon when I bought a firewire/usb drive recently. I should have. The user reviews are excellent and would have been most helpful.

Favorite Firefox Extensions and Themes

Neowin.net -> Favorite Firefox Extensions and Themes