Dave Page

Bette teaches kindergarten. She takes pictures, and as the computer consultant, I have to upload them to the Walgreens website. So I use iTag to review them and add the IPTC keyword tag “printme” to the ones she wants printed. How to convert to Walgreens?

It’s not pretty. I use the wonderful EXIFUtils to extract a list:

S:\pix>exiflist /o l -f file-name,ip-keyword . | grep printme | sort
VVKG_20080811_144431.jpg,Kindergarten; garden; sunflower; printme
VVKG_20080812_155541.jpg,Kindergarten; garden; sunflower; printme
...

Sort it for ease of picking. Grep to filter out the ones with printme. Simple.

Until you start with Walgreens. You can either work with their ActiveX uploader, which truncates the last part of the filename, or add one at a time via a Browse button and the standard file-open dialog, which is slow.

Needed: upload a list, or allow multiple selections in the browse box. Or a new print vendor with a location 1/2 mile away. Still cheaper than printing them on a printer.

Also, I could use ThumbsPlus – you can do queries on a folder based on a keyword, then move those into a temporary folder, then upload the temp folder. Might even be easier.

Walgreens photo processing
EXIFUtils
ThumbsPlus

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I got a free day off today — and it’s too darn cold outside — so time to attack a few jobs that have been neglected.

First was my old Weller WTCPN soldering station that I inherited from several jobs ago when they ditched hardware development - very tacky now in this lead-free era, but used to work great, and I don’t want to invest lots in a new RoHS solder station that overheats things faster that I use twice a year. And Radio Shack still sells loads of 63-37 solder.

But my station developed a problem with the jack where the iron plugs into the base. It was intermittent for the longest time, then just stopped working (of course the last time I tried to use it). So I found a Weller TC369A repair kit on eBay for $10, original mfg. part. Shipped here. Cheap.

Open the base with 4 screws. Clip clip clip the wires, and replace them with the new plug using (another set of ) wire nuts (supplied). Screws back. Done.

The iron half requires a big iron because you gotta tin leads and solder them to a big tubular plug — think a DIN plug. The tinned wire did not fit, so I just got a good joint at the base and it was fine.

So it seems to work. Heats up fast, and the thermo control seems to click louder and more regular, like the connection was bad all along. Yay!