Saturday, September 24, 2005

Picasa - new version 2.1 was tried out
"A free software download from Google. Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC."

The good:
1- Opens Canon RAW (CRW)very fast and transparently. What it does with 12 bit images is unknown(no control seen with conversion)
2- Scans all drives and makes quick view thumbnail images -fast.
3- If sevral copies exist, they are apperant.
4- Histogram and some EXIF data is seen.

The bad:
1- Can't find the "Save as", the closest thing is "Export", but can't figure out how to rename file in this step.
2- EXIF data is not saved. (from RAW or all?)
3- Max resize is 1024 (but can select "original size")
4- Weard nomanclature:
Refining = reading, processing
Highlights = contrast
Fill light = brightness?
Shadows = gamma?
Warmify = adds warm color
Natural Color Picker = gray card selection
Tuning = adjustments or enhance

5- No fine rotatoon, only 90°


Picasa


There is compitition - Microsoft® Codename Max lets you make lists of your photos and turn them into beautiful slide shows to share with your family and friends. other product. That's because it's not a product. - Windows® XP and 54MB install, 200 MB HD space.

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Friday, September 23, 2005

Vibration or seeing


1/30 sec star image exposure to test vibration vs seeing. 52 arc sec wide image
Originally uploaded by edhiker.

Test to find out if soft pictures are vibration or seeing. Conclusion, it is seeing because 1/1000 sec (see other photos) gives not time for vibration cycle to occur.


1/30 sec star image exposure to test vibration vs seeing. 52 arc sec wide image

Crop = 50 pixels wide, camera array = 3072, 22.7mm. 3072/50=61.44 22.7/61.44 = 0.37mm.= Width of cropped image.
FL of scope = 57inch = 1447mm 1447/0.37= 3910 57.3/3910 = 0.0146 or 0.875 arc min wide
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22.7 = 0.89 in. Width of field of array= 0.89 degree for my 57 inch FL scope. 89/61=.0145 degree (0.87min) field for 50 pixel crop.


1/30 sec star image exposure to test vibration vs

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Flickr Uploader and Set generator

Flickr Uploader and Set generator

How to do it in the most efficient way -
See my "Photo Methods" notebook, below steps are brief.
1- > five pictures, use uploader
2- put all pics in a folder in correct order
3- Drag into UPLOADER, copy any tags in case uploader fails.
4- Make sure that no duplicates and all wanted pics are in correct order.
5- To make SET, grab those just oploaded. Last pic uploaded winds up on bottom unless it is moved in organizer. Right hand pane shows grouping as they will appear.
6- Edit the set all at once, can be done later at left hand lower of SET page.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Lagoon - noise removed with NeatImage


Lagoon - noise removed with NeatImage
Originally uploaded by edhiker.

Try out Flickr Blog, links to Blogger
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Service: Blogger
Username: edhiker
Password: Store your password?
Weblog: Edhiker's Activities (#6048056)
URL:
Label:

Friday, September 16, 2005

Flickr Backup to local computer

This morning I had the idea to try the great new Google Blog Search on "flickr backup" and http://www.flickr.com/groups/api/discuss/83327/ java backup was on top.

The reason I did this is that I have 1000 photos on Flickr and would like a LOCAL BACKUP.
I always keep a folder with uploaded images, BUT the edited title and description are not at this time backed up.

A tool that would save a person's complete Flicker site, with descriptions would be a godsend.

Example of a (mine)description www.flickr.com/photos/edhiker/14777784/in/set-354620/

What do you think.
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More - "save a Web site" "your computer" gives CuteSITE Builder 3.0 You can save your Web site in 2 ways, either as a single file in its native TLX format, or as HTML on your computer.

There is an extension called Spiderzilla that can do it: http://spiderzilla.mozdev.org/
It is based on the HTTrack Website Copier.

SpiderZilla

SpiderZilla is intended to be a Netscape/Mozilla/Firebird extension for offline browsing. Basically, it is only a front-end for the opensource command line program HTTrack Website Copier . "It allows you to download a World Wide website from the Internet to a local directory,building recursively all structures, getting html, images, and other files from the server to your computer. Links are rebuiltrelatively so that you can freely browse to the local site (works with any browser). You can mirror several sites together so that you can jump from one to another. You can, also, update an existing mirror site, or resume an interrupted download"- HTTrack description . Run SpiderZilla by Tools > "Download this site" Spiderzilla for Windows 9x/Me/2k/XP

This version SpiderZilla has Httrack inside the package. SpiderZilla is installing to aplication directory (Administrator permissions required)

Install spiderzilla.xpi (848 kb)
Download spiderzilla.xpi (848 kb)
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Spiderzilla is an easy to use website download utility. It uses an external Open Source program Httrack Webside Copier (embedded in the Windows version). It allows you to download whole websites from the internet to a local directory, recreating the directory structure, and retrieving all html files, images, etc.
Once installed it can be found under Tools > Download This Site

Version: 1.06 Released: 2003-11-13 Size: 849KB
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The problem - it ran for about 4 hours, I stopped it, it had downloading lots of pages not having prefix
" http://flickr.com/photos/edhiker/ " - why not? (after 4 hr, it had downloaded 159MB with 6878 files, but only about 1/3 of my flickr site)
What a super way to install a trojan, but I searched the web and http://spiderzilla.mozdev.org/ and http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/spiderzilla - everything looks ok, except it dosen't work as I had expected.

Ed
Link

Thursday, September 15, 2005


Google's Blog Search


... From a Reference Librarian "Want to find a blog on a particular topic?"
http://pfitzblog.royaltylinks.com/archives/2005/09/15/googles-got-a-blog-search/

What is Blog Search?
Blog Search is Google search technology focused on blogs. Google is a
strong believer in the self-publishing phenomenon represented by
blogging, and we hope Blog Search will help our users to explore the
blogging universe more effectively, and perhaps inspire many to join
the revolution themselves. Whether you're looking for Harry Potter
reviews, political commentary, summer salad recipes or anything else,
Blog Search enables you to find out what people are saying on any
subject of your choice.

The Case for Blogging - Explore the next frontier of authorship and knowledge management... at
Great Article

Google's Blog Search help page http://www.google.com/help/about_blogsearch.html

Google's blog search works great with Flickr photos, searching for
items in the photo description and title, and more. Try it out, start
at:
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=edhiker&btnG=Search+Blogs&scoring=d
... then click "Sort by date" at the top, it turns up the item below
that I just posted on the web one hour ago!

Advanced features allow users to narrow searches by author, date and language. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/09/15/BUG8OENLE21.DTL&type=business

More about Blog Search from Google search at: (is this incest?)
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=%22blog+search%22&btnG=Search

The above blog was edited (hot linked) by Google email.

How to Setup a Blog and Insert Hot links in Blogger - from Robin

I have noticed that many of the blogs I have visited still have the Edit Me links in the side bar instead of links to other sites. I thought I would write some short instructions on how to edit Blogger links.

  1. Log into your Blogger account and click your blog name to edit it
  2. Click the Template tab - The code that is used to create your blog will display
  3. Scroll down through the code until you see a section that looks like this:
  4. Blogger Links

  5. You need to edit the the http: address first. Highlight the address starting just after the first / (the word help) and then type the web site address you want to link to. You want to be sure that you don’t delete the quotation marks around the address.
  6. Highlight the words Edit-Me and type the name of the web site you want to link to.
  7. Your final link should look something like this:
  8. Blogger Link

  9. Click Save Template Changes at the bottom of the page and then click the Republish button

If you want to add more links, copy the last link from the <> through the < /li> and press CTRL+C to copy the code. Move your cursor to the just after the last < /li> in the link section and press enter. Press CTRL+V to paste the link. You can then edit the duplicated link.

Filed under: Photography — Robin at 8:31 pm on Saturday, June 18, 2005
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More at Blogger's How to Page

ps -
to get started with Blogger, go to Robin's tutorial

Adding Hot Links, edhiker method: Mozilla mail adds hot links to sent mail, so I just send a mail to me or some nobody (save to file no work). Then I copy the sent mail and paste the text into Blogger. BTW- Mozilla Composer makes no hot links automatically. See the blog "Photo Noise Filter Programs" below for example.

Edhiker 9/15/05 (a taxing day - $$$$)

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Software Evaluation - Security and Photo Noise Reduction
Having a bit of spare time this week, I set about to investigate some software items. Many software offerings, the ones that want money tell you the good, not the bad. Don't want to bloat my registry (it only gets bigger, and dosen't recover when a program is removed), so I used a old spare hard drive in a plug-in tray.

The items checked out were:
1- Comcast sent a mailing offering FREE McAfee Firewall and Virus programs

http://www.comcast.net/security/

Spent a full day on this and I found:
McAfee Firewall uses too much system resources, maybe 15% (Sygate 4%) .
McAfee Firewall adds 132KB to the registry - Sygate adds 4KB
Seems to work ok, but too big of a hit on computer resources for me.
I had worked on this last June - http://edhiker.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_edhiker_archive.html#111930548761908565

There is still an issue with some versions of Sygate ( the "SMC" problem) - use V5.5b2710 http://forums.sygate.com/vb/showthread.php?s=238e233ebc6755ce154ae150c9dbe695&threadid=12573
.. NEWS August 16, 2005 - Symantec to Acquire Sygate Technologies http://www.sygate.com/news/JDS-letter-from-Sygate-CEO.htm ... and a plane English version at: http://www.symantec.com/press/2005/n050816a.html - April 1?

I looked at many reviews, few talk about computer speed / resource / bloatware issues - seems that I will stick with the free Sygate Firewall. Have12 bookmarks for Sygate.

Same results with McAfee Virus program - Too much bloat, will use on line virus scan for now. http://housecall60.trendmicro.com/en/start_corp.asp

More reading - http://www.governmentsecurity.org/archive/t1430.html and http://www.technologyevaluationcenters.com/Research/ResearchHighlights/Security/2005/06/research_notes/VN_ST_XBP_06_24_05_17.asp
and http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/AnchorDesk/4520-7297_16-5554923.html?tag=adss and http://personal-firewall-software-review.toptenreviews.com/?ttreng=1&ttrkey=outpost+firewall

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(Copy-paste from sent Mozilla mail, adds hot linking in the below section).

2- Photo Noise Filter Programs
Picture cooler looses EXIF data - reject. The program does a good job on noise, but I need EXIF.
( They say the demo does all the paid version does, but adds green lines) - don't respond to emails.
Noise Ninja comes in two version. A Home Licence is available for U.S. $29 - EXIF?

Noiseware - free dumps EXIF
Searched reviews and boards on 9/13/05 - hard going for good answers.
Check NeatImage if U want to spend $60 http://luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/neatimage.shtml and http://www.photozo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5060
"I have Neat Image running in Paint Shop Pro 7 on our computers. The only problem is that PSP does not provide EXIF data fields to plug-ins (in general)". Preserving image EXIF data in processed files, all except demo.


The best one so far is Helicon Filter http://www.heliconfilter.com/pages/ it has several other functions including blue or purple fringing correction (only in the paid version). Reads Canon CRW raw files, but not the EXIF data from. 25day trial of all features, then reverts to free version. Adds 136KB to registry.
Free version outputs as 91% quality JPG with perfect EXIF.

More summery at http://www.michaelalmond.com/Articles/noise.htm and http://www.photozone.de/7Digital/noisenew.htm