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.

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.

[View with PicLens]

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 and I would recommend that you go and see the Cruxshadows at least once 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.

So without further ado Photos:

[View with PicLens]

12►

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;

Gemma

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)

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.

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

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?

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!

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)

The UP:Cam still works, however there is no curent links to it anywhere on the web, so i will have to see if i can find the IP address of the thing again, (help out anyone?) The Last? Live link to the UPSU Web camera [http://141.163.124.241/](http://141.163.124.241/)

on wednesday i put my lil [ka](http://skippy.org.uk/mot/) in for two new tyres, and the removal of the wheel locking nuts (they had broken the key), got the ka back, and all was good, on friday brought the ka, and my mum to London, left the ka out side [loupie's](http://loupie.co.uk) and took mum up to camdon, and then back towards paddington, so she could go home, met Loupie from her school, and went back to hers, packed the ka and left for the long drive to Manchester, the Ka had other ideas, three long London rush hour miles latter, came to a stop, with steam drifting out of my engin, pulled over to find a cold radator (not a good sign) and a hot engin, which was “rattaling” (fule is being ignighted before the sparkplug fires, due to compresion ignition)
so after spending £80 on joining [greenflag](http://www.greenflag.co.uk/) i had my car towed back to loupie’s for “free” (I have 10 miles of free recovery, unlimited times*)
so after franticly phoning Emily who we met at [Manda and daves engagement party](http://skippy.org.uk/engagment/) asking for her to see if she could find a way for us to get north of manchester, we re-packed down to an amount we can carry, and ran for a train, to crash on Hannah’s floor.

As it turns out Emily and Dave ended up draging us up the moterway to Carlisle, (thanks again!)

Got to the wedding on time, Dave looked very hansom, and when manda did turn up (not before wanting to beat the hair dressers shop to a pile of rubble) she looked absalutly stunning! a wonderfull Anglican church service, and off to the breakfeast, at the [Crown Hotel](http://www.crownhotelwetheral.co.uk/), for food, and the reception,

as i am writing this, its now monday morning, and Loupie and I are back at hers, and just about to look at sorting the car out, (another £100 / £150 pounds :S). and Manda and Dave will be on there way to Mauritius for their Hunnymoon.

I have put some photos up [here](http://skippy.org.uk/lazy-index.php?file=2006-10-20%20-%20Manda%20and%20Daves%20Wedding/) but i will sort out the rest when i get back to Swindon, in the mean time,
[Ikle has more photos](http://ickleweb.com/?p=304). as does [Ian (Spinney head)](http://www.spinneyhead.co.uk/2006/10/congratulations-to-dave-and-manda.php)

*Fair use policie applys

Updates:-

[Manda and Daves Hunnymoon Photos are up](http://s88.photobucket.com/albums/k195/dcpearce/honeymoon/)

[Meg](http://twoheaded.org/) has put some [photos up](http://thischarmingmeg.livejournal.com/293952.html)

Pictures of highspeed events such as popping ballons, breaking glass, and splashing liquids reveal intresting structures not visible to the naked human eye. You can take your own high-speed phtos to capture these ephemeral events.

the PDF is here

For Plain text editing we have [Notepad2](http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html) A great text editer, with line numbers and Sintax highlighting. it also starts up very quickly and does not require insterlation, also has a very nice find and replace function.

For more indepth Note Taking applications i have two choices, at work i use a application called [TreePad](http://www.treepad.com/), I use the [Lite](http://www.treepad.com/download/#tplitewin) version (Linux versions available as well), which can be run just from the main executable, so again no need to install, The lite version only alows text to be stored, which is a bit of a drawback, but for more indepth note taking, I use the [Microsoft One Note 2003](http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX010858031033.aspx) which unforchantly has to be installed, I am currently a Office 2007 beta tester, and to be honist i wont bother upgrading, there realy is no point.

And now for one i can thank [Dan](http://www.danbjorn.termisoc.org) over, [Novell's NetDrive](http://www.bcuc.ac.uk/default.aspx?page=2117). An ancient tool, great for mounting FTP conections as drive letters.

For keeping my Laptop, Desktop, downstares computer, and my Termisoc account all how i want them, i use a Microsoft Power toy [Sync Toy](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E0FC1154-C975-4814-9649-CCE41AF06EB7&displaylang=en) is a small application that syncronise (and more) the content of two folders, and with [NetDrive](http://www.bcuc.ac.uk/default.aspx?page=2117), and knowing the network path of folders (if you want to hide a windows share from casual browsing givve it a name ending with a $) i can keep all of my computers swinging along in sycronus time.

While we are in the [Powertoys section](http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx), we cant fail to mention the one that kicked them all off, [Tweak UI](http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/c/a/fca6767b-9ed9-45a6-b352-839afb2a2679/TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe), this little toy alows you to play about with your User Interface settings, Including, Making your Preview Icons bigger for Thumbnail View, and changing the quality of them, another tool you can use if you play with Digital Photography is [RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D48E808E-B10D-4CE4-A141-5866FD4A3286) (more Photography info and tools can be found [here](http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/default.mspx).) If you are using an LCD screen you may want to install [ClearType Tuner](http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/7/0/b7019730-0fa3-47a9-a159-98b80c185aad/setup.exe), This Powertoy makes it easier to read text on your screen, I still use it with my 19″ Dell CRT VDU, and its better on that too.

This list is not in any way an exsorstive list of stuff i use, and i know some of them are old, and most are not oppen source, but if some one can recomend something to me that does the same please tell me, I would like to test drive it. also if you can think of anything that i may want to have a go at using, please [drop us a comment](http://skippy.org.uk/those-toys/#respond).

two options,

1. try and restore my gallery from my hard drive
2. draw a line, and just start from now on.

On Friday got the CD back, so you can see a small selection here

In other news Noor is in Swindon, and is not feeling as good as she could, because of Jason and other crap.

If you are good you may spot the toga fetish… no it wasnt just my fetish, it was a larger scale thing. Also it was nice to see people i had met the week before, and get contact details for them, big hello to Steg, and Andy, and Matt!

Oh and the auther used a Nikon D70, (well i think it is)

And following the Free Camera Post, I have found another cool Home made Pinhole camera, that you too can make!

I have some photos from the weekend, (Malvern Challange Photos) There are a lot more, but i will let the MC site have them, and tell you where to go!

But Remember, Sign up quick, or miss out, and you dont want to miss out!

Oh and the Second word in the Title is Challenge, and the Control Challange was to eat two cakes that size, and 120 donuts, as well as a large selection of other cakes,

It would have been nice to have some free drink, as the tempriture was up above 30!

Using information the government has collected on noise levels within London, a map has been plotted of the capitals most silent spaces. The map intends to reveal a hidden landscape of quiet spaces and shows an alternate side of the city that would normally go unnoticed.

This looks like a great map! – Link Via BoingBoing

it was great, will have to do it agian soon, pictures are now up!

For Information on Litha, you can find the BBC page here, or the WitchVox page here.

A good night was had by Loupie, and Me, we saw Dan, who looked to be having a good time.

Well now slowly packing to move out of the TermiHouse, and back to Swindon, to take up working on my placment year! well should get back to putting my room back together.

So now if i get some time on my hands i will have to make myself a Dirkon,

DIRKON – THE PAPER CAMERA

During the 1970s, magazines published in Communist Czechoslovakia were controlled by the state, like the majority of other enterprises. Very few good magazines were available and were difficult to get hold of, so people would borrow and exchange them when given the opportunity. This also applied to magazines aimed at young people, which was probably one of the reasons why almost everyone from my generation, when we get on to the subject of pinhole cameras, has fond memories of the cut-out paper camera known as Dirkon*, published in 1979 in the magazine ABC mladých technik? a p?írodov?dc? [An ABC of Young Technicians and Natural Scientists].

[Here](http://www.dennisonbertram.com/hackmaster/2005/02/digital-pinhole-lens.htm) is another Idea for a Pin Hole Camera! but using your digital SLR camera body

I scored 16, which according to the chart at the end is quite respectable

Have ago at the Test, see if yo ucan tell the diffrance between Silocone, and Flesh, on the breast test, and post your score

Images are now on [CamCrew Here](http://camcrew.co.uk/gallerys/Plymouth/2006-01-25%20-%20Wednesday%20-%20Student%20Involment%20Night/index.html) Enjoy!

I think i should let [Rich](http://mooseblaster.blogspot.com/) get a little more practice with my camera

For there [halloween Social](http://upsu.com/club_diarypopup.asp?clubid=8103&eventid=71779), Eco Soc are planning to theme the night
appropratly, “There will of cousre be forfeits for any witch or devil that does not turn up in suitable attire!!“”

I am hopeing to go as [Magrat Garlick](http://www.ie.lspace.org/books/whos-who/magrat.html), because she is the fluffiest exsample of a Witch i can find (fluffy and a real Witch???) and due to the fact that she is a closer representation to a witch than any other Charictor i can find (no i am not going as [Sabrina, "the Teenage Witch" Spellman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina_Spellman)!) however this leavers me with one small challange.. finding a long green dress that will fit me, I am sure i can take care of the large amounts of flowers, and the Occultic jewalary,

In a certain light, and from a carefully chosen angle, Magrat Garlick in not unattractive. Despite her tendency to squint when thinking. She is short, thin, decently plain, well scrubbed and as flat chested as an ironing board with a couple of peas in it.

Unforchantly i require some help with this, I Will need a Green Dress, I think that the Occultic looking Jewlry will be no problem, and the flowers are Poundland, however i still need a dress!

and yes, Liquid, and [Loupie](http://loupie.co.uk), i will post images! — Update [Photos are now online](http://skippy.org.uk/magrat-skippy)

[Magrat, image from WHP](http://www.woodhouseplayers.co.uk/productions_200410wyrdsisters.html)

Philip McGaw Does not promote the use of booze….. not even in any of the above images

I will be putting some of the other images up here, once i process them, as i have some very cool Panaramics

a lot of the images were photos of friends, and most, if not all of them are unrecovarable from any other source.

and before any one tells me about back ups. this was my back up

its a small Laptop Hard drive contained in a caddy, so when i get some time, i will have to try recovering them.

The pictures do not do the explosions justice