OSX: Blogging Widgets

I am disappointed to report that the 2 blogging widgets I have tried don’t support tags properly with wordpress.com.

WordPressDash lists them okay and you can select multiple tags but they don’t actually show up on the blog.

RapidMetaBlog only allows you to choose one tag, which completely misses the point.

Nevertheless some may find them useful. Other than the tag issue they seem to work fine.

This is my first proper post in ecto and I must say, it looks like love at first sight.

Dupe posts, and all that

Lads and Lassies, please be patient with the dupes and such… i’m testing out some new blogging clients.

Irregular service will resume, maybe… later. Otherwise soon after that, if not before.

OSX: Firefox Optimised by CPU

Firefox did the auto-update thing on me again on account of the fact I’ve recently reloaded my iBook and forgot to disable this ‘feature’. Naturally this made my most useful extensions stop working. Okay, maybe not THE most useful, but it seems that way now they are gone.
So now I have an excuse to try out the G4 optimised Firefox. It’s a .version behind, you see… kill 2 birds, and all that.

Optimized Firefox 1.5.0.6 for G4, G5, and Intel: BeatnikPad Journal

And I won’t forget to disable auto-updates.

OSX: Official GMail Widget

Google have an official widget for viewing your Gmail inbox.

They get points for using the keychain to store the password, but loose twice as many points for assuming that the keychain is always unlocked. If you have taken the time to secure your keychain (see point 6) then each time you access the dashboard keychain asks for your password.

I’m a bit ambivalent about this.  I’m certainly not going to unsecure my keychain.

Oh well, life goes on… without the Gmail widget, aparently.

OSX: Dashboard

I’ve not been a fan of Dashboard. My first impression was that it’s just a gimmick.

Gimmicks are fine and sometimes fun, but since I use an iBook there are some technical reasons I don’t like Dashboard. I don’t have much screen real-estate, so there is a limit to how many widgets I can use. Some widgets would be much more useful as stand-alone applications. Many widgets do things which are much better left to a tab in a browser. But most importantly, I don’t want to waste CPU power/battery life with a bunch of things running constantly in the background. Never-the-less, I am going to take a second look at dashboard, and try to find those widgets that are genuinly useful tools. To this end I’ve compiled the following list of candidates.

Some seeminly useful widgets failed to make the list because of their blatent waste of screen real-estate.

TheDailyGrind
Screenshot Plus
Reminder
iCal Events
DoBeDo
BitMemo
ClassicNotePad
Notepad Widget
VoiceNotes
Widget Manager
Capture
awkalc
Evaluate
Carpenters’ Level
Date Calculator
Calculon
qwikCONVERT
Google Gmail
GPeek
BBC Weather
Degrees Down Under Widget
Tide Widget
Weather Australia
Armillary
US Weather+ (Not just for the USA)
Moon Phase
SunClock
Sunlit Earth
iStat pro

One game, just for fun – mondo solitaire . It’s a huge widget (bigger than the picture shown) , but I just drag it off to the side of the screen, out the way when not needed.

OSX Productivity

Why I’m More Productive on a Mac is a nice article on some of the features of OSX that make working on a Mac so pleasurable.

Some of the comments offer good hints too.  If you are relatively new to OSX this page could serve as starting point to help you explore more of it’s features.

Windows XP: Photoshop Elements 5

Adobe have announced Photoshop Elements 5 for Windows, and have listed the reasons to upgrade.

It would seem Adobe have run out of ideas and have decided to add a bunch of trivial features stolen (probably) from a bunch of also-rans which use them to mask their lack of true power.  The only actual useful feature that they mention is the addition of curves, but then there is a work-around for that if, like me, you are still stuck with choose to use version 3.

I can understand why Adobe are stuck though.  Even Elements 3 is a very capable program.  I imagine it does what 99% of hobby photographers need to do 99% of the time, so long as they are prepared to learn how to use it.  And Photoshop CS2 is a very, very expensive program.  I would love to have it, for the other 1% of times, but I just can’t justify that cost, even though I could afford it if I really wanted it.

So Adobe can’t make Photoshop Elements much better than it is without further canabalising their own market.  If they add any more actual, real, photo editing features, it will give more people less reason to pay the exorbitant premium that CS2 carries.

Maybe the product will be much more impressive when it ships.  It’s also possible that the marketing department have entirely missed the point and failed to highlight features which would actually be of use editing photos.  Perhaps Photoshop Elements is now going to be marketed to scrapbookers and turned into a kind of desktop publisher.

It seems that Photoshop Elements 3 will be with me for awhile yet.

(N.B. That the OSX version is often a version number behind.  Version 4 has only been out a few months.  It will likely be quite awhile before we see version 5 for OSX.)

Photo Editing: Blur instead of noise filter.

One of the odd things about my Canon PowerShot S3 IS is that whilst the noise level is lower than the previous model, it seems to be a type of noise that is not so easily filtered out.  The S2 IS exibited a lot of colour noise at high ISOs, but this type of noise is actually easier to filter.

The main problem with the type of noise is that it interferes with the sharpening process.  You can end up with artifacts where the sharpening algorithm tries to sharpen something which isn’t a feature of the shot but blob of noise.

To get around this I have been selectively applying sharpening only to the subject of the shot (where there is one central feature of interest).  In order to do this I use the polygonal selection tool to mark out the main subject, and then only apply sharpening to that.

But here’s the trick.

Before sharpening, invert your selection and blur the rest of the shot using a gausian blur.  This creates an illusion of depth of focus, which you can adjust, but more importantly, it also smoothes over any noise in the background of the image.

You can re-invert your selection and still apply selective sharpening, or else you can deselect and apply sharpening over the whole image, knowing that only the subject will have small detail which can be sharpened.

The bottom line: don’t filter out the noise, blur it out instead.

I use on Photoshop Elements 3 OSX, but the principles here should equally apply to other decent photo editing applications.

Any time you apply edits like this, you should be feathering your selections appropriately.  This post is only meant to convey an idea to those who already have the relevant skills.  It’s not meant to be a comprehensive tutorial.

OSX: Free iPhoto Tools, Plugins, etc

I’m in the process of trying to develop an efficient workflow for my photography. I still have iPhoto as my central repostitry of photos, but I use other tools as well. As I refine the process I’ll be posting tutorials on how I work with iPhoto’s strenghts, and how I work around it’s weaknesses.

In the meantime, and in no particular order, here is a list of freeware for iPhoto. As I work my way through this list I’ll post my experiences and options about any that I find noteworthy.

N.B. All the links are to VersionTracker

iPhoto Librarian 1.2
Better iPhoto Templates 1.0
iPhoto to PhotoToWeb 1.1.1
iPhoto to OmniGraffle Album Export 1.0
myPhoto 1.5
iPhoto Buddy 1.2.6
Mail Pictures (EA X) 0.2e
iPhotoSerialNamer 0.3
iPhoto Album Extractor 1.0v2
Galerie 5.3.0
Gallery Monger .93
SlideShowPro iPhoto Plug-In 1.0.3
iPhoto Diet 3.1
iPhoto Extractor 2.0b12
Photon 1.1iPhotoWebShare 1.3
iPhoto_tools 1.0
iPhoto Exif Cleaner 1.0
iPhotoTool 1.1
IdlePictures 1.3.2
iPhoto Batch Enhancer 2.0.3i
iPhotoToGoogleEarth 1.0
MACeyever 0.4
WebExport 1.0r1
Web iPhoto Access 2.2
Sony ImageStation 1.1.0.10
Keyword Assistant 1.9.2
CopperExport 0.4.0
iPhoto plugin for PhotoCentral 1.0
Send Photos To iPhoto 1.0.0b1
iPhotoToAESlideshow 0.5b1
iPhoto Mailer Patcher 4.1
iPhoto Automator Action Pack 1.0

My New Fridge…

…has a startup tone.

I just switched it on and it beeped a tune at me.

It also beeps in a most annoying ding-dong fashion when you adjust the temperature or other settings. It’s quite a loud beep.

This fridge has a “Super Cool” and “Super Freeze” function. I don’t know what it does because the pamphlet I got with it (I can’t call it a manual) is written in Engrish.

“Surely when thy fridge has become like unto thy PC, and event sounds utter forth from it, and the distraction there-of is most annoying, then Armageddon is neigh at hand. Yeah, it knocks on your very door.”