Canon's Digital Photo Professional: It's not bad

A few months ago I bought myself a Digital Rebel XT for "that solstice holiday". I've been pretty satisfied with it, but until now I've just been shooting JPG and using the sRGB color space.

Recently I bought the Magic Lantern Guide to the Digital Rebel XT EOS 350D. The book mentioned that Canon's Digital Photo Professional is now bundled with the camera, and that it's pretty good. Sure enough I found it on my CD. I decided to try shooting JPEG and RAW and give it a spin.

I'm impressed. The JPEG+RAW fills my memory card pretty quickly, but even so I rarely get beyond the 60-70% level before I transfer images. The latest version of Canon's DPP (download the patch) breaks Canon's EOS Capture however. I'm using Image Capture to pull in the images, embedding sRGB profiles in the JPEGs. I then review in DPP. I make major changes to images there. If I don't need to fix an image, I delete the RAW (CRF) file. If I do need to fix a JPG, I work on the RAW/CRF file and save it as JPEG 8 bit, then delete the CRF file. (I wouldn't mind, however, an option to save as JPEG 2000 or DNG.)

When I'm done I rename the files with my usual naming convention (YYMMDD_RoleName_IMGNumber) and dump them in iPhoto. Overall it's a practical way to learn more without burning lots of disk space. It should work for me until I switch to Aperture post the 1.1 release. The only glitch is that DPP is agonizingly slow at converting to JPG.

Update: UhOh. Big Glitch! The trim tool doesn't seem to work at all! I wonder if this bug was introduced with the latest patch.The Trim tool works in a slightly different manner than I'm used to. You set a "trim" and a "trim" icon displays over the RAW file. But the trim is only applied when you convert to TIFF or JPEG. The astoundingly slow JPG conversion must be running in some kind of emulation, it's so slow it makes this application much less useful than it should be. I think the only way to use it is to batch the conversions so you can set them up and return later in the day ...

HotSync wars

Wow, I'm tired. I've had a few days of HotSync and Outlook wars. At home it was the Tungsten E2 Outlook conduits and my old copy of Outlook 2000, at work the same PDA but synching only BeyondContacts/KeySuite with Outlook 2003.

I've seen all kinds of fun error messages, such as the 'OLERR: (number)' errors in HotSync. Palm's troubleshooting guide suggests they've just thrown up their hands.

I went through too many twists and turns to remember, but I finaly defeated a wide range of Outlook and Palm misbehaviors.

At work with Beyond Contacts I think the fix was repairing some bad Outlook PST files and running "outlook /resetfolders" (see also this list of Outlook command line switches), but I also got this advice from tech support:

I am writing in response to your email regarding Beyond Contacts. Please try the following steps to correct the problem. Before completing these steps, please confirm that all of your data is up to date in MS Outlook on your computer.

1. Click on the HotSync icon in the System Tray (lower righthand corner by the clock)
2. Select Exit
3. Go to the following location:

C:/ Program Files/ Palm/ User Name Folder/ Beyond Contacts

4. From the Edit menu choose "Select All." Delete the contents of this folder.
5. Restart HotSync Manager by going to your Start menu and selecting Programs or All Programs. You will find HotSync Manager will be under your Palm Desktop Program Group.
6. Click on the HotSync icon in the System Tray (lower righthand corner by the clock)
7. Select Custom
8. Double-Click Beyond Contacts
9. Click the 'Advanced' button and make sure the correct Outlook Profile is selected
10. Set Beyond Contacts to "Synchronize the Files"
11. Click 'OK'
12. Click 'Done'
13. Synchronize. During this sync you will once again be asked to select the preferred method. If all of your data is up to date in Outlook like suggested at the start of these steps, you will want to choose this from the Window.

At home I decide to upgrade Outlook 2000 to 2003. I realized it was very unlikely that he current conduits were really aimed at Outlook 3 versions old. I then removed my old profile and ran into a mess of issues with where IMAP mail goes, what data files one uses, which data file is associated with an email account, etc etc. Fortunately all my data was backed up in old PST files. This time I went into the advanced settings for the conduits and enabled sync to multiple PCs. I think that turned off the obnoxious warnings.

Phew. What a mess. No wonder no-one syncs a PDA at work any more ...

Google lockdown: why I won't trust them with my data

A bad day for Google's Blogger and me, and a bad day for Google's Blogger and a lot of clients!

Earlier on 3/16, when posting a tech note, I got a Google/Blogger lockdown notice:

Your blog is locked

Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

You won't be able to publish posts to your blog until one of our humans reviews it and verifies that it is not a spam blog. Please fill out the form below to get a review. We'll take a look at your blog and unlock it in less than a business day.

If we don't hear from you, though, we will remove your blog from Blog*Spot within 10 days.

Find out more about how Blogger is fighting spam blogs.

I filled out the form, and about 10 hours later the blog was available for posting again:

Re: [#422278] Non-spam review and verification request: http://googlefaughnan.blogspot.com

Blogger Support

Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and whitelisted so that it will no longer appear as potential spam. If you sign out of Blogger and sign back in again, you should be able to post as normal. Thanks for your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

But, when I tried to post from the 'renewed' blog I got a nasty error message: "001 java.io.IOException: EOF while reading from control connection". Shortly thereafter the blog was completely offline.

Incompetence related to "whitelisting" me? No, there was a coincidental hardware failure at one of their major server sites. All of my blogs were inoperative, though only Gordon's Tech was completely unavailable. Several hours after the failure they finally admitted it on status.blogger.com, about a day later the blogs were up again.

I'm not happy with Blogger -- on either account. I don't blame them for the hardware outage, but I do blame them for being very slow to confess they had a big problem. Much more problematic is their approach to the spam blog investigation.

They should have given me a warning notice "we think you're a slimy spammer", asked me to complete the review request, and then waited to do a shutdown until after a negative review was performed. A pre-emptive shutdown and secondary restoration, "guilty until proven innocent", is the wrong way to go.

Sure, it's a hobby blog that's mostly used as a way for me to document what I do. But what if this were a part of my livelihood? What if it was a file system operated by Google? What if it was my Google wordprocessing service? What if it was my small business email service?

Google's honeymoon period is over. They've developed Microsoft's arrogance without Microsoft's monopoly power. This does not bode well for their future.

PS. If Blogger starts requesting you recognize an image when uploading an article then you're on their watch list ...

Older DVD drives can't read dual layer disks

There are some dual-layer movies that won't play on my DVD-ROM equipped G3 iBook. The G3 also won't mount a dual-layer Tiger DVD. Turns out this is probably an aging defect. Originally these drivers were supposed to be able to read dual-layer DVDs, but over time they may lose that ability -- I suspect the problem is exacerbated by changes in disk manufacturing:

Macintouch: iLife 06

Antonio Tejada

Sebastian Kempgen mentioned that "...the iLife 06 DVD requires a drive which can read double-layer discs. However, the DVD drives of older PowerMacs such as a G4 MDD cannot read double-layer discs - the Install DVD simply does not mount. ..."

That is plain and simply a faulty drive. Apple doesn't specify a dual-layer capable DVD drive because dual-layer discs are part of the core DVD specification: all DVD readers are required to be capable of reading them, without exception. Dual-layer DVDs are not a recent addition to the spec -- it's been there from the beginning. Only the ability to burn them yourself is new (and as with any burned disc, read compatibility of burned dual-layer discs is lower than that of pressed discs).

I have found that the DVD-ROM drives from G3s and G4s do not age well -- they lose the ability to read even remotely marginal discs, and even occasionally reject entirely suitable discs. That is likely the case here.

Keyword Assistant has been updated for iPhoto 6.02

Ken Ferry - Keyword Assistant.

The old version worked fine -- except the ability to create new keywords was disabled.

Getting dust off a camera sensor

Sensor dust is the dark secret of dSLRs. It can be a serious problem, and it's a pain to get rid of. My Canon manual gives some advice, basically it says you can try using a hand blower but after that you should take the camera in.

Here's a more detailed approach with the Nikon D70: Macworld: Secrets: Cleaning your digital-camera sensor.

Retrospect: when good software goes bad

If you've been around software long enough, you know the feeling. Good software going bad. This doesn't happen with wrenches, power saws and bicycles -- this is one way in which software has some of the properties of a living thing.

Software is complex, and it's embedded in a complex ecosystem made up of the core operating system, the antiviral and security system, and other co-resident applications -- not to mention the physical computer and peripherals. In addition it "lives" in a complex business environment with a major perverse incentive -- after initial penetration ongoing revenues requires "upgrades". Typically bug fixes aren't enough to get users to upgrade, there needs to be new features. New features mean more complexity, more bugs, declinining reliability. On the other hand, if users don't upgrade the software becomes increasingly unsuited to its 'ecosystem' -- eventually it breaks.

Even if the software survives all of the above, people move on. Expertise is lost. Business direction changes. Software dies.

The lifespan of most software is about 6-10 years. Dantz Retrospect was an excellent and popular Mac backup solution in the 1980s. It's old. It's more than decrepit.

Today I tried to make a Disaster Recovery image using Retrospect Pro 6.5 for Windows. All seemed well -- but the ISO image was 747MB. That's too large for a CD. One CD burning app claimed it was a DVD image. The documentation says it should be a CD image. The remnants of Retrospect was bought by EMC Insignia -- who removed all of the support forums, downloads, etc. There's no where to look to sort this out.

This is only the latest in a long line of issues with Retrospect. It's been in decline for years. Each update fixed some bugs and introduced others. The support forums were sour. Usenet questions fell off. The smell was bad.

What's the chance that EMC is going to sort this out? Pretty darned slim. It's time to move on, but there aren't a lot of serious backup solutions marketed to the home office. Most small businesses and homes don't do real backup.

I guess I'll just have to wait for Google to host all of my data ....