Backup on the Mac: Part 2
SuperDuper is mentioned a few times.
Monday, October 18, 2004
Sunday, October 17, 2004
Scantips advice on VueScan
VueScan - Film Scanner software
I'm trying VueScan to see how it will work for scanning a large volume of negatives and prints. I'm outsourcing this work so I want something very simple.
I'm impressed so far. It's very fast and it's very simple. Much nicer workflow than flipping back and forth from TWAIN. It scans directly to the image. Lets me control file naming pretty well. Mac and OS X versions.
A few downsides:
1. In demo mode it watermarks all images. Annoying. I hate scanning for testing and scanning again later.
2. I don't see how to make it use the native TWAIN drivers (if I wanted to do that).
3. Doesn't use a standard windows help file.
4. Install puts it in c:/ drive root. Annoying. I moved it.
5. Had some problems. Apparently known conflicts with logitech mouse.
VueScan is an easy program to use, it is largely automatic, and its defaults are preset for the goal of achieving best results with the most accurate color. If it seems difficult to use, you're likely diddling too much, trust it more, try the defaults. All you really need to set is scan mode and perhaps film type, and it can do the rest. You can size the preview and histogram window as large as you like.
You may sometimes want to tweak Brightness to affect midrange brightness (VueScan Brightness works as a multiplier to Gamma, same as any histogram Midpoint control). But otherwise, the main tone setting you may want to change is the Color Balance. Depending on the image content, one of these may be better than the others.
White Balance adjusts the RGB settings to try to make the image look white, often very desirable. Auto Levels adjusts the RGB settings from the histogram maximum data values, which then map to white. If the scene lighting was sodium lamps or an orange sunset, Neutral probably works best. Images without neutral colors such as gray or white, perhaps images of all green foliage or flowers, may not like White Balance mode, but more nearly typical images (people and places) likely will love it. Then the Auto Black and White Points clip away the specified percentage of the total pixel values. VueScan's defaults clip minimally, if at all, to retain the full data, to NOT discard shadow detail, giving all the range that a negative can give, perhaps a flatter image than you are used to, but it's all there.
You can set the Auto Black and White Points for greater contrast by clipping more, say 0.5% at Black. My own preference is to use the defaults for its magic (good color balance), and tweak contrast later in Photoshop (retaining that data allows choices). For typical scenes, following up with Photoshop Auto Levels (0.5%) is often fantastic. That clipping often enhances image contrast and colors perfectly, but sometimes it's the wrong thing to do. It does discard some shadow detail that VueScan tried to retain.
I'm trying VueScan to see how it will work for scanning a large volume of negatives and prints. I'm outsourcing this work so I want something very simple.
I'm impressed so far. It's very fast and it's very simple. Much nicer workflow than flipping back and forth from TWAIN. It scans directly to the image. Lets me control file naming pretty well. Mac and OS X versions.
A few downsides:
1. In demo mode it watermarks all images. Annoying. I hate scanning for testing and scanning again later.
2. I don't see how to make it use the native TWAIN drivers (if I wanted to do that).
3. Doesn't use a standard windows help file.
4. Install puts it in c:/ drive root. Annoying. I moved it.
5. Had some problems. Apparently known conflicts with logitech mouse.
Cleaning scanner glass
FAQ 3 - Email, Cleaning
My Epson 1660 glass has never seemed clean -- even when I bought it. Finally it occurred to me to search on how to clean the sucker (top and bottom, scanner disassembles easily).
Scantips is an old time favorite web site. They mentioned pure alcohol. Cheapo 70% isopropyl alcohol worked great (pharmacy grade). Patten was clean for the very first time.
Interestingly the scans really don't look all that different.
My Epson 1660 glass has never seemed clean -- even when I bought it. Finally it occurred to me to search on how to clean the sucker (top and bottom, scanner disassembles easily).
Scantips is an old time favorite web site. They mentioned pure alcohol. Cheapo 70% isopropyl alcohol worked great (pharmacy grade). Patten was clean for the very first time.
Interestingly the scans really don't look all that different.
Sifry's Alerts: Oct 2004 State of the blogosphere: Big Media vs. Blogs
Sifry's Alerts: Oct 2004 State of the blogosphere: Big Media vs. Blogs Terrific visual of sources favored by bloggers. The list of reference pretty much follows what I read and post about, starting with the NYT at the very top. Midway down though I start to see sites I'm not familiar with, but clearly need to learn more about.
12,000 new blogs every day?
Sifry's Alerts: State of the Blogosphere, October 2004
Assuming each of the new blogs has only a single posting and allowing for load times, there's no way to even read the inital postings of every day's new blogs in a single 8 hour day.
Technorati monitors about 4 million web logs (I'm not sure it monitors this one). A storm of postings.
... there are about 12,000 new weblogs being created each day, which means that on average, a new weblog is created every 7.4 seconds
Assuming each of the new blogs has only a single posting and allowing for load times, there's no way to even read the inital postings of every day's new blogs in a single 8 hour day.
Technorati monitors about 4 million web logs (I'm not sure it monitors this one). A storm of postings.
Integrating blogs, PDAs and snippets of information
AvantGo
I figured I could use AvantGo to snarf down my Quick Notes entries and put them on my CLIE (PalmOS).
It sort of works, but the pages basically choke the CLIE. It takes 1-2 minutes for a single archive to load and scrolling is tough to. I might try again if I switch to the single-post-per-page method (unfortunately those posts have "Potemkin Permalinks").
PS. Blogger is SLOW these days.
I figured I could use AvantGo to snarf down my Quick Notes entries and put them on my CLIE (PalmOS).
It sort of works, but the pages basically choke the CLIE. It takes 1-2 minutes for a single archive to load and scrolling is tough to. I might try again if I switch to the single-post-per-page method (unfortunately those posts have "Potemkin Permalinks").
PS. Blogger is SLOW these days.
The Fallows Summary of Getting Things Done (GTD)
The Atlantic Online | July/August 2004 | Organize Your Life! | James Fallows
This started as a blog post on what James Fallows' wrote about David Allen's "Getting Things Done" methodologies. Now It's morphing into my short summary of the method, inspired by Fallows' article. Here's the latest version.
I'm still putting priorities on my tasks, but I can see the logic of a method that dispenses with priorities.
Ideally our software would make it easy to do the following:
1. Assign tasks to one or more projects and be able to view them quickly by project.
2. Assign tasks to minimum-required-resource (eg. place): nothing, phone, desk, computer, network, office ...
3. Assign priorities to tasks and projects.
4. Assign dates and notes to tasks (almost all software does this, more or less).
5. Link tasks and projects easily to messages and appointments.
6. Allow editable access to this data on a PDA.
Outlook doesn't do these things very well. Unfortunately. I sort-of-fake-it by:
1. Using Allen's Outlook Plug-In. (The software is crude in some ways and I think it's troublesome, but it gets around many of Outlook's inadequacies.)
2. Using Chapura Key Suite to sync the Outlook data to my PDA.
This started as a blog post on what James Fallows' wrote about David Allen's "Getting Things Done" methodologies. Now It's morphing into my short summary of the method, inspired by Fallows' article. Here's the latest version.
1. If you can do it in two minutes, just do it.
2. Get everything out of your head. Appointments, tasks, notes, contacts -- get it into one place (eg. Outlook).
3. Tasks have three important relationships:
- the minimal context needed for the next action (ex: anywhere, phone, desk, computer, network, office ..)
- the project(s) that contains the task
- date of next action
4. Tasks always have a next action. Identifying and executing 'next actions' is critical.
5. Record tasks/ideas at time they are recognized.
6. Weekly review of about one hour. (This takes me at least 2 hours but I'm trying to speed my review.)
7. Tasks do NOT have priorities.
I'm still putting priorities on my tasks, but I can see the logic of a method that dispenses with priorities.
Ideally our software would make it easy to do the following:
1. Assign tasks to one or more projects and be able to view them quickly by project.
2. Assign tasks to minimum-required-resource (eg. place): nothing, phone, desk, computer, network, office ...
3. Assign priorities to tasks and projects.
4. Assign dates and notes to tasks (almost all software does this, more or less).
5. Link tasks and projects easily to messages and appointments.
6. Allow editable access to this data on a PDA.
Outlook doesn't do these things very well. Unfortunately. I sort-of-fake-it by:
1. Using Allen's Outlook Plug-In. (The software is crude in some ways and I think it's troublesome, but it gets around many of Outlook's inadequacies.)
2. Using Chapura Key Suite to sync the Outlook data to my PDA.
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