MyPublisher | Beta Test of BookMaker 2.0 Mac version

MyPublisher | Design your own Photo Book to be printed as a beautiful hardcover book!

I have used this service and commented here in the past. They gave me the chance to Beta Test the new software for Mac. I have used the iPhoto Plug-in before. This is a stand-alone program that allows you to create a book, using photos from any source including iPhoto.

Thanks for letting me participate in the beta of the Mac OS X Beta program. I did the survey but not sure if all comments will make it though. I’ll do a full review after the final release.
When adding pictures from an iPhoto Album it would be better if you could drag and drop the album and have it add the photos in that album in order. Or if when you select all photos in an album it drops them in the same order. You can much easier order pictures in iPhoto then on the add photo bar.
The only way to add them in a specific order is to drag them one by one.
I like the big picture view that lets you organize the photos. I like the unassigned feature too. But you can only multi-select and select many by stretching the mouse over. A shift-select would be good. In other words click one then shift click one further down the line selecting all in the middle.
When working in the page layout I like the double click to get to the image controls. That gives comfort and control over pictures as you work on layout.
There seems to be a bug in the image control window. I forgot to click done after editing a picture and then going to add another picture to that page. I went up dragged the new picture down and it worked but didn’t close the image control menu. Then I clicked done on the image control menu and it wouldn’t go away. I saved the book. Then I went to the next page, okay, but when I went to drag a picture down to the page the application crashed. I had to restart and good news the book opened to that page again.
The zoom in on text is cool, would be good to incorporate the spelling check feature of Mac OSX.
It would be nice to move composed pages around. In other words, when you go to the pages film strip view up top, you cannot drag and drop pages back and forth. You have to unload and reload pictures. Or am I missing something.
For example, the All pages view is nice to move pictures around the entire book, it would be good to be able to move pages too.
I moved a picture to a page that had a black background and the text didn’t change to white - so it didn’t show up.
When adding and deleting pictures from pages, moving them around there seemed to be some random placement of pictures at the top film strip. I lost track. But when I went from pages film strip to photos film strip (or whatever its called at the top) the pages were okay.
I changed the layout background from white to black and it ended up replacing a picture on the page. I also noticed that at these glitch/random events it leaves the picture up top. Actually it grabbed a picture from the next page, because when I tried to replace it back it replaced one on the next page. Maybe its trying to autofill but its acting strange. Now its locked in a picture and when I try and delete or correct it sticks, won’t let me delete. I’m quitting and restarting. Didn’t help.
I went back and did some reworking, not sure if pictures disappeared or not. I then ran into the same image control bug - window stuck. So I saved and quit and restarted.
You cannot seem to go back and get photos - well you can but when you do, any unused photos in the filmstrip disappear. I did go back to get more and when I went to the pages view it only had the 4 I added. Well I went to the organize page and it had put all the unused pictures on page 15, not sure what that means. There isn’t a page 15 yet.
I deleted all the empty pages and they went back to unassigned.

Login and upload went fine. More options here then with iPhoto plug-in. That is a bonus.
In the end, I think it is easier to use iPhoto’s book maker, except for these publishing options.

New York pension fund takes lead in Apple lawsuit | Reuters.com

New York pension fund takes lead in Apple lawsuit | Reuters.com
NEW YORK, Jan 22 (Reuters) - The New York City Employees’ Retirement System said on Monday it was picked as the lead plaintiff in a shareholder lawsuit against Apple Inc. (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile , Research) over its stock options practices.

I can’t figure this one out - they have smacked the stock down 6 points and they own it. The stock has returned them 300% - how on earth has this hurt them?  I can see the government looking into Job’s getting more then he deserved, but then again what’s up with that. We aren’t talking Enron here - its all real and real good. Go figure.

Album Covers and contents

Remember those days when we had LP’s and Albums? My brother and I exchanged an email about this:

Neil Said: “…our kids will never know from records. I used to love looking at the art work and all the cool stuff. It’s official: We’re old.”

Yea - I already ranted about that - but he also really has a good point. That was a part of listening to albums. Sitting around in your family room or bedroom. Listening to the latest album from The Who, Styx, Bruce or KISS. It was like your birthday every time you scraped together enough to go get one. I remember getting bootleg albums of DEVO with my fellow fans early in their history - and the odd art work the producers put together was all part of it.

If you download iTunes (free) and use it to keep your library of music you know that they have added the “thumbing through your album collection” feature for one of the “views”. I think Steven Jobs (CEO Apple) is nostalgic that way. In fact, though, DVD’s will probably replace CD’s as some point in terms of music delivery because there is only room for music on them and a DVD allows for extra stuff - the stories, pictures, etc. And downloads are making them obsolete. Sometimes when you download a “full CD” from iTunes - usually 9.99 vs. .99 for the song you get a .pdf of information, art work, etc. Or even a video. I think everyone is hungry for that - meaning Baby Boomers and us “tweenies” that had that as kids. So that’s my prediction, blue-ray DVD’s with high fidelity (Hi Fi CD’s never became popular). It fits in well with our passive culture, sit around and let them tell us what to think. Wow us with special effects. Eventually though, with bandwith, it will also all be available on-line.

Referencing the Post “Why is this CD Giant?” 

Daddy, Why are the CD’s Giant?

We were working in the basement and I said, “Hay kids, lets listen to some of dad’s old music.”

I have a turntable in my office in the basement. Sophia innocently asked..”Why are the CD’s Giant?” Never seen a record album before. People like to look back at baby boomers and my grandparents - regarding teh stuff they never had. Like color TV or TV at all.  We remember when there were the first microwaves, personal computers, vcr’s, and cassette tapes. Yes - in the 4 years in college I went from a typewriter and learning COBOL on a Prime Mainframe to an Apple IIe where I learned BASIC and then an IBM PC where I learned WordStar. But Sophia didn’t even know what she was looking at.  The bigger kids had since They have seen DJ’s and my records before. She is 6, time flew by and I hadn’t introduced her to those old songs yet, well those old albums, we have DaveFM here that plays all my old songs (over and over and over).  Keep looking folks, it all changes fast.

10K Race Today - Peachtree City 10K by the Atlanta Track Club

Thanks ATC for your programs. I ran today’s race far from home - took at least 40 minutes to get there so getting up at 6AM was the only way. Even then after a last minute doo-doo I just got to the starting line!~

Final Official time was a 51:35, I think. I started in the back of the pack and my watch read 51:19 so that sounds about right.

TIME GROUP 1B (50:00 through 54:59)
TIME GROUP 1A (42:00 through 49:59):
So I will be in time group 1B
Splits were in the 8 minute range. First mile was around 9 minutes middle were under 8 and my last was under 8; slowed a bit on hills. Felt great at the 4 mile mark and each of my miles were a bit faster each time. Average went all the way down to 8:15/mile on mile 4 but I lagged a bit at mile 5 and was completely exausted by mile 6. That last .5 mile was the longes 1/2 mile I have experienced in ages. Well, maybe it was longer - the .2 part you know.

Avg was therefore 8.19/mile ( 51.35 = 3095 seconds = 49.92 seconds per tenth)
I actually ran an 8:17 pace by my watch. I have to get to an 8:04 pace to make the next time group.

For my Nike Triax Elite fans - I have to adjust my offset! Here is my calculation based on my spreadsheet

And my pace based on the same spreadsheet (XLS that gives you your pace and helps you change your offset to the correct setting based on that race)

UPDATE: Made the Time Group 1A on March 4

5 miles Easy-mid

Ran 5 miles at an average 9 minute mile pace.
Pushed a little in the middle but realized I was running a race tomorrow!

4 miles ; up and down - running and parenting!

Daniel only wanted to run two miles today. He joined me for the first mile up the hill and we ran back home, then I went back up it a little further and back home. I was Sad he isn’t into it as much anymore. He is concerned about play time with friends after school. Homework, running, friends, - not enough time during the school year. Choices for a 10 year old “dad, I’m a kid!”

He doesn’t practice his football, never really did with Soccer. I don’t know how these other kids do it; playing with friends must involve sports all the time. No way they can be that good at this age without it. When does the committment start for those that achieve greatness, is it an instinct to compete and an early maturity to do the work early to get there? Is it a lack of other choices, in the poor neighborhoods? Is it a gift from God?

When does a parent push, back off, go with them, leave them alone? Nobody wants thier kid to hate them, nobody wants thier kid to look back and say why didn’t you push me?  This is true of Maia’s Ballet, Sophia’s Gymnastics - homework, whatever!  My work is a breeze compared to being a leader for my kids.

Momus loves Apple too.

Apple makes him cry writes Momus of Wired Magazine today.  He is passionate about his OS X computer as am I and so many others. He is also passionate about the culture of excellence and human energy Jobs and Apple create. While I’m not as politically aligned as Momus is with Jobs, I do think they have a great culture. Its why I prefer to buy a Mac when my company gives me a windows PC  Its why I watched all two hours of Jobs keynote on my Mac via Quicktime.  Its also why the stock I’ve purchased has rewarded me and so many others that believed in the company.  It is different.  

When you shoot for average you will never do better then average.  

5 miles alone

I ran alone today. It was different without Daniel.  I think I’ve lost him. 5 miles at an average 9:30 Pace.

LED’s and a space ship Pinewood Derby Car

Pinewood Derby Time!

Daniel is looking to have some fun with his Pinewood Derby car this year. He wants to make a spaceship with blinking lights; or even continuously glowing lights.  We went to Fry’s Electronics to see if we could get some things to do this and I learned from an interesting guy in the isle buying LED’s and Resistors that this would be no easy task.

I tried to talk Daniel into a simple circuit with an incandescent light. “you mean a flashlight” and I said “pretty much.” Daniel is 10 but he is as cynical as a crusty old man.  So I’m searching the web trying to learn about these things. 

While we were at the store we picked up a pack of LED’s, a Resistor, a battery holder and a bunch of wires.  I also picked up a book on introductory electronics.  I don’t have the physics or electrical engineering background to know all the math; this is going to be tough.  The cool thing for me is that DJ was interested and basically understanding what the guy at the store was saying.  He will obviously do better then I did in calculus and physics when the time comes. 

So I found this basic Tutorial for LED’s and Transistors and another tutorial on Basic Electrical Components. I am getting the basic idea that you don’t want to blow up the LED’s with too much power so you have to regulate it. Resisters help do that, measured in Ohms.  Diodes are one-way components with the current running through them when the voltage on the positive leg is higher then the voltage on the negative side. Put a battery in there and you got power. Use a resister to regulate the flow so you don’t blow up the Diode. The website said usually when current is flowing through a diode, the voltage on the positive leg is 0.65 volts higher than on the negative leg.  How do I get from Volts to Ohms?

That same sight has a Tutorial for learning about Ohm’s Law

Wikipedia: Ohm’s law states that, in an electrical circuit, the current passing through a conductor, from one terminal point on the conductor to another terminal point on the conductor, is directly proportional to the potential difference (i.e. voltage drop or voltage) across the two terminal points and inversely proportional to the resistance of the conductor between the two terminal points.  I – V/R,  where I is the current, V is the potential difference, and R is a constant called the resistance. The potential difference is also known as the voltage drop, and is sometimes denoted by E or U instead of V.

There are ways to try this out.  We will probably get a Breadboard to plug a bunch of this into to create our circuit.  I have to learn how to do this math and then get the thing going.  To put it on his car, however, will be the real challenge.  Perhaps we can splice it all together and then tape it on the car; painting over the whole thing.  If I can create an LED circuit with enough power from only one AAA battery then we can hide it, maybe two batteries. I imagine the weight will be offset by how much we hollow out the body to put these batteries in there.