March 27, 2003
New Idea in Forums
Stumbled onto 'H20', Harvard's open source community software for classrooms and schools. Looking into it, I spotted a very interesting idea for forums:
-
H2O currently provides the Rotisserie. The Rotisserie implements an innovative approach to online discussion that encourages measured, thoughtful discourse in a way that that traditional threaded messaging systems do not. The basic concept of the threaded messaging board is to enable broadcast-to-broadcast communication among a group of people, meaning that every participant in the conversation receives every post from every other participant. This mode of discussion inevitably leads to the domination of the discussion by a few very verbal participants and silence by the lurking majority. The Rotisserie breaks this mode by assigning every post within the conversation to another, specific participant for response. The resulting conversation guarantees that every post will be responded to by at least one other participant and that every participant must respond directly to the post of another participant.
Rotisseries are organized into projects, which are loosely analogous to courses, but usually less formal. Some projects are open to all users, some are open to applications from all users, and some are invitation-only. Every rotisserie belongs to a specific project, and the typical rotisserie uses the participants of its parent project as its participants, though it will be possible to include individual users and even entire other projects in the participant list of a rotisserie.
I think it is a pretty neat idea, although cannot see it working in a non-classroom environment -- it is impossible to compel people to do anything, especially suffering to respond to inane postings.
As far as I can tell, Arsdigita has nothing to do with this project; that is a good sign.
March 25, 2003
Disheartening News From California
So it's almost a year since I sold my house in San Francisco's East Bay and moved back to Singapore. We only owned it for a year, but put lots of work into remodelling it. So we can't help but occasionally miss it and wonder how the new owner has improved it.
Well, I received the absolutely sickening news that their only 'improvement' was to add to the window a big peace sign made out of cardboard and bits of aluminum foil.
Nauseating
Not on our watch!
After all the toil we poured into that place, it makes me ill to know that dirty gnu hippies now inhabit it, complete with their twenty-five year old Volvo parked outside.
Dirty Gnu Owners passed the only suitability test: they bought it for more than I paid...
At least I don't feel bad anymore for forgetting to send the furnace warranty back to them. They probably warm themselves with steaming compost piles and hemp sweaters anyway.
How Pathetic is Garmin's Technical Support?
I just completed uploading the transcripts of several email exchanges that show how bad Garmin tech support is. They're clearly ignorant and seem to suffer the sin of sloth as well.
Garmin makes junky products that almost work and backs them up with substandard tech support.
These are the reasons I am so tempted to use a professional GPS, not a toy.
March 23, 2003
John Ashcroft: Wicked Man
Attorney General John Ashcroft is the chief architect of the accelerating erosion of civil rights in the USA. Not satisfied with generalized violations of privacy and obscene violations of immigrants, he likes to drill down on specific cases, like personally stewarding the effort to kill stupid John Walker Lindh. It is hard to believe a Christian would do these sorts of things.
Paperclip
The Cigarette Smoking Man (L) listens uneasily after informing First Elder (R) and the rest of the Syndicate that Mulder is alive.
March 22, 2003
Vietnam Travel Advice From Derek Potter
I just received an open letter from my friend Derek Potter who spends most of his retirement operating adventurous travel tours through Southeast Asia.
If you are interested in a guided tour, you should consider Derek. He is much more than a trip logistics officer--he has a genuine interest in everywhere he takes you, an enormous gamut of adventure experience (sunken wreck recovery, jungle exploration, yacht sailing), and the most important thing for a guide -- a hearty personality with lots of stories to fill in the stale bits of a trip.
He most recently returned from an exhaustive survey of Vietnam and offers his thoughts:
Bach Ma - great mountain top place to visit.....cool former French colonial hill station (1,500m) just south of Hue.......trekking trails winding through jungle covered ruins of French town and to waterfalls (also Viet Cong tunnels)............forest wildlife - tigers reported to have returned......guest house in restored royal villa at $10/15 per night.....agents in Hue can arrange transport up there (one and a half hours from Hue)........however don't confuse "Bach Ma" with "Ba Na" - this once beautiful French hill station near Danang has been spoilt by kitsch new developments leaving it looking like a mini Genting Highlands.
Hue's Royal Tombs and Imperial Citadel - instead of using the tedious Perfume River boat tours offered by the agents, these important sights can be combined much more time-efficiently by hiring cars or motorbikes with driver/guides........the gregarious "Thu" - a lady who has a cafe in the alley behind Binh Minh hotel - arranges excellent day tours.
DMZ tour - many inexpensive day tours available in Hue but frankly the DMZ is no longer worth the time and effort (tiring 12 hour day)........local scrap merchants have carted everything off there's hardly anything left to see (particularly at Khe Sanh - one of the war's biggest battles).........tour only of interest to veteran US soldiers and war history buffs.....the NVA tunnels at Vinh Moc are well preserved but not as interesting than those of the Viet Cong at Cu Chi near Saigon.
Nha Trang boat excursions - the infamous "Mama Hanh" boat tour is still running but Mama Hahn herself is in now in jail.......accused of moral turpitude and singing anti-government songs......four or five companies now doing similar but less outrageous tours......with perhaps "Hanh Cafe" offering best value and excellent lunch en-route.
Nha Trang to Hoi An - Highway One still in bad shape making this a shattering bus journey......much better to take the day train (05.35 - 13.55, Nha Trang to Danang) on the "Reunification Express" - Vietnam's fastest.....relaxed scenic journey and Danang station only 45 minute taxi ride to Hoi An......Hoi An now very touristy and if town too busy try staying in Danang in area near "Danang Hotel" (once town's best hotel but now seedy).....better "Saigon Tourane Hotel" next door with friendly Linh and Lien cafe's across the road.....can rent cars/motorbikes to Hoi An, My Son, China Beach and Marble Mountains.
Nha Trang town......"open ticket" operators drop you off in the south end of town at their own hotels......however a more interesting area to stay in is between the beach and the market around Thang Loi Hotel.....an old French type quarter with good restaurants.
Saigon to Phnom Penh - you can now do this journey by fast boat up the Bassac River via the Vietnam border town of Chau Doc.....and combining this with a two or three day Mekong Delta tour is much nicer than enduring the normal 10 to 12 hour bone shattering bus journey......Saigon's De Tham Street agents (Sinh/Kim/TM/Delta etc) arrange daily trips.
Saigon De Tham area - backpacker district but some nice new mini hotels opening up (with elevators for a change!).....offering great value at $10/15 USD.......also good restaurants in the area at prices much lower than those over near Rex/Continental.......intensive competition between agents offering cheap travel deals.....eg "open ticket" Saigon to Hanoi now only $27 USD.......but best to buy in stages - some sections are better done by train.
Mekong Delta tours - many Saigon agents offering inexpensive 1/2/3 and 4 day tours but the shorter ones all follow the same well worn, floating market type touristy routes (Mytho/Vinh Long/Cantho)......Chau Doc takes longer but more interesting.....there are also good bird sanctuaries with cranes and storks but need customised tours to reach them.
Dalat Town - excellent and incredibly cheap shell fish cooked on charcoal fires in main square stalls opposite Golf 3 Hotel......scallops roasted in herbs and boiled local giant snails.....wash down with cold beer or local Dalat wine.......fantastic!
Central Highlands - Dalat agents now offering 2/3/4 day tours to Lak/Buon Ma Thuot/Pleiku/Kom Tum though tribal areas......on paper this looks an interesting trip.....however this region has lost it's originality and does not compare with similar tribal areas in northern Vietnam......long and tiring journey if this route is taken all the way to Danang.......most travel north by traversing the spectacular Bel View Pass down to Nha Trang.....this also gives the option of a great walk down the old cog railway line.
March 16, 2003
Another Review of the Epson 2100
This review of Epson 2100 was interesting, and points out the differences from the Epson 2200.
First Experiences With the Epson 2100
A Huge, Heavy, Solid Beast With Some Flimsy Add-Ons
I dragged home the enormous 3'x4'x10" box and started unwrapping my Epson 2100 Inkjet.
It's a big, heavy machine. Some of the add-on trays, roll feeders, and sundry attachments do look a bit flimsy. A good whack on them would probably do some costly damage.
The printer itself looks damn solid though. The paper advance has scores of small little rubberized wheels with tiny teeth. It all has the look of very high accuracy. It should -- the machine prints bandless color.
Machine went together pretty quickly. The dearth of printed documentation is a little irritating at first, but once the software drivers are installed, the CD-installed documentation is good enough. I wouldn't say it's especially thorough.
One annoying omission is that they don't provide a USB or Firewire cable to connect the printer to the PC. This is a $1400SGD printer, and they don't skimp on the other components, so why not add in some cabling? Fortunately I had some leftover cables from other machinery. If I hadn't, I'd have been fucking steamed, sitting there at 2am with an unusuable printer.
The printer is way too big for the tiny little office space I have. Don't know how I am going to arrange things. Ling will not be pleased to find another 15% of her tuition desk encroached. She must feel like a Palestinian.
Basic Printing from Windows XP
I started out just trying to print out some small jpeg images on the free 100x50mm paper I was given. (Roughly the dimensions of a 4x6" photo).
There are at least two ways to use the printer, using PhotoQuicker, a small application from Epson which is basically a wizard to help you select some photos, adjust the print preferences, and send them to the printer. The second way is to just adjust those same printer preferences from any Windows application that has 'Print' functionality.
I first tried using PhotoQuicker, and printed out the picture incorrectly three or four times. I finally realized I was loading the photo paper incorrecly. (I was sticking it in wide edge first, instead of narrow edge). Regardless of how I set 'landscape' or 'panoramic' in the print preferences, the image was running off the edges of the paper.
Looking inside the printer during all this I noticed that there were ink droplets all over the place. No suprise, as the printer was spraying ink over areas it thought there was paper. This mistake is so easy to make (I figured the printer would complain if it didn't sense the paper feed adjusted to the correct width) that I guess it isn't that serious, aside from leaving stray stains here and there. There is a cleaning tool provided, so I will see if I can dab them away with that.
Once I sorted out the paper-feed orientation problem, it all went fine -- I made a nice, borderless print of one of my kerala photos.
I was a bit suprised to compare the earlier attempts. One of them had a distinctly stronger yellow and red element than any of the others. Compared under the same light, all the others had the exact same color output. My guess (hope?) is that in all my ignorant efforts to adjust settings for this printer, I picked the wrong paper profile, thus the printer was compensating incorrectly. I comapred them again this morning and saw the same thing. I had thought that perhaps the colors change during the 24 hr drying period, and that maybe the over-yellow photo was the first one I printed. Not so.
One other deficiency is that the list of Epson paper choices is incomplete. I can choose:
But, for example, the 100x50mm cards I was given are "Premium Glossy Photo Paper". In some screen shots in the documentation I saw the "Premium Glossy Photo Paper" listed as an option. Why isn't it available in my software? I tried turning off the 'marginless' printing, but that still didn't make the premium option available. It prints out fine using the Epson Glossy Paper setting, but these materials are expensive, and Epson stresses how important the correction combination of inks and paper are. I'd feel more comfortable if I could exactly identify the paper stock.
One other issue I had was in printing the Benneton/Sisley photo. Regardless of how I configured the print preferences, I could not get the printer to fully maximize the photo within the bounds of the paper. It probably used 90% of the area it could have. When I printed another picture later (on some roll-fed paper) the printer happily made the pixels big enough to fill up the page. I don't understand why it wouldn't do this for the Benneton/Sisley photo. Perhaps the image has some invisible pixels that make the photo bigger than it appears?
At any rate, the print output is truly as good as any photo lab would produce.
Oh, also, I has trouble identifying the roll of free paper inside the printer preferences. It's a 329mmx10mm (13"x32.8") stock. I guessed A3+, and that seems to work. Curiously the box is labelled, "for use with: Epson Stylus Photo 2000P and Epson Stylus Photo 1270." Epson gave me this paper specifically with my 2100, so I guess it is fine, but little inconsistencies like this always trouble me.
Very Uncertain About Fine-tuning the Printer Controls
Basically the printer does what it wants to, or at least what it defaults to. I need to better understand how to control the dimensions with which the printer prints the images I feed it. I also need to understand how to exercise good color control.
Controlling the printer dimensions is just going to take some experimentation. I just have to admit to myself that I am going to be wasting some fairly expensive paper this weekend. But that ultimately saves me paper once I can regularly make one-shot-one-kill prints.
I'll only focus on controlling the color proactively once I figure out the other stuff. The default color output seems to match quite closely to what I see on the screen. Perhaps I am just lucky in this. I'll give it further study later.
====
Followup...
Already found some answers...
Turns out there are some differences between the 2100 and 2200. One important one is the paper support. There are a number of papers only supported in North America.
I don't know what the point of that is, or if it is correctable. But at least now I know why I couldn't find the 'Premium Glossy' setting in PrintQuicker...
March 14, 2003
Quick!
I decided to investigate the Epson 2100 (The asian name for the Epson 2200 photo printer) on a very serendipitous day.
I went to the Epson 'exhibit center' at Funan IT Mall and saw all of their high quality photo printers on display. They had some staggering products -- wide carriage printers that take 4' wide roll photo printer, producing bandless images derived from ultra-high resolution drum scans. These pictures are 4'x3' and have resolution better than the average 4x6" print!
At any rate, I saw the Epson 2100, which was my target, and was duly impressed. It turns out this weekend there is an IT Fair at Singapore Suntec City Convention center ( 3 minutes walk from my office ) and they were running a good promotion... $1481SGD, including one roll of semi-gloss paper, a packet of A3 paper (A3 is bigger than A4, but similar aspect ratio), and a complete extra set of the seven ink cartridges.
I priced this versus some of the shops at Funan, and found that with the addition of the ink packs ($17each), the promotion beats the average store by about a 100$. Furthermore, there is no hassle about using a credit card or else paying a non-cash tariff, etc.
Turns out the price isn't all... The service was outstanding compared to the normal Singapore retailer, and especially a convention exhibit retailer! [I went to another IT Fair a few months ago. HP had hired the most shockingly incompetent salespeople ever. The had no knowledge of their products whatsoever. Their flyers were crap. And despite their generation, they spoke the most wretched English imaginable. Shocking]
Anyway, these people were great. They processed my order quickly, and when the free dolly they give with all their bulky purchases didn't fit the enormous 2100 carton, the boss packed it up on his own dolly and walked it to my car and helped me load it. And unlike his competitors at HP, he knew an extensive amount about his products.
This sale goes on thru Sunday. Since I got such excellent service, I should give these folks a plug...
The fellow that helped me was 'David Liao.' The Epson distributor working this fair was Diversitec Distributors Ltd. Reach David at 9853-2012 or 6468-3888.
I'll give a review of the printer after I use it this weekend, but what I've seen so far is very encouraging.
March 12, 2003
Remodelling the house soon
Ling and I have been choosing color swatches and indirect lighting for our upcoming remodelling project.
Konika and Canon
Although my EOS-3 camera allows me to stop shooting mid-roll, I am going to swear myself off the habit.
It sounds great, right? I am shooting a scene -- I want to shoot some 400ASA prints, but then maybe get out the tripod and take some 100ASA slides. I can stop after 10 shots of the print film, and rewind the film, but leave a tail hanging out. Then later I pop the roll back in, advance to photo #11, and resume shooting.
Well, in practice what I get is:
- a lot of rolls lying around that never get finished
- a lot of rolls with a tiny scrap of a receipt stuffed in the can w/ them saying #17, #9, etc.
- the regular possibility that I am double exposing, or light leaking on the first tranche of prints
It just basically sucks, so I am not going to do it anymore. Today I gathered up all these film crumbs and took them in for developing.
The results were mostly horrific...a terrible yield of photos.
It apparently didn't help that I defaulted to going to the lab nearby my office, Konica-affiliated 'No. 1 Color Centre Pte Ltd, 2 Raffles Link, #01-09 Marina Square, Sinagpore Tel: 6338 8208.'
Although they ran my negatives in less than thirty minutes, when I took them home tonight to scan, I found that Konica had absolutely mauled them... Check out the scan below -- it's covered in scratches and dust. When you look at a higher resolution scan, it appears that a mountain lion works as the lab tech. The negatives I got from Photo Friend at Peninsula Plaza were much, much cleaner.
Although this does give me a chance to show off the Digital ICE feature of my SuperCoolscan 4000... It removes scratches and dust while not reducing sharpness too much. I used it with its default settings here...
I don't know when exactly this shot was taken, but I place it approximately November 2001. So it's been languishing in my dry box for a long time, and probably has enjoyed numerous sweeps through X-Ray machines around the world, as well as the simple, stinking heat of Singapore. I didn't do any post-processing in Photoshop, just because I wanted to point out Canon's ICE and Konica's Black Ice.
March 10, 2003
RogerAnswers
RogerAnswers saves the day again, providing a great response to my series of questions about digital printing
option 1)
I love my Epson 820 Photo Stylus inkjet printer. It cost me nothiing (got it free along with my computer as a promotion, should be less than 100 if you buy it retail), the ink is cheap ($5.50 a pop on ebay) and the quality is very good if you use epson's premium glossy photo paper.
The included color profiles are pretty good.
option 2)
Epson 2200. It's the ultimate prosumer inkjet printer. about 700 USD. It's a 7 color inkjet system (CcMcYyK) and you can choose from two kinds of black inks, depending on printing on matte or glossy paper. You can get gallery-quality prints that lasts 80 years. And it supports paper size up to 13x19 and I think you can even print on roll paper. great for making panoramas.
If you still want to have someone make the prints for you:
option 3)
Find a lab that uses Fuji Frontier system. Produce a printer profile (free) with http://www.drycreekphoto.com/ then convert your image to the printer's profile's color space before you send it out to them.
Fuji Frontier is cheap (all the new Walmarts and Costo in the states have them) and very high quality in the hands of capable operator. If you do the color management yourself as outlined above, then you just tell them to "send it direct to the printer" then it should come out fine, even if the operator is a color-blind monkey.
RC Technology for the KAP Rig
RC-CAM4: TINY R/C MODEL CAMERA SYSTEM, Page 3
This should help with some of the aiming-camera problems we've had with earlier versions.
March 09, 2003
Gollum's Riddle of the Week
Alive without breath;
as cold as death;
never thirsting, ever drinking;
clad in mail, never clinking.
Drowns on dry land,
thinks an island
is a mountain;
thinks a fountain
is a puff of air.
So sleek, so fair!
What a joy to meet!
We only wish
to catch a fish,
so juicy-sweet!
Hollywood! 'New Willem Dafoe hits screen in October'
Looking forward to release of the latest Willem Dafoe project, 'The Clearing,' set to hit theatres in a limited release late 2003. This thrilling drama centers around a disgruntled employee (Dafoe) who kidnaps his boss and demands ransom from the boss’s wife...
Implementing Trackback
I enabled the MoveableType's 'trackback' technology today. It enables an author to link his blog entry or blog category to other moveableType blog entries and categories. Then whenever someone updates or adds an entry, the message is sent out to all the other blogs that 'trackback' to this entry.
Probably won't be used much... I barely get comments, let along specifically having MT users coming through to bang trackBacks...
Digital Photographs...How Now?!
My photography workflow continues to snake along: getting the photos...scanning the slides...sorting them out...processing the images...
Now what about printing?
One of my favorite things about photoshop is my ability to arbitrarily crop images. But now I've got a bunch of irregular sized pictures that I'd like to print. I don't know how!
More accurately, there are several vectors I'm unsure about...
Printing irregular images
If I give a cd full of arbitrarily-dimensioned .jpegs to the print shop, how do they handle them? I surely don't want them cropping them to a standard aspect ratio. Maybe they ream me a bit by upsizing until a standard ratio could enclose the entire print? Or do some shops enable arbitrary prints like this?
Should I be making layout sheets of numerous irregular photos to fit in one large format (like an 8x11) jpg which I then cut up myself? *yuk-- sounds tedious*
Choosing the printer
I have no interest in buying a printer. The inks don't last, the supplies are expensive, and the quality isn't that good. So I have to send out the prints.
What quality operation should I be looking for? I don't need 400 year archival fine art prints. But I don't want 40 month prints, either. I'd like something vaguely comparable to a decent print you'd get from a reputable photoshop. What is that?
Futhermore, I live in Singapore. That limits my choices... Who to use in Singapore? Or should I be mailing these things abroad to an online service or something?
Color management
This seems to get hairy fast. Am I correct to believe that once I find a lab to use, that if I just define the Color Management System I am using, the lab will be able to print out the shots appropriately? Or do I have to do something else, like identifying the printer they are using, and then find calibration settings that will correctly attenuate my image such that it prints out as I envision it to?
====
I posted the same question on photo.net
Making the Dell harddrive accessible to the laptop
To make the Dell harddrive accessible to the laptop, follow these directions.
I advise that you do 'use the wizard to enable file sharing'. Principally because you will want to enable the Internet Connection Firewall on mom's Dell. Because you are sharing her harddrive, you don't want it exposed to the whole internet.
Don't screw around w/ 'hidden' shared folders.
Really, all you should need to do is establish sharing on the Dell pc. If you need to transfer files, you push/pull them using the Dell laptop. I would not advise setting up any sort of sharing on the laptop.
Once you've gone through this wizard, you should be able to goto 'windows explorer' on the laptop and browsing around that file tree, see the Dell PC shared harddrive listed. If you don't, you might need to reboot the laptop just so that it connects back to the Dell and initiates properly.
Do not setup any sort of file or directory synchronization! This sounds like an interesting idea and so on, but it ends up leavings messes and being a pain in the ass. Do not.
Internet Connection Sharing for my dad
First follow these directions for setting up the Dell PC as the Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) Host.
Once you complete all the steps on that page, there are follow-on steps on bottom of the page. You can ignore them.
The next thing you need to do is set up the ICS Client on your Win2k laptop. Here are the directions for setting up a Win2k ICS Client.
At the bottom of the ICS Client page there are two choices manual or automatic setup. You should first try the 'automatic' instructions. Under most conditions that will work fine.
March 04, 2003
If you really love my wife and I...
...you would have given us a nice gift for our wedding, like this $250 'shrimp sauce bowl.'
Unusual Convergence
Today an overnight futures broker in London sent me the same url I'd read about a few days earlier in Slashdot. Convergence between the interests of Slashdot geeks and London commodities traders is rare. In this case it's even more rare because it does't involve gun-camera footage or sex.
The accidental article is a letter written by a journalist at the Davos World Economic Forum and sent to friends. It was subsequently forwarded into web ubiquity. It appears to be a journalist's candid observations of the world's five thousand most poweful and wealthy citizens when they're off-camera.
The article gives you the sense that you're getting the 'real story' on terrorism, the deteriorating world economy, and World War 3. (or at least how the rich and powerful see it)
The only thing I don't like about the article is that it has some of the breathless, smug tones of several of Phillip Greenspun's dispatches when he and his ego were at their zenith. (He was doing an around-the-world tour talking about nascent economies and how they could use the ACS Toolkit to become superpowers.)
Besides worthless stock options, Phillip gave me a permanent gag-reflex against unbridled enthusiasm, so perhaps I am too sceptical of the article. But even if it is over-the-top it's still interesting and reads well.
This story has become a story itself. People are discussing how the redistribution of it was such an invasion of privacy. Even the author has raised a silly protest about how traumatizing and disappointing this has been for her. Of course it is so much bunk. This earlier unknown 'Science writer for Newsday' has been given a signifanct bump in fame and visibility. Give me a break...
The more interesting story is what I alluded to a earlier -- the article is compelling mostly because it gives the reader a sense that you're reading what the journalist really thinks, not what she was going to pastuerize for the general readership of Newsday. There should be more of this sort of writing, and Salon claims that this is exactly why blogs are so excellent.
March 03, 2003
Next trip for Ah Ling
So Tien-Lee and Tien-Ling, who only last quarter had a brilliant trip to Tibet, have another Asian adventure in store.
This month they'll be going to Luang Prabang, Laos for a week as guests at a Lao wedding. The Laotians are friends from Ah-Lee's university days in Australia.
I can't think of a better way to see Laos than to be the guest of a native. Everyone else, including me, will have to live vicariously through their logs and photos.
Lee's friends promised to get Lee and Ling sorted out with traditional Lao formal dress. It remains to see how they'll accomplish this, as Ling is most certainly in the 99th height and weight percentile for Lao Females, and probably 98th for Lao Males.
John Belushi Arrested in Peshawar Pakistan
Widely believed to have died of a heroin overdose in 1982 in Los Angeles, John Belushi was arrested this morning in Peshawar, Pakistan and charged with Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution. Further charges are expected to be brought later.
Incident in the Panamints
I accidentally killed karavshin.org & all my email@karavshin.org for two days. It is now repaired, so you can resend anything that might have bounced.
What happened? I allowed my DNS registration to lapse. The reminder addresses had been getting sent to an address I haven't checked since I built UNIMOG.
So fucking stupid.
March 01, 2003
I chose ImageMatch for my Image Catalog System
I've been going on and on about choosing a system to manage my digital images.
I sorted through all the feedback and reading, and decided to test the evaluation copy of ImageMatch. It was frequently recommended by folks.
For 'shareware' it is a remarkably polished product, as well as remarkably capable. It's very robust, has an unbelievably thorough 'help' system (including especially useful 'floating tooltips' and 'coaching dialogs'), and has a lot of advanced image library functionality that I haven't used yet. This includes things like a scripting language and an ability to search for identical photos.
It's written by a single programmer, Mario Westphal, which gives it the more polished, thorough character. I think it also gives it some curious idiosyncracies, but these seem limited to a very paranoid registration system (35-character long, totally random id/password pairs name="jker,g73,adsfh&adfh3" password="3jfjaskdrw&e3823" etc [that user/pass pair is a fake, btw]). I can sympathize -- it's this guy's livelihood, and this is definitely would be a popular 'Warez'.
That's why I didn't mind plunking down $49USD to buy it -- seems cheap. (don't use American Express to purchase it -- took me several days to get it sorted out... use a Visa or MasterCard or something)
Anyway, I am using it now. Regrettably they decided to host their user forum on yahoo groups, which I think is the worst possible choice. I absolutely detest Yahoo. At any rate, I posted a question about the best way to implement the 'atomic' system I described in some of my other posts. Even if it is not possible, this product is so good that there will be some sort of feasible alternative. If there is another product that provides some functionality IMatch doesn't, I am confident it will cost substantially more than $50 and not be worth the marginal cost.
As an aside, one of the other candidates was this "Adobe Photoshop Album." The people on the Imatch support forum were not very impressed with the product, saying it was too simplistic and too targeted to the absolute low-end consumer user. It also sounded like it didn't even work well with Photoshop. Here is an exerpt I stole:
Thanks, Rob
I followed the support forums at Adobe over the last few days, and many
people are requesting a refund and want to give PS Album back. Besides
some installation issues and ODBC database driver troubles, most users
seem to be annoyed of all the "simplicity" in PS Album because there are
too many limits (like only four top-level categories, which you can't
change, or the missing RAW support, or the maximum image size).
When I follow the forums, I see so many questions which I could answer
by "Yes, this can be done, but you need to use a real application, like
IMatch ;-)"
I think users expected too much from PS Album. If I see professional
photographers complain about the speed of the product after adding
20,000 images, or other problems, I think "He should have used a product
aimed at pros, and not a consumer product".
Anyway, PS Album is "Editor's choice" in the current online issue of PC
Magazine. We all know what PC Magazine is, so this is not surprising.
Anyway, IMatch wasn't even mentioned in this comparison, which means
that I have to do allot regarding marketing over the next couple of
months... ;-)
-- Mario
Update January 29 2005: Message from a helpful reader
Hi --
I know that your piece on "Choosing IMatch over Photoshop Album" is really old (and is no longer accepting comments), but I thought I'd pass on to you what I wrote (before I discovered that the topic had been closed :)
----
I thought I'd throw in a quick update to your post:
While Adobe Photoshop Album 2 (now obsoleted) was a great product for those who need an absolutely simple and intuitive interface, there were a few items that made it a poor choice for the advanced amateur who was looking to grow their collection over a long period of time. Most importantly, there are the restrictions you mention plus some other critical limitations (eg. no ability to export your tagging efforts, and poor performance on large catalogs), which must be considered carefully.
Fortunately, Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 has addressed a number of these deficiencies, and has created a product that I feel will appeal to a wide percentage of the potential user community. The one feature that they got right (one that only a couple of other vendors have actually addressed yet) is the versioning support. For the consumer-level catalog user, having native versioning support is a necessity -- most of them won't want to have to worry about careful naming conventions, let alone scripting! I strongly believe that most of the other key players in the field will add versioning support very soon.
I also currently use IMatch, for a number of reasons (scripting, feature set, performance, open database), but it's always good to evaluate your needs and determine the degree of investment and importance you are willing to put into cataloging.
I have created a summary table of the current state of the cataloging products out there, and the issues related to versioning, etc. which some might find interesting:
http://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/
Select "Cataloging"
Cal.
WinAmp3 Seems to Suck
So I built a powerful computer that should be able to handle, ably, the the huge Mp3 library I amassed while wasting time. When I downloaded WinAmp, I got their new version, WinAmp3. Well, my computer rarely hangs. However, it has begun to recently, and 100% of those incidents have been from "Studio.exe" -- the winamp application. The CPU utilization goes back to 'trivial' after I kill Studio.exe.
So I figure that NullSoft has made the same mistake so many others have made: start out with a lean, tight utility that does something well, and then keep bolting on more and more features until it becomes bloated and poisoned with bugs.
So I guess I will give this thing a chance -- figure out if there is an upgrade available. Otherwise, I'll just de-grade back to version 2.
One interesting thing I read in the troubleshooting guide at NullSoft was the following:
- If you own a SoundBlaster Live or SoundBlaster Audigy then you definitely need to update your drivers. In fact since the drivers from Creative are coded by morons it is highly recommended that you instead use the kX Project Drivers. These should clear up most problems with Creative sound cards.
Now I have a Soundblaster Extigy, not Audigy, and I wasn't experiencing any problems with my card (as far as I know). However lately it seems like the audio level between songs varies dramatically (I blamed this on WinMediaPlayer ripping CDs with stupid audio levels that are different than the other MP3s I have.) Perhaps I should see what kX says about my Extigy drivers, but changing them is definitely not the Occam's answer to the terrible performance of WinAmp3.
An aside: Creative's equivalent of WinAmp, 'Creative Player', is an absolute piece of shit, and I didn't even bother to install it on my new computer. Furthermore, there were no updates, and very little support, on their crappy site.