Nobody is Promised Tomorrow. . .
You know, I am still a digital pack rat. I indulged my addiction by getting another 500 gig USB drive. I rationalized this purchase by saying “Well, I’ll sort thru all this stuff while I am in Hawaii.” Yeah, sure. I’ll just put more stuff on the disk.
Repeat after me – Macs Replace Folders, PCs Merge Folders. Macs Replace Folders, PCs Merge Folders. Macs Replace Folders, PCs Merge Folders. Macs Replace Folders, PCs Merge Folders. Macs Replace Folders, PCs Merge Folders.
I wonder how many more of these gotcha’s are hiding in my new machine?
But, The Time Machine thingie worked as advertised. So, only one photo got lost. And it was no loss.
I still haven’t decided how to catalog, cull, process, organize, etc etc images on The Airness. A whole bunch of images are cataloged using Photoshop Elements over on the XP part of the Dell Box.
I really liked my 30 day trial of Lightroom last summer. I would spring for my very own copy. $299. But, I am in lust with an as yet unavailable camera. It is supposed to ship with a copy of Lightroom. I could use getting a copy of Lightroom to help justify the cost of the camera.
Photoshop Elements for PC used to have vastly superior cataloging abilities over the Mac version. But, I haven’t checked out the current release. PSE is a fine enough program – but it is long on cute scrapbooky features. And, it has a distressing habit of needing frequent expensive upgrades.
I really really miss Irfanview. That would be the great freeware swiss army knife PC image viewer/editor/tweaker. It doesn’t work gracefully with WINE. Someone should take up a collection and pay Irfan Skiljan to port Irfranview to the Linux/Mac world.
I have poked around with iPhoto which comes with The Airness. I didn’t feel the love. At least not yet. Maybe it will grow on me being “free”.
And, I just installed Picasa. The Linux version was some sort of strange package that come with a special version of WINE and the Windows version of Picasa. I think that the Mac version is “pure”. Don’t know. Just guessing.
Just a picture today. Nothing to complain about – except complete lack of adult beverages. But, I have no one to blame but myself for that.
It has been over a month since I started converting my life to “less paper”. Not completely paperless – just less. I have almost finished revisiting my filing box. Anything in it that I think needs saving I am scanning to PDFs. And I have sort of replicated my paper filing system of folders in my computer. New stuff like “important” receipts are scanned and saved for no apparent reason – like the receipt for my new Oly lens. Minor receipts – like from the grocery – I scan them and saved by month. I used to save minor receipts in little sandwich bags – one bag per month and would save them for a year or two. Also for no apparent reason.
And other things like articles to read or recipes to try – they too can be scanned to PDF or printed to PDF’s from the internet. I have a folder called The Fridge and use it for that sort of things.
I am sure there is special software to do this – but I just use stuff that comes with Ubuntu.
I decided to take a pass on LightRoom – for now. It works great and the interface is oh so elegant. But, I had no answer for the “How is paying $300 for software that is incompatible with the $100 software that has 6,683 images cataloged going to improve my life?” After I finish the cataloguing task – yeah right – like never – or when Adobe provides a migration path – then I’ll reconsider. But for now, thanks for the 30 day test – but, I’ll catch you later, LightRoom.
On my glide path into real old age – I am trying to keep things simple and uncluttered. Not cheap or even inexpensive. Just simple. If I have one of a thing – most likely that is enough. If I get a new thing – then I get rid of at least one thing.
May Bernie Madoff live a long life. And may he have a neo-Nazi in the cell to his left and Muslim terrorist in the cell to the right. Would not want him in a cell with a neo-Nazi or terrorist – they might kill him. That boy needs to live to see his 100 birthday.
Actually, a more fitting punishment would be to have him and his wife live out their lives on social security in New York City. Without the benefit of a rent controlled apartment. But that would be “cruel and unusual”.
My pursuit of a less paper lifestyle at home is coming along nicely. And, I did an assessment of the stuff that I have in my kitchen – culled out what that hasn’t been used since we moved to the apartment. (Well, I did save the brass candlesticks and the box of candles in the event of power outage. Carlton isn’t much for candlelight dinners.)
Words from Edmund Burke to ponder.
“Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part of true economy.
Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no comparison, no judgment.”
Not much of a day for picture taking. Wasn’t even all that interested in playing with Lightroom. Did find the rather British looking manhole cover next to the shopping mall.
What I did do, was continue on my path to a “less paper” lifestyle. Most of the old stuff just got tossed. But, some got scanned and stored as PDFs. I recommend adding gscan2pdf to your Linux scanning tool kit. The only issue being I can only get OCR to work in German. I have very little German stuff to scan. But, I am not planning on OCRing anything anyhow. I am PDF-ing.
I did not toss my original birth certificate with little footprints. Don’t know why I am keeping it. I know that I was born.
I did toss – and did not scan – my original Internet account. From 1995. There were 8 single spaced typed pages telling you how to get online. I also tossed all of my old receipts for hardware and software. Didn’t even think about adding up how much money I have spent. Note that in early 1995 I was running a dual boot system, DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1.
Think I have finished culling, editing and cataloguing my images from 2001. Next step is to select the top 20 and have a little book printed. Well, I can not find 20 that I good enough to include. So, I shall resort to the last refuge of the amateur photographer – family snapshots. Forgive me. Also trying to figure out how to do pictures with word press. Stay tuned. Ah, I see – titles muck up the thumbnails. Found a better way. NextGEN Gallery Plug-in.
Enough already. Time get on with the important work of the day – bathroom cleaning!
After three days of snapping photos – I have 297 more to deal with. Maybe it will rain tomorrow and I’ll finish up this year’s Rolling Thunder images.
I have to report that the 3 pound $1000 camera takes better pictures than the 4 ounce $150 camera. Sigh.
Took the FX01 on my forced march this morning. Weather and iris left much to be desired.
About a week ago I realized that I was a digital pack rat. An old woman with too much stuff. Digital Stuff. Well, after a week, my inbox is still empty, and the Hawaii photos from 2001 have been culled and cataloged. Next week, I plan to finish up 2001. Moving right along.
Carlton is watching horse racing. I was always sort of neutral about horse racing, but after last year – when they put Eight Belles down on the track after she came in second. And after Barbaro in 06. So, I am here in the living room, with Carlton watching horse racing on TV. And, I am listening to my “Final Exit” Play List – loud. I hope no horses have to die today so American white women can wear big hats. Black women can wear big hats every Sunday morning. And British woman can wear big hats when ever the Queen comes to visit. But, American white women sacrifice horses to justify wearing big hats.
It was grey and damp today – so, the big camera stayed on the shelf. I took a slightly different route home and was rewarded with this fine iris.
Making real progress cataloging and deleting photographs from Hawaii 2001. When I worked for the curator at Harpers Ferry Park – we had to archive stuff that belonged to Henry McDonald. He was the President of Storer College in the 1930’s and that man never threw anything away. And he was very frugal – using the back of calenders, old letters, etc for note paper. And, he saved newspaper clippings. I called him Henry Ain’t Got No Trashcan McDonald. I may be morphing into a digital version of old Dr McDonald.
Yesterday evening, I realized that I was a 21st century version of the Little Old Lady who lives in a cluttered house filled with old stuff. Old clothes that are out of style and don’t fit, stuff from forgotten hobbies, canning jars, plastic containers, greeting cards, newspaper clippings, every issue of National Geographic since 1962. My clutter is just digital. Heck, I even have digital versions of attic, basement and even public storage lockers.
So, before breakfast this morning – I deleted 250 vintage emails.
Breakfast… it was left over salad. I like salad. Anytime.
Computer work time today was devoted to backing up the computer. Backed up the Photo Archives and iTunes. And the Ubuntu homefolder. In Vista-Time I used an offsite backup service. But, about the time the HP Vista Whore Machine went into intensive care – my backup service had a massive failure and lost all my data. For this I was paying money???
My best of intention is to spend 60 minutes each evening culling and cataloguing photos and generally trying to get my digital files battered into order. Just because I can save everything doesn’t mean I should.