Note from Bill about scripting

"We're an all Mac house. The Mac comes with Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, AppleScript, and shell scripting all built in. AppleScript is an Object Oriented scripting language that allows you to make applications work together that normally aren't designed to cooperate. Most applications on the Mac are scriptable and it allows for a lot of custom automation. In the case of images, you can manipulate them in any way you wish in one of several applications. Even Photoshop on the Mac is completely scriptable. Many applications allow you to do things with scripts that you can't even do through the user interface. So it's got a lot of power, if you know how to do it. And since AppleScript can call and use all of the other scripting languages on the Mac, it's possible to automate almost anything you can imagine.

The script Bill wrote for me is an AppleScript that uses the Mac's Finder to duplicate and rename the file, and then it uses a photo editor called GraphicConverter to shrink and rotate the photo. I just have to drag and drop one or more photos and drop them on the script icon. The computer just prompts me for the name of the photo I'm looking at and I type that in and press enter. It prompts me to rename each photo. I provide the names, it does all the rest.

Bob's house

This is our friend Bob's house. He said that the water stopped 2 inches shy of coming in on the ground floor. He is in for quite a clean up.

The officials are saying that the water has crested in Fredericton but for those down stream, the water is still rising. It is like a wave that is slow in coming.
These people in Maugerville are still in an area where the water is rising. Not good.
And seeing as Bill mentioned the script that he wrote me, I will tell you about it. For those of you (like me) who don't know a whole lot about computers, a script is a mini program that can help you do repetitive tasks.
My camera takes rather large photos and I like to shrink them down before I post them. I turn them if they need it, then rename them (photo 1783 means nothing to me, but Bob's house means quite a bit) and then save them to the desktop where I can easily find them. It takes me about a minute to do each one. It is a lot of dragging and dropping, pulling down menus, clicking, etc.. So I asked him if he could write me a script to do it. I told him what I wanted it to be able to do and poof! He made it. He was very excited with my asking for it because he has been scripting. I really couldn't think of any thing that I do on the computer that was repetitive enough to warrant a script. I had found that I have been avoiding doing blog posts because I would have had to deal with the pictures first and some days I just didn't feel like it. Now it will be easy.

Thanks Bill.

Internet and Yarn

These are my "Skeins of Many Colours". You know the little bit that is left over when you ply? I just kept adding them all together on one bobbin and then spun a neutral grey to ply it with. I think that they are going to be a scarf. But from now on, I'm going to make a ball and ply from both ends of the ballto finish the skein. These are interesting, but there is a lot of yarn on there that could have been in with my skeins. And now I know how to accomplish that.
This is my drunken mermaids dream. It is the finest that I have ever spun. Except for that fat part in the middle that happened one night over a bottle of wine.

And we are having problems with our Internet connection. It keeps timing out and dropping off of the radar. I am having problems sending e-mails. Some go out, some don't. And to look at anything takes for ever. So I have been missing all of your blogs for the past few days. IF I was smart enough to have added you all to my links list, then it would not be an issue. But as it is, I seem to have little time on the computer at home. Too much to do and the kids are actually starting to use it to do research for school projects. Finally! I have never seen any one so reluctant to go near a computer as Mira. And all Liam ever wanted to do was play games. But both of them have been actively using it as a tool.

There is hope yet.

E-mail mystery solved

I'm sure that you all remember my ranting about not being able to reply to comments because the comments came in with "no reply" . I think that I have found the culprit.
The problem? When I "upgraded" to beta, somewhere along the way, my e-mail address that had been shown on my profile disappeared. So I updated my profile and checked (again) the box that said "show my e-mail address".
Any of you that had your e-mail visible may want to do this and once again, replies will come from your comments. And I really do like to reply to your comments.

sock issues

How many times have you frogged a knitting project before you decided to call it quits? My socks from Lorna's Laces Shepard sock yarn just aren't meant to be. This will be the fourth time that I have started the suckers. And I have to say that I am getting a little perturbed with the whole situation. I am not really sure what happened the last time, but I ended up with way wrong stitches and pulled the knitting back to where everything looked right and then dropped a few stitches while trying to pick them back up. And then everything went to hell in a hand basket and here I sit, with ball of yarn and a few pointy sticks. Again. I am going to give them ONE MORE TRY and if I fail, again, I shall save my beautiful Lorna's Laces yarn for my loom ( I can weave with fine yarns no problem) and knit socks with fat yarns only.

Here they are in all their round glory. Again. The first bit is just a wee spot crinklier than it used to be. Sigh


And in the blog issues, Firefox is working MUCH better than Safari ever did! I have all sorts of choices like text colour, that I never did before! I can even change my font! The only choices that showed up in Safari were spell check, and up load images. And since switching to beta, neither worked. Things are looking up!