… when it’s broken.. Bleh.

Somehow, three of my libraries and a lot of System Frameworks got zeroed out. (Tip: when that dialog comes up warning you of your almost full hard drive, do something about it.) Usually I’d just grab an OSX install dvd, do the brilliant Archive and Install and be done in 15 minutes. But of course the thing is nowhere to be found. So I had to fix it The Hard Way.

Scp stopped working because Kerberos was hosed, but luckily ftp did still work (even though libresolv was out, too). So I tediously ftped over a few files from another box such that scp would work again (the paths to the Frameworks are very long). After that I could copy over the rest with scp (with $(pwd) and proper tabbing available) for a couple of hours. Ugh. Some of my applications are still b0rked.

You’re the kind of person who forgets a lot of crap, and you’re looking for something to set Todo items in your iCal for you, while you’re somewhere without actual access to your iCal.

Look no more.

Apple Mail allows you to set Rules on incoming mail. It has the standard action stuff of course — move to folder, mark as junk, trash-because-I-don’t-like-this-person, etc. But also one action that allows for some really interesting stuff: Run Applescript.

So I figured I could use that for some simple remote Todo-ing, via e-mail. I can send those from my phone if need be.

Now, there are a few scripts out there that will do similar things. I found, however, that they’re all closed. No sources. For an applescript. They could be doing <i>anything</i> to your system, and you wouldn’t know it. You might find your entire home directory empty after sending three todos. So here’s an open one instead. It’s fairly small so I’ll just paste it:

tell application "Mail"
	-- What must the subject start with? This gets trimmed.
	set thePrefix to "TODO: "
	-- What calendar will we add the todo to?
	set theCalendar to "Home"

	set theMessages to (messages of inbox whose read status is false)

	repeat with mail in theMessages
		if the subject of the mail begins with thePrefix then
			set theSummary to trim_line(the subject of the mail, thePrefix) of me
			set theDescription to the content of the mail

			tell application "iCal"
				make new todo at the end of todos of (every calendar whose title = theCalendar) with properties {summary:theSummary, description:theDescription}
			end tell

			-- can't delete unread messages?
			set read status of the mail to true
			delete the mail
		end if
	end repeat
end tell

-- taken from apple.com and modified
on trim_line(this_text, trim_chars)
	set x to the length of the trim_chars
	repeat while this_text begins with the trim_chars
		try
			set this_text to characters (x + 1) thru -1 of this_text as string
		on error
			-- the text contains nothing but the trim characters
			return ""
		end try
	end repeat
	return this_text
end trim_line

Don’t you love how Applescript looks? Anyway, paste in Script Editor, compile, notice it looks even better with colour and indenting, save the resulting script somewhere sane, and make a new Rule in Mail to process e-mails. The minimum I would recommend is a subject check on it beginning with ‘TODO: ‘. Add other checks as you see fit. Last, set the action to ‘Run Applescript’ and point to the script (really? yes.)

Try it out and have fun.

People have been bitching lately about how Apple’s Aperture is crap and how they should have never bought it.

Now, these people definitely have a couple of good points. For instance, Apple’s engineers apparently didn’t think that being able to set curves was a necessity. I can tell you that it is. The levels tool (while more advanced than Photoshop’s) just doesn’t cut it. Also, its noise reduction is sort of weak and the sharpening needs more detailed control.

A lot of people have also complained about how ‘Aperture has a crappy raw importer’. This is where they’re just plain wrong: Aperture doesn’t have a raw (not an acro, no caps) importer. It uses a system library called ImageIO to do all the work of making the raw file into something aperture can use. ImageIO’s engine is by no means perfect. Reportedly, Apple is working that for OSX 10.4.4. I do hope they get it up to par because it doesn’t compare to my current favorite raw converter (Capture One). In other words: yes, it can be sub-par (it seems to depend heavily on the camera), but please don’t attribute it to Aperture, because it’s a flaw in the OSX libraries.

Next complaint: the Library. Again, some valid points. Not being able to use multiple drives is going to be a pain in the ass pretty quickly for professional photographers. But another often-heard complaint about it is how it’s a ‘proprietary format’. Those people need to get a clue about how Mac OS works. Since Mac OS 9, it has supported a concept called ‘Bundles’. Essentially just a folder with a bit flipped so that the finder will show it as a file. Meant to lessen file system clutter. Bundles weren’t used much in OS9, but they’re very common in OSX. Every (non-carbon) application you can find is actually a folder. Just like the Aperture Library. Control-click on it, select ‘Show package contents’, and you can browse it like any other.

My biggest gripe about the complaints is that damn near all of them fail to see that Aperture, in it’s version 1.0, has some very good ideas that aren’t available in any other application. Stacking is brilliant. So is the loupe. Granted, some other applications have something similar for the image you’re working on, but none will let the loupe work on the thumbnail in your file browser, except aperture. Full screen mode isn’t just a slide show like most other applications. It’s entirely possible to switch to full-screen mode and do all of your edits. Versioning is a concept previously unheard of in this type of application, yet apps working with raw files can be very easily architected to have such a feature, because the non-destructive editing is always required when working with raw files. And what other raw converter will allow you to make a book of your photos and have it professionally printed, without having to learn how to use applications like Quark XPress or Adobe Indesign?

All in all, people are forgetting the most important thing about Aperture: it’s only the first version. It hasn’t been (ab)used by the general public yet. I’m entirely sure most, if not all, of the common complaints will be fixed in the next version. I’ve heard say that Apple is already working on fixing the single-volume-library thing. Unfortunately, Aperture is too slow on my Mac mini, without support for CoreImage. But I do like how it works a lot, and I see a great future for it.

Work of art? Sony?

Yes. Not a product, but the commercial for a product. For the Sony Bravia LCD TV to be exact.

What’s so special? Well, they took 250.000 bouncy balls, and launched them off a hill in San Francisco. They could have done it with Computer Graphics, but they did it for real instead. Add some nice music to it and film it with high speed cameras, and the result is stunningly beautiful. I think it’s also the first television advertisement with a website dedicated to it, including behind-the-scenes footage.

You need Quicktime (or something compatible) to play the videos. Be sure to check out the 2.5-minute extended version in its h.264 high quality version.