Reading is FUNdamental

I hate computer updates, I really do.  Sure, if not for them, I would be back in 2000.  But they become so constant and every change makes some favorite app not work right.   Every Firefox or Safari update (about once a week each) means I have to create a new password or lengthen the existing one for my AOL email accounts.

And dammit, even with my accounts printed out on legal size paper and double-spaced, I run out of room and I have silly arrows pointing all over the place to wherever there is room!  Don't worry about my security though.  I have a stand-alone computer for a couple obsolete computer games and I keep my password spreadsheet on that.  Unhackable.

But what got my knickers in a knot today was Mac Photos.  The newest upgrade from Sequoia 15.1 to 15.2  "upgrade" (you will only understand that if you have a Mac) completely changed my camera-to-computer upload procedure.  I went nuts trying to get pictures off my camera yesterday for hours.  

I thought the problem was Photos.  Nothing I tried fixed that.  So I thought it was Sequoia 15.2 which had just been upgraded.  Looking for a new Photos version that worked with it got me nowhere.  The instructions for ways to revert to Sequoia 15.1 were beyond my ability.

And I will add that restarting the computer, shutting it on and off, and looking for "patches" got me nowhere.  So I shut the computer off and went shopping (eyeglass repair, DIY store) just to clear my mind.

When I returned (fed The Mews, cleaned the litterboxes) I went at it again.  And trust me, when cleaning the litterboxes is better than struggling with the computer, you know you have a problem.  

But then the great Spirit of Christmas descended upon me!  I saw a single line in a 4 page help article that referred to "device in the sidebar".  Curious, I went back to Photos and searched around.  And I found the word "device" in a drop-down menu.  Clicking on it, I found "camera".

The good part is that everything worked again.  The mean part is that Mac/Google were trying SO hard to get me on ICloud in a Google-controlled account instead of just letting me manage my little photo world myself.  Sometimes, I feel like a small mouse with a tiny mace fighting a Bobcat!

But I beat them again!

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Allow me an admission.  My favorite baseball player of all time is Pete Rose.  Yeah he bet on games.  But as a player, he was everything I ever tried to be.  His nickname was "Charlie Hustle".   He did his best on every at-bat or fielding effort.  Mickey Mantle once related a story about the first time he saw Pete Rose in the outfield.  Mantle said something like "I hit a homer that was 50' over the wall.  And this new kid climbed the wall trying to catch it.  We called him 'Charlie Hustle' after that".  He always ran hard in a sure out, launched himself at every fly ball he could not possibly reach, and played every day as if it was his last.  I think he once said that he would pay to play baseball.

I understand him everytime I play a game or tackle a computer problem.  Sometimes it isn't skill, but determination.  Perseverance counts too.  Sorry, I didn't mean to talk about myself, it just went from the brain to the keyboard...

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There were only 5 pics on the camera, but 3 were so weird...  I woke up yesterday and thought my neighbors had put a row of fake owls on their roof-ridge to scare away pest birds. But then one of them moved!  And I realized it was a whole row of vultures!

I love taking pictures of The Mews of course, but THIS is really why I have a camera...  For the things that you can never even imagine could happen...

Looking Up

 While I was outside with The Mews, I laid back and looked up.  I thought the tree branches and the clouds were kind of nice.

Nothing important about these pictures, but a few of them looked "interesting"...

Sometimes, I think we don't look up enough.  We are actually evolved to see the horizontal landscape.  That's there the flowers, shrubs and gardens are (and food and predators in times past).  But there are also tall trees, clouds, and blue skies.  

So this is a small respect to "up".

Fire Across The Street

 I was at the computer a few hours ago and heard a dog seeming to be barking in fear.  So I looked out the window.  The toolshed of the neighbors (whom I don't know well) across the street was burning.

I ran for the phone and called 911.  They knew about it.  Said firetrucks were on the way.  Good.  

I pulled my garden hose out hoping it might reach the fire, but I heard the trucks arriving, so I pulled back so as not to bother them.

The toolshed was on fire.  And the shed was next to the house.  The fire spread to the house.  The neighbors have 2 cars.  Both were driven onto the street.  One was badly burned on the back end and there was some concern about the gasoline catching fire.  They were driven/pushed next to a field.

The terrified dog seems to be loose.  It bit one person.  I hope it returns, and more calmly.

Pictures...  Not all of them very good, but I processed all of them slightly.  Perhaps some might be useful to the authorities about the fire.  But I show them all here without regard for duplication.  They are all in time-order though.

There were a dozen fire trucks with lights flashing.

Some of the hoses didn't fill properly at first.  The nearest hydrant is 2 yards away.  Maybe it was blocked from lack of maintenance.  Or they were depending on the watertank trucks.  I don't know.

I saw a firefighter frustrated at not getting water from a tanker truck into a different hose.  He kept trying some levers with no success.

A hose did finally fill.  Maybe 15-30 minutes after first try.  Glad it filled eventually.

There were a LOT of trucks!

The fire-fighters did their usual good job.  I admire those people.  

They got up on the roof and chopped a hole in it.  I assume to let smoke out...

They say no one was in the home at the time.  But they said 1 adult and 2 children lived there.  They are probably wrong about that.  There were 2 cars, I've seen 2 adult women there (driving both cars), and I've seen no children there ever.  

Regarding possible causes for the fire...

I advised one of the firefighters (who seemed to be observing and recording into a phone) of the possible residents and pets.  I advised her that I've never seen the residents lighting a charcoal fire or  using gasoline equipment.  

I also advised her that the residence had been visited by some sort of house and lawn service so there had been gas-powered equipment there that afternoon.  It may not be important, but it might be.

3 hours after it started, the trucks are all gone.  I haven't seen the residents back.  When I do, I will offer help.  What a horrible event for those people!

Processing Pictures

I don't have the best camera.  I don't have the best program (I use Photos on Mac) to process the pictures I take.   I don't have skills to adjust picture colors in details of hues, selective colors, and some other adjustments.

I see pictures on some blogs that are so routinely perfectly-focussed, color-balanced and perfectly-lit that I just sigh in envy.  So it isn't like I'm fishing for compliments here.  I get by "well-enough", and that is about it...  LOL!

But I thought I might mention what I DO routinely do just in case it helps "someone" OR explains why some pictures look better than they originally did.  I mean, I have a routine I go with that "helps me".

1.  The 1st thing I do with a batch of raw pictures uploaded to Photos is go through and delete the hopeless ones.  Wow, who doesn't do that.  But I like to start at the beginning.

2.  I go through the pics and "straighten" them.  I seem to have a vision-tilt to one side.  Meaning I always seem to have to "straighten" in the same direction.

3.  Then I crop.  If you crop first and straighten later, inevitable some part of the picture is lost.  The is no cropping that requires using any 2 opposite corners.

4. After that, I switch to "adjust".  First, I go through "definition" of all pictures at about 90%.  THAT really helps!  If you haven't tried that, try it.  Cat furs show up better and it REALLY improves flower pictures.  And it is easy.  You keep the cursor on the "definition setting you like and then "click", forward arrow, "click" again.  It's repetitive but fast.  It's hard to have "too much" definition.

5.  After "definition", I go through again with light and color level.  My camera doesn't take pictures of The Mews well with flash.  "Low-light" setting works pretty well with normal ceiling lamps indoors.  It is more "even" light and that is more adjustable.

I generally have to raise the light level and then lower the color level.  Otherwise the light seems like a cloudy day and then after I raise the light level, Marley looks like an orange, the walls nearly glow, and the wood floor looks walnut.  So I lower the color level.  I know what color Marley's fur is, the walls are and the floor is, so I get it as accurate as I can.

You might think the light level and color cancel each other, but they don't.  Brightening an entire picture makes the room look brighter; color makes Marley and blankets look more accurate while keeping the picture bright.

6.  Then, I export the pictures to folders.  I have them by year subdivided into moths and then by days.  So, I have "Photographs".  That is divided into subfolders of Cats,Yard, House, Family, and Other.  Each  has a year, month and day.  So, a cat picture processed on May 23rd, 2021 may be in Cats/2021/2105/210523.  I use "year/month/day" because it keeps the pics chronologically and easily findable.  I don't give names to the pictures (OK, in special cases).

7.  But the exported pictures from Photo to the folders arrive at sizes like 1.5MB.  I cant save all that or post them (unless things have changed).  So I go to Preview.  It has easy re-sizing.  "Custom" allows several choices for all the pics from 320x320 to 1920x1920 pixels and there are inch size choices (but I don't deal with those very well).  I almost always use "custom" at 640x640 or 800x800.  For some reason, 640 works better for outside shots and 800 for inside ones

That keeps the resized pics above 100 and below 300 kb, which works well enough for the quality of the pics I use of the blogs.  And I don't yet trust the Cloud, so I keep my original full-sized pics on the hard drive.  I tried copying them to an external 4GB drive, but I couldn't get at them later.  Glad it was "copy" and not not "copy and delete".

8.  I do keep all the originals full-sized.  It is a lot easier to see them full-sized in Photo.  The reduced-size processed pics make me look through them one at a time.

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I hope this has helped someone, explained what I do with pics, or even made you think "wow, I'm smarter than TBT/Cavebear.  ;)

And if I'm doing some unnecessary work, PLEASE feel free to tell me.  

Computer Problems 2

I think I actually solved the photos import!  After trying to import photos from the OLD mac to the NEW one  and letting it process for 3 days (!), I gave up and clicked on "stop importing".  It obviously wasn't working.

So I shut down both computers and looked at the possible cable connections.  HDMI cables give the faster connections, but each has only one and the new monitor I bought only uses HDMI.  So I couldn't connect the 2 macs that way. 

And trying to import the OLD photo folder to the 4TBMy Passport external drive wasn't working.

So I had the thought of just COPYING the OLD iPhoto folder to it.  Took 10 minutes!  Then I ejected and unplugged the My Passport external drive and plugged it into the NEW mac.  And restarted the NEW mac.  (Always a good idea to restart after attached a new device)

Then I went to iPhotos and tried to import from the My Passport.  Nothing...  Gloom...  The iPhoto Library folder stayed "greyed out"  (not recognized) on My Passport.  But I went back to Finder, and opened the file there.  It opened there just fine! 

So leaving it open, I went back to the NEW mac and opened iPhoto, chose "import", and moved my mouse to My Passport.  The iPhoto folder was BLACK (recognized.  I clicked OK (import)

AND IT STARTED IMMEDIATELY COPYING THE PHOTOS!

I can see the photos flashing by on the screen.  Apparently there are 65,000 files.  After an hour, there are 30,000 remaining, but IT IS WORKING!  As the Scarecrow said in 'The Wizard Of Oz'  "Oh Joy! Rapture!

 

Missing Pictures

I posted about some things I've done recently.  But I didn't add pictures the way I usually do.  I was lazy, I admit it.

But here they are...

The broom:

The painted blue planter pots:

I don't recall where I bought them, but they were orange.  The blue is much nicer.  I just hope it lasts.

The old rusted smoker:

It was mostly rusting after many years (even though I mostly kept it covered).  In fact, it is so old, the manufacturer doesn't even sell a cover that fits right.  I will guess 20 years.  It still works.  Partly because I bought 2 specifically shaped metal bases for the charcoal burner offset.  Those are starting to get burnt through and becoming brittle.  Which is why I found a metal roasting pan to set above them and below the charcoal grate.

Cleaning the charcoal burner offset was easy.  Cleaning the cooking area was not.  I had to scrape accumulated meat fat and burnt ashes all inside it.  I have a metal cutting board scooper than worked great for that.  And I have to say that a cleaning product called Kaboom



is a fantastic cleaner.

But back to the smoker...

It looks great, is completely cleaned, and I found a generic cover that fits OK.  I'm leaving the wood platform for Ayla to claw on.  She loves it more than I need it to look perfect.

The Hibachi:

I referred to a "delmonico" to be cooked on the refurbished cast iron Lodge hibachi.  Those those for whom the term is unfamiliar, it is basically a ribeye cut.

"A rib steak is a beef steak sliced from the rib primal of a beef animal, with rib bone attached. In the United States, the term rib eye steak or Spencer steak is used for a rib steak with the bone removed; however in some areas, and outside the U.S., the terms are often used interchangeably. The rib eye or "ribeye" was originally, as the name implies, the center best portion of the rib steak, without the bone.
In Australia and New Zealand, "ribeye" is used when this cut is served with the bone in. With the bone removed, it is called "Scotch fillet".
It is both flavorful and tender, coming from the lightly worked upper rib cage area. Its marbling of fat makes it very good for fast and hot cooking."  ~ Wikipedia

A "hibachi" (in the US) is generally a small charcoal container suited to a single steak or anything of similar size.  I used to have a nice small one but it vanished somewhere along the years.  My current one is larger than I wanted but things get bigger over the years.  My current one is a 2 steak size, but I can live with that.

I painted all of it but the top grate with the 1200F Rustoleum paint after wirebrushing the rust away as best I could.  The Rustoleum instructions said not to paint the cooking surface.  So I oiled it and baked it in the oven the way you would any new cast iron pan.  I mostly use cast iron pans for most of my cooking (and they all have wonderful black patinas inside and are nearly non-stick), so doing that was just a routine matter.  I had planned to use it yesterday, but it was so cold and windy (and the hibachi is open on top) that I decided to postpone the re-use.

Mailbox flag repair:

No picture, nothing to see.  It was a bit of wedging here, a pliers pull there, and some axle grease the rain won't wash away (really thick stuff).  But a "hard to move mailbox flag" became an "easy to move flag".

Hope the pictures helped make the past few posts make more sense.  Pictures are good.

Computer Fun

"Computer Fun" and I say that sarcastically.  I just spent 4 hours restoring processed and organized pictures that suddenly vanished.  Some background...

I use a Mac Mini.  It is small, but sufficient.  And I like the fact that it is solid state and doesn't need a fan.  It could use a few more ports, but I I have just barely enough and haven't needed more yet. 

I keep my files organized, especially the pictures.  IPhotos holds all the full-sized pictures by date.  When I crop, filter and resize them for blog use, they go into a new folder (like documents and applications do).  I think most people keep their pictures by subject.  I take too many to be able to find them that way.

So, in the Photos folder, I set up 6 subfolders"  Cats, Family, House, Other, Videos, and Yard.  Each of those folders gets a new subfolder each year (2018, for example).  Each year folder gets monthly folders (January 2018 is 1801).  Daily subfolders when I need one (January 20, 2018 would be 180120).  That may or may not seem seriously complicated, but I can navigate to any subject and day in about 5 seconds.

I did spend my career organizing information after all...  ;)

Now, also, Mac has an app called "Time Machine".  Connected to an external hard drive, it keeps automatic backs of all changes in files and by some program I know NOTHING about,  it connects to all past saves so that you can restore individual files, individual folders, individual programs or your entire computer.

And that has saved me more than once for individual files to the whole thing!  I LOVE TIME MACHINE!

So I went to add a Flashback Friday post on Marks Mews.  I choose them by scrolling through IPhotos It displays dates, and when I find one I want to use, I just go to that date in Photos (IPhotos is an app; Photos is a saved personal folder).

The original full-size picture was in IPhotos but the processed picture I wanted was not in my Photos subfolder.    And I discovered that half the pictures in my subfolders from 2016 and earlier were gone!  ARRRGGGHHHHH!

I should mention that while Mac computers have strong anti-hacking software built-in, I do use one called MacKeeper to look for adware, malware, useless files, etc.  And I was using it frequently the past few days.  I made the mistake of trying to download a TV show I wanted a quote from and ended up with a pop-up ads.

I didn't realize how aggressive MacKeeper could be defining "useless files".  It allows you to look at the list of files to be deleted, but file names can be difficult to interpret.  After reading a dozen and not seeing anything that worried me (most seemed to be if I needed to read something in a foreign language), I went ahead and clicked "OK".  It deleted almost a 1,000 files and gave me back   about a Gb memory, so I was rather pleased. 

Until I discovered a lot of processed pictures missing...  Now I'm not saying that MacKeeper did that, just that both things seemed to happen at the same time.  Maybe I got hacked at the same time.  But I am suspicious of coincidences!

So I went into Time Machine and tried restore individual folders from 2 days ago, iy didn't work.  So I looked at the Time Machine backups from a week before and those were blank.  I had to go back to August, and there they all were!

Not to get too technical (unless someone has a question), but I had to select specific folders for Cats, Family, House, Other, Video, and Yard one at a time and save one then then go back and do another. and double check because once it didn't restore (probably my fault, but that's why you check).

BUT!  They are all back now...  The Flashback Fridays post on Marks Mews is proof.

MacKeeper is a good app.  It does find adware, some tracking malware, and actually non-essential files.  But I will be a LOT more careful in the permissions I allow it in the future, LOL!

Holiday Lighting Outtakes

Apparently, I can't take pictures of lights at all...

The Wristwatch, Part 2

I still miss the look of the old Phasar watch.  And I'm keeping it in case I find a good repair site.  Not that I expect to, but the little watch doesn't take up much space in a drawer I keep weird stuff in.

Here is a picture of the new watch from the selling site...


Ignore the resin watchband; that's what I tore off.  But do note that the display shows time to seconds, day and date above, and 'PM" to the left of the time (not shown).  I don't have to push any buttons to know everything I want from a watch.

There is still too much unnecessary junk wording around the top and bottom,  but that was the simplest I could find.

The new band is a double velcro type that is hard to find.  But it is also black, and that suits me.

I expect to have to change the battery soon.  Very oddly, the watch came with a notice that the installed battery was for testing and evaluation and may not last as long as a new commercial battery.   Somehow, they managed not to mention that on the sales site.   Well, that's OK, I have the tools to replace it.

I am actually quite pleased with the new watch.  Black suits me, the small amount of blue is not especially obvious in daylight, and the replaced velcro is soft and comfortable. 

Here are pictures of the assembled watch and bands...

Old Photo

 My sister sent me the most AWESOME photo yesterday!

I can surely guess that it is from late Spring 1922, and probably where it was taken (Ohio).  I have no certainty who the 2 gentlemen on the left are.  I can guess about the guy on the right.  Why?

Because the baby being held is my Dad!

I'll assume the guy holding my dad is my paternal grandfather.  I'll make a logical guess that the 2 gentlemen on the left are my 2 paternal great-grandfathers.

WOW!

Computer Happiness

I dragged the old PC to a local PC repair shop.  I mainly want to use it to play Civilization2.  Its a 90's game.  My Mac is too modern to play even the old Mac versions and my attempts at downloading Mac-to-PC crossover platforms failed utterly.  So I brought my old PC in for cleaning and rebooting.  They said they could do that, though getting a Windows 98 reboot might take some research.

Fine.

But then I casually asked them if they could clean a Mac.  Not work on it, just clean it enough so that the evil Apple Store (who considers a little cigarette smoke a "toxic violation of OSHA working conditions") would repair one.  And I'm not defending smoking here, I hate it myself.  Lets not get into that.

But OMG, OMG, OMG, they will work on Macs too.  They even have "a Mac guy"!  So after I returned home to retreive the Civ2 CD I meant to bring at the start, I brought them the old $3,500 Mac Pro that has been a doorstop for some years.

They said "sure, we can clean and fix that".

THUD!  I'm not kidding.  "THUD!!!"

I think there are the old pictures of Skeeter and LC on that hard drive.  There are old letters to Mom and Dad.  There are old family pictures.  There are old games of Civ2.  There is stuff I don't even know is on there!

And when I pick up the old PC and the original Mac, I will bring them the previous Mac Mini to clean.  I'll sell the old (working) Mac Pro (minus the hard drive) and will add the newly working Mac Mini with a wireless connection (I hope) so that I can visit our cat friends away from the desktop.

Assuming they can really fix Macs.

You have to understand that the nearest Apple Store is almost an hour drive away, AND you need an appointment you dare not miss by a minute (or you stand in a long line), AND its in the middle of a BIG CONFUSING MALL so you have to carry a 20 pound Mac Pro around for an hour, etc...

Man, if these local guys will actually clean and work on Macs, they have a customer for LIFE!!!

But we'll see...