Jan 19

I store all my images on my mac in iPhoto 09. and as you can guess this has resulted in a library that is a little on the large side.

One general accepted way to speed up iPhoto is to vacuum the database using the inbuilt sqlite command. this is a bit like defraging the database and reducing the stuff contained in it.

  1. Open Terminal and type cd and a space
  2. Drag your iPhoto library into the terminal window and hit Enter.
  3. Copy the command “for dbase in *.db; do sqlite3 $dbase "vacuum;"; done” and paste into the terminal window.
  4. Hit carriage return, wait till the line prompt comes up and your finished. The larger the library the longer the time the vacuuming will take.

Mine took just shy of 15 minutes (did I forget to say I had a large library?) all in all it didn’t speed it up any where as much as I would have liked.

Another way of recovering a few bits of a second from iPhoto slowness is to remove the photo counts next to each album and library in the left-hand pane. The task of updating these counts whenever you modify your images appears to cause iPhoto to slow down sometimes.

To disable the item counts

  1. Open iPhoto’s preferences,
  2. Goto the General tab,
  3. Uncheck the “Show item counts” box. (there may be a delay of a few seconds).

That may show an improvement for you; it also may not.

If iPhoto continues to be annoyingly slow for me, I may get desperate and try Fat Cat’s iPhoto Library Manager to see how that works with my iPhoto collection.

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Jan 18

On the Weekend Loupie, a few of TermiSoc and I went to see the SteamPunk exhibit at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford. The trip was suggested by Stewart Starbuck as he was going to meet up with a group of Steam Punk geeks from Brass Goggles, and invited others from TermiSoc to come along for a Trip. so all in all there were 6 of us intrepid adventurers; As well as the three mentioned there was bma, Laces, and Sayyan.

The exhibit itself was in a small gallery on the basement level. along with the steam punk exhibit there was a work shop to learn how to make steam punk jewellery and an area where you could play with Maccano.

Apart from the size of the gallery, everything else was really cool. We went for lunch in the (well according to Laces) the Burning Baby, or as the rest of us called it The Eagle & Child. a small pub of No notability at all

The Eagle and Child was once a favourite watering hole of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. They often met for discussion (and argument) over a pint.

On the bar wall is a signed note to the landlord written in 1949 stating that J.R.R Tolkien and C.S. Lewis have drunk to his health. well we mostly stuck to one drink each.

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Dec 06

Cruxshadows Gig PosterOn Saturday night went to the Cruxshadows gig with Voices of Masada as a supporting band at the O2 Academy, in Islington! (FaceBook event link) with Emily and Ruth, Ruth instantly turned into a “Screaming Fan-Girl“.

I managed to get a few photos of the bands; but because the bouncers have a thing against cameras I was restricted to using my small one :’( however Photos should be after the jump and on the Facebook Event.

All in All it was Awsome :D and I would recommend that you go and see the Cruxshadows at least once :D not to mention that the ticket price would have been worth paying just to see Voices of Masada or a Ayria; we didn’t get to see Greenhaus; but that was because we were eating; and Emily had said that they were not that great anyway.

Continue reading »

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Sep 25

I managed to find this in a Children’s play area in East London (

).

My Friend Meg found her own before me :’( her’s is on her blog here.

Can I recommend that people who design things for children’s areas keep up to date with those things that are well known on the web.

If you are not aware of what a goatse is; Can I recommend that you do not go in the direction of http://goatse.cz to find out;

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Jan 17

gemmas photo of a sunset Gemma doesn’t seem to have picked up on this one yet, but a while ago Ben and I were talking in MSN, or Yahoo, and he showed me this link, to a woman (she is a Graphic Designer) in the US’s blog, and at the same time this link, to Gemma’s site, and asked me what was the same (the hint is to the right ->) it seems Ferris, doesn’t understand that linking to the copyright owners site is a good idea on the web.

resized Which all in all leads me onto my point about copyright infringement (please note that because a Picture is worth 1000 words, I have included the article that appeared in the Redbridge Guardian in its completeness, as its not online. (please click on for larger)

woodhouse player image As stated in the previous blog post Ruth was involved with the Woodhouse players Little Mermaid. and I took some photos for, including the one on the right, and if your looking at it thinking you have seen it before, well yes, its the one in the news paper clipping. On the Wood hose players page the following is stated "Images by and © Skippy – http://PhilipMcGaw.com"; why is it that the Redbridge Guardian have failed even to state that the image was provided by the wood house players for inclusion in the article, there is space for the copyright, or reference directly below the image. I would not have minded having something like "image provided by Woodhouse players" as I gave the images to the WHP, but as it is the source of the image is unclear.

Which brings us back to Gods Copyright; in the conversation between Ben and me, he asked if because Ferris had stated

I am going to cherish a sunset that God has made previously and that someone else thought was so beautiful that it had to be captured by a photograph

Is this why she did not feel the need to reference Gemma for taking the photo?

Updated title with regards to bens post on Creationist Copyright.

In this article all copyright holders, and sources have been attributed, and items for which I don’t hold copyright have been used for Citation, I believe this is fair use, please tell me (in the comments section) if you disagree.

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Oct 01

Harry and Meg Webb's Wedding in Rochester NY state.Yesterday we were at Harry and Meg’s wedding in Rochester New York State,

I will try to get some more photos online, (possibly via face book as it allows for photo tagging)

Ian has also posted on Spinney Head.

– Update — Photos can be found online here

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Apr 15

And there we have it, a condom’ed Camera, Now the question is how to get a Nikon D70 underwater?

I am thinking that mounting it in a 200mm plastic tube with clear end caps, and mounting the infer red wand in condoms,

or dismantal one, put everything in the tube, bar the switch?

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Feb 25

There is a Google Earth Panorama Viewer Tutorial that kicks arse, when i get around to fixing PhilipMcGaw.com I think i will distribute my panoramics as KMZ’s as well

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Jan 02

Ali Baba and the Four Tea Leaves, but if that is not scarry enouth I have some photos of the Production.

Loupie was the Assistant stage manager, and as such managed to avoid getting dumped! it was a good show, and if you are in london, you should go!

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Nov 28

I Love this idea, Just not sure how to do it with a Digital Camera, without printing images, so it may be inpractical for quick turn arounds

All began in 1995 in Britanny, france:

On a beach I photographed with a the SX-70 a polaroid showing sand and stones.
Again the resulting picture was photographed with the Polaroid-camera.

The distances in space and time became larger.
The previous polaroid is allways the basis for the next one and so on …

(Via Spinneyhead)

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