Kodak CX7430 pictures crash iPhoto...

I've never had this problem in iPhoto, and I've been using it for years with dozens of different cameras: when I tried importing pictures from my friend's Kodak CX7430 today, it silently crashed every time. It didn't matter if I imported one picture at a time or many, and each picture did it. Moving the pictures from the camera to the Mac and then importing didn't fix it either.

I tried re-saving these in Photoshop. No dice - if the problem was with EXIF or other metadata in the files, a simple re-save wouldn't have changed it anyway.

My solution was to create an action that saves an image in the TIFF format, then run it as a batch action on all the images. The TIFFs were imported fine (same thing if I now converted them back to JPEG).

The funny thing is, I've imported pictures from this camera before. The only thing that's different now is that I ran the fifth 2006 Security Update just last night.

Memento mori to self

Google Calendar just made me aware of my mortality.

Usually I take full advantage of the calendar's no-sweat event creation - click a date box, type in something like "7pm dinner with Elizabeth Hurley at Consciousness Blossoms, Palm Harbor, FL" and it's automagically created at the right time and place. Today I went to add an annually-repeating event, so I clicked edit event details, opened the When section, noted that it repeats every year, and was given the usual option of ending the cycle at some point in the future.

Only this is an event I'd like to keep on my calendar forever... which, when you think about it, is really the next 50 years, maybe.

Thanks, you morbid freakin' software!

iSquint help

iSquint is a cute (and free) little OS X app that will convert your home videos, ripped movies, and footage of dancing cats to various iPod-friendly formats. Drag in the files, adjust settings if you don't trust iSquint to do its thing, and you're all set. Not the kind of thing one would need help with. But just in case you do, check out iSquint's Help menu...


(Click for full-size screenshot)