Good Idea Recognized

Every once in a while I see something that makes me want to say, "Good job!!"  and hope that someone got a bonus in his or her paycheck.  Today it is the new McCormick spice packs.  Of course, spice packs are not a new thing but until these little jewels came along all the spices were mixed together and the whole pack labeled "Sloppy Joe Mix" or "Meatloaf Spices".  Now you can see and read what spices are included.  This lets a cook increase, decrease, or even eliminate a spice that is not wanted. And the next time the recipe is  used, the cook can use spices from the larger sized containers for a significant savings.

Way to go McCormick!

Lost technology

Quite often when I'm using our computer I think about computers in my past that were so expensive and powerful that people had to queue up to use them and special lower priority jobs were loaded so the computers wouldn't be idle for even a second.  I think how many hours of the day our computer is totally idle or showing screen savers to an empty room.  Even when I'm using the computer it is seldom more than 2% busy.  I think also about the programs such as Word or Excel that have so many features that I guessing I use about 10% on a complicated job and much less on routine work.

So it was especially gratifying this evening when I was able to productively use some technology that had been sitting idle on our desk for at least 6 years.  I'm talking about the ICE (Image Correction and Enhancement) technology in the slide scanner that we have never used before.  Slides and 35mm negatives are prone to getting dusty and scratched, at least if they're handled much.  So most of the pictures I have from scanning slides look like they could use some cleaning.  But ICE technology uses 3 dimensional scanning to eliminate dust and scratches.  I think an example is called for:

Routine Scan

Here is the original scan as I would normally scan a slide.  Pretty gruesome, isn't it?  And I'm not talking about Mr. Smiley Face.









Here's the same slide with ICE technology.

With ICE Technology

And finally, the same slide with ICE technology and some color adjusting.  It almost looks like we're real people.

With ICE and Retouching

By the way, according to the envelope the slide was in, this picture was taken 35 years ago at Chrismas 1976.

(Apple) iPads for sale!!

What an appropriate day to post about Apple (note to PC users: the iPad 2 goes on sale today!).  However, it's strictly coincidence.  This morning the Sac State Renaissance Society had a mini-seminar that was billed as "iPad 101, how to maneuver one of the latest Mac products".  Boy, was this ever the most mis-labeled class I've ever attended.

Has anyone else ever noticed that Apple owners can't just explain how their equipment works?  They have to "sell" the equipment first, as in "Apple is the only manufacturer which builds both the hardware and the software so there's complete compatibility;" and "it's impossible to write a virus for a Mac;" and "people are converting to Apple all the time but you never hear of people moving the other direction." Instead of hearing how to actually get productive work done on an iPad, we were treated to one and a half hours of the magical world of iPad.  And although there are purportedly thousands of "apps" (short for applications) for sale for the iPad, only two were demonstrated iBooks and Garageband.  iBooks on the iPad is better looking than the Kindle counterpart but with no serious improvement in functionality.  Garageband makes the iPad into a piano, organ, guitar, drum set, and who knows what else.  A wonderful,  even magical toy but still a toy.

When questioned about external storage or USB connectivity, two items glaringly missing from the iPad, the answer is the usual "Apple decided to use a safer technology.  Large amounts of data shouldn't be on the iPad, too easy to lose (especially with iPad's one-level file hierarchy) and USB devices can introduce bad data and viruses into the system." What about a program like Adobe PhotoShop?  Shouldn't a machine with 64 gigabytes of memory be able to do some fantastic photo editing?  Answer: Do your editing on a Mac and leave the iPad for slide presentations and photo albums.

Actually, the only thing I heard in the class today that I can almost believe is that the iPad may become the input device of the future, replacing many of the functions now done by the mouse, track pad, and even the keyboard.  I have some issues with the keyboard but the rest is almost believable.

Virus attack - a wolf in sheep's clothing

I've felt myself very lucky.  Over the years I've listened to friends and associates stories of having their computers brought down by this virus or that worm.  And I haven't had a single infection,  at least not one that actually got through my defenses.  And I do employ the basic common sense defenses such as local physical security, back-up software, and a good virus protection program.  So when I mistakenly answered yes to a request to update system security,  I wasn't overly worried.  I expected McAfee to kick in any moment and arrest the intruder.

The virus writers had done a good job, making it look like their software was actually going to do a better job of catching viruses and other meanies better than my current software.  But McAfee never kicked in and the fake security program showed obviously fake data.  When I tried to invoke McAfee manually, it blinked off the screen instantly.  There was no place in the fake software to minimize their window so not only could you not see the screen behind but you could also not shift program focus to any program save the fake one.  Trying to run Task Manager yielded the same results.  I restarted the computer only to find the virus program taking over at a crucial point.  I felt sick.

I made one last attempt using restart. Before even getting to Windows, this HP computer prompts for a recovery  option.  Before Windows had a chance to take over the machine, I was given a chance to restore our computer to a past checkpoint.  This checkpoint was only 2 days old - old enough to avoid the the virus but new enough to be current. Holding my fingers and crossing my breath, I clicked on system recovery.  After about ten minutes, I was advised to restart the computer.  It ran perfectly with no sign of my "friendly virus".  I was ready to whoop and dance around the room except that I don't whoop or dance much nowadays.

Renaissance Presentation - Judy Small

A major premise of the Renaissance Society at Sac State is that students teach each other.  A class coordinator makes sure that each week of the semester, one or two class members present a portion of the semester's material.  However, there are many classes where the class coordinator prefers to conduct many, if not all, of the sessions.  For all the years that I've been attending the Renaissance classes, I have managed to take mostly such classes and therefore have not given a presentation.  Until now.

This semester I decided to take the class "Protest Songs and the Singers Who Sang Them".  Having come of age during the folk song era of the 60's and contemporary with, if not involved in, the Vietnam war protests, the title of the class intrigued me.  It was difficult to get into the class as the original 50 slots were filled shortly after registration began and there were a dozen or so on the waiting list.

During the first session, I realized that I could make a significant contribution to the class by talking about the global protest singers, making the point that protest songs are not uniquely American.  Specifically, I volunteered to present an hour of the Australian folk singer Judy Small.  I began that day by inventorying my Judy Small collection.  It amounted to 4 albums.  A fifth was a poor cassette recording of another album.  I logged onto iTunes to download a good copy of that album.

With Microsoft Powerpoint, Wikipedia, and the collection of Judy Small songs I had available, it was no trouble putting together an hour's presentation. The presentation outline looked like this:




Introduction
Judy Small biography
The IPD - Singalong
No Tears for the Widow
Montreal - December '89
Much Too Much Trouble
Golden Arches - Singalong
Silo
Home Front
You Don't Speak for Me
Life Begins at Forty - Singalong

I originally intended to pass out a sheet of lyrics for the three songs I wanted the class to singalong with Judy but my wife Carolyn convinced me to distribute the lyrics to all the songs to help people better understand the songs.  We couldn't find the lyrics anywhere on the Internet.  That was a bit of a task since neither of us speaks Australian.  We finally got something that we hope is 95% correct.

In spite of some technical difficulties we finally got the computer and projector and software all working together.  At the beginning of the class only one other person had heard of Judy.  By the end of the class most people were visibly moved and several wanted to know how to get her music.  The class coordinator said it was too bad we couldn't play each song and then discuss it for a half hour, the messages are so potent.

I felt that Judy and I put on a successful performance that not only set a standard for subsequent classes but also got a lot of people thinking again.  Thank  you, Judy.