Panorama from ProVUE: stealth product from stealth company

I remember Panorama as a FileMaker alternative back in the days when there were at least six significantly marketed end-user database solutions for the Mac. So when I read a Macintouch notice of a new version of Panorama I paid a visit to the ProVUE web site:

ProVUE Company Product History.

...2002 The Panorama iPod Organizer combines the power of Panorama's unique RAM based database technology with the portability and flexibility of the iPod for storing phone numbers, email addresses, flight numbers, appointment times ... all the important information you need to access on the go...

It's quite a list of products, most of which I'd never heard of. It's a curious example of a company that's lasted a very long time, but keeps a pretty low profile. I suspect their niche market is older machines running commercial applications -- they still support Classic!

Retrieving a set of original photos from Picasa - quickly

Need to get a set of full res images from Picasa?

Official Google Data APIs Blog: Picasa Web Albums adds new API features

• Searching a user's photos: You can search through all the photos belonging to a single user using the q query parameter. Example:

  http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/api/user/userID?kind=photo&q=penguin

  will find all photos owned by user userID which contain the word 'penguin' in the title, caption or tag.


• Downloading the original photo: You can now download the original photo, including all EXIF data. This is accomplished by retrieving the feed with the imgmax=d query parameter and value This will return a feed where the media:content elements reference the original downloadable image.

I tried this:

http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/api/user/jfaughnan?imgmax=d. This produced a nice feed result in bloglines of all my public albums (if I'm not logged into Picasa) or ALL my albums (if I am logged in to Picasa), but only links to the albums.

http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/api/user/jfaughnnan?kind=photo&imgmax=d just gave me an error message.

Still working on this ...

Google Calendar Gadgets

Yes, this is cool ...

Calendar Gadgets:

...Calendar Gadgets are special events that appear as icons above a day's events. When clicked, the icon can pop up with any image, webpage, or Google Gadget....

...The only required field is the icon URL. In its most simple form, Calendar Gadget content can consist of just the icon above the day's events — like the Phases of the Moon calendar in the above image. If you want to point to a webpage or image, the type, width, and height must also be provided. For example, the birthday reminder below pops up with an image, and the Movie Releases calendar pops up with an HTML page with movie details...

But what I really want is robust synchronization with Outlook. Pretty please Google?

Windows Live Writer: Firefox integration

There's a Firefox extension that allows you to  "Blog This to Windows Live Writer". It works very well with Microsoft's unequalled blog authoring tool, I've been using it for months now, but these usage instructions are handy:

The Blog This gesture is available in two places: the toolbar button, and the right-click menu. I tried to be a little smart about what you are trying to blog. If you have a selection active in the browser, it’ll be used for the contents of your post. If you right-click on an image or link and select Blog This, that’s what’ll be used.

The "announcement" post this came from was reposted in error today -- the original came out last year. Even so, it's a good reminder of this terrific extension. The odd thing is that Microsoft offers it at all -- WLW is so good it could have forced me (very reluctantly) to switch to IE [1]. On the Mac WLW is threatening to force me to run FF/WLW within an Win2K VM!

Here's the download link for the released version. As I've noted before I used to have problems making it work, but they went away ...

[1] I only have two nits with WLW. One is that it's a modern .NET app, so it's slow to launch on all but the fastest machines and uses a lot of memory. Secondly, it quits after use, or stays open with the post remaining. I'd rather after each post it stayed resident but closed the post window -- in part because it's so slow to launch. (Maybe that's one nit?)

Google/Picasa Web Album API for OS X and others

I missed this June 5 Google Mac article: Picasa Web Albums meets Google data APIs. The author provides some interesting examples of using a data API with Picasa (combine webcam image feeds with RSS), shows examples from an OS X image upload application, and points to Google's open source Objective C (Mac) data API.

Of course if another photo service has an API, then one application is transferring images and metadata between services.

The Google Web Albums Data API has more information, I'm going to start hunting for people who've implemented their suggested examples:

• Include your public photos in your own web page, and allow users to comment on them (and have the comments stored in Picasa Web Albums).
• Write a plugin to manage your albums and photos from a desktop or mobile phone client.
• Create a custom screensaver to display your Picasa Web Albums photos on your computer.

Some recent additions are documented here. You can even play with them directly from your web browser (click here for my last 25 public uploads in Feed (XML format, I've got them in a Bloglines feed now).

I wonder if it's possible to call these APIs from AppleScript written within Apple's Xcode IDE? If so, it might be possible to do some interesting things almost readily. (Or just use Python?)

I do need to think about this. Heck, it might be possible to suck images directly into iPhoto just by creating a URL-query that creates an RSS feed ...

Today, I do like Picasa, even if Google doesn't understand URLs.

Google Earth and Picasa strange loops and the need for four dimensional coordinates in Google's image map layer

Update 9/2/07: Google's Picasa image integration with both Google Maps and Google Earth doesn't work the way I'd thought it did. I'm not sure how it's supposed to work, I can't find any documentation. The one thing I see is that all images are not routinely available to the public even when the appropriate layers are enabled. As of 9/07 image display in Google Maps seems to barely work at all.

I really can't come up with a title to quite explain this. It's just so extremely geeky, recursive, and quintessentially 21st century that I do, however, have to describe it.

First, here's the picture. The rest of the post makes more sense if you click on it, or, if you have Google Earth installed, this link might work to take you to the current view.

From Reunion photos

What you're seeing here is a snapshot of a Google Earth display of an obscure building in Saint Laurent, Quebec (ok, it was once Father McDonald high school, I don't know what it is now.) If you view the entire display you'll see some picture icons.

The picture icons belong to this (public) Picasa album. The album cover picture is also this Google Earth picture. If you click on the Google Earth link above (as of 8/13/07) you'd see that the Google Earth view also contains the above image. Hence the recursion.

The Picasa images appear in the Google Earth embedded image, and are visible to anyone in the world who uses GE on that site with the image layer enabled, because I assigned them all geolocation using Picasa Web Albums "map" feature.

This would, of course, be even more interesting if Google Earth added a fourth dimension (time). Then one could view sites over time, and these images might show up only for certain time slices. Alas, if Google adds this feature in 2037 my heir's will need to update the image metadata, Google 2007 does not allow user specification of the image acquisition date.

PS. There are a few more examples of "strange loops" in this exercise, but I think I've done enough damage for the moment.

Quick and dirty album imaging

The unexpected energy of two organizers means that my high school is having a class of '76 reunion (11th grade in Quebec). I'd love to go, but I can't make it. I sent some images from my iPhoto libraries, but then I decided to try to include material from a very crummy old album.

I didn't have time to peel the photos out and scan them, much less hunt down the negatives, so I decided to try a very crude approach to imaging, one that wouldn't quite qualify for Scanning Basics 101. I put the album on the floor with the cover sheet peeled back, and I snapped page shots with my Digital Rebel XT dSLR. I then ran the images through Aperture, cropped a few and adjusted levels, straightened the pages, then uploaded them as JPEGs. You can see some examples (page background visible) here.

It was a very fast process and it worked surprisingly well. In a few cases I could see more detail on the screen than was readily apparent in the original print. In other cases the original print is better. I'm going to try this with several old albums, though I'll probably use a tripod and work harder to square the images.

PS. While editing this post Firefox abruptly died and I lost the original draft. It's never done that before!

Update 8/13/07: See also: Google Earth and Picasa: strange loops and the need for four dimensional coordinates in Google's image map layer

Update 8/15/07: I've been puzzling over the fact that at least one image shows more detail than is apparent in a quick glance of the original print. On reflection, it's a product of the sophistication of modern digital software enhancement. Aperture is playing tricks on us, filling in missing data by some clever inferencing. The digital image is a simulacra of the original analog image. Interestingly, as a trigger of memory, the simulacra is more effective than the original. The inferencing works. For more on this topic, see this.

You can put application links in a Finder Toolbar?!

Jeez, I thought I knew this stuff: Mac 101: Applications in the Finder toolbar. I did have to switch to "customize toolbar" for the drag and drop to work. I'm a bit aghast. This would have been very handy for configuring my mother's machine if I'd know about it.

Another post mentioned that cmd-T will add a highlighted icon or folder to the Finder Sidebar, and that this is then available for all file save/open operations. Wow, what a way to save on navigation tasks. I never thought of this area as being a "scratchpad" for this type of quick operation, but now I see it was designed that way.

Once gain I note the gap between how a software designer intends things to work and what users end up doing.

Update: oops. I'm not sure the Finder toolbar tip is so great. I added a Folder rather than an application, and when I clicked on it I got the SBOD. Of course my MacBook has been doing that sort of thing since I updated to 10.4.10, so this might be a bad coincidence ...

Dockables: a clever donationware app

[An earlier version of this was accidentally mis-posted to my "world" blog.]

I think TUAW pointed me to Dockables. These are donation ware applescripts with a full installer and excellent icons. I have "sleep", "screen saver", "screen capture", "screen sleep" and "log off" in my Dock now. Since I don't use my Dock for much these are great to have, and of course LaunchBar (love it) can activate any of them easily.

I've always had trouble remembering the key combination for screen captures, and I don't like the TIFF format Grab uses (though I'm sure there's a way to change Grab to use PNG, I don't like those tweaks if I can avoid them). Now I use dockables, open the PNG in Preview, select, copy and then either pastse into a document or "create new from clipboard", then save with a useful name or paste. Ok, so it's not ultra efficient, but it works rather quickly.

Screen sleep is another of my favorites. It simply puts the display to sleep. I didn't think this was possible on an iMac, but it works. I can now quickly rest my screen at night while allowing backups to proceed normally.

These are also handy for the docks of my family members, who really don't know any key shortcuts or hot corner mouse actions.

I'm sending the author a donation.

dotMac needs a refresh: Zip disk?

This is from the readme file displayed with a brand new.Mac iDisk:

Using your iDisk

Your iDisk behaves much like any other removable storage available for Macintosh, such as a ZIP disk. Use the same drag-and-drop techniques to copy documents or folders to or from your iDisk. You can also access your iDisk to upload and download files via a browser by going to www.mac.com and clicking the iDisk icon.

A ZIP disk?! What are the chances that anyone under thirty knows what a zip disk was?

Sheesh.

SkyDrive from MSFT vs xdrive from AOL vs nada from Google

I've had an account for a while with AOL's xdrive. I don't use it all that often, but it's handy every month or so for moving files around. Today I tried setting up a Microsoft SkyDrive from my MacBook. It was a mixed experience. Safari 3.03 (beta) was firmly rejected. Firefox seemed to work, but it hung with a SkyDrive icon after an initial upload. Subsequently I couldn't get SkyDrive to respond from any browser, so maybe I crashed it :-). The Firefox usability was pretty weak in any case, clearly Microsoft intends to bind SkyDrive to IE.

The primary advantage of SkyDrive is that you can share files with anyone on the net and with other SkyDrive users. I don't think xdrive.com allows either option. Press coverage is comparing this to Google's Gmail share, but that's an awkward solution with no public sharing option. Google's only true public file sharing is their feeble Page Creator file file upload option. Apple's .Mac sharing is comparable, but it's fairly expensive (though better than it was).

I guess we'll have to keep waiting for Google to contemplate their next move ...

Matias Tactile Pro 2.0 Keyboard for Mac (and Windows)

I bought a non-Apple Mac keyboard a few months back, replacing the Apple kb I'd grown to loathe. Alas, I'd never head of the Matias Tactile Pro 2.0 Keyboard. I came across it today by way of a review of Apple's new products. That review discussed Apple's latest evil keyboard (ok, so it's slightly less evil than their old evil desktop keyboard) referenced a 3 yo review of an older version of the Tactile Pro 2:

I realize that some may find it odd that I wax rhapsodic about something as mundane as a computer keyboard, but those who've had the pleasure of using Apple's old Apple Extended Keyboard (code named the "Saratoga" for its battleship gray color and size) and have had to put up with lesser keyboards from Apple and others, will be thrilled to know that there's a modern, USB keyboard that's nearly as nice as the Apple input device of old.

That keyboard is Matias' $100 TactilePro. The folks at Matias use the same keyswitches found in the Apple Extended keyboard and it shows. The keyboard is a bit noisier than my old Saratogas (more clack) but it's just as springy and responsive. Like the older Apple keyboards (and unlike the current Apple offerings) the TactilePro includes a Power button for switching on and off compatible Macs (not all Mac models will respond to pressing this button). And like Apple's new keyboards, the TactilePro includes Volume Up, Volume Down, Mute, and Eject keys (F14 and F15 are used by Mac OS X to adjust screen brightness, though the keys aren't marked that way).

The new version of the Matias has dual UBS 2.0 dock (how do they power it?) and Mac key symbols, but the price has gone from $100 to $150 (!!). The web site doesn't discuss device drivers, but most non-Apple kbs have them.

Google apps: feeble.

How feeble are Google's vaunted "Apps"?

So feeble that a new user going to the calendar site doesn't see the group calendar. They see only their own calendar.

So feeble that Page Creator has been stuck at the "intern's summer project" level for years.

Feeble.

Update 8/10/07: There are so many bugs and oddities I think I'll just keep adding them to this post ...

1. Start page: click the "even more" link in the google tools hieararchy and get:
   Not Found
   The requested URL /intl/en/options/ was not found on this server.
2. Creating and editing the common start page has very limited control options.
3. In order to allow a user to edit a single web page, you have to give them admin control over the entire domain.
4. You can change a user's name in the user controls, but this doesn't propagate to the calendars. Even if you manually change the name in the calendar, the name shown as "calendar owner" will remain incorrect.
   

iPhoto 7 (iLife 2008): again, no Library merges

[Update: the link won't work because Apple deleted my post within 2 hours of my posting it. I'm not surprised. Maybe their vigilant reaction is a sign they're feeling some heat about this issue. There are very active complaint threads this morning about library merging.]

From my post on Apple's Discussion group (corrected because iLife 2008 is iPhoto 7, not iPhoto 8)

Apple - Support - Discussions - Feature request for iPhoto 8: Import ...:

You're traveling with your MacBook. Organizing photos, adding metadata, creating albums, slideshows, etc. You get home. You want to import your travel library to the main library, preserving ALL the versions and metadata.

You have just married the Mac Geek of your dreams. You need to merge Libraries into the shared folder (which can't be shared over a network, but let's just ignore that). How do you do that?

You created and used separate Libraries back with iPhoto bogged down at 2000 images. Now you want to combine them, preserving version relationships, album relationships, descriptions, titles, keywords, roll information, photo books, slideshows, etc, etc.

Yes, I know about iPhoto Library Manager. I license and use it. It does miracles with Apple's limited merge support, but some metadata is lost. I also had so many issues with earlier version merges that, even though I use it all the time, I'm gun-shy. Sorry, merging Libraries is very complex. It's hard to believe that anyone but Apple can do it safely.

iLife 2008 (iPhoto 7) is the fourth release in a row to disappoint those of us asking for Library management.

Choices? Aperture, which Apple clearly intends us to buy instead, doesn't allow one to edit dates on images (good-bye scans!), is dog slow (appallingly slow - still) by design, and can't handle video. Others? They don't import iPhoto Libraries. I ain't redoing metadata on 14,000 images.

Anyone interested in putting together an online petition to ask Apple to add Libary merge/import/management to iPhoto 2009? Picket Cupertino maybe?

I ordered it, of course. What choice do I have?

VueScan vs. Nikon Scan on OS X

I've published a few posts about VueScan; it's a well regarded cross-platform scan control software package that appears to be a one person show. The author's personal focus and prolonged dedication has produced an idiosyncratic product that, with a few quirks (auto-crop isn't what it could be) performs admirably well. I bought a "pro" license, so I get my updates as long as Hanrick toils away.

I've mostly used VueScan to do print and a few negative scans, but recently I worked on a set of my mother's slides. These range from about 40 to 50 years old, in various states of repair. I used Nikon CoolScan V I bought about 3-4 years ago, it's oddly still about state of the art for slide scanning (though slow now). I started out using Nikon Scan 4.02, downloading the latest OS X version from Nikon's support site (yechy non-Apple installer btw. I installed as admin, but the app works for a non-admin user). It's a quirky mix of various semi-integrated packages that Nikon resells, but it mostly worked. It was slow however, and I wasn't impressed with the results various image adjustment options. I got the best results turning everything off, working with the clumsy levels tool, and using Digital ICE for damaged slides. Performance on a G5 iMac was dog slow and, really, it was clumsy.

I then tried the same images on the G5 using the latest version of VueScan. It worked beautifully. Results were better than what I got with Nikon Scan. I didn't fuss too much with white balance or levels, I went with the very good initial results then dropped the 24bit TIFF into Aperture for finishing. From Aperture I exported high res JPEGs to store in iPhoto (note Aperture doesn't allow date editing, an incomprehensible defect). The processing was a bit slow, but the workflow was great.

Next I tried VueScan, which has full Intel support, on my dual core MacBook. Processing was 2-3x as fast.

If you're using a Nikon Cool Scan (CoolScan) with OS X, don't bother installing the ugly Nikon software. Buy VueScan (cheap at the price) and finish your TIFFs in a secondary image processing package (like iPhoto, Aperture, etc).