The Practical Archivist has psychic powers!
November 30, 2007
Wait!
I’m getting a vision…
Yes, it’s getting clearer…
You have a box of old, unsorted photos at home.
Oh, I crack myself up.
I read an entertaining article online called “I see dumb people” – Learn to cold-read like a so-called “psychic.” Apparently, one of the tricks is to be as vague as possible and say something that could be applied to just about anyone.
I bet you can guess what one of the suggestions was.
Hey, maybe you’re psychic, too!
I am SO going to amuse myself at future networking events with the fake psychic bit. If you live in the Madison area, consider yourself warned.
© Photographer: Photowitch | Agency: Dreamstime.com
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Practical advice on what *NOT* to do when your hard drive fails
November 28, 2007
Hard drive failure.
It’s a nightmare, no doubt about it. And it will happen to you eventually.
Here’s a quick tip on what you should never do if your hard drive crashes: Restart the machine.
Why?
Because accidentally deleted files could be overwritten. Permanently, irrevocably overwritten.
Below is a peek at a damaged JPEG file. The MZ in the right hand column is where it was overwritten. This photo was completely lost.
But, wait a minute!
If you can’t start up the computer, how on earth can you run the software that will attempt to recover your data?
According to Computerworld, if you don’t have a bootable CD you’ve got to remove the hard drive from the machine and either install it in another computer as a secondary disk drive or attach it to another machine.
I learned all this from a great article in Computerworld:
Surviving a home data disaster: How Shirley got her files back.
Author Robert Mitchell explains:
My experience should give you a good idea of what you’d face in a similar situation — as well as a behind-the-scenes look at the tools and techniques a recovery expert used to recover Shirley’s files. Along the way, you’ll also find tips on what you can do to prevent problems in the first place and ensure the best possible outcome when — not if — a data recovery problem crops up on your machine.
Read the full article here.
And then go back up all your important files. Anything you don’t want to lose. You won’t regret it. Heck, you might even sleep a little easier.
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Beautifully anachronistic HTTP error message
November 25, 2007
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You know how sometimes you click on a link and get an error message that says something like: 404 File Not Found?
Apelad created a set of illustrations for these kinds of HTTP error messages. You can see all of them in his flickr set.
My favorite is the one you see above. It’s for the 415 error message, which is “Unsupported Media Type.”
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161 Meme: Sixth line on page 161
November 21, 2007
I’ve been tagged by my friend Denise from the Family Matters blog. My task is to open up a book I’m reading to page 161 and share the 6th sentence. Then I need to tag five more bloggers to continue the meme.
I’m reading several books right now, here are the two that fit in best with the what I blog about here at Practical Archivist.
1. Playback: From the Victrola to MP3, 100 Years of Music, Machines, and Money. By Mark Coleman. It boggles my mind that recorded sound has been around for a little over 100 years (not that long, really) but somehow we’re stuck with a gazillion dead formats. Page 161 is in the section on the history of home taping (you listening RIAA?) and it deals with cassettes:
Japanese manufacturers began adding cassette players to hi-fi systems in the early 1970s.
Now you could tape a copy of almost anything you heard.
2. The Geek Gap: Why Business and Technology Professionals Don’t Understand Each Other and Why They Need Each Other to Survive. By Bill Pfleging and Minda Zetlin. The 6th sentence on page 161 kinda sums up the entire theme of the book:
In the end, it goes back to the issue of influencing people versus problem solving — the fundamental difference between business and technology people.
I hereby tag the following bloggers:
1. Mary & Brady of This Book Is for You (Two for the price of one!)
2. Sara of The Steampunk Home
3. Marty at Ephemera
4. DIY Maven at Curbly
5. Jen at Domestik Goddess
Update. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier. Guess I was just following the rules blindly. Tag, you’re it. Leave a comment below and share the sixth line from page 161 of your book. The rules say it has to be something you’re reading right now, but I also like the idea of grabbing a random book off your shelf.
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Email obsolete? Is that even possible?
November 18, 2007
Why do technologies become obsolete? Because something easier, cheaper, better (or sometimes just better marketed) comes along.
Is email becoming obsolete? There’s a new generation of internet users who don’t use email and probably never will, unless they are forced to use it at work.
Below are excerpts from an eye-opening article by Chad Lorenz. It appeared in Slate earlier this week, and it’s called “Teenagers are abandoning their Yahoo! and Hotmail accounts. Do the rest of us have to?”
I can still remember the proud moment in 1996 when I sent my first e-mail from the college computer lab. It felt like sending a postcard from the future. I was getting a glimpse of how the Internet would change everything—nothing could be faster and easier than e-mail. Ten years later, e-mail is looking obsolete.
Obviously, email isn’t technologically obsolete. The software still works and it’s updated and supported. What’s actually happening is nothing more than a classic generation gap.
If you are under the age of 25, you don’t use email. You might have an email address, but basically you ignore it. And you certainly don’t use it to keep in touch with your friends. Instead you use Instant Messaging (IM) or Facebook or Myspace.
Can we prevent email obsolescence? Chad doesn’t think so.
So, is the solution to browbeat these little rebels back in line and enforce mandatory e-mail usage? Good luck. Chances are, as usual, that the grown-ups will be the ones who are forced to adapt. Colleges have already thrown up their hands and created Facebook and MySpace pages to stay in touch with students.
My favorite line from the article: I realized that my agility with e-mail no longer marked me as a tech-savvy young adult. It made me a lame old fogey.
Ouch. Chad, as one old fogey to another, I feel your pain. Read the rest of Chad’s article (including links to supporting research) here.
P.S. Hey you kids get outta my yard!
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Can Vector Magic De-Pixelate a Photo?
November 16, 2007
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Why Would I Want Vectorization?
It allows you to blow up images a lot. We’re talking really big. Banner sized. If you blew up a TIFF or JPEG file that large, it would look like an abstract mosaic. Terrible.
Vectorization is the process of converting a raster image to a vector image. Raster images are pixel-based. Vector images are represented by geometric shapes such as lines, circles and curves.
Vector Magic is a free web-based tool from the good folks at Stanford. No registration or login required.
Is Vector Magic Good At Vectorizing?
Absolutely. When I started with a high quality image, the before and after looked very similar. I’d give it an A.
Just perfect for blowing up your logo big enough to be seen from across a room. Or the anniversary photo that’s going on a poster at the dinner party.
Can Vector Magic De-Pixelate an Image?
Er, yes but…it looks a little funky.
The vectorized version of my simpsons avatar is kinda abstract, but for the most part it’s cool. What creeps me out is the two different pupil sizes. So I’d give it a B-. If I really needed to blow this up, I would go back and play with the various options more.
I also created a very low resolution thumbnail to test the limits of the de-pixelation powers of Vector Magic. I’d give it a C-.
If you’re into digital scrapbooking, you could use it as a paint-by-numbers effect.
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Can you fix a pixelated photo?
November 14, 2007
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From the folks at Photojojo comes advice on how to de-pixelate photos:
Ever had Grandma Edna email you her latest vacation cruise photos, only to find the images so small and pixelated that she and Gramps look like they were made of LEGOs?
VectorMagic has the answer.
A free website from the folks down at Stanford, VectorMagic takes your raster images and turns them into smooth vector drawings. Unlike raster images, vector drawings are made of geometric shapes instead of pixels, so you can infinitely resize them with no fuzzy or blockiness! This makes them ideal for blowing up a small photo to, say, the size of your bedroom wall.
Try it for yourself…Vector Magic is web-based and completely free. No registration or login required.
Vector Magic — Convert Photographs to Vector Images Automatically
Next up: Details on what happened when I put Vector Magic through the paces, including before & after screen shots. You know, the old side by side comparison. (Hint: The results were mixed.)
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Ask the Archivist: The photos scanned by my cousin look terrible! Is there anything I can do?
November 14, 2007
Genealogists and family historians have swapped ancestor photos for as long as photography has been around.
These days, it’s easier than ever to scan and share photos.
But what can you do if your cousin sends you scans that look terrible?
Becca has that problem, and she turned to The Practical Archivist for help.
Hi Sally,
I have a question that no one seems to know the answer to, and I thought maybe you can help.
My cousin scanned about 100 or so pictures into a zipfile and put them on the family website about 2 years ago. I happened to save those pictures on a cd as well as on my computer. I recently rediscovered them. The problem is most of them are coming up in a very small format, like thumbnail size and when i go to zoom in I lose the definition, does that make sense?
Is there anyway to get the pictures to a ‘normal’ size so I can actually see the faces that are in the pictures? If you have any ideas, they would surely help. I emailed my cousin, but he thinks that they are on a different server locked away in a basement somewhere…grrr.
Thank you so much!
There are two reasons why Becca’s digital ancestors are so tiny:
1. The original photos were scanned at both high and low resolutions, and somehow Becca is stuck with the smaller thumbnails only.
The obvious solution is to ask her cousin for the larger files. Unfortunately, Becca already tried this solution and it ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.
2. The original photos were scanned at low resolution, and there aren’t any high resolution scans available.
Until this week, my only advice was to ask the cousin to re-scan the originals, which is not always possible….
Then I learned about Vector Magic from Photojojo’s awesome newsletter. More details on this intriguing web-based free application tomorrow.
Now it’s your turn: Do you have digital photos that are tiny and/or pixelated? Do you know why they are so small? Share your story in the comments section.
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