Slideshow Pro gallery working

I finally got Slideshow Pro working properly. There are still a few things to work out, but overall, I was able to create a gallery and add 4 albums. Just in time for the update to the software which will change how it works quite a bit, but at least I won't be lost completely. There seems to be a little more control over things available in the update. That's a good thing. They are also switching to a more secure installation where you can only use the application on one server. That's enough for me, and if I was able to find someone who wanted me to set one up for them, $25 for the software isn't too much.

Who would pretend to be a priest?

Priests in the Catholic church have gotten their share of bad publicity in the past few years. They've earned most, if not all of it with various scandals. However, I guess being a priest is still impressive enough to some people that it will get you into a Notre Dame football game for free. Where did he get the uniform?

Hard drive power supply just quits

I had a nice hard drive case I bought a couple of years ago -- it holds two drives and was very quiet. It was so quiet that I didn't notice that it wasn't even running any longer. Either the power supply just quit or maybe the power cable went bad, but either way it's not working and one of the drives had most of my music on it and the other one had quite a few pictures. Time for another case.

PhotoReviewer 2.1

I took about 550 pictures yesterday. Many of them weren't good for technical reasons -- out of focus, missing heads, nothing interesting in the shot, etc. Loading all those bad images into either iPhoto or Lightroom is time consuming and slows down the whole process of working with the good shots. PhotoReviewer 2.1 is an application which is designed to solve that problem. I like the way it works -- you can either use the Veto or Approve method to rate all the images, or you can set up specific folders and send images to those folders. The second method is an easy way to pick and organize the images you want to keep at the same time. I hadn't tried the application until today because I figured being able to rate the images in the photo organizing application would be good enough, but as I'm accumulating more images, the amount of space taken up by bad ones becomes an issue. And if I move up to a 12 megapixel camera, those bad shots will take up even more space.

Disappearing referee

During one of our soccer games yesterday a weird thing happened. At halftime the head referee left the field and went somewhere. And she didn't come back when the game should have resumed. No one knew where she was, so after waiting about 10 minutes, they moved one of the side judges to referee and got another side judge and started the game. A few minutes later the referee came back and she took over at the start of the last period.

Alpha 700 shots

There's more images and discussion about the new Alpha 700 at the PhotoClub Alpha site. A detailed discussion of the hardware is included, along with close up shots. I like the lens discussion, which also is in-depth. More images to come.

Lifeknot - Why not?

LifeKnot is a social networking site based around common activities. If you are looking for a companion for your next hike or ski trip or whatever you like to do, check it out. Browse activity profiles at Lifeknot.com and you may find a friend or someone special.

Rick Ankiel story

I was thinking last night that the Rick Ankiel story has to be one of the most unbelievable comebacks in sports. The guy went from a pitcher who couldn't deal with the pressure to a slugger who is just hitting the ball like crazy. Unfortunately, it seems like HGH may have played a part in his quick transformation. Since it wasn't outlawed by baseball when he got it and there is probably no proof he used it, I don't think anything will happen. I'd like to get more information about how long the impact of taking things like HGH and steroids last. Do they wear off after a year or is it just a matter of building up your body more quickly during that time and then keeping that? It does seem like some guys are smaller, like Sammy Sosa and Pudge Rodriguez, but who knows?

Apparently Ankiel says it was all prescribed stuff from a doctor. Time will tell.

Traffic hasn't changed

I was away from work for 5 weeks, but going back gave me a rude reminder of how little I enjoy the commute. The last 3-4 miles to work are just brutal and then those same 3-4 miles are much worse when I leave for home. The freeway construction doesn't seem to make much progress and there are more and more cars and trucks clogging the road. I'll bet that once the construction is done, the road will be similar to the way it is now -- very very slow during commute times. I need to negotiate for more telecommuting time with my new boss.

Sweating while you work

It's 100 degrees outside today. No sign of thunderstorms or much in the way of clouds. Very uncomfortable. Inside, people have the lights off to stay cooler, but since the hallways are not air conditioned, it's very warm moving from A to B. Even the bathrooms don't have A/C. Not a relaxing environment.

Sphere links

I added the Sphere plugin to my other weblog since they have one for self-hosted Wordpress sites. It creates a list of other blogs and sites which may be relevant to an individual blog post on your site. It doesn't take up much real estate and everything is automated, but I'll have to see how useful the links are. It seems geared towards politics since they give you an option to include liberal only or conservative only links as well as all kinds.

What is Sphere?

Sphere has something to do with the blogger links available now on CNN.com. I signed up for their free widget and got an email back saying they were so busy it might take a few weeks for them to get back to me. A few weeks? Sounds like they need more employees. I'm still not sure what they do other than "connecting mainstream and social media," which sounds like a good thing.

109 degrees

The high today in Temecula was 109, which is probably as hot as it's been during the eight years I've lived here, although there may have been a few 110 degree days at one point. Either way, it was very hot and it's still 94 degrees about 90 minutes after the sun went down. It feels like Palm Springs, but it must have been even hotter there today. Looks like it's going to be a long, hot Labor Day weekend with most of the daylight hours spent inside.

I went for a walk today at around 9 AM and it was almost unbearable. Not sure I'll be trying that tomorrow.

First day of soccer

We had a very hot first day to the youth soccer season with the temperature close to 100 degrees for the afternoon game at 1:20. By 3:00, things were cooling off fast and our second game was much more comfortable and successful. We lost the first game 4-2, but won the second 9-0. No games next weekend due to Labor Day.

In a first for me, I have my photos from both games online on the first day of the season, this time, in two forms. One is in the Gallery photo album format here while the other two are here and here using Simple Viewer. I prefer the Simple Viewer interface, but the size of the images is smaller and there is more work involved in putting that one together. It may be time to try out Slideshow Pro which creates a very nice photo browser.

iPhone unlocked

I heard this story on the radio this morning and also just saw it online. The iPhone has been unlocked, meaning you could buy one and use it with whatever carrier you choose, not just AT&T, and not just in the US. You wonder if Apple will try to stop it through software updates or legal action, or both. I don't have an iPhone and don't plan to get one due to my lack of interest in phones in general, but I might be more inclined to consider one if I didn't have to continue to go with AT&T. My contract expires next month and I look forward to getting poor service from some other carrier for a couple of years.

pe.com and new media - not a good impression

Newspapers have to adjust to changing times and competition from television and the web. Some do it better than others. PE.com is a local paper which has added some new media elements to their website, but you have to wonder what they were thinking. I checked out their video clip -- 10 questions with Stanford's Toby Gerhart. The video starts with a short and loud car commercial for Corona Chevrolet which is readable and has some motion graphics which look fine. Once the interview with Toby Gerhart starts however, we enter the dimension of overcompressed video which is so overcompressed that some of the questions, show in white on a black background, are completely unreadable. It's also impossible to see Toby's face because of the compression artifacts. The video is such poor quality that I wouldn't go back and watch another one. At least it plays directly on the web page.

The other new media feature on pe.com which is poorly done is the "podcast" feature available for every story. The first time I saw this I wondered how they could afford to create podcasts for all the stories each day. The answer is that they don't. The "podcasts" actually use speech synthesis to read the text of the story. Not something I'd go out of my way to listen to, but it might serve a purpose for someone who is visually impaired. Better than nothing but not much better.

Bathroom conversation

Last week we took a trip to Catalina island from Dana Point. Expensive and short, but it was fun. However, I had an encounter in the restroom prior to the boat ride which was very bizarre. I was in the only stall in the men's room and the bathroom was otherwise empty. Some guy came in and tried to open the stall door by shaking it. Then he said "I guess someone's in there" to himself. He waited about 30 seconds then announced loudly, "hey can you speed it up in there?" I ignored him only because I couldn't imagine that he was talking to me. 15 seconds later he yelled again "you need to speed it up in there! People are waiting." I don't think I've ever spoken to someone from a bathroom stall before, but I said "I've been in there for 2 minutes. Wait your turn." I left about a minute later and shook my head as I walked past him. I'm assuming that he had some issues which were not going to be resolved through any discussion I could have had with him.

White supremacists have to pay up (maybe)

Eight years ago I was on hold on the telephone waiting to talk with a real estate agent in Temecula when the local news came on. It mentioned that a number of local men were arrested in a white supremacist attack on a black man. Hearing that made me wonder if I really wanted to move to Temecula. Today, eight years later, that case was in the news again as the convicted attackers and their families have been ordered to pay the victim restitution. Who knows if he'll ever get the $5.6 million, but I hope he does. Fortunately, there have not been too many more cases like this around here recently, although there have been some.

Oakland Crimespotting site

I don't live in Oakland any more, but I still think the Oakland Crimespotting website is a very interesting use of technology. This is the kind of things that police departments or departments of public affairs could do in large cities to keep citizens informed. I know that I would like to be able to get an RSS feed or email updates related to crime in the places I live and work.

Gothscene.com for goths looking for dates

Where I live, in Temecula, there isn't much in the way of subcultures, just lots of conservatives and their families. Goths are few and far between, so if I was a goth looking for goth dating, I think it would be tough to find suitable goth guys or girls. Gothscene is a dating site for people looking for goths. It's free to join and to create a profile with a description and image and contact information. Check out the descriptions or photos and you can send a message or a flirt when you find someone interesting. The descriptions on this site are much more interesting than the ones I see on other dating sites I've looked at. I don't know if that has to do with the goth theme or not, but the people here are interesting and you may not run into them every day, but you can easily find them online at gothscene.