Fragments From Floyd

In my never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American Way (well maybe not the recent AW) I’ve explored a few more tools since the last Geekly Weekly, and since not a one of you is begging me to share, okay okay: I will.

CHROME, PRISM, FluidApp Biggest Web New Arrival this week is Google’s browser, Chrome. I don’t expect to jump ship anytime soon and abandon the essential FFx add-ons that will take Chrome some while to appropriate (as it is open source, after all). While there are some cool things about Chrome, FFx can do many of them already. One–turning web sites into free-standing apps–is cool, but Firefox has has Prism and Mac has Fluid App that can be used for the same purpose to create SSB’s– site specific browsers– that in the latter case are free-standing fully mac-compliant programs with their own dock icons, menu bar drop-downs and such. I’m using one for my biz info, a Google Spreadsheet that is way faster than opening Numbers.

TWITTERSEARCH Speaking of websites, Twitter now has search function. Just enter the word in the search field and hit enter; updates come as fast as they’re twittered from around the world. I have set up as an SSB with two windows side by side (Ike and Hanna at the moment).

CUT AND PASTE Freeware: PTH Pasteboard. I won’t need it constantly, but it ought to be standard issue with OS-X. I still prefer SnagIT but it is PC only.

CHUNKIT and GRABuP  More Freeware for FireFox: ChunkIt! This program that works WITH firefox but is NOT just an add-on is harder to explain. Let me just send you to a screenshot (by GrabUp, another freebie for Mac) and explain. ChunkIt (from the installed toolbar) will take a Google Search window or other web page and drill down into it to show search terms in context. In this example, I’ve done a site search of Fragments for Tsuga (since you asked about him, Mark.) Then I’ve told ChunkIt to “chunk” the links on the google page, and from that, I’m able to see in each found link how my search term is used in context. IN this case, I have a third SplitBrowswer window open showing the blog post in which I’ve found the search-ed for combination of the dog’s and and details of the post–without having to open each post separately. Clear as mud. Right?

Okay. Note the Twitter block on the left sidebar on Fragments for the past couple of days–sort of like weenie little updates. And so you can keep up with fast breaking weather news, check out the Wx-Man’s Perspective blog. That Ike looks like one bad dude.

I had more but I see your eyes crossing there and will have mercy. Until the next Geekly Weekly. You were warned.

The links and alerts come in as I boot up (with the Mac, simply move the mouse to instantly wake up) the computer, stumble through the dark for coffee and come back to a page of rabbit trails. Most are deleted straightway, but some are tantalizingly interesting, followed, and soon I’m not any place I’d intended or needed to be in a day’s work. I generally allow myself some of this free-form browsing guilt-free first thing and as reward for real work later on–tossaway moments that don’t really count.

This is a longwinded way of telling you this morning’s free time found a possible keeper called Pathway (sorry, Mac only) that is both interesting and potentially helpful in its own right (as a Wikipedia links visualizer as you see in the screenshot) and as a model for ways the future web can be organized in research so that, in pursuing a topic, one keeps sight of the relationship between where they are and where they have been.

Ah but wait: a simple click on the Science pod from the displayed Wikipedia home page on Pathway brings up an image of some science fiction looking construction that turns out to be REAL: the Falkirk Wheel. Amazing! And off I plunge, second cup of coffee, blissfully following my nose.

Hmmm. Now I’m rethinking online research–AGAIN–so have two divergent trails to follow from the morning’s freeform time: I downloaded DevonAgent for review to complement Devonthink I already have. And I will take another look at Zotero, a free Firefox plug-in created by researchers (at George Mason U just up the road) for researchers. If you haven’t seen this one, take a look at the video. It’s an impressive package I rejected a year ago because I had OneNote. Now I don’t.

Meanwhile, I remember I have more bug pix to show you, some on the pocket camera and some on the Nikon card. For later today…

There is now a new toaster oven sitting on my desk! Well, at least after Ann makes a quilted cover for it as she offered, that’s what it will look like. The Epson 2880 is rather large-seeming after many years of 8×10 printing, but folds up nicely and leaves me some desk surface for the spreading of clutter that makes the wife so fond of me. Hey: its MY clutter. And I prefer to refer to it as my UHSREP: Unsorted Holdings Staged Randomly for Eventual Processing.

The first day with the Epson was marked by successes–the installation of 8 ink cartridges. And then there was the remainder of the afternoon during which I learned the depths of my ignorance. Hours. It took more than an hour to figure out in the Photoshop printer dialogue that yes, even though you’ve changed very little of what used to be available (like selecting your paper, how to handle color, that sort of thing) against your better judgement, you go ahead and hit PRINT thinking “this can’t be right!”

Yes, Dilbert. Hit PRINT and all the other choices come up. Forget the fact that you haven’t a clue what choices to make.

Trudge, trudge, trudge–up the learning curve. Does each Epson paper (of those indicated as compatible with this model printer) come with its own basic color calibration? What are the characteristics of each paper that make you chose that one and not another–a question I can only learn by a certain number of future “Yuk!”s. And where do I find how to calibrate the Apple 23” monitor so WYSIWYG?

I am filled with hopeful dread.

Three kinds of photo paper is on its way. Thanks, all, who recommended Altex. I like the way their page pulls up all the inks and papers for the 2880 AND gives the best price!

I’m going to try to enjoy the journey, relish having something both geeky and creative to sink my teeth into with this printer and printing learning curve. I appreciate having folks around for help, encouragement and dope slaps.

Many of you were along when I was at this same confused state with regard to writing and self-publishing. And remembering that, this seems like yet another sortee into uncharted territory, filled with stunning vistas–and bogs of despair. I think I need more coffee before I cast off into the vacuum of space. See ya later.

The story of stuff is a tale I enter reluctantly but far too often. Try as I might to swim against the current of temptation and want, I will yield to the flow of consumerism and rationalize that I must have just one more toy, one more upgrade, and then I’ll be content, I promise. But I rarely am.

And so, in this joy of expectation in what my new tools will afford me, there is the usual conflict between the devil of You Have Enough and the devil of Just One More. But here’s how the latter devil frames his argument:

Your old Canon printer doesn’t work with your new Mac operating system. You know you need to own a functioning color printer, even if all you do is the usual occasional prints for family. The Canon can stay right where it is for printed pages of text. But to print to photo paper, you have no choice but to replace what you have.

If you plan to do “art prints” you’ll need a machine that goes beyond 8 x 10 dimension. That means more desk real estate taken up, greater expense in inks, and of course, a more complex and expensive machine. You want archival inks, want to be able to use the best paper for the image, and a machine with a high probability of reliable service for several years. Another $150 printer will not suffice.

And here’s the thing: you have left some concrete vestige of your words between the covers of Slow Road Home. (As a legacy when you’re gone, the million words of Fragments will be a mere ghost.) But what you don’t have are tangible, “permanent” expressions of your visual creativity. Get a few dozen images printed up and framed for your walls if nothing else. There, you’ll have something that will persist, hang on the walls of your children–or the folks who buy five pictures for a dollar at the auction of your “stuff” when you leave this blessed place.

And forget about the expense. You’ll be able to show your stuff in the galleries that have offered you space in the past when you had nothing ready to hang. You’ll sell enough the first year to pay for the printer; after that, you can at least make enough from the occasional sales to pay for paper and ink for your personal prints. You have friends in the framing and matting biz and others who can tutor you in printing expertise. You have the ability to set up a web store for online sales. What are you waiting for?

So today, I may order the Epson R2880 from B&H–unless I get cold feet; unless some of you Have Enough devils can tell me some good reasons why I shouldn’t opt for just one more toy–no, tool! Or can offer a better choice of printer–with explanation. (The older Epson 2400 would be $130 less with a rebate for the next two weeks. I wonder.)

Don’t make it any wider this Christmas. Give children toys, not devices–things that encourage engagement with other children, their muscles, and nature. Is there a problem?

Between 1997 and 2003, the proportion of children ages 9 to 12 who spent time hiking, walking, fishing, playing on the beach or gardening declined 50 percent, according to a University of Maryland study. Children between the ages of 8 and 18 spend an average of 6 1/2 hours a day with electronic media, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Kids are still curious by nature. But it is no longer nature that draws their curiosity. They learn about their place in the world beyond the screen of their monitor, not beyond the door to the world they will inherit. This even applies to kids in California and Colorado where there are more plenty of natural areas for children to visit and explore:

Yosemite may be nice and all, but Tommy Nguyen of San Francisco would much prefer spending his day in front of a new video game or strolling around the mall with his buddies.

What, after all, is a 15-year-old supposed to do in what John Muir called “the grandest of all special temples of nature” without cell phone service?

“I’d rather be at the mall because you can enjoy yourself walking around looking at stuff as opposed to the woods,” Nguyen said from the comfort of the Westfield San Francisco Centre mall.

In Yosemite and other parks, he said, furrowing his brow to emphasize the absurdly lopsided comparison, “the only thing you look at is the trees, grass and sky.”

Kids don’t think of it as a park. They just think of it as a big open space where there is nothing to do.” …The notion of going on a hike, camping, fishing or backpacking is foreign to a growing number of young people in cities and suburbs around the nation, according to several polls and studies.”

Dear me, I’m weakening. The marriage bonds of PC with Mac software and hardware has enticed me. I never thought I’d do it. I haven’t yet. But I feel the gravitational pull of Apple drawing me into its orbit!

There’s just no joy or energy in the prospect of doing the Dell/Vista thing when the time comes to replace this 4-yr-old desktop system. Besides, we’ll keep the current PC desktop should I have (Mac users will laugh) “Windows withdrawal” because–you can’t really appreciate the enormity of this statement–Ann wants this box upstairs in her office! But that’s another story.

I got all excited a few days back, early in my hopeful and eventual conversion. The Mac Pro/Quad 2.66GHz Xeon lists at $2500. That’s steep, but it’s about where my PC systems have settled for the past couple of computer replacements–with the same dollars buying more and more machine. Then I realized in my giddy shopping spree-glee that the monitor is not included in the price. Gulp. And what software will I need to transition to a “universal” or Mac version? Does a Mac come with the equivalent of MS Office, for instance?

And it seems the “universal” dual-OS thing on the same machine is not quite ready for prime time. “Non-native software (notably Adobe Creative Suite) must be translated via Rosetta Stone.” That’s coming along, but sounds like I should wait a while, and can’t jump anyway until I am able to purchase it from the Words and Pixels account (Lilliputian income from writing and photography). So keep those book and note card purchases, sponsor visits and sidebar donations coming in! Maybe there’s a Mac coming to Goose Creek in our lifetimes!

Suggestions, warnings, encouragement appreciated in this scary change of life adventure. It’s a bit overwhelming. Virtual PC? Boot Camp? My First Mac is bookmarked and as good a starting place as any, I suppose.

It seems like entropy passes through in waves. I think “things come in threes” is a version of that observation, because it’s hardly ever things coming TOGETHER in threes, one after the other. In the world of mechanics and data, things spontaeously break. It’s only in the amazing world of biology that broken things mend. But that’s a story for when I’m wearing my PT hat. This morning, I speak specifically of things digital.

First, I discovered early last week that my AdSense ads had disappeared from my sidebar. Then later that day, they reappeared. The next day they were gone again. Blogger Gary Boyd told me he had the same problem, but it was a FireFox problem. Sure enough, they show up on MSIE. And should I worry? Problogger is talking about reports of Adsense pay-per-click freefall. So maybe my little problem makes no difference.

Second, while my switch from PC-Cillin Internet Security to Kaspersky Internet Security went fine on the desktop, it failed to install completely on the laptop. I’ll hold my flames pending what now can no longer be a prompt resolution of that problem. But one consequence of the proper installation is that I can’t get to Sitemeter (Kaspersky smells a rat.) Again, maybe that isn’t such a bad thing, since Sitemeter seems to have sold out to a sitetracking cookie monster (half a dozen, actually; I just followed the directions at this link and removed them and banned the source–specificclick.net–from my browser. You might want to consider doing the same. If anybody thinks this is NOT true, or NOT a problem, I am willing to be disabused of my sadness at the loss of Sitemeter after more than five years of use.

Thirdly, well as I said, Kaspersky. Tech support has responded to two emails, but each time it has taken a full two days (this is the third since the last one and no reply.) So my Friday installion from last week on the laptop still has not been resolved. I’m hoping that once it is, we’ll have smooth sailing. I’ll most definitely let you know the outcome.

It was exactly the kind of morning I dread: no traction, no resolution in sight, damned if I do or if I don’t. The issue, to upgrade my internet security / antivirus software (PC-Cillin 2007) before the deadline a week off–to suffer the ills I know, or change to something else entirely. The pros just about exactly equaled the cons, and I could not for the life of me decide.But in the end, given the bad consumer reviews of my current program, I decided for a change despite the negatives–like the fact that I have to buy separate licenses for laptop and desktop. But wait: there’s a competitive upgrade, $25 off. All I do is send in my original install disk of PC-Cillin 2005. Hmmm. Now where have I seen that lately?

But it wasn’t in any of the obvious places, and yet I had a clear image of it in my mind. Where the heck could I put my hands on it, now that I had committed to Kaspersky Internet Security 6?

Aha! I remembered: it’s tied out on the garden fence, one of a dozen sparkling, twirling CDs blowing in the morning breeze, software defense turned gardening offense.

I think they’ll take it for the rebate, even though it has a little hole drilled in it for the fishing line. Ya think?

Image: Sensitive Fern, Onoclea sensibilis, so named for its susceptibility to the first frost of fall, and somewhat unusual in that its pinnae are lobed lightly but not dissected like the more lacy ferns. I think the term is “once-pinnately divided”.

I’m going to have to do something drastic–not to mention half-informed–to be able to make changes to the sidebar again.

One day last week, comments disappeared, only for a single post. To get it back, I hit republish (my blog is housed off-site, not with Blogger) and when the page reappeared, the background was white. My light gray text disappeared, of course.

A reverting to a saved February template brought back the gray background (and the old header images, and the outdate Adsense blocks, and the first not second set of notecards.

I’d really like to fix all that–and add some important new elements as well–but now if I do as much as add a single space or change one letter of one word in the template, when I preview it, I’m back to the white background .

Blogger forums have been silent to my posts for help. I’m on my own with this one. So if I disappear for a day or three, I am fumbling blind trying to start over with a fresh template and build it back, one item at a time.

I’ll still have Nameless Creek as an outlet for my blogger notions, so check over there if things are FUBAR’ed here. And of course, if anybody has an inkling what might be going on, or how to make this repair/transition without excessive hair pulling, I’m listening. I probably won’t dive in until some time tomorrow.

What do I know about image sales? Not nearly as much as I hope to after a few months growing a portfolio over at Lucky Oliver. What! You never heard of LO?

Swing over and take a look, including a visit to the blog where the “grand scheme” marketing plan unfolds. Or start from the Main Page, the Big Top of this carnival of imagery and community.

I’m pleased that I deal with people–folks like Jill yesterday who repeatedly looked at an image I was trying to submit unsuccessfully and guided me along through a string of immediate email replies until I got it right. I now have my first three images accepted, and hope for a few dozen more over the next few weeks.

The other thing I appreciate at Lucky Oliver is that the story of the image is given considerable emphasis. There’s more going on here than a simple repository of pix. It’s early yet, but I’m impressed with the feel of the place, and hope you’ll help spread the word. Heck, maybe toss your three in the ring and see if you win a Cupie Doll. Step right up! Roll up those shirt sleeves, and test your luck and skills, bucko!