.~Javier Plumey~.|Fatih, Technology, Politics, Whatever.

Having a problem uploading pictures to Smugmug from Picasa? I found that the pictures ended up in some funky, messed up order instead of how they appear in Picasa. I emailed Support and they responded very quickly with the following:

Thanks for emailing SmugMug. So this is actually an issue on our end
that we are working on the best way to sort out. When the photos are
uploaded they will sometimes get rearranged while they are being
processed on our end. For now I would suggest doing an arrange once the
images have all loaded into your galleries. I hope this helps clarify
things some. If we can do anything else for you please let us know.

What you can do get the default Picasa order is to go to Smugmug and open your gallery. Then:

1. Select Tools
2. Select Arrange, then Sort.
3. Select the arrange type (File name, Date Taken, Date Modified, etc.) and the Direction (Ascending or Descending)
4. Click Save
5. Enjoy your newly sorted pictures.

Smugmug is fantastic! If you don’t have a good way to share your photos online, go check them out at http://www.smugmug.com.

My five year old son is participating in the Advanced Reader program at school and in the Your Baby Can Read program. We bought the program for our pre-born child but we figured we would try it out with Lucas first. Plus, we have him learn and read from Dolch word lists so that he can increase his vocabulary and reading skills.

Well to manage all of these words I had planned on using one of the many flash cards app for the iPhone. Unfortunately most of the apps are not very good and the better ones are quite expensive, especially when you throw in the cost of the desktop editions. I looked at them all and actually started to use one called Study Aid. It’s good but it doesn’t support landscape mode and there’s no way to change the font size for the card.

Just when I had given up hope of having flash cards for my son’s words lists, I realized that the iPhone’s Photo library would work just fine if I could make images of all the words. Well, that would have been a pain in Photoshop or iPhoto so I came up with a little something to speed things up.

I wrote an AppleScript bundle that implements the ‘convert’ command from ImageMagick that creates iPhone-and-kid friendly images from a comma delimited list of words.

I created over two hundred images in about a minute and half. They’re easy to read and my son has a great time flicking through them on the iPhone.

Here are some examples:

Here are the links to download the Word lists:

Dolch 2.zip

Dolch 3.zip

YBCAN-Starter.zip

YBCAN-Volume 1.zip

YBCAN-Volume 2.zip

YBCAN-Volume 3.zip

You can also take a look at the words on my gallery at:

http://catholicplumey.smugmug.com/School

Finally, here is the app bundle. I don’t have the time just yet to post instructions on how to use it, but if you have a Mac and have ImageMagick installed, you can use it to create your own word images.

Create Word Cards.app.zip

Here’s the code:

–By Javier Plumey for www.javierplumey.com

property folder : “/Users/family/Documents/flash/”
property IM_BIN_FOLDER : “/opt/local/bin/”

–Change your options for the conversion command here.

property CONVERT_COMMAND : “convert -size 480X320 -gravity Center -background black -fill white”

–I found this replaceText script on the web somewhere but can’t remember where. If this is yours, let me know and I’ll give you credit.

on replaceText(find, replace, subject)
set prevTIDs to text item delimiters of AppleScript
set text item delimiters of AppleScript to find
set subject to text items of subject

set text item delimiters of AppleScript to replace
set subject to “” & subject
set text item delimiters of AppleScript to prevTIDs

return subject
end replaceText

set theWords to {}
set savedTextItemDelimiters to AppleScript’s text item delimiters
set AppleScript’s text item delimiters to {”,”}

–Here’s your dialog where you enter in the comma delimited strings.

display dialog “Enter the words you want, separated by commas: ” & return default answer (theWords as string)

set theWords to text items of the (text returned of the result)
set theCount to length of theWords
set AppleScript’s text item delimiters to savedTextItemDelimiters

if theCount is 0 then return

set theFolder to POSIX path of ((choose folder) as string)

repeat with theWord in theWords

–Yes Mac OS X supports spaces in file names but I was having a hard time getting the spaces to work with the shell script execute.
set theFilename to (get replaceText(” “, “_”, theWord)) & “.png”

do shell script “printf ” & quoted form of (theWord) & ” | ” & IM_BIN_FOLDER & CONVERT_COMMAND & ” label:@- ” & quoted form of (theFolder & theFilename)

end repeat

Autism Screening On Obama’s Health Agenda: “Autism screening and funding for treatment of the disease is high on President Barack Obama’s agenda for the nation’s health, and is the only disease or disorder called out on his new website, Whitehouse.gov, taking precedence even over cancer and heart disease.”

(Via ParentDish.)

See, I can agree with President Obama on some things. This is one of them. I have several friends with children who are autistic and I think that more testing needs to be done to help families identify autistic traits earlier in life. What I don’t want to see happen is what’s happened to ADHD diagnosis, where parents and medical professionals are too quick to render a diagnosis that requires medication. I don’t know too much about autism, but I’m hoping it has clearer symptoms and indicators than ADHD.

Obama: Parenting is a public service: “‘For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent’s willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.’”

(Via Thingamababy.)

Parenting is much more than a ‘public service’, it’s the sacred and lasting act that stabilizes society, enriches the economy, and fosters an attitude of reverence for the sanctity of life.

We Catholics have been saying this for years! Parents who are involved keep their kids away from drugs, teach them how to pray, engaged them in extra curricular activities, encourage them to choose good friends, and overall prepare them for a healthy lifestyle once they leave the nest.

So if parenting is a public service, why is there a government trend to make parenting more difficult? Specifically, government:

- denies parents from using their tax money to educate their children at home or in the private school of their choice

- denies parents the ability to teach them their own values regarding same-sex marriage and sexuality in general (at least in the public schools)

- denies parents access to good healthcare by preventing health insurance providers from crossing state lines

- denies the importance of parenting by allowing the destruction of the lives of children

- denies public schools the ability to introduce wholesome, religious values to students by barring the use of God and prayer in the classroom

- devalues the importance of traditional parenting (i.e., a father and mother) by not protecting the sanctity of marriage

So if President Obama wants parents to feel proud about their vocation and wants to instill and inspire others to be good parents, he needs to provide a good example, yes, but he needs to equip them and protect the fundamental rights and needs of parents as well.

Paintballs Can Cause ‘Devastating’ Eye Injuries: “Paintballs can cause severe and ‘visually devastating’ eye injuries, especially when used in unsupervised settings without proper eye protection, reports a study in the American Journal of Ophthalmology.”

(Via ScienceDaily: Latest Science News.)

File this in the ‘Duh!’ category please? I remember I went paintballing once with a good friend. He was getting married and apparently thought it was a good idea to place his face, and other useful parts of his body, in jeopardy. Thankfully, no one was hurt. Still, does it take a genius to figure this out?

Catholic bloggers respond to Kmiec criticism: “‘James Joyce once described the Church as ‘Here comes everybody.’ The Internet is ‘Here comes everybody–without the guidance or protection of the Holy Spirit,’’ Shea added.”

Ha! What a great line. Honestly, how can Obama-supporting Catholics be surprised when the majority of Catholics disagree with them on Obama’s position on abortion?

Horton: Catholic teens challenge Obama to find common ground on abortion: “Yet, there is middle ground, and it is the place where, according to the latest polls, 54 percent of Americans would prefer to stand. It isn’t a perfect place and is too gray for the black-and-white chatterboxes because the starting point is legal, but somewhat restricted, abortion rights.”

Middle ground, huh? I really think it’s sickening that people, especially Catholics, think there is a middle ground in the abortion issue. Let’s see how that might have worked with Hitler.

Allied Negotiator: Ok, let’s address this holocaust thing, where you are killing millions of lives who have done little or nothing to deserve death.

Hitler: Okidoki

Allied Negotiator: Since we are unable to resolve our differences, let’s get to some “common ground”. How does that sound?

Hitler: Okidoki

Allied Negotiator: Alright, let’s see. We want you to stop killing, but you don’t want to, so….how about we let you keep killing people, but only not as much. Can we try that?

Hitler: Okidoki

Yeah. Common ground is a good idea.

Will The Pope’s YouTube Channel Be A Hit? - World Watch: “It is certainly a case of the old being fused with the new, but will the Pope’s partnership with Google be a match made in heaven? “

While I want this to be a success, I’m afraid that the pool of dregs that Youtube seems to attract nowadays will simply make the Vatican’s pages a cesspool of profane comments, with a sprinkling of meager well wishes and half-witted responses.

10 Weirdest Inauguration Day Blunders - MSN Encarta: “4. Less is more?
After criticism for his first inauguration in 1981, which cost $16.3 million for nine white-tie balls, President Ronald Reagan attempted to scale back the budget and have a more ‘for the people’ celebration. However, the budget ballooned from $12 million to $20 million, and there were 10 balls instead of nine and two galas instead of one. Apparently, ’scaling back’ meant that the balls were black tie instead of white and the entertainment was less high-brow than at previous events, according to the Washington Post.”

Hmm, I wonder about the deafening silence regarding the $150 million being spent by Obama.

For Catholic Schools, Crisis and Catharsis - NYTimes.com: “‘I send Matthew to this particular Catholic school because the school and church and parish are together,’ she said. Since the announcement of the school’s proposed closing, Ms. DaGiau said, parents have mobilized to fight, raising funds and marshaling alumni.

‘We’ll do whatever it takes,’ she said.”

(Via .)

As a father who has a student in a Catholic school, I can attest to the struggles that are facing our Catholic schools. We have had to cut some classes (but not services) and consolidate a few others, but beyond those changes the school is still strong and vibrant. The link to the parish is essential, especially for us. If I wanted to teach my son the faith and provide a quality education, I could simply home school. But what I want is to have him active in a parish where he can see his friends and their parents involved in ministry.

I just hope that schools don’t start slacking on the faith just to get more students.