Installing iPhoto 11

I tried to upgrade to iPhoto 11 yesterday, only to find that my 233Gb of photos had been reduced to 6.5Gb, and that my 50,000 photos from the last ten years were gone. Completely. And I was not alone. Reading through the Apple Discussions Forum is heart-wrenching. Post after post from folks who have lost thousands and years of photos. I have done my level best to spread the word and make sure that people have a solid backup (as I thankfully did) before upgrading. If you follow me on Twitter, you're probably sick of me posting about it. But I love my own photos too much to not do everything I can so that no one else loses theirs.

And I guess I love iPhoto too much to give up on it. I thought a lot about whether I really wanted to try again. I even gave Picasa a cursory look as Farhad Manjoo recommends. In the end, I felt like all my public grousing at least demanded that I try again and see if I could find a solution. OK, and I admit it, I still wanted to see it for myself.

Thanks to the folks in the Apple Discussion Forums, I found a solution that worked for me. I restarted in Safe Mode (by holding down the Shift key as the computer starts up). Then I went to Disk Utility and repaired Disk Permissions. After copying my backup of my iPhoto Library back to my computer—which took more than two hours—I launched iPhoto with the Command and Option keys held down. In the alert that appeared, I chose options 1, 2, and 6. iPhoto then asked if I wanted to upgrade my library, to which I said yes.

And then I just waited. And waited. I even left to run an errand. Several hours later, it was done. And all the photos are there. I'll let you know if it was worth it.

But don't forget to make a BACKUP before you try it!

WARNING!!! iPhoto 11 Erases ENTIRE iPhoto Libraries

I was very excited to hear about iPhoto 11. I'm a longtime iPhoto user, with more than 50,000 photos in my iPhoto Library that lately has grown to 233Gb. The Full Screen feature looked great, and I'm dying to see the new books feature. I wrote an entire book on iPhoto book themes and can't wait to see what's new.

Until today. Upon upgrading to iPhoto 11, I got the revolving gray wheel for a very long time, and the Finder said that iPhoto had "stopped responding" so I force quit and started again. I was finally able to upgrade and rebuild my library, but there was nothing there. Every event was labeled properly, and contained placeholders for my images with my labels and even my ratings, but the images themselves were not there. They were all gone.



When I went to see how big my iPhoto Library was, it said 6.3Gb. There's no earthly way my 233Gb of photos could suddenly fit into 6.3Gb. Further confirmation is that suddenly there are 230 extra GB available on my hard drive.

I would be sick (and furious) except that I backed up my library twice before attempting the upgrade. Please pass this information on to everyone you know so that no-one else loses their photos.

Apple's Discussion Forums are full of other people experiencing the same issue. Make sure you have at least one backup before attempting to upgrade. Also, if you depend on Time Machine, make sure Time Machine has been able to complete a full backup with iPhoto completely closed. Note that Time Machine will not properly back up your photos if iPhoto is open.

It's absolutely unconscionable that Apple should release software that would erase an entire iPhoto Library. We must spread the word to minimize the damage. Thanks.

As soon as I figure out how to upgrade successfully, I'll post that information here.

First fiction ebook in iBookstore with video!

I had hoped to write this article using one of my own books as an example. In August, as I wrote here, Apple changed the rules for submitting ebooks with embedded video. If you are interested in publishing a book with video, and downloaded the updated iBookstore Publisher User Guide 1.3.1, you might have been worried about the requirements it contains.

For example, it says you must have a black frame at the beginning and end of every video.

It also says that final files must be produced with Compressor 3.5.2, which, for the record, is only included with Final Cut Studio and Logic Studio Retail, which even when discounted by Amazon, cost lots of money. I count myself among those who thought, "Oh, maybe I don't have the proper tools to put video in my ebooks."

Then, I got a nice note from Jeffrey Dinsmore who had bought my EPUB book and had happily used it to publish an exciting new project that combines short stories with short films. He was thrilled that their new ebook had been accepted by the Apple iBookstore. He says it's the “first fiction ebook in the iBookstore with embedded video”.

It's pretty interesting as a book, that is, enhanced ebook. It's curious to have both media right there in front of you, and to read one and then view the other and think about how and why they were presented differently. You can download a sample and see for yourself, though I don't think any of the videos are contained in the sample. Luckily, you can see them on the Awkward web site.

But that's not why I'm writing this post. I'm writing it because Jeffrey proved, by getting his book into the iBookstore, that those extreme requirements in the iBookstore Publisher Guidelines aren't really requirements. They're recommendations. When I asked him if he had followed the guidelines about black frames, using Compressor, and using a specific resolution of the source video, he replied, “I did absolutely none of the above ... just slapped the .m4v files in and crossed my fingers!”

So, there you go. If you want to publish an ebook with embedded video or audio, all you have to do is follow the instructions as outlined in my EPUB book.

P.S. I wasn't able to get any of my own enhanced ebooks into the Apple iBookstore, not because they weren't technically accurate, but because Apple considers them to be “examples”, despite the copious step-by-step information they contain. I'll keep trying. Meanwhile, if you get your enhanced ebook into the iBookstore, please let me know!

Working at Home

Here's the sort of meme I'd be interested in: what does your workspace look like and how do you make it as efficient as possible? If you decide to join in, please send me a link. I'd love to see where and how you work.

[Cross posted from A Year in Barcelona]

I suppose I should be writing about our road trip through France over the weekend, but instead, as I assembled my office as I do every morning, I thought I might show you my workspace.

You see, here in Barcelona, we have a very small apartment, perhaps about 70 square meters (700 square feet), and I think that includes the hallway and the walls. It's very compact. I don't have a dedicated office space because there simply isn't room for one. Instead, I use the dining room table.

As soon as everyone leaves in the morning, I get rid of all the breakfast crumbs and make sure the table is completely clean. I hate a sticky desk.



Next, I grab the mini Belkin USB hub from the bookshelves, which is already hooked up to my wireless mouse and wired keyboard, and plug it in to the outlet on the floor.



Next, I grab my external monitor from the same bookshelf. I would have liked to have gotten one of those beautiful Apple jobs, but instead, I got a cheap, compact, and light LG (Mine is the M227, very similar to the one linked, but perhaps only available in Europe.) It even doubles as a TV, though I don't use it for that. The monitor goes on the table, and I plug it in as well.



I set my Macbook Pro on the corner of the table with the ports facing the monitor. It's just sleeping, I almost never turn it off. I have to plug it into the wall outlet first, or else the monitor doesn't work. Then I just plug in the monitor cable and the USB hub cable. Voilà, the monitor goes on.



Finally, I grab my fancy mouse pad (read: pad of paper of appropriate size and texture), my wireless mouse, and my stack of papers, from the bookshelf where they live during the evening and set them on the table. I'm ready to go faster than it took to read this article.



In the evening, just before everyone gets home, I reverse the process and put everything in reverse order back onto the bookshelf so they're easier to get the next morning.

I also have a printer and a scanner on the bookshelf, but only put them on my desk when I need them.

What does your workspace look like? How do you make it efficient?

Publishing Ebooks on Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble has recently made it possible for self-publishers to upload and sell ebooks for Nooks and the Nook app on the iPad and iPhone—through their Pubit! system. I was particularly interested in this development, because Barnes & Noble supports EPUB format—the open source, non-proprietary format for ebooks.

To sign up for Pubit!, you have to have a US Tax id (a social security number or Employer ID number), a credit-card from a US bank, and a US bank account to which your earnings will be sent. These are almost, but not quite, insurmountable obstacles for non-US residents.

There was one thing in the Terms & Conditions that caught my eye. First, while you set the List Price for your books (upon which your royalties are based), you agree to give Barnes & Noble “sole and complete discretion” over the price they charge your customers. I can’t quite explain why that rankles, though I know I hate giving anyone “sole and complete discretion” over anything of mine!

Next, they’ll pay you 65% of the List Price if that price is between $2.99 and $9.99, but only 40% if the List Price is less than $2.98 or more than $10. It seems that, like Amazon, which has a similar tiered system (70% for the midrange and 35% for very cheap or very expensive), they want to pressure you into keeping the price within a certain range: not so cheap that it’s not worth their while, not so expensive that they end up storing your files for an eternity with no sales in sight.

The excellent news is that you can upload EPUB files directly, which means you have complete control over the layout (and can take advantage of the tips in my EPUB book). However, if you don't have an EPUB file, you can also upload Microsoft Word docs (DOC and DOCX), HTML, RTF, and plain-text documents, all of which will be automatically converted to EPUB.

You can decide whether or not to apply DRM, though once you upload a book, you can't change your mind about DRM. What I'd like to know is whether non-DRM books uploaded through Pubit and bought through Barnes & Noble can really be read on any EPUB compatible ereader (like say iBooks on the iPad). I'll work on testing that and report back.

Book files can't be larger than 20Mb.

It’s nice that you don't need an ISBN, the international book number that booksellers use to keep track of a book within their channels. B&N will assign an “internal” 13-digit number (presumably not an ISBN) to your book.

Curiously, Barnes & Noble says you can only upload books in one of the following languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Latin, and Dutch. This seems a rather arbitrary limitation. Why not Catalan, or any of the Scandinavian languages, which can all be properly represented with the character set that the Nook already supports?