Cleaning up iPhoto

Back in May of 2004, when I decided it was time to bail out of my messed up Fedora Core desktop and ended up landing in Mac OS X 10.3, I started playing around with iPhoto. After a few months, I embarked on copying thousands of photos from the past few years and putting them into the program. Unfortunately, I had been rather unorganized in this respect previously, and I ended up with a bunch of duplicates and not enough time to manually pick them all out.

Now, you're thinking, “seriously, Tim, what's so hard about finding a few duplicates and removing them?” Not much, if you're talking one trip's worth — although even that took a long time — but it is a major project when you have just short of 12,700 photos in your iPhoto library.

Enter Duplicate Annihilator. While I hated to pay $7.95 for a program that hopefully I'll only need to use once (although I may need to do so again — somehow I managed to bypass iPhoto's duplicate protection and end up with duplicates even on photos taken after I started using iPhoto), I bit the bullet. The program can do a number of checks to find duplicates, however I stuck with the default MD5 checksum method, which seemed pretty safe. After letting it go through my album for a little over two hours, it returned 1580 photos that were duplicates, marking each one as such in the photo's comment area.

I created a new iPhoto Smart Album that displayed only photos with that comment and then went through with a Finder window open to “spot check” to make sure Duplicate Annihilator had indeed only marked photos I could manually find a duplicate of. After I was mostly satifisifed, I used iPhoto to burn the duplicates to CD and then deleted them off of my hard disk. That brings my total library down to 11,112 photos checking in at 8 GB of space (13 movies are also in iPhoto, though I have more from my digicam that I took before iPhoto supported movies and have not yet added into my library).

It is good to try to clean things up, especially now that I've been taking photos at 3-5 megapixels (and hence each picture weighs in at between 850 KB and 2 MB). Until recently, I had been trying to economize on space by taking 1-2 megapixel images when I was just doing routine stuff. However, I have some really special photos I wish were at the highest quality possible, and, of course, there is nothing I can do about that. Given that I have close to have half terabyte of storage at my disposal, that seems silly. The practical bottleneck was my old camera's (the DSC-S75) support only for the old non-“Pro” Memory Sticks that only went up to 128 MB in size. Short of constantly swapping sticks, I had to weigh between quality and quantity of photos (even the four 128 MB sticks I own go quickly at that camera's full 3.1 MP quality). When a new Sony digicam went on sale recently, I upgraded (to the DSC-H1) and that allows me to use the newer Memory Stick Pro format. I have a 2GB Memory Stick Pro on order — via Amazon.com for only $129 — and that should clear up this long time annoyance. But, I digress. The long and the short of it is that I want to try to keep a closer eye on my photo organization; I take too many pictures to be messy about it.

Now that I'm organized and ready to go, I think I'll try to post some new shots online. I managed to get some really great bald eagle photos today in Winfield, MO at the Mississippi Lock and Dam No. 25. Maybe I'll post them tonight or tomorrow.

Fill in the Blanks Meme

Christopher answers an interesting meme where you fill in the blanks. My basic answers are italicized and longer ones are below each statement.

1. Before I walk out the door, I always check to make sure I have my wallet.
I'm in sad shape without it. For one thing, I'd be driving illegally. Second, I'd be without money. Third, if I did have money and got away with driving illegally, and it was during the school semester, I'd have to pay $5.50 for lunch without my ID, which would really hurt given the quality of the food (but I don't have time to drive elsewhere for food on days I eat lunch there).

2. I can't seem to catch up on my reading list.
Right now, I'm prioritizing by putting books that were given to me ahead of those I bought, since I might get asked how I liked the books. I'm also sorting by the likelihood that the giver will ask me. Right now, that has me reading Letters to a Young Catholic by George Weigel. It's an interesting little book, although as a non-Catholic I'm clearly not the target audience; things that I'd like to hear more about (Catholic distinctive) are often passed over with the assumption the reader already is familiar and in agreement with them. I do like it, however, and will talk more on it another day.

3. The one surface in my house that always seems to get cluttered fast is any flat surface.
Ok, maybe that's an exaggeration, but not by much. I have a semi-permanent stack of papers on the space I cleared up on my desk when I ditched the 19” CRT for my Apple Cinema Display last January. My nice reading chair by my “current reading” bookshelf is always collecting stuff. My dresser collects stuff. Tables collect stuff. The floor collects stuff. I try to reign it in every-so-often, so usually things are more or less presentable, but it is a constant battle with the (cue the dramatic music) Stuff that Covers Things.

4. If I sleep past 11:00, I feel that I've slept in too late.
Most of the time, even if I'm off, I try to get up by 9:00 or 10:00, but I enjoy sleeping beyond 10:00 every-so-often. If it gets past eleven, though, I feel like I've missed too much of the day. Usually I try to schedule everything so I never have to get up before 7:00 (I'm still mumbling about the time I had to get up at before 4:00 so that I could be down at Newschannel 5's “Window on St. Louis” a few years back).

5. No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to get my todo list done.
I have too many irons in the fire and so I end up being slow on everything. I get overwhelmed and then fail to get anything done. Some people seem to manage a bunch of different obligations much better than I do.

6. I hope to have my income taxes done by April 15.
I figure that's a good date to aim for. Seriously, I usually get them done a few weeks earlier than that.

7. This year I'd like to make more time for reading.
I spend a lot of time reading and writing, a lot of time reading stuff online too (news, technical information, etc.), but I'd like to spend more time reading things I'd like to read. I'd like to read Narnia and the Lord of the Rings. I'd like to finish the Divine Comedy. I'd like to finally catch up on the Left Behind series (even though its gone down hill, I'm hoping the prequels might prove worthwhile). I'd like to read some more of Karl Barth's works. I'd like to actually have every book on my bookshelves read (excluding reference works).

Trying Ubuntu

I've always liked Debian GNU/Linux distributions, but I've never gotten around to trying Ubuntu. Given my appreciation for GNOME and simplicity on top of the aforementioned appreciation for Debian, I decided it was time to give it a whirl.

Presently Ubuntu is installing itself on my Shuttle XPC which I have just given the new name of guildenstern (I'm tired of my Dilbert derived naming scheme for computers). I'll post in the coming days what I think. This will be the first entirely new distribution I've tried in quite some time.

I Can See (Somewhat) Clearly Now

Over the last few days, I feel like I've gotten a clearer picture of a lot of things I've been rather muddled about. For the most part I feel really good about this, although in a strange way, I liked it better before. I'm not sure why, exactly, for nothing has really changed from what I thought it was, it has just become clearer that I was correct in what I thought.

Maybe its because now that I have this somewhat solved, I'm left to think “now what?”

I'm hoping that will become clearer in the days to come.

Apple Stock Price Humor

This is very interesting. Could it be a massive Wall Street conspiracy?

The Revolution Moves On

Well, for the first time in ages, there is a top tier x86 OEM that provides a real choice for a better OS. Apple today unveiled two new Intel Core Duo systems, which you can read about at OfB.biz. The new MacBook Pro laptop looks like it should be a really serious competitor to the current premium ultra-light laptop contenders. It will come with up to a 1.8 GHz Core Duo dual-core processor and a whopping 256 megs of video ram. The system is 1” thick, includes Apple's amazing backlit keyboard, a new ExpressCard slot, and an extra bright (Cinema Display bright) screen. I want one, although my trusty 12” PowerBook isn't ready to retire just yet — I may wait for the rumored 13” widescreen Apple laptop, which is more the size I like to haul around. The new iMac was a bit of a surprise release, but looks even better than the recently updated iMac G5.

The new iLife '06 suite looks great, with serious improvements for vidcasting, photocasting and podcasting, a new application (iWeb), and some major upgrades to the program I use the most: iPhoto (which now can manage up to 250,000 photos). The improved real time special effects in iMovie look great to me too. iWork '06 isn't such a dramatic improvement, but looks good. I have not yet bought a copy of the latter, which maybe I shall do in the coming weeks (along with an upgrade to the new iLife).

As a side note, as of today, I am now the proud owner of a small chunk of Apple. A crumb, really. Or a fraction of a crumb. I managed to buy 10 shares of Apple stock right before the keynote began. I've been thinking I should buy some shares for several years — and had I bought 10 shares a few years ago, I would have made a nice chunk of change. Where the stock will go from here, I don't know, but I made $30 today as the stock went up during the keynote. Maybe I'll buy 10 more shares a few weeks before WWDC '06.

On the Fourteenth Day of Christmas

Well, I promised the last two blogs today, and here they are. There are a few others I'm considering removing from my list because of inactivity or simply lack of time for me to read them. Thus, at some point, these two blogs will round out the entire blogroll of asisaid, most likely.

The Ninth Blog of Christmas is Mark's 5 Speed Cassette. Mark found me rather than the other way around; I can't recall exactly how long ago. After awhile, I went over to his blog, and found a delightful mix of technology, faith, news and other bits of life commented on in a thoughtful way. He may not get it, but we can forgive him for that. Mark's a great guy and I always enjoy discussions with him.

And last, but not least, the Tenth Blog of Christmas is the Grey Shadow, the blog of my long time friend Eduardo. Eduardo, like Ed Hurst, has worked with me on a variety of projects, including some of the same ones as Ed: namely, ChristianSource and Open for Business. Eduardo isn't the most frequent poster, but I enjoy whatever he posts on when he does. He also likes the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Jose Luis Borges, so how can you not like his blog? The Grey Shadow is the only international blog on my list just now, with Ciaran H. posting under password protection and Flip on extended leave.

Check both of these blogs out, as well as the other ones I've mentioned over the last two weeks. I think they are surely some of the finest in the blogosphere.

On the Thirteenth Day of Christmas

Ok, I'm running behind. Tomorrow, I will finish up the Blogs of Christmas with my last two featured blogs. I'm sorry about the delay.

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas...

Well, I've gotten behind, but that's OK, there are several blogs I don't read all that reliably (or they don't post that reliably) left that I was going to cover. I'll skip those, leaving me with only three blogs I really want to mention. First up, as the Eighth Blog of Christmas is Ed Hurst's Mission, Method and Means (formerly “Plain Package”).

Though I've never met Ed in person, I feel like I might as well have. We work together on a bunch of things, including OfB.biz, Sakamuyo and ChristianSource. He's always full of thoughtful observations, helpful how-to's, and a whole medley of other things. It should not be overlooked that Ed is also a continued willing (sole) beta tester for SAFARI 2.

After a forced hiatus from reading his blog due to a WordPress bug, I'm happy to be back to seeing what he's writing on his blog. He's been working on two series in the last week, one of shameful ISP's and one on Christian romance. Take a look.

On the Eighth Day of Christmas...

Well, I just had a big New Year's dinner and I barely feel like doing anything at all, but I figured I should write the next Blog of Christmas before it gets too late again. This is an interesting exercise, at the very least; I hope some of you are enjoying the brief looks at some blogs perhaps you do not already follow. I really encourage everyone to checkout the blogs I mention, if you haven't already.

The Sixth Blog of Christmas is Craig's Avoiding Evil. Over the years, Pressed, as he goes by on the Internet, has provided some really excellent theological posts, along with an especially notable history of controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention — often that have been known to start good debates on his blog. Avoiding Evil has gained an additional writer recently in the form of Craig's fiancee, Kendall, who has added her own interesting flavor to the blog. While it isn't as regularly updated as many of the blogs I read, it is still worth checking out.