Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…
Lisa Stone over at Surfette burbles: "I’m talking about a conference that enables women bloggers to tesseract to proactive social and intellectual networking with each other".
What on earth does that sentence even mean?
Tesseract ain’t a verb, it’s a noun (at least it was the last time I looked). And as for "to proactive" – I beg your pardon?
English – it’s going to the dogs. Sigh.
Another entry for us computer nuts… Mobile PC Magazine has an interesting article covering the history of mobile computers.
It’s clear from the article that, particularly in the early days, the meanings of the words "mobile" and "portable" were often stretched almost beyond breaking point (as were the arms of the proud owners). I well remember an advert for the Osborne computer, where the smile on the face of the man carrying it looked suspiciously like the rictus grin of someone who has just realised he has a double hernia.
Although the article mentions the IBM 5100 as the first portable computer, it seems to imply that all the successors to that were based on the PC design. I don’t think that’s right. I remember in 1981 IBM came out with the System/23 – a 45 Kg monster. While not strictly a "portable" (it was classified by IBM as "transportable" – ho, ho, nudge, nudge, know what I mean, squire?), the advertising certainly showed someone holding one. Actually, come to think of it, I believe it was an artist’s impression; perhaps Arnold wasn’t available for a photoshoot. We actually got one in for evaluation. Fortunately, the real IBM PC showed up a few months later, and it rapidly became clear that in the evolutionary stakes, the System/23 was a doomed dinosaur.
Yesterday, Martin and I threw a party for the neighbours to celebrate the fact that today marks the official beginning of Spring. We prepared an eclectic array of party food – Thai Indian, French and English. In the event, over twenty people showed up and demolished it. Nigel Slater’s trifle proved to be a big hit – it disappeared in an instant. One neghbour asked if it had alcohol in it – yes, I assured her, lots! Delia Smith’s chocolate ricotta cheesecake came a close second.
Along with the food, large quantities of wine and beer also disappeared, which probably explains the fact that Martin and I are both feeling somewhat fragile today. I tidied up the living room this morning whilst moving very, very slowly.
This weekend, we’re giving a party for the neighbours to celebrate the arrival of Spring. I’ve been trying out recipes to prepare for the onslaught.
One of the tryouts was an Edwardian Trifle from Nigel Slater, published in The Observer newspaper in May 2004. The consensus from the tasting panel (Martin and myself) is that this recipe is a definite winner. It improves with age – we finished the last of it today (Thursday), and it was made last Sunday. Gawd, was it good!
Since it needs to mature, that means I’d better do the trifle for Sunday by starting tomorrow (Friday).
So there I was, wide awake and waiting for the song thrush. And it did not disappoint – it started even earlier this morning, at 4:23 am. And then at 4:40am, Martin turns over in his sleep and starts to snore. Welcome to the new improved Dawn Chorus. Oh joy.
A post on the star-gazing messageboard over at the BBC from an astronomer who is currently working in The Netherlands. He bemoans the fact that it’s been raining since he got here, and so he hasn’t been able to see the stars in the night sky.
Even if it wasn’t raining, it wouldn’t do him much good; the Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, and the resulting light pollution from the Randstad (the urban conglomeration made up of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht) pretty much obliterates any chance of a decent view. I live slap bang in the middle of all this, and I do miss clear night skies.
I had the good fortune to grow up on the Isle of Man, and light pollution there was easy to avoid. Some nights in Winter would be so clear that it was difficult for me to pick out the major constellations, there would be so many stars visible in the sky.
And how do I know? Because for the past three days a song thrush has decided that it will start its routine of singing its little heart out in the tree outisde our bedroom window. Trouble is, it starts at 4:30 am each day. So the dawn chorus is starting to tune up for the season. Soon the thrush will be followed by other birds and their counter-melodies.
I don’t really mind being woken up by birdsong – even if it is before dawn. At least it makes a change from Martin’s snoring.
Another one for us computer geeks… Channel 9 has just published a video interview with Gordon Bell that is worth watching. Gordon chats informally about his work, and his involvement with the Computer Museum in Boston.
I love the way that in its opening minutes, he casually mentions that Tony Hoare is coming to visit him next week. Ohmigod – this is Sir Charles Antony Richard Hoare – another of computing’s gods…
OK, this entry is for the computer geeks amongst us, the rest of you can talk amongst yourselves.
Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it was buying Groove Networks, the maker of a particularly fine piece of software for supporting team collaboration over peer-to-peer networks. Groove was set up, and continues to be run, by Ray Ozzie, the man who also invented Lotus Notes.
I’ve used Groove for a number of years, and like it a lot. Clearly, Microsoft do too. Yesterday’s announcement represents, for me, the dropping of the other shoe – I’ve been wondering for some time how Microsoft would support peer-to-peer collaboration in Longhorn, and this is very probably the answer.
A friend forwarded some examples of the poster campaign that was running in Dublin’s buses last year. They’re funny and cheeky, but to my mind are just a trifle too knowing and full of themselves. Apparently though, they were considered risqué enough to warrant questions in the Irish Parliament…
I love the tautology in the title – it subtly hints at what you will see if you peruse the on-line catalogue. Yes, this is another collection of genuine material from the 1950s and 1960s from the man who gave us the Gallery of Regrettable Food.
There are some real classics in here. The American footballer pictured at home in his kitchen is perhaps one of fashion photography’s finest statements. It’s the perfect picture for a caption competition.
…this one’s for you! 
The Gallery of Regrettable Food. Hey, I inherited some of my mother’s cookery books, and they are just like that! I haven’t dared try any of the recipes though. I suspect some will call for powdered eggs.
Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with tradition – I was given a copy of Constance Spry’s Cookery Book many years ago (thanks, Yuki!) and that has recipes from the 1950s – some of which I still use today.
… this one’s for you! 
The title of this entry is also the title of an article written in 1945 by Dr. Vannevar Bush, then director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development in the US. In this article, Bush envisaged a machine called the Memex, which in many ways has presaged the rise of the combination of the World Wide Web and Personal Computers. Indeed, Internet pioneers such as Ted Nelson took Bush’s idea of "associative links" between pieces of information and developed the idea of Hypertext (the term was coined by Nelson) – a simplification of which forms the basis of the Web today.
I was reminded of all this today when I came across a video published on the Channel 9 web site. The video is an interview with two of Microsoft’s researchers, Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmel about the "MyLifebits" project. Gordon Bell is one of my IT heroes – he was the man behind DEC’s original line of mini-computers, the PDPs. Another is Jim Gray, whose groundbreaking work with databases has led him to end up working with Bell on MyLifebits in Microsoft Research.
So what is MyLifebits? In a nutshell, it is the attempt to realise Bush’s Memex – "A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility". The project has extended some of Bush’s original ideas to now include capturing information when on the move. A slide from a PowerPoint presentation on MyLifebits is included below to give some idea of the range of information that is being captured.
The video is interesting, not just for the experience of hearing Bell and Gemmell talk about their work, but also to see the project in action with some demonstrations of how a Memex-like device may not be "As we may Think", but become "How We May Think".
Those good people at Sony are researching into how to improve their robotic pets. Scientists at Sony’s Computer Science Laboratory in Paris (now that sounds a fun place to work in) have been looking at the interactions between real live dogs and Aibo, Sony’s robot dog.
My favourite is the Dog Attack Movie. Warning, don’t be drinking a beverage while watching this…
I think that Mount St. Helens is in league with the BBC. The latter is going to broadcast its fictional documentary: Supervolcano this coming weeked, and today Mount St. Helens lets us know it’s still around by emitting a large cloud of ash.
Supervolcano is about the caldera that is underneath Yellowstone National Park. Apparently it erupts every 600,000 years – and the last time was 640,000 years ago, so we’re a bit overdue. As far as I’m concerned I’m quite happy about that. This is one time where I don’t view punctuality as good manners.
Another day, another look at more photo organising software. This time it’s the turn of PicaJet FX and IMatch.
PicaJet FX shows promise. The main screen has a nice clean feel to it. It knows about EXIF and IPTC metadata – although its handling of the latter definitely needs improvement. The developers say that they will be improving the EXIF/IPTC features in the future and plan to make all IPTC fields editable from within PicaJet. The main thumbnail screen pans nicely when rotating the mouse wheel or moving the scrollbar (unlike Adobe’s Organizer, spit, spit), and it also supports hierachical views of Windows folders and categories (which can be built from IPTC keywords). I think that give it another couple of versions, and PicaJet will be a very credible piece of software. I’ll definitely keep an eye on it – but it’s not quite there for me yet.
IMatch – well, what can I say. I’m sure this is a program that you either love or hate. As you might have gathered, I like software that fits my virtual hand like a well-designed tool. One that feels right, one that does its job without fuss, and without trying to impress me with the number of bells and whistles at its command. As you might also have gathered, I don’t think IMatch meets my criteria. If I right-click on a file, the lights in the house dim while a humungous menu unrolls and displays all the possible actions that I can do. Frankly, I have no idea why I would possibly want to do some of these actions. And wait, there’s more – the menus reveal drop downs that stretch out to the crack of doom. I confess I ran screaming from this piece of software and uninstalled it after one day. I’m sure there are many people who worship this program – I just ain’t got religion.
This is a followup to my previous post. I’ve been taking a look at some other software applications for organising libraries of photos. This time I’ll write about ACDSee7, ThumbsPlus 7 and Adobe’s Organizer (included as part of Photoshop Elements).
First, let me state a groundrule that I have adopted: I insist that any organising software will respect any EXIF, IPTC and XMP metadata that may be stored in the image file itself. I am not interested in any image metadata being stored away in a proprietary format in the organising software itself. That way lies painting oneself into a corner down the road… However, I will accept an organiser that copies metadata from image files into its own database for performance reasons, so long as the database and the image files metadata content are kept in sync transparently (i.e. it takes no effort on my part).
So, with that groundrule in mind, I can instantly reject consideration of ACDSee 7. Yes, it can read and write EXIF metadata, but does not handle either IPTC or XMP. Instead it stores keyword metadata only in its own database. Sorry, guys, but ACDSee is not for me.
Next up is ThumbsPlus 7 from Cerious Software. I’ve actually been using ThumbsPlus 5 for years – since the days of Windows 95, when image handling by the operating system was in its infancy, and needed a boost from applications such as ThumbsPlus. Now, I quite like ThumbsPlus – it’s fast and flexible, but on balance I don’t think it’s for me. The reasons are that the program has “grown like Topsy” over the years, and now it has so many bells and whistles that I have no use for. It’s as though I can no longer see the wood for the trees. In addition, although it can read and write IPTC metadata, it does not use IPTC keywords by default, but stores user keywords in its own database. It is possible to set up synchronisation of these internal keywords and IPTC keywords. However, if you want to search on other IPTC metadata, then you need to define your own user fields in the ThumbsPlus database, and set up mapping between these and IPTC fields. While this can be done, it’s not very convenient, and it means that right from the word go, I’m having to delve into an application instead of concentrate on the task at hand. In addition, it does not yet support XMP metadata at all. So, close – but no cigar.
And then we come to Adobe’s Organizer. First, the good thing: the editor in Photoshop Elements is excellent, so for manipulating your digital images, it is likely to have all the power that most people are looking for. But I actively hate the Organizer with a passion. I find it an appalling and clunky piece of software. Adobe should be ashamed of themselves for releasing this on to the market. And they have no excuse, it’s not as though this has been their first foray into this area. It’s clearly meant as Adobe’s Photoshop Album on steroids – but instead they have created a Frankenstein’s monster. Why don’t I like it? Let me count the ways:
As you can tell, I am really not impressed with Organizer 🙂
So where does this leave me? No tool I’ve looked at so far is perfect from my perspective, but the combination of Picasa 2 (for organising and searching – it searches IPTC/XMP metadata) and PixVue (for editing image metadata) is looking to be the front runner. And both tools are free software.
Picasa 2 does have bugs, and its biggest current drawback is that while it will list all folders, it will not display the folder tree. This is in keeping with Google’s philosophy that folder trees are “a bad thing”. However, judging by the anguished screams from Picasa users in the support forums, I suspect that Google may reconsider this. I certainly hope so. At the end of the day, it comes closest to what I’m looking for.
We’ve had a cold snap and snow for the past couple of days. It’s the first time for several years that we’ve had it this cold. Expected to be -20 tonight. We went out for a walk in the neighbourhood today, and I took these photos.
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