Flash picture with eyes open? Divide by 3

I think this rule applies to flash photography, but the idea is universally applicable. Flash is not long for this world ... fortunately.

Rule of thumb to avoid photographing people with their eyes... (kottke.org)

... to avoid photographing people with their eyes closed: divide the number of people by three (or by two if the light is bad). ... Jeff writes: 'Way back when we only used film I learned you could tell before looking at the photo whether someone blinked by asking them what color was the flash. If it was white or bluish white, then their eyes were open. If it was orange, then their eyes were closed and they had 'seen' the flash through their eyelids.'

Image Capture for Scanning: the 2nd most underestimated OS X application

Preview is probably the most underestimated OS X application, but Image Capture is close second. For years I've tinkered with a scanning workflow simple enough to outsource to my mother. I came close with Vuescan, but, really, it's still too tricksy.

Today I set my 8yo up with Image Capture, which I'd only recently realized is Apple's OS X scanning tool. He's keen to earn some Lego money, so I told him I'd pay 5 cents for each scan.

I plugged in my old Epson 1660* and Image Capture recognized it immediately. (Had I installed drivers years ago, honestly I don't recall. Most scanner manufacturer software is horrid, so I try to avoid it.)

The scanning worked like a charm. It was very fast at 300 dpi, a bit sluggish at 600 dpi (a new scanner would be faster, no doubt, with only a few bugs and missing features:

1. Image Capture won't remember settings between sessions, but it does remember them during each session.
2. If you keep the default name of "scan" it increments each scan with a number, but I don't think this works correctly if you change the default name. No matter, I used 'A Better Finder Rename' to embed date metadata in the file names. Keep the default.
   
3. The "auto" image improvement setting produced poor results. Manual has quite a few settings (similar to Preview's image editing tools) but I chose None since I was going to edit the lossless scans in Aperture and export archival JPEGs.
4. Don't use PNG. It works fine in Image Capture, but Aperture has trouble with PNG thumbnail creation. It's clearly a bug. I should have just used TIFF, I'm not keeping the TIFF anyway.
5. I had IC set up to launch Preview to view each scan, but sometimes it fails to launch. A bug, so I just turned off Preview. It slowed things down anyway and the confirmation wasn't necessary.
   

Ben's not used to real work, so he started to lose interest after the first 25 scans. Unfortunately I chose a pack that had pictures of his brother in it pre-Ben, I'd have done better with one that starred Ben. I know he wants a Star Wars Lego, so I'm confident he'll be back to his slave labor, though I may have to go to 7 cents/scan.

Here's Apple's blurb on Image Capture, note the reference to Apple's abandoned (they abandon a lot of their tech, it's surprising nobody calls them on this) "Services". iPhoto doesn't even show the Services menu, and Aperture shows it but doesn't support Services ...

Apple - Mac OS X - Image Capture

... Just plug in your digital camera or scanner and you can now directly import your pictures from any application that supports Services and Rich Text Format. All you have to do is choose Services in the Application menu and select Import Image. Image Capture lets you download all or any portion of the contents of your digital camera, crop images to a variety of sizes and delete unwanted pictures from your camera. And you can be sure that your captured images remain true to their source, because Image Capture embeds ICC profiles in the images you download or scan.

Want to share the bounty of your digital images? No problem. Image Capture lets others access the contents of your digital camera or scanner over a Bonjour network. Or create an Automator workflow to send photos to the parents.

The Automator workflow sounds interesting, but really there's not much to improve on from my point of view. It would be amusing if Image Capture were able to pull images off my despised Motorola RAZR phone via Bluetooth, but I loathe the phone to much to bother testing.

*Scanners aren't improving all that much, these are print scans, for the serious work I co-own a semi-pro Nikon film scanner.)

Repairing a corrupted home directory image

Apple tells how to repair a home directory image: Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4: FileVault - How to verify or repair a home directory image. I've never used this solution because it makes backup a mess, and it's one more thing to go wrong. Instead I keep a few key files in a small encrypted image. Still, it's good to know there are some fixes for image corruption.

BTW, if you use an encrypted image file, better be sure there's another admin account on your computer ...

Photo exposure tips

I used to know this stuff -- back when SLRs didn't have batteries. I'd forgotten most of it. The 1/ISO rule doesn't apply in the age of image stabilization ... (via Kotke)

Twelve Essential Photographic Rules - - PopPhotoSeptember 2007

1. Sunny 16 Rule
The basic exposure for an average scene taken on a bright, sunny day is f/16 at a shutter speed equivalent to one over the ISO setting...

2. Moony 11, 8, and 5.6 Rules [shooting the moon]
... full moon is f/11 at one over the ISO setting...

4. Anatomical Gray Card
... Hold your open hand up so it's facing the light, take a reading off your palm, open up one stop, and shoot...

5. Depth of Field Rules
When focusing on a deep subject, focus on a point about a third of the way into the picture to maximize depth of field...

7. Exposure Rules
..."Expose for the highlights, and let the shadows take care of themselves."...

11. Action-stopping Rules
To stop action moving across the frame that's perpendicular to the lens axis, you need shutter speeds two stops faster than action moving toward or away from you...

12. Sunset Rule
To get a properly exposed sunset, meter the area directly above the sun (without including the sun). If you want the scene to look like it's a half-hour later, stop down by one f-stop, or set exposure compensation to minus one.

Online identities: management and multiplication

FMH sent me to this post summarizing online identity management tools: 25+ Ways to Manage Your Online Identity.

Identities on the web add up quickly. Identity management is the "next big thing" and the gold rush has been underway for years. It's a fierce battle.

I currently have manged "major" identities at Amazon, faughnan.com, faughnanlagace.com, Google Gmail/Blogger, LinkedIn, and, yes, even Facebook -- and those are only the ones I can remember right now. I debated including my Yahoo! identity in the mix, but unless Yahoo does something remarkable with Zimbra that's just a front for spammers. I do have a Microsoft Passport (or whatever they call that now) identity as well, but I try to forget that one. I used to have a .Mac identity, but Apple's .Mac hasn't delivered much value for money so that one is in abeyance. There are a myriad of "unmanaged" lesser identities, and of course all my emails have some form of identity associated with them ...

None of these net identities belong to my banks, who own my rock-world identity. Ok, so I have a US Passport, and Canada probably still counts me too.

Eventually I'm going to put links to all the managed digital identities on my faughnan.com page, if only so I can keep track of what's publicly revealed on each profile. Amazon in particular makes it easy to unwittingly reveal information, fortunately my reading tastes are rather dull.

BTW, John Gordon, in case you can't tell, is a pseudonym.

Big google search improvement: date range

Matt Cutts tells us that Google's advanced search now offers real date range search -- but then tells the real secret -- how to craft URLs that embed time-based searches:

Useful Google feature: better date search:

...This little tweak is as handy as “&strip=1″ on cache: queries and “&filter=0″ on site: queries. Why? It’s an easy way to see new urls that Google has just discovered in the last few days.

For example, there’s been a lot of fast progress on iphone stuff recently. A query such as http://www.google.com/search?q=iphone+source+code&as_qdr=d1 would show all the new urls for the query [iphone source code] within the last day, because d1 stands for 1 day.

Suppose you wanted to see all the new urls that Google found on your site within the last 7 days. For the domain mattcutts.com, I’d use a query such as http://www.google.com/search?q=site:mattcutts.com&as_qdr=d7 to find those urls (remember, “d” stands for days and “7″ stands for, well, 7).

Previously, you could check whether Google had indexed a new url by (say) searching for content from that url, so this isn’t completely new, but it still simplifies life for site owners.

Honestly, this is big. The one thing I most wanted from Google search was date range information; many technical searches are frustrated by scads of outdated articles. The challenge will be to see if they can keep this working despite the best efforts of the usual parasites ...

PS. The iPhone source code example is cute.

Google is indeed working on the broken Picasa Web Album iPhoto plug-in

They could do a better job of communication, but Google's photo sharing site has apparently not abandoned their OS X (iPhoto) customer base:

Picasa web albums: not for OS X

... A Google Picasa [web album] developer commented ... The good news is that he's actively working on an update that will announced on the Google Mac blog....

Update 10/15/07: It took two months and Google never changed their download page to notify users it didn't work, but the new version is out.

Picasa web albums: not for OS X

I'd been very fond of Google's Picasa web albums, but about a month ago the iPhoto '08 broke the Google (Picasa) Export Plug-in. It's been a month now and there's been no official admission from Google of the problem and no fixes.

It's time for OS X users to look somewhere besides Google. Too bad the .Mac photo sharing doesn't support full res upload/download. I'll be looking around, suggestions welcome!

Update 9/15/07: A Google Picasa developer commented on my blog, see comments. The good news is that he's actively working on an update that will announced on the Google Mac blog. I don't agree that a single, increasingly buried, comment on the help forum counts as sufficient notification of the problem -- Google should have updated their download page. I haven't come across any alternative I like as much as Picasa web albums, so with this additional notificaton I'll keep waiting.

OS X users: How to get your NBC

I don't watch network TV.

Well, that's not completely true. The other night I was stuck in a Hilton DoubleTree, and, as is often the case with Hilton, their Net access was down. My only reading material was densely technical, so, for the first time in years, I turned on a television. In 30 channels, there was nothing I could tolerate for more than 30 seconds.

So I don't care whether or not NBC's TV shows are available for me to watch. Some Mac users, however, are probably annoyed that NBC's solutions are strictly for Windows.

In that spirit, CNET tells us how to pirate how to pirate NBC. I'll shed no tears for NBC ...

10 Immutable Laws of Security (Microsoft)

An excellent Coding Horror post, about which I'll comment later, pointed to a handy (Microsoft?!) set of security principles. I omitted the stupidly obvious ones that were added so they'd have a list of 10 (Microsoft!):

Microsoft TechNet: 10 Immutable Laws of Security

Law #1: If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it's not your computer anymore
Law #2: If a bad guy can alter the operating system on your computer, it's not your computer anymore
Law #3: If a bad guy has unrestricted physical access to your computer, it's not your computer anymore Law
Law #4: If you allow a bad guy to upload programs to your website, it's not your website any more
Law #5: Weak passwords trump strong security
Law #6: A computer is only as secure as the administrator is trustworthy
Law #7: Encrypted data is only as secure as the decryption key
Law #8: An out of date virus scanner is only marginally better than no virus scanner at all
Law #9: Absolute anonymity isn't practical, in real life or on the Web

There's nothing here that should be novel to any geek, but it's a nice set to be able to reference. Law #3 is the one most people forget. Even Macintouch fell into the trap of thinking a hack that allows admin access to any OS X machine was a major security breach. That hack requires physical access, so the admin workaround is a trivial security breach. (OS X user account encryption will provide decent security, provided you don't put the password in your keychain!)

Also, Law #8 is a bit dated. Most geeks are giving up on virus scanners for XP/Vista, and OS X doesn't need one (yet).

What is the FullCircle folder doing in my OS X Application Support Folder?

In the process of debugging some very, very annoying Firefox 2.0/Adobe behaviors, and purging my MacBook of anything to do with Adobe (more on that later) I came across a folder called "FullCircle" within my "Application Support" folder. It had MozillaCamino strings in it. What the heck is that, I wondered ...

It's part of the Mozilla feedback/crash reporting system, and it's used by both Camino and Firefox (and probably Mozilla/Netscape too). For example:

Mac OS X 10.4.2: Questions And Answers:

To troubleshoot, I would delete the Firefox and FullCircle folders from / Users / [user] / Library / Application Support, and search for a Mozilla folder or files (on the entire boot drive) and delete them, too. Repair Permissions again, reboot, and then the same problem.

This was surprisingly hard to uncover!

A blog dedicated entirely to calendar interoperability

This guy's been beating the drum for calendar interoperability in a dedicated blog since June 2005!

Calendar Swamp: Calendar swamp is born

When you're up to your necks in appointment alligators, it's hard to remember the original job was to drain the calendar swamp.

Wow, this guy is persistent! I truly sympathize, though I don't have his endurance. I'll definitely add him to my bloglist.

Why the iPhone doesn't do tasks: a theory

Why doesn't the iPhone have the capabilities built into the @1990 PalmPilot? Why can't it do tasks or notes properly? These core functions are the among the demands I list on my non-tech blog:

Gordon's Notes: iPhone: my demands:

... Tasks at least comparable to the 1994 PalmPilot tasks.

Synchronization with Outlook at least comparable to the modern Palm OS (in other words, flawed, but useable). A 256 character limit on contact comments is not acceptable...

My working hypothesis has been that Apple hates me, but maybe I'm taking this a bit personally. Another theory is that the Apple has decided this stuff all has to migrate to the net and they've decided to speed up the process by eliminating all alternatives.

A third explanation occurred to me, and a bit of research supports it. Scott Mace, who has an appropriately despairing blog about calendar sharing and synchronization, mentions that the iPhone's calendar synchronization with Outlook is very weak. That's a clue.

Outlook is a the 8,000 pound Mastodon in the world of calendars, tasks, and contacts. It's the immovable object, and it's not simple to synchronize with. Outlook has a very complex and kludgy way of implementing these core concepts, and Microsoft leveraged that complexity to destroy Palm. Apple may have a few Palm veterans in Cupertino, people who are warning them about what it means to try to manage tasks, appointments, and contacts on Microsoft's turf.

Most iPhones will sync with XP and Vista machines, and eventually with Outlook 2007. If Apple wants this to work half-decently (meaning better than Palm), then the iPhone has to approach contacts, tasks, and appointments in a way that's a reasonable match to a subset of Outlook functionality (the most used fields, for example). If the iPhone does this, then OS X must to.

Problem is, Apple has iCal and the (very peculiar) Address Book on OS X, and they're nothing like Outlook. So Apple needs new versions of iCal and the Address book, but that's not going to happen on 10.4. That kind of change can only come with 10.5, perhaps with a new approach to synchronization.

So my latest tortured theory predicts that Apple won't add new PDA/PIM functionality to the iPhone before OS X 10.5 ships (supposedly in October, though I doubt it will be stable before April). If I'm write we'll see something @ Jan 2008.

New iPod video out has DRM protection built in

Apple tightens the DRM screws ...

Apple locks TV Out in new iPods, breaks video add-ons

... Without disclosing the change to customers, Apple has locked the TV Out feature of the iPod classic and video-capable iPod nano, preventing users from outputting iPod content to their TV sets [jf: except via Apple authenticated devices] as has been done in years past. Going to the Videos > Settings menu brings up a TV Out option that is now unresponsive when clicked, showing only the word “off.” When locked, video content will display on the iPod’s screen, but not on your TV or portable display accessory.

Presently, the only apparent way to turn this feature on is if you connect your iPod to a device with an Apple authentication chip built in. Authentication chips are only available in Apple products, and in a handful of products made by Apple-licensed third-party developers

This is a DRM move, I suspect it's related to Apple's desire to deploy HD video to iPods. This is good, it will teach people some valuable lessons about DRM ...

SMARTReporter: a free drive monitoring application for OS X

I'm going to try this one. From macintouch:

SMARTReporter 2.3 attempts to warn of impending hard drive failure by polling the SMART (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) status technology built in to most modern hard drives. This release now prints more information about the checked disk to the logfile, improves handling of hot-plugged disks (eSATA), fixes some crashers, and makes other changes.