OS X integration

I noticed that Safari creates a collection based on the websites that you have listed in your address book. This is nifty but still no challenge to my brother's assertion that none of these convergences provide functionality that people on Windows would need.
The address book-email-calendar-browser-PDA integration is covered in Outlook.
The photo integration is handled by the OS.
That leaves iTunes-Garageband and a few other bits.

Openoffice Calc issues

I was using Calc last night and was having two troubles. I couldn't get the default number buttons (percent, standard, dollar) to change to a different default. The solution was to use the stylist. I still haven't figured out how to make it give multiple results based on a number of values. I think the scenario function must be used.

No more iPhoto

After my vacation I'm going to find an alternative to iPhoto. I was trying to organize my photos for a number of hours last night and it was unproductive.

• It gets bogged down with a lot of files.
  
• It loses folder and file names.
• I end up with not just two copies of the same file but sometimes three.
• It fails on large imports.
• Categorization gets difficult because there is no folder which shows what hasn't been categorized. There is a time consuming work around for this.
  

Nikon software

Nikon has two non-specialty software packages
Nikon View
Nikon view requires a separate download. Then it required two more downloads and installs to bring it up to the current version. At no point was I able to get the transfer to work but I was able to see the folders on the memory card within the Nikon program. I kept getting a message that there was no memory card attached.

Picture Project
This worked as soon as I installed it. The interfaces is intuitive and attractive, it does its own updates, and it's quite responsive. Unfortunately it seems more limited than the Canon software. There's no ratings, photo-stitch, batch processing, or display of focus points. It requires paying money to remotely control the camera. It does support collections.
Ultimately because its imports create another copy it will have similar problems to Iphoto.

Bugs
Picture Project In touch which is used to share pictures told me it needed to download a module before it would work. Then after I told it to go ahead it said the module was not available.
I have version 1.5 there are 1.51 and 1.52 updaters. When I did Check for Updates (which would have been better off under the PictureProject menu) these were not listed. When I downloaded them manually they wouldn't install. Saying they couldn't find PictureProject.
PP Transfer kept starting up when I connected my camera. I tried to turn this off in the preferences but there was no option. I had to open Picture Project.
EXIF information for pictures taken with other types of camera is not displayed.
Update: The 1.61 updater also didn't work. It gave an error about not finding a system folder. A new install worked fine with no loss of functionality.

Additional Canon Image Browser notes
Features are grayed out in the edit window for no discernible reason. Seems to be Autofocus view here that I can't access.

DV cams

Been taking a look at the DV cams and Panasonic seems to be doing the best job. DVshop has a few links about the Panasonic DVX 100A. The best review that it points to is at DVXuser.
DVX also points out there may be a DVX 100B coming out soon (no details) but the thing that everyone is salivating for is the HVX200 which should be out in the 4q 2005.

There seems to be some comments that DV can get to film resolution. The HVX's format which is the highest (below 6 figures or so), DVC-Pro HD, is 1080p which is 1920x 1,080 or 2 megapixels. 100 ISO film is currently being matched at 16 megapixels.

Blue screen tips.

Networking problems after reconnecting wires

If something on my network is unplugged and the plugged back in then I am unable to use the internet connection. Rebooting the modem or the router, doing a dhcp renewal or a network diagnostic, or restarting Firefox doesn't help. But if I use Safari then everything starts working.

Possible Canon lenses

Canon 35mm 2.0 weight 8 ounces cost: $230*
Canon 28mm 1.8 weight 10.9 ounce cost $400 at some point
Canon 50 mm 1.4 weight .64 pounds $310
Canon 50 mm 1.8 weight .29 pounds $70*
speed but not weight can be saved.
Tamron 24 2.5 $270

Nikon viewfinder
Shutter speed, aperture, exposure mode, metering method*, focus indicators, exposure compensation, flash ready, and frame counter
canon af/fe lock*, flash ready, shutter, flash exp comp, highs speed sync, focus confirm, exposure, wb shift

I've been doing more reading and testing
Nikon's defenders Thom Hogan and Ken Rockwell both get into the mechanics of shooting (how you use the buttons, how well the exposure is done. I have yet to find this type of defense on the Canon side).
Nikon d70s' advantages - more relevant info in viewfinder area, better access to image size and white balance, weight, price, better metering, better flash, more consistent menus between models, lens don't twist in in different ways, iso auto?, horizontal dials seem nicer, larger LCD, better visibility of LCD in daylight, bigger sensor, iso contrast setting, better use of dials in manual mode, spot metering, quieter shutter release.
Canon 20d- more and better located focus areas, mirror-lock up for slow shots, 3200 iso, better gripping material, more pros seem to be switching to canon, tilt-lenses, nicer viewfinder, scroll wheel better for menus, dedicated autofocus zone selector, usb 2.0, better customer service.

Canon iso not displayed in viewfinder during change,

Rebel XT II

Ergonomics
I found that to use the camera I supported the weight of the camera with my left hand under the lens (update: oops forgot this was way you are supposed to hold it). This meant that the buttons on the left side required a grip change to use although for most part these buttons aren't the most important for shooting. The image size and shooting parameters are accessed through these left hand buttons. More importantly it meant that using the zoom required a grip change because my hand was normally on the zoom ring.
Shooting vertically was even worse. This moves the camera a bit higher which makes it difficult to brace with the left arm. The buttons also became more difficult to use. The best example of this was when I jabbed my finger into my nose while trying to reach one. Unconsciously I stopped using portrait mode.

Software
Canon software.
For browsing there are the ImageBrowser, Digital Photo Professional and File Viewer Utility. There is no distinction made in the manual for when to use each and since they each have some functions that the others don't there are reasons to bounce between these programs that aren't integrated, have different interfaces, and no online help. ImageBrowser was best for viewing images because it allowed side-by-side viewing and seeing the exposure info. The problem with Side-by-side is that the info is done in a separate window which often gets hidden. It has options for cropping and color adjustment.
DPP has a few image adjustments- cropping, rotation, brightness, white balance, and something called ckick. The manual refers to this as click and it shades an image with a single color (like sepia toning but adjustable).
Image browser also has editing and trimming options as well as a method for rating the photos which DPP doesn't have. The shooting info it provides gets cut 0ff (as in: Camera Model Name: Canon Po...)
Finally file viewer utility has no editing options but does have a useful button which shows you where the camera auto-focused.
There is the EOS capture program which allows the camera to directly send images to the computer via USB. This program will not launch if you click on it. It must be started from within DPP. It will also not start if the camera is in playback mode. Once beyond this it allows a nice degree of control of the camera - ISO, exposure, white balance, and image size. The other options can be adjusted on the camera.
This is not the program my Powershot uses. It uses Remote Capture and it only has a size option and no adjustments can be made on the camera.
There are also the Photo Stitch and Camera Window programs, Arcsoft Photostudio. This is 8 programs for 2 cameras.

Speed
In general, all of the software is very slow and I ended up doing quite a bit of waiting moving between images. The software doesn't seem to share thumbnails between apps.

Help
DPP and File Viewer Utility have no online help. There are two PDFs- one for DPP and one cryptically named EDS_M_E which contains help for the EOS capture, camera window, ImageBrowser, RAW and Photostich programs. The inclusion of EOS Capture in the EDS documents is strange seeing as it can only be launched by DPP. It took me a while to figure this out, I would launch the Capture program and then it would disappear.

Rebel XT

I was a little upset with myself for purchasing the XT before realizing the ergonomics were so poor. This was despite reading reviews on dpreview and Steve's Digicams and trying the it in a store and using a friend's. I'd seen a few posts saying it was inadequate for people with large hands. I have small hands and still find that it requires an uncomfortable pinched grip which strains the wrist instead of using the arm muscles. It is much more unwieldy than my old Nikon 8008 which is heavier. I've tried a few different ways of holding it.
The exposure compensation is difficult to set and read. The compensation button must be depressed while using the dial. This button doesn't give good feedback for when it is engaged so many of my changes don't work. These changes can either be seen in the LCD (which means taking your eye off the shot) or the viewfinder but the display in the viewfinder isn't linked to anything besides shutter press. So you must either take your eye away from the shot or bounce your index finger between the shutter button and the exposure dial.

Lens Tamron 28-75/2.8
The lens focus ring cover a small distance- maybe a fourth of a rotation. This seems to be working well for me because I don't get lost like I did with my old zoom. This may be an inappropriate comparison as this one covers a smaller multiple.
The depth-of-field preview isn't compatible with the lens. I returned this lens but I believe that this statement is wrong.

New Camera

Even though I haven't been doing much with the images (printing, viewing) from my Canon powershot s45 I wanted a new camera. I was dissatisfied with its shutter lag and low-light performance. I've been wanting to take better surreptitious photos for which improved speed and a flip-out lens would help (then I could hold the camera at waist-level). The small Sony's were twice as fast as the other cameras but not as highly rated. The Canon's above and below mine in size had flip-outs but I wasn't sure the larger one was pocketable or that I wanted to decrease image quality by going smaller.

Suddenly I decided that I needed a real camera. The images I wanted the highest quality for are (generally) the ones where I know I'll need a camera beforehand. If it wasn't going to be pocketable an SLR made the most sense because of flexibility. I have a Nikon SLR with two prime lenses (50 and 24), there was also a heavy zoom at one point but I don't know where it is. I also have a Canon powershot s45. If I got a Nikon I could use the old lenses and if I got a Canon the same software, and batteries and charger. Possibly also the same card but I'm not sure I'd want that.
It turns out there is a staggering amount of information on the web. I decided to go with the and Rebel XT for the weight, image quality, future flexibility with lenses. The most useful sites
were dpreview.com (image comparisons here were initially unhelpful because often a camera would be compared to an older version of another camera. But was useful using the comparisons from both candidate cameras and overlapping the windows. Dpreview was more useful than imaging-resources.com due to the 100% views and more consistent examples.)
Canon vs. Nikon seems to be another PC. vs. Mac debate. The Nikon owners seem to be a bit more fanatic.

Here are some of the things I found interesting:
Comparisons
DPreview- purchase frequency, review ranking, side-by-side
Imaging-resource- has qualitative and quantitative information on all parts- cameras, lenses, scanners, printers.
Photodo- Lens grades
nobell.org- Lens data lists
Fredmiranda- user ratings of lenses
Bobatkins- gallery software, looks like some good articles. He also has good reviews (e.g this on Tamron 28-75) on photo.net.
Patrick Murphy Studio- lens comparison web sites, lens lists
Amazon.com- User comments- due to its ranking system, and nice interface. dpreview has terrible interface. Photo.net gets bogged down in flames.


General information
Photozone- lens myths sensor size MTF (a lens metric) . The reviews are good but less quantitative than dpreview and no new info on qualatative end. Tutorials too.
Popphoto- some useful articles but impossible to tell which from titles. cameras and lenses (not so good and in acrobat format)
Luminous Landscape-

Prices-
Photography equipment especially seems to cause some websites (Amazon, B&H) to do the add-to-cart-before-price thing. Choose beachcamera.com

Things I found out
Fredmiranda.com has some Adobe plugins for cleaning-up and manipulating images.
You can store data on your DV tapes.
I can increase my stealth by putting my s45 at waist level and shooting wide without looking.
When using a scanner some of the noise may be from the negative. Slides have less noise.
Film scanners are much better than flatbed using a print.
The "Lens myths" page has changed some of my thinking. Especially about canon 50mm 1.4 vs. 1.8. It seems that pictures will be nearly equivalent after f1.8. This is contrary to reports about it ramping up faster since it starts faster and comments on lens quality.
Photo contests

Notes on determining the power of activated carbon

the question
refresh
refresh

the 15,000 sq. meters we will give the minimum volume of 1 atom thickness.

15,000 cubic. meters/ volume of zinc=number of molecules
number of molecules/avagado's number=weight in grams*atomic number.

15,000 cubic. meters/ volume of zinc=number of molecules
number of molecules/6x10^23=weight in grams*atomic number.

Power of activated carbon: 1 gram=15,000meters
Zinc density=71.4g/cm cubed

15000meter*1,ooo,ooocm/meter=number of centimeters
7.14 g/cm cubed*number of cubic centimeters= weight in grams

15000meter*1,ooo,ooocm/meter=15*10^9 cubic centimeters
7.14 g/cm cubed*15*10^9= 1.05*10^10 grams of zinc

let's assume a brita filter weighs only 1/10 of a kg
Therefore a brita filter can absorb 1.05*9 kgs or 1 million kgs or 1100 tons

The weight of the empire state building is 365000 tons therefore it would take about 340 Brita filters to capture enough zinc of equivalent weight to the Empire State Building.

Firefox extensions

Ad Block
Add Bookmark here
Bookmarks synchronizer
Greasemonkey
Password Maker
Quicknote
Tabbrowser preferences

Undecided on
Bookmarks Synchronizer, Flashgot, Platypus, Tiny url, View Formatted Soure,

Greasemonkey and Password Maker are revolutionary but not well known.
Password Maker provides multiple secure and convenient passwords based on a single "master password".
Greasemonkey makes the customization of web sites easy. By providing a way to execute java scripts aimed at particular websites you can make: Provide a Netflix link next to every movie listed in IMDB; create a text box for adding technorati tags inside the blogger post page, etc.

Games I used to play

Great
Windows: Space Quest, Alone in the dark,
Apple II: Nueromancer, Sneakers, Autoduel, Archon
NES: Contra, Super Mario,
Other: Breakout, Push push

Games that I was obsessed with and but in retrospect don't seem so great.
Windows: Castle Wolfenstein 3-d, Doom, Ultima, Lode Runner, Kings Quest, Leisuresuit Larry,
Apple II: Bard's tale, Zork, Snake, 2400 A.d.,
NES: Zelda, Sea and skate

Didn't get along with but tried
Windows: American Mcgee's Alice, Hexen, Included Windows games, Sim city, Myst, mechwarrior (?)
Apple II: Strip poker, Pac man, Tetris, Carmen Sandiego,
NES: Miracle software, Duck Hunt, Top Gun, Mike Tyson's punchout,

Simple and fun
Boulder dash, Impossible Mission, Burger Time, Turbo outrun, Double Dragon, Castlevania, Rampage, 1942, Mario, Galaga

Hard to recall, but did spend quite a bit of time with:
Spy vs. spy, Manhunter, Joust, Original Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Beyond zork, Black Cauldron, Choplifter, Below the Root, Ghostbusters, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, Karateka, Leather Goddesses of Phobos, Shanghai, a Mind Forever Voyaging, Elite, Dig Dug, Kid icarus, Metroid, Metal Gear

To be categorized when I remember the names
Windows: , cool cartoonish where you are a knight,
Apple II: Surgery game, , car game where you would go up on the truck, a spy game (not spy hunter),
NES:
Other: arcade car game where you could get rocket launcher

I'm finding these hard to remember and difficult to categorize but this has made me remember the incredible amount of time I wasted on them. I'm also fuzzy on what system they were on. I was considering getting one of the new generation of consoles but this has convinced me not to.

Gamespot was helpful in providing names for NES and Apple II but had no pictures. There is also a list for the PC but it was too long to go through. Pictures are on various sites.

Things that haven't worked out for me

and the reasons.

Web services
Friendster- Wouldn't contact someone to be an "activity partner".
Technorati- too much huddled masses.
del.icio.us-too much huddled masses.
blogroll- updating my website is a pain.
Meetup- The two meetups I attended no one showed for.
Tribe.net- don't remember.
Musicmatch- not going to deal with DRM locking me to certain devices.
Ebay, Half.com, Overstock.com, deals-of-the-day type things- Despite a few trials they haven't worked their way into my spending.


Software
Microsoft Office- Very buggy with long documents, annoying interface, expensive.
Frontpage- code soup
Photoshop- Expensive. Filters don't improve images. Still good for some things.
Abiword- Bugs. Limited functionality.
Chat- any kind.
Nero Burning- didn't do well at spanning cds.
Applescript- basic functions missing.
Winamp- terrible to use.
Musicmatch- not bad but worse than itunes.
Browsers
Camino- No extensions.
IE- No tabs or extensions.
Safari- no extensions.


Things I continue to use but don't like*
Blogger, Flickr
Notepad, Real media, Dock, Windows, Explorer, Adress book, Mail.app,


Use often*
Firefox, openoffice, Thumbs Plus, Total Commander, Homesite, Text Wrangler, Quicktime, Thunderbird, Neooffice
Amazon, Google, IMDB, Netflix, Yahoo, Consumer reports.

Seldom used but good when I need them*
Grab, DVD capture, Windows Media Player, Stickies

*Applies in the past tense if Windows based

General rules of computer use

• Remember what you are trying to accomplish.
  
• Don't meddle with a system.
• If you run into a problem pursue multiple avenues simultaneously.
  
• Backup.
• Make friends with gurus.
• Upgrades are usually worth it.
• Be wary of tech support. Use a solution based on whether it makes sense, risk, and your time.
  

Blogger bugs

I'm sick of blogger.

• It's difficult to post with Blogger's edit window because
• Inconsistent Mac interface leads to sometimes using control and sometimes the Apple key. For example italics use control but cut and paste uses Apple.
  
• Incredibly poor spell checker. Doesn't learn words. Can't add possessive or capitalized versions automatically. Very small dictionary.
  
• Not able to search while editing a post.
• Spacing issues. HTML for this post is unreadable because of no carriage returns. There is another option for carriage returns which disable wsywig.
  
• But it's difficult to create posts outside of blogger because
  
• Cut and paste leads to many errors.
• Mailing to blog adds extra paragraphs in middle of sentence and puts in unclosed tags.
• It has no categories.
• It's slow.
• Templates are difficult to edit due to small text box, no search, lack of color coding.
• Dealing with images is a hassle (this is most understandable, considering it is free service).
• No password protection for posts.
• Combined with Google bar spellchecker it will delete posts.
• It can take a long time (months) for a blog to get indexed. Pretty poor for a service hosted by a search engine. Indexing speed is probably based on traffic.
• There are sometimes problems on the edit screen where the edit bar will take up most of the page.
  

Also

• Blogger support team is unresponsive to bug posts.
  
• Bug list on blogger page is nowhere near complete.
• Service outages.
• Spellchecker is very poor. These were all words that Blogger didn't know as I was posting on July 30- Davids, sociologist's, publisher's, asphyxiated, unfunny, unAmerican . This number is fairly representative.
  

Future of the browser

A while back there was a post by a Firefox driver asking where Firefox
should go- for people not to list smaller, faster or more stable but to
imagine what could be done. The question proved more difficult than I
imagined. Firefox had made my browsing incredibly simple. A letter, an
arrow key, and enter would often take me where I wanted to go after
which I didn't think about the browser and concentrated on content. I
realized that bookmarks for places that I visited infrequently were
still difficult.
Even with good titles bookmarks were still difficult to distinguish,
categorize, and browse. They were also one of the slowest and most
memory and focus demanding of the usual browser tasks. This resulted in
my not wanting to create them as it would only make the list longer and
interrupt what I was doing by categorizing it and forcing me to choose
a magic title. There was also another problem with bookmarkds that was
getting steadily easier with computers in general. Deleting files tends
to be something we do less of. Hard drives are larger, file navigation
is easier, version tracking (within programs) is better. With the
steady rise of internet web sites and the fact that as a user spends
more time on the internet they have more sites they want to remember
there is an increasing need for bookmarks. This means that bookmarks
need more deleting to avoid problems due to irrelevance, similar
titles, and broken links. Even if they were all relevant deletion would
still be needed to minimize the problems of navigation. I would also
say that looking for a specific bookmark and seeing all the other ones
that I half remember was distracting. I got sidetracked into wanting to
see what is happening with another site.
There is also the issue of making bookmarks public. People need to have
a way to link and provide meta-information about other sites or current
topics.
How do you do create bookmarks in a way that is efficient,
customizable, and fits in with your online presence?
I was unable though to figure out how to make things better.

Luckily people are on the job.
Google now records individual's searches. I haven't had a chance to
evaluate but the ability to search your search history is a very
strong. Its connection to the fabric of everyday use also gives it an
advantage that none of the other services will have. Any service like
Technorati will force the user to choose its service, while Google
steadily moves to being one interface for everything. Being Google it
also has the ability to bring in a number of users that will dwarf the
other communities. Its problem is that it doesn't allow the viewing or
searching of other's people history. The pause feature may indicate
that this will come. A minor weakness, shared by others, is an
inability to add your old bookmarks but this could be corrected with a
simple script.
Between Google and blogger all the elements are there but aren
I have briefly looked at StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, and Technorati. They
may not be primarily about bookmarking or may not seem to be about it
but this is the future. Collective intelligence both automated and
manual will become the only way to maintain indivual memory and will
also provide ways to expand these memories. Right now they are not
well-suited to the long tail which is precisely where bookmarks are
deficient. A contributor to this problem is that none provide a
permanent location for results.
The unfortunately-named Technorati allows users to create watchlists of
blogs and search on current topics. The search is slow and poorly
implemented. My search on “translucent concrete” prioritzed results
with these words separate above those together. The help showed no way
to couple them. More critical is that a watchlist is something that
people want to check frequently and for this RSS feeds are much easier
to use. It does provide a good combination for fine-grained and general
searching.
Even more unforturnately-named, Del.icio.us (somewhat like Flickr) is
more link based and provides an HTML interface for finding new links on
a topic. Wisely it provides no distinction between results that belong
to a category and those which come from a person. It doesn't implement
search.
StumbleUpon is a Firefox extension and a web service. The idea of
StumbleUpon is to guide users to new websites that are well rated by
similar users. It presents a toolbar allowing a user to give a thumbs
up or down for a site. This then causes the rating to display when the
site is visited, enters a favorite in the user's online profile. If the
site has never been rated by a StumbleUpon user- this typically happens
with very small sites and permanent links within larger ones the user
is asked to give a description for it. StumbleUpon automatically places
it in a category.
A user selects a category and clicks StumbleUpon which sends him to a
highly rated site, within the category, that he hasn't seen before. Or
the user can go to the profiles of friends or users that StumbleUpon
has rated as being similar to him and see the links they have selected.
The bookmarking has some good features- it has the highest ease of use
of any tool I've used. The extension automatically (and insecurely
)logs in and the majority of the time all the user does is make a
click. The worst case, where the user has to enter a title in a pop-up,
is easier thany to the typical browser case because it doesn't have to
be categorized. These links are created on a web for the user that
anyone can access regardless of browser.
There are still a host of problems. The links are not on a consistent
page- as bookmarks are added they will be placed on another page. The
categories that are entered for sites can not be used on individuals
pages for sorting. The only sorting is chronological and they can not
be searched. They are not available offline but I don't think this is
generally a problem.
It is frustrating because none of these problems are inherent to this
type of service. StumpleUpon could be: an easily-used bookmarking
device that uses collective intellegince to add meta-information, an
innovative site-finder, and a community builder. At this point I've
used StumleUpon a few times to get sites similar to the ones I like and
the others not at all, none of them are as easy to retrieve as the
insufficient in-browser bookmarks.

Blogger doesn't import email well

Below is what blogger created out of one of my email posts. This applies to rich text or plain text email. With rich text you also get unclosed font tags. But with both I got many paragraphs randomly inserted.
It adds many unn

<fontfamily><param>Times New Roman</param>A while back there was a
post by a Firefox driver asking where Firefox should go- for people
not to list smaller, faster or more stable but to imagine what could
be done. The question proved more difficult than I imagined. Firefox
had made my browsing incredibly simple. A letter, an arrow key, and
enter would often take me where I wanted to go after which I didn't
think about the browser and concentrated on content. I realized that
bookmarks for places that I visited infrequently were still difficult.

Even with good titles bookmarks were still difficult to distinguish,
categorize, and browse. They were also one of the slowest and most

Powerbook you are so beautiful

I dearly love your beveled keys. They are firm but responsive, musical but industrious. Listen. Those soft clicks interrupted by the  syncopated clap of the spacebar. The tiny row of function buttons on the top, smoothly framed by the esc and eject buttons. The four arrow keys both with and separated from the others.
The subtlety of your trackpad, I wouldn't have known- I didn't know. How could I have suspect that something so metallic and bare could move me? (You know what I mean.) It's not like those other trackpads.
Silver, silver everywhere.  The powerful subdued cover opening to brightness- as if jewelry had come alive. Glowing and shimmering, facets expanding.
You resemble not other computers but the designs of movies. My apartment will never be your match until I can place you next to a door that softly slips into the wall as I near.
But even that isn't it. There is also in your features the strong shapes of modern art. Look only at the bottom half of the front it is as if I had gone into Plato's cave and switched on the lights, therefore finding the perfect button.   The long lines curving at the ends like a racetrack and then the black moat of air pulling me toward it. Made whole with the neat cupping of the frame.
Descending to the bottom it merges with other shapes- the tiny row of circles following behind larger one (like baby ducks), these circles buried into a 3-dimensional rectangle confronted by a smaller brightly framed one. In between these two rectangles, directly below the perfect button, parallel to the circle, sits a larger circle. A calm home bringing a Japanese sense of balance to the strong American shapes.   
And when you speak to me Vicki-with-an-I...

Fwd: Purpose

This blog more than the others is for my own uses. I want a record of what causes me trouble and the solutions I find so that I can: get a recognition of patterns of problems, solutions, and their sources; be able to retrieve solutions that I've forgotten; find answers to problems in the process of collecting my thoughts on them; and stopping obsessing about problems.
I didn't expect the last two results when I started writing this. I'm the most pleased about the latter. I have a tendency to work for long periods on problems that are not critical. The idea is that I want some type of perfect environment and that if I achieve that I won't have to spend any more time tinkering. This is, of course, not possible. I will always be dealing with software that in some way does not work the way I want it to. Even if somehow this magically did occur my computing environments are not stable. As soon as an upgrade was done, I would be back to endlessly tinkering. There is also the problem that every change to a computer not only brings it to a less common and more difficult to diagnose state as well as creating the risk of unintended consequences.
Here are examples of this that have caused me problems this month-  Wanting so badly to get bullets working in Mail that I spent an hour on it, called Apple Tech support for another hour during which they erased all my mail, and now spending many hours trying to recover the mail; Wanting to have all my email centralized, therefore enabling POP on my Yahoo account, and removing all the files which over the years I had diligently made online backups of. There haven't been bad consequences but I've also wasted many hours trying to get Iphoto to import; dealing with Greasemonkey script bugs, dwelling on Apple's replace vs. merge for folder copying, and trying to create an AppleScript that won't do much for me.
Writing about these helps me stop obsessing. When dealing with a problem I create a mental list of possible solutions. I have to remember this list so that I don't retry something unsuccessful and to figure out what I haven't done. By putting it on paper I allow myself to forget it and can convince myself that I've tried all the avenues- or occasionally in the process of collecting the thoughts I realize there is something I haven't tried. There is great relief here- these aren't things that I work on for a few hours but things that my mind returns to again and again over the course of months.
I think occasionally I will find a solution that will be useful to other people and I'm glad of this. What would be even better is if they saw how pointless much of this is and decided to stop tinkering themselves.