Repairing a corrupted home directory image

Apple tells how to repair a home directory image: Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4: FileVault - How to verify or repair a home directory image. I've never used this solution because it makes backup a mess, and it's one more thing to go wrong. Instead I keep a few key files in a small encrypted image. Still, it's good to know there are some fixes for image corruption.

BTW, if you use an encrypted image file, better be sure there's another admin account on your computer ...

Photo exposure tips

I used to know this stuff -- back when SLRs didn't have batteries. I'd forgotten most of it. The 1/ISO rule doesn't apply in the age of image stabilization ... (via Kotke)

Twelve Essential Photographic Rules - - PopPhotoSeptember 2007

1. Sunny 16 Rule
The basic exposure for an average scene taken on a bright, sunny day is f/16 at a shutter speed equivalent to one over the ISO setting...

2. Moony 11, 8, and 5.6 Rules [shooting the moon]
... full moon is f/11 at one over the ISO setting...

4. Anatomical Gray Card
... Hold your open hand up so it's facing the light, take a reading off your palm, open up one stop, and shoot...

5. Depth of Field Rules
When focusing on a deep subject, focus on a point about a third of the way into the picture to maximize depth of field...

7. Exposure Rules
..."Expose for the highlights, and let the shadows take care of themselves."...

11. Action-stopping Rules
To stop action moving across the frame that's perpendicular to the lens axis, you need shutter speeds two stops faster than action moving toward or away from you...

12. Sunset Rule
To get a properly exposed sunset, meter the area directly above the sun (without including the sun). If you want the scene to look like it's a half-hour later, stop down by one f-stop, or set exposure compensation to minus one.

Online identities: management and multiplication

FMH sent me to this post summarizing online identity management tools: 25+ Ways to Manage Your Online Identity.

Identities on the web add up quickly. Identity management is the "next big thing" and the gold rush has been underway for years. It's a fierce battle.

I currently have manged "major" identities at Amazon, faughnan.com, faughnanlagace.com, Google Gmail/Blogger, LinkedIn, and, yes, even Facebook -- and those are only the ones I can remember right now. I debated including my Yahoo! identity in the mix, but unless Yahoo does something remarkable with Zimbra that's just a front for spammers. I do have a Microsoft Passport (or whatever they call that now) identity as well, but I try to forget that one. I used to have a .Mac identity, but Apple's .Mac hasn't delivered much value for money so that one is in abeyance. There are a myriad of "unmanaged" lesser identities, and of course all my emails have some form of identity associated with them ...

None of these net identities belong to my banks, who own my rock-world identity. Ok, so I have a US Passport, and Canada probably still counts me too.

Eventually I'm going to put links to all the managed digital identities on my faughnan.com page, if only so I can keep track of what's publicly revealed on each profile. Amazon in particular makes it easy to unwittingly reveal information, fortunately my reading tastes are rather dull.

BTW, John Gordon, in case you can't tell, is a pseudonym.

Big google search improvement: date range

Matt Cutts tells us that Google's advanced search now offers real date range search -- but then tells the real secret -- how to craft URLs that embed time-based searches:

Useful Google feature: better date search:

...This little tweak is as handy as “&strip=1″ on cache: queries and “&filter=0″ on site: queries. Why? It’s an easy way to see new urls that Google has just discovered in the last few days.

For example, there’s been a lot of fast progress on iphone stuff recently. A query such as http://www.google.com/search?q=iphone+source+code&as_qdr=d1 would show all the new urls for the query [iphone source code] within the last day, because d1 stands for 1 day.

Suppose you wanted to see all the new urls that Google found on your site within the last 7 days. For the domain mattcutts.com, I’d use a query such as http://www.google.com/search?q=site:mattcutts.com&as_qdr=d7 to find those urls (remember, “d” stands for days and “7″ stands for, well, 7).

Previously, you could check whether Google had indexed a new url by (say) searching for content from that url, so this isn’t completely new, but it still simplifies life for site owners.

Honestly, this is big. The one thing I most wanted from Google search was date range information; many technical searches are frustrated by scads of outdated articles. The challenge will be to see if they can keep this working despite the best efforts of the usual parasites ...

PS. The iPhone source code example is cute.

Google is indeed working on the broken Picasa Web Album iPhoto plug-in

They could do a better job of communication, but Google's photo sharing site has apparently not abandoned their OS X (iPhoto) customer base:

Picasa web albums: not for OS X

... A Google Picasa [web album] developer commented ... The good news is that he's actively working on an update that will announced on the Google Mac blog....

Update 10/15/07: It took two months and Google never changed their download page to notify users it didn't work, but the new version is out.

Picasa web albums: not for OS X

I'd been very fond of Google's Picasa web albums, but about a month ago the iPhoto '08 broke the Google (Picasa) Export Plug-in. It's been a month now and there's been no official admission from Google of the problem and no fixes.

It's time for OS X users to look somewhere besides Google. Too bad the .Mac photo sharing doesn't support full res upload/download. I'll be looking around, suggestions welcome!

Update 9/15/07: A Google Picasa developer commented on my blog, see comments. The good news is that he's actively working on an update that will announced on the Google Mac blog. I don't agree that a single, increasingly buried, comment on the help forum counts as sufficient notification of the problem -- Google should have updated their download page. I haven't come across any alternative I like as much as Picasa web albums, so with this additional notificaton I'll keep waiting.

OS X users: How to get your NBC

I don't watch network TV.

Well, that's not completely true. The other night I was stuck in a Hilton DoubleTree, and, as is often the case with Hilton, their Net access was down. My only reading material was densely technical, so, for the first time in years, I turned on a television. In 30 channels, there was nothing I could tolerate for more than 30 seconds.

So I don't care whether or not NBC's TV shows are available for me to watch. Some Mac users, however, are probably annoyed that NBC's solutions are strictly for Windows.

In that spirit, CNET tells us how to pirate how to pirate NBC. I'll shed no tears for NBC ...