Sleep Deprivation is torturing me on a regular basis. I remember being 17 and sleeping for 11 to 12 hours at a whack. Now I am lucky to get 6 or 7 hours and the norm is more like 4 or 5. The older I get the busier I am. Then I add a 3 year old and a 19 month old into the mix and sleep is a lost cause. I go through a lot of days in a haze faking it until I make it to bed. When I do finally slow down, I get sucked into my Powerbook, or get pulled into an existing project that needs more work. I always seem to wake up when it gets dark, what is that all about?. The best time for me to sleep is when I am supposed to be at work. If only I had some secret way to sleep while I was at work it would make everything so much easier. Right, like that is ever going to happen.

I worked on cataloging pictures in iView Media Pro 2 last night and the more I use it the more I like it. It puts iPhoto’s filing structure to shame. In iPhoto all the pictures you import are stored in iPhoto’s hierarchal folders. They go YEAR_MONTH_DAY so when I take pictures everyday it categorizes them by that day. If I want to manage my folders with a file browser other than iPhoto you have to dig through layer after layer after layer to look at the original files. It offers no opportunity to manage them by category unless you create that in iPhoto. That works great until you have 5000 pictures cataloged in iPhoto then it turns into a PIG. It drove me crazy until I discovered iView. Now I create folders on my Hard Drive and organize by category, not date. It gives me the ability to scan large folders all at once instead of a folder for every day of every month. Open Close Open Close Open Close Open Close Open Close AAAaargh if anyone knows a better way or I missed something in iPhoto let me know. I hate this part of iPhoto. Oh Yeah, I forgot that I am stupid. Do yourself a favor and go look at iView if you are managing large quantities of images. Heck, Go look at iView if you are not, because you will be if you own a digital camera. The only thing that I can promise is that digital files procreate faster than rabbits.

I am continually amazed at how Boggled I am by technology. I have been boggled by my PC’s, boggled by Photoshop, boggled by my home network, boggled that almost everything I wanted to do was harder than it needed to be. I considered myself reasonably intelligent, and then I bought my first PC (1991). I thought I was stupid, nothing did what I wanted it to do. I recovered and bought several more over the next decade. Still Stupid, still trying to do what I wanted to no avail. Time went by and I wanted to scan my own photos into Digital files so I went and bought a Photo Printer and a Scanner for my slides. I scanned and printed my first pictures and they looked like crap. I thought I was Stupid, again. I recovered again, bought a Nikon Coolpix 990, and tried to figure out why my Photo skills had suddenly abandoned me. I was stupid AGAIN. Yet again, I came back from the edge and bought a Nikon D100. This time I was going to be smart and got a couple of books to help. It Rocks that I don’t have to buy film or pay for developing, it sucks that now I am the Photo lab. Where did I end up? Same result, yep I am definitely stupid. After a couple of months I became delusional and thought that, I could regain my intelligence, so I went and bought an Apple Powerbook and a copy of Photoshop. What? Yep I am getting smarter. Started learning and using Photoshop, figured out how to profile my printer, calibrated my monitor, learned about ICC profiles and why I needed them, sent my pictures to the lab after installing the profile from the printer, with a target print in hand started printing. Woo Hoo! Not perfect but a MAJOR improvement. Yep, getting smarter everyday. I was and will continue to be boggled by technology, my camera, my printer, even on occasions my Powerbook (usually because I over think it) but there is hope that I can get to where I need to go now. At least I am moving in the right direction. Day to day my workflow improves and becomes better organized and more efficient. I am learning how to conquer Photoshop CS, Nikon View, Nikon Capture, and my favorite iView Media Pro 2. I am confident enough that I thought I would throw a little Typepad into the mix as I go forward. The absolute worst thing that can happen is that I get stupid again. Hopefully I can make some progress in my photography skills and keep others from getting stupid. At the very least maybe, they can have some consolation that they are not alone in their stupidity.