Splash of Style...Macs, Photography, Design, and other Passions

AOL is a Cruel Joke

October 18, 2008 by debbie T | Digital Photography

haha, not such a funny joke, but AOL is so f@#*$ stupid!!!

I haven’t chatted regularly in years, but I decided to start chatting w/ one of my online buddies and dug out an old AOL AIM log in and password. I downloaded Adium and logged into my AIM account.

I figured I better head over to AIM.com to check settings and make sure everything was valid and up to date; my email address was incorrect, so I went through the menus to change it.

I get an email at my new email address, and the text instructs me to:

“Please reply to this email and type ‘OK’ within 72 hours to confirm your email address change to xxxxx@gmail.com from xxxxx@xxxx.com. It is really important that you confirm your new e-mail address.”

So, I reply with the word “OK” and silly AOL returns my email:

“Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 553 553 Requested action not taken: mailbox name not allowed (state 18).”

What?

I tried no less than three times to reply, and I received the same delivery failure message. The problem appears to be the extra long email address that AOL has set up for me to reply to.

I also tried to change my email address again in my AOL account settings, and it won’t allow me because “There is already a pending change. We cannot change your E-mail Address at this time.” Perfect.

So, since the original email I used to set up the account is inactive, I set up a forward in my web account’s cpanel to “forward” all mail to my gmail account. It’s absolutely crazy how messed up AOL is.

How to Fix Camera Hot Pixels

October 16, 2008 by debbie T | Digital Photography

Found this post tonight on the Canon Digital Photography forums – scroll down to post #742.

Putting the camera in sensor cleaning mode (mirror lock) for a few minutes appears to jog the pixel.

I have noticed stuck/hot pixels on my photos when I use an extremely slow shutter speed, other than that, it’s really not a problem. But you never know when it might come up, so I am blogging this tip for the future.

How to Search in Aperture 2

October 15, 2008 by debbie T | Aperture 2 • Art and Graphics • Digital Photography • Mac Software

My friend Allison from the Nosillacast podcast emailed me, asking about searching for a specific file name in Aperture 2. I thought it was simple enough because I do it all the time, but when I received her reply asking WHERE is the search, I realized, AH HA! you have to be in a specific view mode to see the search box.

Read the Rest of the Article

How To Be More Popular on Flickr

October 4, 2008 by debbie T | Digital Photography • Flickr

A few weeks ago, I received an email from another Flickr member asking “how do you get SO many people to comment on your work? how do you manage to not get it lost among the zillions of photos here?”

Ha! If I had the true answer to popularity on Flickr!! Seriously, I don’t consider myself to be one of the most popular photographers on Flickr, and I am not claiming to be an expert. But I guess I do alright.

This article is a snapshot of my journey and how I came to my place in the Flickr community today. It’s just a few things I have noticed along the way.

Read the Rest of the Article

Aperture 2 Managing Libraries

September 28, 2008 by debbie T | Aperture 2 • Art and Graphics • Digital Photography • Mac Software

I am eventually going to run out of space on my Macbook Pro as I import the photos from my iPhoto libraries to Aperture 2.

This means I will have to maintain a smaller library on my MBP (containing current projects), along with a larger library on an external hard drive. Looks like it is pretty easy to do.

I figured out that double-clicking on any library will launch Aperture 2, and I love the idea of creating shortcuts to each library on your desktop or dock for easier access.

Here’s what I learned:
Links for managing multiple Aperture 2 libraries

Editing Aperture 2 Autofill

September 28, 2008 by debbie T | Aperture 2 • Art and Graphics • Digital Photography • Mac Software

To add, delete, and edit the autofill contents in Aperture 2, choose
Metadata>Edit Autofill List

Found @ Inside Aperture

I am loving Aperture 2 more and more each day!

Aperture 2 – Inspector on Left or Right

September 27, 2008 by debbie T | Aperture 2 • Art and Graphics • Digital Photography • Mac Software

Using Aperture 2 tonight, I was typing a keyword & accidentally hit the “I” key which hid the Inspector.

I don’t know the keyboard shortcuts very well and I somehow must have hit “Shift + I” and the Inspector reappeared but on the opposite right side of my workspace.

At first, I thought okay, let’s give it a try, maybe I will like it on the right side. But after a few minutes, I wanted the inspector back over on the left side. I tried dragging the Inspector, but it didn’t work. Google to the rescue.

http://www.apple.com/aperture/features/100.html

To switch the Inspector on the either side, click “Shift + I”

I really need to find a list of keyboard shortcuts for Aperture 2. Maybe I should try reading the manual, eh? Ha, there is a full pdf list on the Aperture Support page at Apple.

Download the pdf file directly.

Fantastic Bird Photography Website

September 27, 2008 by debbie T | Digital Photography • Podcasting

I found an inspiring bird photography web site the other day. It was referenced on a recent TWiP podcast show, which also included an interview with Arthur Morris.

BirdPhotograhers.net is almost too good. The photos are incredible, and there is so much to learn about nature photography.

I am still a beginner when it comes to birding and bird photography; I don’t know if I will ever be as wonderful as some of the photographers on BirdPhotograhers.net but it’s fun to keep trying.

White Throated Sparrow

Erasing and Reformatting a Camera Memory Card

September 26, 2008 by debbie T | Art and Graphics • Digital Photography • Mac Software

I was having crash problems with Aperture 2 (my photo management & editing app) when trying to import my photos directly from a compact flash card. See my previous article for more details.

I found what I hope is a solution – Erasing and reformatting the compact flash card in my computer, NOT just in my camera.

I am a believer of formatting your media memory card in your camera before every new photo shoot. But formatting this way doesn’t permanently erase the data; there is still a way to recover the data even after it has been formatted. My thoughts are, if a memory card is fully erased in your computer, then any extra residue will be removed and it should keep your cards running smoothly.

Think of it this way. It’s like when you reinstall Mac OS X or Windows. They say you should never reinstall without an erase and format of your hard drive, right? At least that is my way of looking at it, right or wrong, I don’t know for sure.

Remember, don’t format or erase your card(s) until you download your photos to your computer AND back them up to a second source. Always keep at least TWO copies of your photos!!

This tutorial covers how to erase and format using Mac OS X, but there are other excellent tutorials out there for Windows users. I found one from the Simple Help that is excellent. Just make sure to format as FAT.

Read the Rest of the Article

Aperture 2 Crashing when Importing from Compact Flash Cards

September 25, 2008 by debbie T | Aperture 2 • Art and Graphics • Digital Photography • Mac Software

I have been having a problem w/ Aperture 2 crashing when trying to import photos from my compact flash cards. So, after Aperture 2 crashes, I have to “force quit” and unless I restart or log out/log in, Aperture will not relaunch without crashing again. Very aggravating. It has happened with two different cards, using two different card readers.

Importing works fine if I save all photo files to my hard drive first from the compact flash card.

(Note: it seemed to have started after my last Mac OS X update (10.5.5) but that could be just a coincidence.)

The good news is, I think I found a solution, possibly (hopefully). I erased and reformatted (FAT) each card in Disk Utility, and this morning I was able to import some test shots into Aperture 2 without any issues.

I always format the card in my camera before every new shoot, but I know that doesn’t actually erase everything since photos can still be retrieved after a reformat, so there may be extra gunk lurking. After time, the gunk piles up, and it might just need a thorough cleanup. At least that is my train of thought!! LOL.

I know there are some photographers that say formatting is not necessary, but I have always believed otherwise.

I guess time will tell if my Aperture 2 problem is really fixed.

UPDATE 2008-10-1: I had another problem w/ a card today. I reused a card that had shots already downloaded on it, and I should have formatted it (following my own advice!) I only had a few photos on it; so, after I downloaded them, I stuck the card back in the camera.

UPDATE 2008-10-2: Sigh, I don’t know what is up w/ Aperture now. I can’t import from a card/card reader. It either crashes while trying to read the card, or crashes when I am trying to import from the card. Today, I trashed my preference file (com.apple.Aperture.plist) and allowed Aperture to create a new one. I reset all my preferences and I thought I might have got it working, but it got stuck when trying to read half the photos on the card. Some previews were visible, and the photos toward the end only displayed little square placeholders.

I launched Aperture in my other user account, and the same thing. Only some were displaying previews. I found an article by Tracy Ambrose stating that Aperture chokes on a lot of “different” formats that it doesn’t recognize, and I am wondering if somehow that is what is happening to me. I don’t understand why though, since all I have on the cards are RAW files. It imports them just fine when I import from my hard drive (downloaded from card)

I also found an article on Inside Aperture which recommends to delete any color pickers from your ~/Library/Color Pickers/ directory. I don’t think that would have any affect on me, since my other user account is having the same problem, and there are no color pickers in my Library there.

I will keep looking, but I guess until I find an answer, I will have to import from my hard drive. What a pain!!

UPDATE 2008-11-9: After Apple released the RAW bundle update 2.3, Aperture 2 seems to be working better. Installed the other day, and no problems so far with importing.