Talk Mac to Google

There's still a few minutes to post to Google's new Macs Inside Google group -- before it's swamped in feedback from a million Mac zealots.

Timeature 1.0: adjust image date field in Aperture

Timeature is a $15 shareware utility that addresses a giant defect in Aperture 1.5 by editing the date field in Aperture's SQLite3 database. Note below another huge Aperture date issue: dates cannot precede 1970.

Timeature

Adjust the Image Date field of images imported in Aperture! The correct Image Date ensures that your photos are sorted properly within Aperture. This field is sadly not currently user-editable, hence the need for Timeature.

The Image Date field is automatically generated at import time from the EXIF shooting date of the image. If the imported file does not contain this EXIF information, Aperture will use the file creation date as the value for the Image Date field. This information is stored for quick retrieval in Aperture’s database. It is this field that Timeature modifies. Timeature makes no modifications to the original master file.

Timeature does not edit the XML (plist) files that accompany master images. Adam is reviewing these; it appears on first glance that Aperture will update the plist values to reflect changes to the internal database.

This 1.0 app should be used for now only an experimental basis. Note Adam's comments in his FAQ (I bolded this a bit):

Timeature won’t let me set a date before 1970 or after 2037!

This is a current limitation of the date calculation routines in Timeature. We are looking into resolving this in a future release.

I just rebuilt my Library and all of my Image Dates have disappeared!

Aperture stores the Image Date in two places: the SQLite3 database and in a plist file associated with each version. Timeature 1.0 currently only updates the SQLite3 database. We’re looking to release another version of Timeature shortly to also add this information to the image’s plist file.

Haven’t I seen the icon for Timeature before?

Long-time Newton owners will recognize the clock graphic used in Timeature once belonged to AlarmClock, a popular application for the Newton OS developed here. Just as the Newton never dies by getting new batteries or emulated, the iconic spirit of AlarmClock lives on in Timeature.

The inability to set a date prior to 1970 is kind of scary. I wonder if Aperture follows the unix convention of measuring time as seconds post 1970. Of course this is a crummy situation for those of with a library of scanned images from 1905! I'll be tracking this limitation closely.

Apple Bug Reporter: where hard core Apple geeks go

First you get yourself a free or low cost minimal ADC membership. Then you report bugs here: Apple Bug Reporter.

Search services support "time in ...."

A handy tip. Want to know the time in Montreal? Enter "Time in Montreal" into the search box of your favorite engine.

Mac smart phones: Blackberry, Palm or ?

Missing Sync claims to support Microsoft's PDA/Phone clients (I've no idea what they call those things now). Treo has Missing Sync support that probably works.

Blackerries, however, come with a vendor supported OS X solution.

Unless Apple produces a phone, the Blackberry is probably the best supported OS X phone. The business Blackberries (not the Pearl) also have much better Amazon reviews than Palm or Microsoft phones.

FileBrowse and my attic cognitive map and catalog system

I may have a use for FileBrowse. I catalog our attic using a combination of filesystem metadata, full text search, using the OS X folder layout as a map to domains, and storing images of boxes, bins and bin contents in folders. The result gives us cross-platform support, very rapid data entry, and anb inexpensive combination of spatial indexing (move folder icons about in folder view) with text search and low cost inventory capture. I think of it as somewhat similar to the way my memory would do this -- if I only had a memory.

The strengths are match to human cognition and speed of data acquisition and entry. The disadvantages are storage (far more disk use than a traditional database, but, OTOH, much less than a few hours of family photos or a minute of video) and image browsing -- I have to open folders to see images. Ideally I'd like a flattened view that would show images and image data.

I might try using a saved spotlight search to do something similar but I'll also test Filebrowse. (I could dump all the images in iPhoto, but it's awkward and I have to redo every time I add an image to folder.)

Update 10/15/06: FileBrowse can't view all files contained in subfolders, so it didn't work. A Spotlight smart folder showed all images very well (flattened the hierarchy), but I can't get the icons beyond 128x128, so they're not quite big enough. Preview will ALMOST browse a smart folder -- but not quite. Maybe in 10.5. Smart Folders in 10.4 seem to be only accessible by the Finder.

Timature: Adam Tow's pending Aperture time adjustment utility

Is it what you know, or who you know? Or, in the modern world, is it rather knowing who to get to know?

When I asked Adam Tow about using AppleScript to fix the Aperture date problem, I was asking the right person. Once Timature is out and tested a bit, I'll be able to buy Aperture 1.51. At last.

I suspect Adam's app will be a mixture of AppleScript and a shell call to SQLite, but I've no inside knowledge. This is only possible because Apple uses SQLite3 for Aperture's data store.