iPhoto 6: what a bloody mess

I was pretty confident when I installed iPhoto 6. After all, I'd verified my Libraries with iPhoto Library Manager.

Hoo boy. Was I wrong. What a bleeping mess. See [1] (below) for details, but my IPLM merged Libraries were a reall mess after updating to iPhoto 6. The unmerged Libraries were ok, but the process was odd. Two of them took only a few minutes to convert. One, about 3 times as large, seemed to hang. It let it run overnight [2], when I returned it was done. Forty images were "recovered", but in fact they were all duplicates.

Fortunately, despite my misplaced confidence, I had backups upon backups. So, I'll probably survive. I did find that when iPhoto hangs during a Library update, your best bet is to go to bed. Chances are in the morning it'll be done.

iPhoto still wreches and hangs when it comes across a corrupted JPEG. The code base for the app must be horrendous -- or the current engineers are spectacularly incompetent.

I came across some really ugly looking images, but it doesn't look like I was hit by the color space problem -- my old iPhoto 5 versions of the same images are just as ugly.

So what went wrong? I'm not sure yet. I suspect some complex interaction between the legacy of old OS X and iPhoto bugs mixed in with quirks introduced by merging my iPhoto 5 Libraries using iPhoto Library Manager. One of my many update attempts produced 620 "recovered" images, but they look like odd duplicates related to original images. I set them aside to study, but chances are I'll delete them all.

Later I did a test merge of these 3 iPhoto 6 Libraries into one new iPhoto 6 Library [2]. This time the test image was handled correctly [2], but I'm still evaluating counts of images.

More importantly, I'm done with iPhoto. I deserve Pro tools. I want to use an application that gets properly tested -- because screw-ups lead to really nasty lawyers gnawing on Apple. (I'm one of the few physicians in the world who thinks that junk dog lawyers are the best solution humans can come up with to drive quality work.)

I'm so mad I'll punish Apple by spending $250 (edu price) for Aperture -- once it gets its next point update. Oh, wait, that a minute ...

PS. I had to use Smart Folders to help with some of my analysis. That's when I realized you can't sort results based on path data, and you can't easily see the path. I'd like tp put the Spotlight engineers in the same boat as the iPhoto team, and send them all to a southern island -- something just off the Antarctic coast.

[1] IMG_0092 is the test image. Original images is 320K

Original library (iP6 - this is correct)
Ancient/Modified/2002/Roll 25: 368K
Ancient/Originals/2002/Roll 25: 320K (this is correct)
Merged library (iP6)
BadLibrary/Originals/2002/Roll 25: 368K (switch original and modified)
BadLibrary/2002/10/26/Originals (this is weird, another originals?)
Merged library, different approach (iP5)
NewMerge/2002/10/2/: 368K
NewMerge/2002/10/26/Originals: 320K (this is correct)
As above, but iP6 with 1000 "recovered" images.
NewMerge/Recovered Photos/IMG_0092.JPG: 320K
NewMerge/Originals/2002/Roll 25/IMG_0092.JPG: 368

[2] My guess is that that there's some global timeout that kicks in after an hour or two of failing to complete a task, and iPhoto skips to the next step.

[3] As per [1], but now I upgraded each of the 3 iPhoto Libraries separately to iPhoto 6. Two went very quickly, one took several hours and found 40 'recovered' images (all were unwanted duplicates). Then I merged to one new Library using IPLM. The test image was now handled correctly:

AllMerge/Originals/2002/Roll 11: 320K
AllMerge/Modified/2002/Roll 11: 368K

NeoOffice: still not using OpenOffice file formats

[Update: this blog posting gives additional perspective.]

I'm interested NeoOffice, but it's worrisome that it still not using native OpenOffice file formats:

MacInTouch: timely news and tips about the Apple Macintosh

NeoOffice 1.2 is an open source, Mac OS X-native version of the OpenOffice.org office suite, which includes Microsoft Office-compatible word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and drawing applications. This release adds the ability to import OpenOffice.org 2.0 documents, use of Apple's Java 1.4.1 and Cocoa APIs (instead of Java 1.3.1 and Carbon), support for printing EPS images, and support for all OpenOffice.org accessibility features, among other changes. NeoOffice is free for Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4.

Since it's Cocoa, do OS X services work? I'll give it a try.

Epson has a 24 photo bulk feeder

Epson briefly sold a scanner with an integrated print feeder. The Amazon reviews were very positive, but it was discontinued. HP made a similar device, which was burned at the stake on Amazon. (HP hates their customers, and they punish them with HP's sheet feeders/shredders.)

Every so often I look to see if anyone has introduced something like this. To my surprise -- I found the Epson - Multi Photo / Business Card Feeder. It replaces the top portions of two of Epson's currently sold scanners (2480 and 2580). It's about $150 or so; oddly it's $175 on Amazon. There are no Amazon reviews of this device, in fact I couldn't find any reviews anywhere.

Is there nobody else with thousands of prints to scan? Something's funny here ...

Update: it looks a lot like the top of their limited edition scanner, the one that got great reviews.

Update 2: Hmm. False alarm. This is indeed the top of the Limited Edition scanner, but the two scanners it is said to work with have been discontinued. So this is not worth buying.

SeaMonkey for OS X: HTML editor?

SeaMonkey is the Mozilla Foundation's version of Netscape: an all in one solution. I'm quite interested in the HTML editor. There's a dearth of end-user wysiwyg html editors for OS X, and this one's free. Comments to come.

OS X Sync software updates

Mactintouch had news of two updates to sync software, a category I'm interested in because of my 10.3.9 iBook.

MacInTouch: timely news and tips about the Apple Macintosh

QuickSync 2.0 is a folder synchronization utility that can work with any device that mounts on the desktop. It includes automatic sync options, scheduling, bidirectional or unidirectional sync, session saves, reports of copied and synced files, and support for FTP, SMB (Samba), and Appletalk shared folders/drives. This release adds a system backup function, copying with admin rights, improved sync and data detection methods, and a redesigned and simplified interface. QuickSync is $19 for Mac OS X.

SyncUpX 1.5.1 is a synchronization utility that provides incremental backups, the ability to back up Smart Folders, and one-click restores, among other features. Backups can be saved to a second hard drive or external drive (including an iPod), and each backup stores its own settings, which can be restored just by selecting the backup folder. Recent changes include extended logging, interface improvements, improved Automator actions, and better error handling. SyncUpX (a Universal Binary) is $20 for Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4.

SyncUpX gains a lot from its clever use of Smart Folder:

freeridecoding.net

You want to backup only the purchased songs out of your iTunes music library? Just create a spotlight search listing all protected AAC files and save it. Now just add this saved search to your backup. This way you can create completely dynamic backup sets really easy.

Microsoft Access: Unable to update a recordset or field value

Microsoft Access is a seriously weird product, but I mostly know my way around the bugs. One of the most annoying bugs/behaviors is when Access decides you can't edit a field in a join. I can find neither rhyme nor reason for why this happens. This note has my entire, painfully acquired, solution set for this problem. It dates from Access 2000, but it remains topical

This recordset is not updateable

Access 2000 and Jet 4.0 changed quite a bit. One problem is that RecordSets that used to be updateable aren't.

As a fix, try changing the value of the query's UniqueRecords property (from yes to no or vice-versa) Q207761 - ACC2000 Changes in Use of DISTINCTROW in Microsoft Access 2000. See also 011217_AccessUpdatesHelpFile.pdf. I had to change the properties for the query to "Dynaset (Inconsistent Updates)", which I fear increases the risk of the Cursor Problem [1]. It's probably better to change the UniqueRecords property to NO.

Sometimes defining relationships in Tools:Relationship will prevent this from happening, especially if one assigns referential integrity and "cascade update related fields". Also look at which "side" of two joined fields appears in the relation, sometimes changing that will fix the problem.

[1] I think this was fixed in Access 2003. In Access 2000 it was possible for edits to be applied to rows removed from the row the UI presented.

Fuzzy Gazetteer: finding places where you don't quite know the name

Does anyone imagine they "know" the web any more?

Fuzzy Gazetteer:

The Fuzzy Gazetteer enables you to find geographic features even when you do not know their exact names.

A list of similar names is returned, web-linked to the JRC Digital Map Archive of the European Commission.

The JRC digital map is yet another wonder. Off to the side there are icons that let you see the image via Google Earth or NASA's image repository. In this case, the map shows a creek in the Congo.

I think I've just had another Cyberpunk moment.