Mac Desk 2.0

Did some more redecorating. This time we tackled the desk in our den that houses the "fun computer". I use the Mac for all my photography stuff, and it is our digital juke box for the house. We outgrew the old desk years ago when we got the big monitor but we kept limping along with it. Since this is in our den, I wanted real furniture that looks nice. This desk fit the bill. The CPU is now hidden in the closet, but is easily accessible through the curtain. Ditto for the accessories and supplies. Big improvement!

AFTER:


BEFORE:

Color Me Confused

I've had to give myself a crash course in color management for digital photography. Since I got the fancy new camera, I decided to take advantage of shooting in RAW format. I won't bore you with the technical details of why the RAW format is better. You can google it if you are curious. Anyway, the RAW images are "processed", the digital version of developing film, and then the results are saved into other formats. Things were going pretty well at first. Got some good images, prettied them up in the camera software, then finished them in Photoshop Elements. Everything looked great at the time. However, all of this was done on the desktop Mac, and Macs have had built-in color management for a long time. So imagine my horror when I looked at my Flickr photostream on a PC - and the images that looked so wonderful on the Mac were garishly oversaturated on the Windows browsers. And looked like they were taken with a magenta filter. Crap!

After several days of painful research and experimentation, I finally have a workflow that keeps the images looking roughly the same on all platforms. I now know way more than I wanted to know about ICC profiles, monitor calibration, color spaces, gamut, embedded color profiles, LCD monitor characteristics, gamma, color temperature, and so on. I also learned that all of my discoveries on this matter are just the tip of the iceberg. It would take years to get good at this. A lot of years. So hopefully I know just enough. No more pink and orange cats. Unless they were born that way.

The Moxy photo below is one of the photos I had to correct. Mac users will see no difference, but PC users should now see a photo with far more realistic colors.

Cat Proximity Alert!

My three cats usually do not mix well - no two of them get along (except temporarily, if some special food is involved to keep them occupied). Silvio seems to know he got away with something here. Moxy was too relaxed to put up much of a fuss when Silvio joined her on the back of the couch. Notice how he settled into a position facing away from her. She's got a look of quiet resignation on her face.

We're back from our brief trip to the mountains. A couple of days alone in a cottage and a few hikes in the woods did us a world of good. We also got together with an old family friend last night. There is still another day to relax before I go back to work. Strange how today feels like a Sunday. PDM is on his state-mandated furlough next week. Even though it is unpaid leave, I am a little jealous of the extra time he'll have at home to chill. My Monday back on the job is shaping up to be a very long day.

And last, there was good news/bad news about the old laptop. The good news is that it was a hard drive problem that is easily fixed (cheap, too). The bad news is that my old hard drive was so messed up, none of the data could be retrieved. I've had it so long that I am not entirely sure I remember what has been lost. Maybe that is a kindness. The take home message is that if your computer starts making strange noises and acting up, you might want to back up your hard drive sooner rather than later.

Catastrophic System Failure

After five and a half years, my old laptop has developed a hardware problem that I can't fix. It is at the shop for triage. For now, we're down to one computer. Gulp.

My presence on the internet might be limited for a week or two.

Conf*ckers

I could write about the epic Atlanta flood of this week, but truthfully its effects have been rather minor for me. We have a small roof leak that needs to get checked out, and our basement flooded enough to extinguish the pilot light of our water heater and make everything smell all musty and gross. Most of our stuff down there is in large plastic bins and is safe. Some sentimental things of my Grandmother's were in an old fashioned suitcase and a cardboard box and those were heavily waterlogged. We did what we could to salvage it. It could have been much worse. One of our neighbors had a huge tree fall on their house. Plenty of people in this area have been completely flooded out. Some people are dead. We've had what I described above, plus some traffic delays due to road closures and accidents. Not that big of a deal.

But something has happened at work this week that is pretty awful -- our network got infected by the Conficker worm over the weekend, and we are still experiencing network problems. I hope those motherfuckers who set this thing loose in the world are proud of themselves. Today, they delayed the start of treatment for some very ill cancer patients. And worse, they caused us to have to abort the treatment of a patient that was supposed to get a high dose rate intracavitary procedure. This happened AFTER we had implanted all that hardware in her. Another patient had to wait hours for her treatment because the worm disabled our planning computer and we had to start over once it was temporarily fixed. She was miserable, and there was no good reason why she had to suffer those extra hours. We can't use about half of our treatment planning computers because the network cuts them off once the virus has been detected and then they can't be used. You clean 'em up, and then they get infected again right away. This really pisses me off. This isn't some game - it is a matter of life and death for some people. There is no indication that tomorrow will be any better. We seem to be fighting a losing battle with this damn worm. Tuesday was worse than Monday. Not a good sign.

At least the rain stopped. For now.

Microsoft Word SUCKS!!!!!

It has ruined my entire day, and is making me want to slam my head repeatedly into a wall out of frustration. Why, oh WHY will it NOT DO what I want it to do?!? It is a simple thing, and it JUST. WON'T. WORK. I hate that I have spent my ENTIRE DAY wrangling with these piddly-assed format problems that have nothing to do with physics!!!!

Death and Taxes

Death and taxes consumed most of my Saturday. It was a rainy day - steady rain for a change - and perfect for the jobs at hand. It wasn't as bad as the post title cliche makes it seem. I spent the day scanning old photos and locating some digital shots for Big Daddy's funeral reception. I also did our taxes (finally!).

Going through the photos was fun. I did find some good Big Daddy photos, but also enjoyed seeing old friends, family, pets, and places I used to live or visit. There were a few issues getting my scanner to work on PDM's computer. The software didn't work with Leopard (his new operating system), but the problem was easily solved by booting up with the older operating system. I've still got to scan photos from some other family members and expect to get some digital photos from them as well. The obituary was published in today's paper, and his service is next Saturday. So the photo collecting is a bit "last minute" but I think it will all work out in the end.

The tax stuff went smoothly (other than the usual shock at seeing the total amount we have paid in over the year). We don't have anything super complicated going on with our income and/or deductions, so the returns look pretty much the same every year. I originally just bought a software package to do federal, but I caved and downloaded the state version because I just didn't feel like dealing with it and I knew it would take far less effort that way. The state program found something I didn't know about and more than paid for itself with that bit of info, so it worked out for the best. This kind of stuff is NOT how I like to spend my Saturdays, even rainy ones. I'm glad it's over for another year.

I haven't done anything worthwhile today. And isn't that the best way to spend a lazy Sunday? PDM has spent hours making more tessellated tile patterns for the new porch floor. Me, I've been damn near useless today. Reading, surfing, eating, and napping, with about 20 minutes of random house and yard work thrown in to make me feel less guilty about the rest of the day.

How was YOUR weekend?

Ctrl-Alt-Del-ARGH!!!!!

Some days I really, really, REALLY hate computers.

Today's Really Stupid Problem started innocently enough when I made a completely mundane request of my computer: print a form from a web page. Normally this occurs almost immediately and I move on to other things. This time, nothing happened. I checked all my connections and didn't find anything suspect. So I opened up Print Manager (PM) to see what it had to report on the status of the print job. Nothing out of the ordinary, except PM was under the impression that the file was printing, yet the printer was most definitely NOT doing any sort of printing. It didn't even look like it was thinking about printing. It was just sitting there like a bump on a log, except with pretty LED buttons all lit up like things should be working. So I sent the file to the printer again. And now there were two jobs stuck in the queue not printing. So I told PM to delete all print jobs. PM continued to display the canceled job with status (deleting-printing). And continued. And continued. So I told it to delete again. And it continued to say it was deleting, but never did it. Liar!

After much cursing and bitching, and attempting to stop the delete process using Task Manager, and restarting the computer, and reinstalling the driver, and a whole bunch of other crap, the frikkin' file was still in there, NOT being deleted!!!! So I uninstalled every damn bit of the HP software. Then I deleted the printer completely (which got rid of the print job that wouldn't delete, my only success out of the whole afternoon). Then I reinstalled the HP software. Then I plugged in my "plug and play" printer. And...

Nothing happened. Nothing at all. My computer SHOULD HAVE recognized the new device and automatically installed it, but FOR WHATEVER STUPID REASON chose to completely ignore it, as if HP and MS are having some ridiculous feud and refuse to acknowledge each other's existence. I went from having an installed and formerly functional printer, to having an installed printer that wouldn't print anything, to not having a printer installed even though it was CLEARLY connected to my computer. I give up.

I need a drink. Or a Mac. Or both.

Speaking of blue...

My team lost their bowl game on that weird blue field today. It does not make me feel any better than teams with coaching transitions are 0-5 in their bowl games thus far.

It hasn't been a good day otherwise. I lost a necklace charm down the drain of the bathroom sink this evening. After much cursing, I asked PDM to take the trap out to get it back. The trap disintegrated when he tried to remove it. The pipe was old and corroded and thin, and just turned to dust. The only good thing was that he got my jewelry back. The bad thing is that I have to call a plumber on January 2 to come out and fix the sink, plus inspect the rest of the plumbing for more weak spots. Great. Just wonderful. Swell.

But that wasn't the only malfunction of the evening. Right after the game, I decided I wanted to hear the Georgia Tech radio broadcast, because I wanted to know some stuff like why they pulled the starting QB at halftime, and what happened to Choice, and why they did a lot of what they did. But the AM station that carries our games has a giant loss of signal strength at 5:30 and this was 5:45pm. So I went on the web and streamed the station live on PDM's Mac. It worked fine for about five minutes and then crashed his computer. We turned it off and went to the pub. When we got back and turned it back on, there was a major problem, and PDM has been working on it for two hours. I feel terrible, because I was the last person to use it before the Big Crash. It still isn't working and I feel awful, and PDM is mad at me.

There are other things that have made this not the best year. Goodbye 2007 and good riddance. I hope 2008 is better. And I hope y'all are having more fun than I am, because this is not fun at all. Sigh.

Bored Today...

Can you tell?

Hope you enjoyed your "cat scan".

Zima and the Mac

Watching the iTunes visualizer. Happy Friday!

Wilfing?

Apparently, lots of lost productivity at work can be blamed on something called "wilfing", short for "what was I looking for?" Aside: Shouldn't this be called "wwilfing"? This is a web surfing phenomenon where a worker supposedly gets distracted by the information overload available on the internet and begins aimlessly surfing. A study claims that two thirds of british web users spend large amounts of time wilfing at work. My initial thought was "Only two thirds? What's wrong with that third guy?" Ironically, I ran across this article while wilfing at work.

Spring: geeky facts, cleaning, and crossing stuff off my list

It's official -- as of 8:07pm EDT, 3/20/07 (or 00:07 UTC, 3/21/07 if you want to get technical) the vernal equinox has arrived! Now here is where I would usually post a bunch of science geek links about the event. Oh what the hell. Here they are: Why are the day and night not exactly equal on the first day of spring? Because the sun is not a point source! That whole "standing an egg on its end on the vernal equinox" thing is bad astronomy, i.e. just a myth. If you are dying to know the exact moment spring arrives, here are the dates of the vernal equinox every year from 1452 to 2547. That ought to cover ya.

I'm feeling the need for sunshine and spring cleaning. Not exactly looking forward to the cleaning part of it, but we ordered a new vacuum cleaner and when that puppy arrives, I will be vacuuming every surface in the house. Cats beware!! There are dust bunnies bigger than a rottweiler floating around under things and in corners and it is high time we get rid of them. Our vintage 1965 vacuum needs the bearings re-packed, and nobody seems to want to do it even if we pay them good money, so the house has not had a decent vacuuming in months (just a quick going over with our little stick vac right before company comes).

And for some other fresh news, I'm happy to report that I am writing this post using my newly-repaired notebook computer. You know, the one that has been broken for approximately two years, that I never used because it was such a pain in the ass to get it to boot up. That one. I finally sent it in, and now that it has a new motherboard, it is as good as it ever was. Getting this sucker fixed was number one on my big damn list of shameful procrastination, so I am happy that it is now a "to enjoy" item rather than a "to do" item. I guess that one of these months I'll have to move on down the list and get a new cell phone with a local number.

Inside the Box

This is what I found inside my old desktop computer when I opened it to install the wireless card. Makes me wonder what's inside all the other electronic crap I've owned for a long time...

A Day Off, Sort Of

I took the day off, but it was because I worked on Sunday (so it wasn't a "real" day off). I got lot of stuff done. It is so much easier to get around during a weekday when everyone is at work. Bank, post office, that sort of thing. As soon as traffic started to become a pain in the ass, I made a beeline back home.

I got a 1GB memory card for my new camera, and a wireless network card for my old desktop computer. Wireless cards are cheap, so why not? The memory card was pretty cheap also, after discount and assuming I don't procrastinate away my rebate (which has happened before). Anyone who has seen my Flickr photostream lately knows that I've been having a lot of fun with my camera. Now I can make many more lame attempts at creating 'art' before I have to stop and download because the camera's full.

I also took my notebook computer to the shop. Why is this noteworthy? Because it hasn't worked right in over two years and this was one of my longest-running procratinated tasks, that's why. Maybe they can fix it, and maybe they can't, but after 2+ years I am fairly certain that it ain't gonna fix itself.

I forgot to pick up tax software (oops), decided not to get my oil changed because I didn't bring a book with me (technically it is not due for another two hundred miles or so, and I don't think I have ever in my life taken a car in for service *early*), and left a few other things not done. I didn't want to cause a cosmic rift (or something worse) by emptying my "to do" list in one day. That would be most unnatural! So you can rest easy knowing that my desk still has piles of stuff I need to file, my yard is still full of those sweet gum balls, and my flowerbeds are still buried under dead leaves. The yardwork was the easiest thing to put off for later - it was still below freezing at noon today, so forget that. [Yes, I can hear you westerners, mid-westerners, and yankees laughing at me. Say what you want, but if it isn't at least 55F, the dang yardwork can wait.]

The Last Thing Your Car Needs Is More Windows.

Remember those old jokes about what would happen if cars ran like Microsoft Windows (TM)? If not, let me refresh your memory:

1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.

6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five per cent of the roads.

7. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.

10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.

11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.

12. Everytime GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.

Today, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft has partnered with Ford to offer a dashboard operating system for some 2008 vehicles. Aside from the easy jokes (see above), this seems like a bad idea. The OS will drive all kinds of personal computing devices, such as cell phones and MP3 players. Aren't drivers distracted enough? Isn't this just a spate of accidents waiting to happen? I have very little faith that it will all be so easy to use that drivers will be able to answer their email in traffic. How can they operate their vehicles when they'll need both hands to press control-alt-delete?

A movie, impatience, and my take on the news.

PDM and I finally went to see Casino Royale yesterday. Yes, I know it has been out for months, but hey - no line and no crowd! The lack of gadgets and cheesiness was totally refreshing. I liked it!

I noticed today that when my work computer is running an application slowly, or appears to be hung up, I can't resist moving the mouse around in circles. As if the computer is going to wake up or something. I'm not sure why I do it, but the longer a task takes, the more furiously I wiggle that mouse around. I just about hit light speed if the stupid little hourglass disappears entirely.

There wasn't a lot going on this morning at the alternate work location where I am obliged to spend my Mondays, Tuesdays, and some Thursdays. I amused myself by reading the news online. Here are a few snippets that caught my attention:

The American Dialect Society has chosen "plutoed" as its 2006 Word of the Year. Ironically, being chosen as the Word of the Year is the exact opposite of what the word "plutoed" actually means.

If you're going to kill someone and eat his heart, you might want to review basic human anatomy first. I don't think you gain much of the warrior's spirit by eating his chest muscle and part of a lung.

As cosmopolitan as Atlanta tries to be, it still can't escape being the subject of headlines like "Another Hogzilla Caught Near Atlanta". I can't imagine Brussels, Paris, or London ever being included in the same headline as the word "hogzilla".

And sadly, Calvin Johnson announced today that he is leaving Georgia Tech early for the NFL. I knew this was coming, and it is the best thing for him, but I can't help feeling let down by the news. But Tech's loss is the NFL's gain. Some team will be very lucky to get him and I wish him well.