What Is a Wiki? Wiki 101

An O'Reilly article does a nice job laying out the Wiki world:
O'Reilly Network: What Is a Wiki (and How to Use One for Your Projects). I haven't figured out a use for a Wiki in my world, but I'll study the article and see what I can learn. ( I love Wikipedia, but I don't write for it.)

The VCamNow toy video camera works with OS X

I put an SD card (1GB, $30, ridiculous price drops in the past year) into my son's neglected VCamNow (sold via Target and Amazon). Then I put it in "play" mode and connected it to my iMac.

I was pleased to discover that the camera mounted and I could edit the jpg photos and AVI movies in iPhoto and iMovie. My son was delighted and the camera is now quite popular.

I noted my discovery in an Amazon review, then decided to ask Google if anyone else had noticed this. Not many it turned out, but one kindred spirit made the same discovery last December. Now there are two postings, so anyone who cares will find the answer to their worries.

My unsuspecting collaborator notes the bundled software (PC only) is quite horrid, but the software is not needed on XP anyway. There's no Mac software, so one must make do with iMovie and iPhoto :-). He notes the Mattel Vidster (not as good) also works with OS X.

Update 9/16/06: I think for this to work you have to first play a piece of one of the movies, and it may only work if you use the internal memory card to store data on. I think playing a part of one movie in the camera causes it to build a file system of some sort. Otherwise when you mount the camera the folder is empty. Also, here's info on the AVI format..

Update 10/15/06: iPhoto 6 will mount the VCamNow and import the videos.

Bloglines: claim a feed and give Freedback

Bloglines, my preferred RSS reader, is showing new vigor. They've added the ability for feed owners to manage how Bloglines manages the feed: Bloglines | Change Profile.

They've also added a way to provide feedback to them from a blog, which I'll use to tell them that the 'Change Profile' tool didn't recognize any of my Blogspot blogs -- and I read them all via Bloglines.

The trick for the feedbak is that I include the phrase bloglines freedbacking in this post. Their search engine looks for this and flags the post as feedback.

OS X context menu has slideshow option

I really need to read my darned context menus. There's an option to start a slideshow I'd never noticed.

Automator: a real use - automate scan/print

At last, a use for Automator!

ReelSmart.com: OS X Tip #94: Your Mac as a Color Copy Machine

I might conceivably use this one. I have a Brother MFC I like, but it's gray scale. I'd set this to use my ink jet instead.

Managing Google's search bot

.htacess to robots.tx to meta tags to nofollow to url removal. The many ways to keep content out of Google.

Review: My Dell LCD UltraSharp Monitor

Until today, I used a CRT. What can I say? I'm cheap. Problem is the desk it sat on was small, and the display was too close for my inelastic lenses. I had trouble focusing, even though I use a similar CRT at work. The vision problem, a desire for more desk space, a $100 discount (usual periodic Dell sale) and free shipping (Dell small business account) pushed me over the edge. I also knew that I'd want an external monitor for my MacBook, so I might as well get a good one now. (I'm waiting for either my iBook to die or for MacBook rev 2 to come out.)

I bought the UltraSharp 2007FPW 20.1-inch Widescreen Flat Panel LCD Monitor with Height Adjustable Stand and 3-Year Warranty

I carefully removed my Samsung 17" CRT and lovingly laid it on a comfortable chair. As I turned away it gracefully leaned forward. I almost caught it. The thunderous crash did not obscure my oath. The Samsung had chosen an honorable death over exile to the attic. There was no going back.

A few comments:

• I come from the days of nonstandard interfaces, of scan rates and Mhz mismatch. I never expected that my 4 year old Intel integrated video would drive this at its full 1680x1050 resolution -- but it did. It even supports rotating for a large portrait view.
• I plugged it directly into my running PC -- it couldn't manage the input. I restarted, all was well. I easily adjusted to full resolution. Moral -- turn off the PC first. Again, better than expected. Progress, I must ruefully admit, has occurred.
• It has 4 powered USB 2.0 ports and it comes with a 2.0 cable. Nice.
• It comes with a VGA and DVI cable. Nice.
• It has S-Video and Composite video inputs -- so you can use it as a display for your home theater if you'd like.
• It's has a 1.6 aspect radio (16:10), which is DVD/Movie (16:9) like. Compared to a traditional TV like 12:9 aspect ratio it feels a bit squashed for its width. Note that lower end digital cameras are 12:9 ratio and fit perfectly on an older monitor. On the other hand my dSLR outputs 15:10 and does well on this display. It's the same aspect ratio and size as my 20" iMac display.
• The default brightness is very, very bright. I turned it down to about 20%.
• You can buy a speaker system, the Dell soundbar, that fits below the monitor. The monitor has a power out for the speakers.
• The stand seems quite excellent.
• Unlike a CRT, which would flicker terribly at 60 Hz vertical frequency, this display does fine.
• The display is sold at 3 price points for a 3 year warranty, a 4 year warranty and a 5 year warranty. Will Dell still be around in 5 years? Probably, but 3 years plus the 1 year extended AMEX gives me is pretty long.
  
• The documentation is HTML based and it's a bit of pain to copy to one's hard drive -- where I keep such things. No problem for a geek, but it would defeat many others.
• I hesitate to say this, but so far I've really no complaints. That's rather odd for me. I'm sure I'll think of something.

Update 7/6/06: That didn't take long. I noticed the monitor had no color profile associated with it. I dug through the documentation and tried Dell's support site, but there was nothing there. I then browsed the CD and found a readme.txt file in the root. It said:

This 2007WFP.INF file is a digitally signed driver that supports the
following Dell monitor in Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP and x64 operating systems ...

So I followed the readme directions and ... nothing happened. XP was ignoring the INF file. I did see 2007WFP.icm in the same directory; ICM is Microsoft's extension for color profile specification files. I manually assigned this color profile to the display. Dell gets a few dings for lousy documentation, lousy web site support files, and a .INF file that doesn't do anything. Ahh. I feel better now ... A Google search on 2007WFP.icm turned up nothing. Well, it's online now ...