Earth: Mostly Harmless

MemoryMiner - the ultimate photo organiser?

This week saw GroupSmarts release an interesting update to their MemoryMiner social photo organiser application. MemoryMiner is a social photo organiser for Mac OS X, allowing users to tag imported photos by who appears in them (the ability to draw a marquee around a subject in a photo is somewhat similar to Facebook’s photo tagging service). Memory Miner also incorporates time-based selection, tagging and geotagging.

If you’d like to see a visual demo, check out MacBreak’s video interview with GroupSmarts [QuickTime movie, 93.6MB]. Warning: Merlin Mann present. I don’t mind him but I know that many do…

Continue reading MemoryMiner - the ultimate photo organiser?…

CueCat & LibraryThing - update

(following on from this)

Considering the price, it rocks socks, especially if you de-claw it to make it spit out proper barcodes (you just need a sharp knife, soldering iron or a very small screwdriver to knock out a pin).

There’s a bit of a knack to getting a reliable scan, but it works remarkably well.

I’ve been meaning to post this pic for a while - finally, I have a (tenuously) cat-related post.

Arrival

Well, I got MacBook #3 (at last) two days ago. Seems to be running fine.

In celebration of this fine moment I would like to present to you the best/most terrifying photo ever taken (depending on your generation and disposition)

Continuing MacBook saga

Apple and TNT are complete knobs. Really. They are.

As I posted before, my MacBook went bananas. And I’ve had a hell of a time trying to arrange a replacement. Originally, they agreed to do a straight-out swap, and DOA MacBook #1 (which will henceforth be known as Hiroshima) was promptly returned via the ever-useless TNT:

Apple are going to replace it - they say it’ll take a week but I’m sceptical given that it’s a configure-to-order machine, and the new one will need to be shipped out from China.

Oh capitalism. How you mock me.

So, in the best spirit of tempting fate, more mocking was to come. The one-week shipping time for MacBook #2 turned into an indefinite malaise - I received notification that it had been built and dispatched, but the TNT package tracker showed no movement whatsover after the first two days, as you can see here. TNT aren’t sure (which amazes me), but think it’s still in China. Apple don’t know. TNT are investigating with Apple. Apple are waiting on a response from their investigation with TNT.

A woman at TNT kindly explained to me that there is a time zone difference between China and the U.K., which is why the Chinese warehouse’s investigations had taken so long. I pointed out that while this was perfectly reasonable, the time difference was in fact in the region of eight hours, and not five days. Harumph.

I called Apple this morning, and was ready to either get angry at them or demand a refund. To my surprise I actually got a straight answer: that MacBook #2 is now considered MIA somewhere in Asia. It shall henceforth be known as Colonel Walter E. Kurtz.

The other upshot of that call is the appearance of MacBook #3, which is (hopefully) being frantically assembled at this very moment. I’m also getting a ‘goodwill’ payment for my troubles.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Stay tuned for updates on the Lazarus MacBook…

Sudo

I can’t even begin to explain this joke, so I’ll have to let Wikipedia attempt it. But it’s brilliant.

Click the cartoon to see it on Randall Munroe’s site.