iPhoto PhotoBook

My grandma's birthday was this month - so I thought I'd try out the photobook feature from iPhoto.

Click here for some unboxing pron of the book and a page by page tour.

I will note that the pictures used for this book were scans of 35mm slides that are over 30 years old, dusty and been stored in a garage for the last 10 years The quality of the pictures isn't the greatest, but overall I was very impressed with the product.

Leopard!

Around noon on release day the FedEx truck pulled up, delivering the little brown box that contained Leopard.

I had spent earlier that morning running the Apple Backup - backing up all my data 2 and 3 times, not to mention I have the original 120 gb hdd loaded with Tiger still sitting in the corner. So one way or another I was backed up and ready to go.

The upgrade went well and painless - no issues. The only annoyance I had was at the beginning when I thought it was upgrading only to realize after 20 mins it was still verifying my DVD. But that is my only complaint - so really everything else went smooth.

I have to say I like leopard - as an IT person though I have to say, it's not that huge of an improvement. It's not like jumping from windows 98 to XP, there aren't that many core changes. But the OS is beautiful, responsive and so far - stable.

You can't really blame Apple, Microsoft or anyone else at this point - we are beyond the basic needs of an operating system. Now it really is about add ons and eye candy.

where have I been?

been a long time since the last post - in that period I've had my son and gotten a promotion. So needless to say I have been busy ....

here is where much of my free time, if any, has gone to

Free PACS system

Just found this: http://www.pacsone.net/index.htm?

I'm thinking of loading it up on a spare workstation I have and playing with it.

NerdTest

35.714285714285715% of me is a huge nerd! How about you?

The Escrow juggle

Just got my property taxes for the year - so I check my escrow to see if there is enough to cover the payment... not even close. The mortgage company wasn't taking enough for the taxes.. this was expected since it was a new house and my taxes were 7$ last year, but it was still a pain to call in and have them readjust it - I was trying to do the math and follow along just to ensure there would be no screw ups.

Anyway - it's all settled now, that was my math moment of the week. My mother in law (math teacher) would be proud!

BASH & SQL

I spent 9 hours yesterday writing my first BASH script. While BASH isn't the hardest to understand, it's a little confusing for someone who has more of a VB background than C. The script basically takes and variable value (number of times to run) and performs an sql script that many times. The SQL script pulls 1 record from a table that has a flag set to N, updates various other tables and then inserts a record into another table and updates the flag on the original table to Y.

If you are wondering what this is for, it's to resend some information into a long term archive. The host system believes these records were already archived, so this is to trick the system into re archiving those exams.

The system can handle about 100 new entries into the queue every 15 mins, so I have a crontab entry to run the script once every 15 mins, placing 100 entries into the queue.

With 175k entries to be re archived, I estimate around 18.5 days to complete the migration.

I'd post the script here, but unfortunately it contains proprietary info in it.

My Apple Care Story

So.... around July 25th I decide to load bootcamp. I download the app, run the tool and go to burn a cd for drivers. The cd won't burn and I get a failed to calibrate error. So then I continue to try and burn several different cds - different typed and brands. All of them fail to burn. So the next day I call Apple and schedule a repair and to send it to their facility in Texas. The box arrives the next day and I send it off.

On the 28th I checked my status online and it showed it was ready to be shipped back. On the 29th when my laptop didn't show up I called Apple care - they said it was waiting on a part and would be shipped after the part came in.

So 11 days later, on the 9th of August my laptop showed up - but DHL sent it to the wrong house down the street. So I had to track it down and convince the people that it was delivered to that the package was really mine. After I finally got it home, I started it up and found that they had wiped my HDD. No worries since I had backed up the computer before I sent it off.

So I started to reload all my apps - when I went to reload my saved data I found that my backups were bad and I was unalble to recover any data. Not anyones fault but my own for not checking my backup after it was performed.

To make things even better, when I went to burn a cd (the initial reason I sent it to applecare) I was still unable to, and was getting the same errors. I found that they had replaced my system board but didn't even touch my super drive.

I decided I would try to clean the lense on my superdrive and see if that would fix my issue. While I had the mac open I also noted the part number and model number of my superdrive just in case it needs to be replaced. At this point I'm afraid to call Applecare again and loose my mac for another 10 days.

I used an Isoprpyl Alcohol wipe (for electronics) and cleaned the lense, then reassembled the mac - booted it up and tested it, it successfully bured 2 cd-r's in a row, with no errors.

So - for a trip to applecare I got a wiped hdd, a new systemboard and it still had burning issues, I should had just tried to fix it myself in the beginning!

Speed Test

So my speed is about spot on for what I am paying for

http://www.speedtest.net/

technorati tags:bandwidth, internet, speedtest

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Podcast thoughts

I'm still in the beginning stages of breating a weekly podcast on reef tanks, and I'm still trying to come up with a few show ideas before I start recording.

I wonder of there are any good sites on brainstorming ideas for discussion.

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Itunes scripts for deleting unwanted tracks on the fly

In this article I’ll be showing you how to easily clear your library of unwanted tracks using a custom Applescript and Quicksilver trigger.Like many of you, I’m a keyboard junkie. I listen to music all day and I’m constantly switching between shuffled and non-shuffled play, skipping tracks and repeating them all without lifting my hands from the keyboard. There are a lot of apps that do this but I am partial to Quicksilver’s iTunes plugin when used with key-combo triggers. I’m not going to explain how to set this up (see MacApper for a nice run down similar to the basics of what I’ll describe here).

Vaporize The Unwanted (Kinkless iTunes 1) | Kinkless

Once again some cool stuff I need to check out.

technorati tags:itunes, gtd, applescript, KGTD

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Bash Scripting

Lifehacker posted this story a few days back. Looks interesting. I'll have to play with this soon

Learn to write bash scripts

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Darn clouds!

3rd of July Weather

Well looks like my stargazing fun is over for the night, and possibly for a few days as well

:(

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Pics of Jupiter

P7030009.JPG

I was playing with my telescope and found Jupiter. At first you could see 3-4 moons around it too, but the clouds moved in and I lost visability.

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Kinkless GTD site gets a makeover

Kinkless.com and “The Kinkless Desktop”

I may have to check this out soon!

technorati tags:GTD, KinklessGTD, Mac, Omni, Outliner

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Fake Steve: At this point even I'm sick of the iPhone"It won't cure cancer or regrow your hair or make you lose weight. For that you'll need Linux, from what I'm told."

43f Feature: Michael Buffington’s “How I use iGTD” | 43 Folders

technorati tags:fake, steve, jobs, iPhone, linux

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BSOD used as icon for windows machines in Leopard

Roundup: Mega Leopard Update, Not To Be Missed - Gizmodo

I thought this was rather humorous

technorati tags:leopard, mac, osx, windows, network

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iPhone Blues

Well - I checked around in my company about trading in my Palm Treo for an iPhone when it comes out and while they said it's not impossible, it's very impractical.

I'd have to buy it, get a contract - then cancel the contract and then have it added to my corporate account - racking up a large ammount of fees in the process...

oh well - not like I need it anyway, just looked like a really cool gadget (and I love gadgets!)

technorati tags:iphone, treo

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My first post

this is my first post in my new blog.