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April 13, 2013
iPhoto is insanely slow importing photos
So, iPhoto has become unbearably slow importing photos. I'm not clear why this is, but I suspect that it's because I have about 23,000 photos in iPhoto and it's just a performance degradation.
This site seems to confirm that suspicion: http://www.speedyourmacup.com/piPhoto.html
Now, I'm wondering how much free space I have on the drive in my MacBook Air:
Get the Size and Free Space of the Mac's Hard Disk on Lion
Here's how you show your disk's free space on OSX 10.7, step-by-step:
Go to the Apple menu. Click the Apple icon at the top-left of the screen.
Click About This Mac at the top of the menu.
The About This Mac window will appear.
Click the More Info... button.
A new About This Mac window will appear with a picture of your Mac.
Click the word Storage towards the top left of the window.
An attractive window showing your free disk space will appear.
The display includes how much disk space is used for each of your music, movies, photos, apps, and backup files.
So, my thought is that I need to move some of my photos out of iPhoto. My assumption is that I will lose the information related to iPhoto when I do this (Event, Flagged, etc). So, I'm not crazy about this, but it seems inevitable.
So, I'm trying to figure out if I can remove the Unflagged photos from iPhoto and store them on my MacBook Air, but outside of iPhoto.
I tried cutting and pasting all of the photos in each Event in iPhoto into a new folder outside of the iphoto folder. But this is insanely difficult, because it doesn't really MOVE the photos at all. Just copies them over into a new folder. Then, you have to go back and delete them, and deleting an event is nearly impossible. Very annoying. I'm thinking there has to be a better way. So, finally, I realize that it's possible to create a an entirely new iPhoto Library. This is what you want to do. It's like starting over. Then, when you launch iPhoto, you point it to which ever iPhoto Library you want to open. Genius! I knew Apple would be on top of this. Thanks Apple! :)
http://www.gilsmethod.com/how-to-create-multiple-libraries-in-iphoto
1. When you open iPhoto make sure to hold down the alt/option key on your keyboard and then click iPhoto.
2. When you do this correctly a window will appear asking you to select the iPhoto library you wish to use.
Since this is the first time you will be creating a new library there shouldn't be any other libraries listed.
Click Create New...
3. Name the new iPhoto Library. Make sure that it is something descriptive so that you can identify it from the list.
Click the Save button to save the new iPhoto library.
Note: The default location for iPhoto libraries will be alongside the original iPhoto library in the Pictures folder on your Mac.
Posted by Rob Kiser on April 13, 2013 at 12:48 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
April 6, 2013
Bluebird Trail - Day 4
Box 1 - [Front Yard] - No visible activity. Emptied out old nest material. Darkened the "1" with sharpie.
Box 2 - [Swingset] - No visible activity. Emptied out old nest material. Darkened the "2" with sharpie.
Box 3 - [Front Garden] - Brought in bird house to be repaired.
Box 5 - [Back Yard] - Some birds sighted. White-breasted nuthatches and a pair of western bluebirds appear to be battling for control of this birdhouse. It was not disturbed.
Box 6 - [Side Fenceline] - Jen opened to discover a single egg in a nest. She believes the nest is active, and occupied by a House Wren. However, I checked it, and determined the nest was abandoned. Emptied the box.
Box 562 - [Rear Ponderoas Pine] - Because a breeding pair of western bluebirds were spotted earlier this week, it was not disturbed.
Box 4 - [Back Property Corner] - House needs repair. This was moved here from the [Rear Garden] at some point. Brought house up for repair.
Box 7 - [Bud's Garden] - No visible activity.
Box 8 - [Bud's Front] - Breeding pair of western bluebirds spotted.
Box 9 - [Bud's Corner] - Breeding pair of western bluebirds spotted.
Box 10 - [Bud Bus] - No visible activity.
Mountain Bluebird eggs: 0
Western Bluebird eggs: 0
House Wren eggs: 0
Mountain Chickadee eggs: 0
Total eggs: 0
Also went and bought food for the bird feeders and filled up all three feeders. One feeder was broken, so I repaired it.
Posted by Rob Kiser on April 6, 2013 at 4:49 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink
April 3, 2013
Bluebird Trail - 2013 - Day 1
Bud and I were noticing a lot of western bluebirds paired up this morning. Neither one of us cleaned out our boxes over the winter, but they don't seem to care. I figured I'd go outside and take a brief survey of the boxes.
From my notes, I see that in 2010, we first observed the bluebirds on March 2. So, that jives with what we saw this year, as Jen and I both saw our first bluebird 2-3 weeks ago, roughly March 11-18th, I'd say.
Performed a walk-through of all of the bluebird houses. Condition is as follows:
Box 1 - [Front Yard] - No visible activity.
Box 2 - [Swingset] - No visible activity.
Box 3 - [Front Garden] - House needs repair.
Box 4 - [Rear Garden] - House needs repair.
Box 5 - [Back Yard] - Some birds sighted. Possibly nuthatches.
Box 6 - [Rear Fenceline] - No visible activity.
Box 562 - [Rear Ponderoas Pine] - Breeding pair of western bluebirds spotted.
Box 7 - [Back Property Corner] - House needs repair.
Box 8 - [Bud's Garden] - No visible activity.
Box 9 - [Bud's Front] - Breeding pair of western bluebirds spotted.
Box 10 - [Bud's Corner] - Breeding pair of western bluebirds spotted.
Box 11 - [Bud Bus] - No visible activity.
Mountain Bluebird eggs: ?
Western Bluebird eggs: ?
House Wren eggs: ?
Mountain Chickadee eggs: ?
Total eggs: ?
Posted by Rob Kiser on April 3, 2013 at 12:16 PM : Comments (0) | Permalink