flickr hack for a (somewhat) classic view (with bookmarklets)

flickr hack (but not really a hack) for classic view of a photo stream, Add ?details=1 to the end of a url. Oddly enough there is an "edit" button above your photostream that will do the same thing. Who knew and why would they hide it there?

Example:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sakraft1/?details=1

vs

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sakraft1/

For a classic view of a set, just add "detail" to the end (this one will not work of the url contains "with/" and then the number for one of your photos, you need to delete that from the url first):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sakraft1/sets/1698787/detail

Now, instead of having to manually paste that in, lets make a bookmarklet. This one will add "?details=1" to the end of your url.

javascript:window.location.href=window.location.href + '?details=1';

Install it by making a new bookmark and making that the address or drag this to your bookmark bar:

?details=1

And here is one for "detail" (for sets):

javascript:window.location.href=window.location.href + 'detail';

or drag this to your bookmark bar

detail

You can rename the bookmark to anything you like for your convenience as long as you keep the address the same.

Still not exactly the way flickr used to be, but its as close as we'll get until Yahoo listens to the angry masses.

My Canon SD1000 has a weekend at Bernie's

My Canon SD1000 has served me well. I got it after my beloved Kodak DX6440 had an unfortunate meeting with some pavement. The Kodak still works, its just not the same, and the battery compartment door is not to be trusted.

So it sort-of was after the SD1000 had its own "accident." I was on vacation last June at the pool and went to the concession stand. The camera happened to be in my hand. Needing both hands to carry the tray of food and drink, I put the camera in the cargo pocket of my swimming trunks and quite forgot about it.

We ate and then were about to leave the pool area when I decided that it was very hot and I might step into the pool for a second to cool off. I went in and out just that fast. As soon as I stepped out, you might as well have queued the dolly zoom. Like a flash of lightning I remembered the camera in my pocket.

The silly thing is, as this was a beach vacation, I had the underwater housing for the camera with me. Just not at the pool. It was up in the room. High and dry.

Enter the bucket of rice. I removed the battery and memory card and put them in with the rice and the camera for a few days of our stay. Luckily by this time the SD1000 was a backup camera to my DSLR. More luckily, I later found that all the photos on the memory card were intact.

After a few days, the SD1000 could be coaxed to life. But like the Kodak before it was not the same and not to be relied upon. Sometimes the lens would get stuck out. The exposures often came out all wrong. A few months later while snapping a photo of a jeep made up in the livery of those from Jurassic Park, the screen stopped working. It would still take photos but I would have to use the viewfinder as if it were 1998 all over again.

And from there it seemed to spiral downward until the SD1000 just sat there. Only taking photos in macro mode.

Until I remembered CHDK. This is a firmware that boots off of a memory card and lets you do all sorts of neat things with Canon cameras. Since some of the hardware seemed to work some of the time it seemed to me perhaps this new firmware could work.

Huzzah! It took a while (and a few terminal commands) to figure out how to make my memory cards bootable but it seems fully functional now. For a backup camera. I still don't entirely trust it. And the caveat is that I have to use one of the two memory cards on which I have installed the firmware. Hence the Weekend at Bernie's analogy. Actually I think it is a Weekend at Bernie's II analogy.

For all the trouble and the low price of a new point and shoot camera, why bother? That underwater housing. The very thing that could have prevented all this in the first place. It cost a pretty penny and was made only for my camera model. I should hate for that to go to waste.

Passovers Past

Did You Know: Rag Paper vs Wood Pulp Paper

Excerpted from http://www.cycleback.com/printsexamination/sixteen.html

Rag versus wood pulp.In the early history paper was made from rags.Starting about the mid 1800s, rag pulp began to be replaced by wood pulp.Wood became a popular choice due to the scarcity of rags and because wood pulp paper was cheaper to manufacture.The first successfully made American wood pulp paper was manufactured in Buffalo, New York, in 1855. By 1860, a large percentage of the total paper produced in the U.S. was still rag paper. Most of the newspapers printed in the U.S. during the Civil War period survived because they were essentially acid-free 100% rag paper, but the newspapers printed in the late 1880s turn brown because of the high acid content of the wood pulp paper. In 1882, the sulfite wood pulp process, that is still in use today, was developed on a commercial scale and most of the high acid content paper was used thereafter in newspapers, magazines and books.

Counterintuitively, modern paper, especially in books, letters and newspapers, is much more likely to turn brown and brittle than paper from before the American Civil War. For the beginning collector, the paper on an early 1800s print can be surprisingly fresh and white.

Consering and Preserving Documents and Artifacts at the Imperial War Museum

All of these images are from the conservation lab at the Imperial War Museum



Cleaning a photo
To clean the surface of the photo, Tina carefully rolls (never rubs) a swab across it to pick up any dirt or dust.



Repairing a photo
Any small rips or tears in the photographs are repaired using wheat starch paste



Repairing a photo step 2
The paste is applied to the card mount, not the underside of the photo surface, so that the card can absorb the excess moisture in the paste.



Photo consevation in action
Conservator Tina Kelly working on a photo album that will appear in the exhibition. The cushion is used to support the cover of the album when condition reporting. Without the cushion, which is actually more like a bean bag that can be squished the required shape, the spine could break.



Get yer gloves on!
Gloves must be worn when handling photographs as fingerprints can damage the gelatine that forms the surface of the photo.



Wheat starch paste
Don't eat this in class...

------------



Sword cleaning
Conservator Heidrun Gassner cleans a British cavalry sword, dating from around 1908, with a solvent (acetone) to remove any grease.



Sponge bath
However, acetone should not be used on painted surfaces. Instead, a sponge is used to clean off any surface dirt.

--------------



Tearing
Old paper is fragile and easily damaged, so any tears must be repaired before an item is handed over to the Exhibitions team for installation in a showcase.



Repairing
Tina Kelly is using wheat starch paste to attach Japanese Tengujo tissue to repair a small rip at the edge of this pamphlet. The tissue acts like sticky tape, preventing the tear from ripping further into the page.



Cleaning
When bringing the boiler out of storage, the Conservation team found that someone had covered the entire surface in sticky grease and wrapped it in greaseproof paper. Joanna Cook, above, has been hard at work with a bottle of acetone and a cotton swab, removing the grease and getting the boiler ready for display.



Museum Vac in action!
Looking after fabrics requires careful work. The scarf has to be carefully vacuumed using a special low suction ‘Museum Vac’ to remove dust and any remnants of old pest damage. Dust is particularly harmful to fabric - it can attract pests, can cause staining and can damage delicate fibres.

My name appears in the New York Times

And not under the headline 'Long Island Man Gets Lost In Penn Station'. No, I have a photo credit from my photos of Cabaret at the John Engeman Theater. Click to see the photo and credit (and read the review):

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/nyregion/13artsli.htm

Bristling Flower

Bristling Flower, originally uploaded by sakraft1.

Jim the Squirrel

link to The Vagabond Enlarger

http://books.google.com/books?id=jiQDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA184

And a fluorescent enlarger:
http://books.google.com/books?id=KCcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA144