Cricalix.Net

A while ago, I made the decision to purchase Lightroom, and then upgraded to Lightroom 2.  I’ve since added J. Friedl’s Facebook and Flickr plug-ins, and found them to be pretty useful.  Toss in the LR2/Mogrify plug-in, and life gets even better – LR2’s native watermarking is not very good.

As I’ve started to post my images across multiple sites, I’ve found I have the need to track where I’ve posted a particular image.  Enter the Adobe Lightroom SDK, a text editor and 15 minutes of effort, culminating in a custom plug-in for Lightroom that allows me to track precisely where I’ve posted an image to.  Even nicer, the fields are available in the metadata filter part of the Library, so I can open my catalog of 18,000 photos and ask Lightroom to tell me which ones were taken with the 50mm lens, and were uploaded to Flickr.

Pretty nifty.

Shanade Morrow

For the handful of people who actually read this, yes I’m still alive; I’ve just had no inclination to write anything here.

Been doing gig photography recently, and thoroughly enjoying it, even if the lighting can be an absolute nightmare for the D80.

Master Fiddler

The upshot is that I’m meeting people, socialising, and honing my photography skills.  Even better, I know precisely where I’ll be every Thursday night!

Someone at work has requested a way to access our SugarCRM system from their Outlook 2007 / PDA client, so that the meetings can be synchronized properly.  A bit of research led me to the Sugar iCal patch on SugarForge, and the Internet Calendars option in Outlook 2007.  Unfortunately, the first set of instructions I found said to use the Files > Data Files Management option to access the Internet Calendars.  This method didn’t work very well (actually, it didn’t work at all), as Outlook would never synchronize the iCal file (it always said pending), and would promptly lose the setting when I closed Outlook.

It turns out the proper way to do it, when using Exchange integration, is to access Tools > Accounts, and add the calendar subscription there.  The Send/Receive option in Outlook then works flawlessly, pulling down all the changes in the SugarCRM source every time Send/Receive is run.

Felt a bit nostalgic, installed DOSbox, and went looking for some older games that I used to play.

Found Lemmings.

Lost time.

Having recently purchased a new LCD panel (HP 24″ S-IPS), I decided to calibrate it using my Spyder2Express.  So, I installed the 2.3.1 software, and immediate fail – it’s not designed to work with a 64-bit installation of Vista; Vista is less tolerant of unsigned drivers.  So, a bit of research, and I found I needed the 2.3.5 version of the software.  Downloaded, installed, ran.  What do you mean ’serial number’?  Hunted around, dug through paperwork piles, CD casings, boxes – nada.  Against all hope I filled in a form on Datavision’s site, explaining my dilemma and asking if I’d have to buy a new Spyder2 to get a new serial number (which I could do easily).  To my surprise, I had a reply within 24 hours, with a new key no less.  My display is now colour calibrated, and I’m trawling through 17,000 photos to verify the calibration.

Datavision++.

Got tired of the green cable that ran from the back of the router downstairs, up over the back of a hanging picture, wrapped around a light fixture, then around a banister, then draped across the floor of the landing upstairs.

Went looking for some Powerline carrier modules, and settled on the Belkin 200 Mbps model (though I paid less than that link).  The pair arrived today, and took all of 2 minutes to hook up.  No hiccups at all, no software required (there is software, but I can’t think what it might do that would be useful to me).

Now all I need is a 2-way or 3-way power block for downstairs so I can remove the long extension cable, and then the additional phone cabling and it’ll look a lot neater.

And now, the penultimate part of my tale – crackers, another dragging anchor and 20 foot seas.

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