Here in the Maryland/D.C. area, our summers are plagued by the Asian tiger mosquito, a black-and-white striped variety that is the worst of all worlds. Unlike indigenous skeeters (which have been outcompeted by these invasive pests), Asian tigers are impervious to full daytime sun, they're harder to swat due to their tiny size and skittish nature, they cause more painful bites, and they are unaffected by most repellents/attractants that work on other skeeters.
I know Asian tigers are repelled by DEET sprays, but in my experience, only the high-concentration ones like Deep Woods Off (25% DEET) work. It freaks me out to apply so much toxic chemical to my bare skin and have it absorbed into my body. It's also unpleasantly sticky. Whenever I use DEET, I have to take a shower immediately upon re-entering the house, so as not to get it on the furniture or on my little kids, who are constantly putting their fingers in their mouths. Most of the time, I just go outside without spraying myself, in the silly hope that I can avoid getting bitten, and that the bites I do get don't infect me with the West Nile virus.
How this usually works out is that I'll spend 5 minutes in the backyard watering my tomato plants and come back inside with literally 10 to 20 new bites on my legs and arms. This is every day of every summer, even during long, hot droughts.
As I said, the Asian tiger mosquitoes are not susceptible to most methods that are usually recommended for general mosquito problems. I've tried citronella candles and they do nothing. From what I've read, garlic sprays and lemongrass are apparently also ineffective. Avon Skin-So-Soft is supposed to do an okay job, but I've never tried it.
Mosquito Magnets and other devices that put out CO2 to attract skeeters don't fool the Asian tigers. There is some new, specialized attractant that does work on them, but you have to keep replacing the cartridges, and even then, you can never get them all. Experts seem to agree that these devices are not worth using, especially considering their extremely high prices.
I have gotten surprisingly good results with the Off Clip-on, but it bothers me that instead of having deadly chemicals on my skin, I end up breathing it in. What I want is a solution that's non-toxic.
The only "effective" method that the experts recommend is to eliminate the Asian tiger's breeding grounds -- anything that can contain water. Well, I've done as much as I can in my yard, but I can't force my neighbors to get rid of their birdbath or fix their broken gutters. Even if I could, Asian tigers can still lay their eggs in tree holes, leaves, and other natural rain collectors.
Another recommendation I've seen on a few sites is to mow your lawn frequently, pull weeds, and trim back bushes to reduce the vegetative shade areas that mosquitoes like to hide in. I think there may be something to this, as I have noticed I often get attacked while pulling weeds, especially near certain shrubs. But I have a lot of shrubs, so it's going to take me a while to implement this idea.
One thing that does seem to work when I'm out on my deck is to turn on an electric fan. I think this works because the buggers cannot fly against strong air currents, and the tasty smell of human flesh gets scattered about, making it harder to find me. I'm kind of surprised that I've never seen this technique mentioned on any website. Having said that, turning on a blower doesn't solve my problem when I'm out in the garden watering the plants.
I've been googling and googling to find something other than DEET that will protect me when I'm back there. So far, I've only found a couple products that show any kind of promise:
1. Repel Lemon Eucalyptus spray -- the original formula (HG-406T), not the weaker new formula (94109)
2. Bonide 5612 Mosquito Beater -- a granulated repellent to be spread throughout the yard every couple weeks
It turns out that lemon eucalyptus oil is actually recognized by the Centers for Disease Control as being as an effective alternative to DEET. Not specifically for Asian tigers, but for repelling insects in general. Some chemical called PMD in the oil makes it effective. Interestingly, "pure" lemon eucalyptus oil does not contain PMD.
The second product looks a little iffy because it's got garlic and citronella (among other things) and lacks lemon eucalyptus oil. I only found 2 reviews that mentioned Asian tigers and both were unclear on its effectiveness.
But I'm going to give both a try and see what happens. Stay tuned...
References:
February 20, 2011
iPhoto '09 does not support Canon RAW+JPEG format
I got a Canon EOS Rebel XS/1000D over two years ago but never tried shooting in RAW format until this month, when my second daughter was born. The camera can shoot in either RAW or RAW+JPEG format, and I picked the latter, figuring the PC laptop I brought with me to the hospital would not be able to view pure RAW files.
As expected, the PC picked up the JPEG's just fine. When I later imported the data to my iMac, the JPEG's also appeared as normal but the accompanying RAW files appeared as black rectangles. I didn't worry too much about it, figuring, "Well, these are digital 'negatives' and they will only be converted to viewable images if I edit them in iPhoto."
Nearly a month later (today), I finally tried editing one of these RAW files and... nothing happened. Double-clicking the little black box did not magically convert the raw data into an image, it just opened up a big black box. WTF?
After some investigating, I realized these are not RAW files at all. The dead giveaway is that they are all the exact same size as their JPEG counterparts, meaning they contain no extra data. Something got messed up in the iPhoto import process, and all of the actual RAW data was lost!
Thinking that I had lost the precious image data files from one of the most important days in my life, I had a minor panic attack before realizing I had not yet erased the original SD card in my camera. Thanks for the coronary, Apple!
I spent hours searching Apple's site and found a page claiming Mac OS 10.5 supports my camera. Obviously, this is not entirely true.
But it is partly true. As an experiment, I shot a photo in RAW-only format, and it imported properly as a large (10MB) file with a viewable thumbnail instead of a black box. So iPhoto does support my camera's pure RAW files, just not the RAW+JPEG files.
After more hours of googling the rest of the interwebs, I came across two separate discussion threads confirming that this is the case. Sadly, the complaints I found date back to September 2008 -- well over two years ago -- yet Apple still has not fixed the problem. They've deployed multiple RAW compatibility software updates, one as recently as 4 days ago, but none have patched this major glitch.
I tried completely uninstalling and reinstalling the RAW compatibility drivers, but this didn't help.
So it looks like I am going to have to manually delete several hundred corrupted RAW files, import them using the Canon software (or my PC), then re-import the true RAW files into iPhoto. I'm looking forward to that about as much as my federal income tax filing.
References:
As expected, the PC picked up the JPEG's just fine. When I later imported the data to my iMac, the JPEG's also appeared as normal but the accompanying RAW files appeared as black rectangles. I didn't worry too much about it, figuring, "Well, these are digital 'negatives' and they will only be converted to viewable images if I edit them in iPhoto."
Nearly a month later (today), I finally tried editing one of these RAW files and... nothing happened. Double-clicking the little black box did not magically convert the raw data into an image, it just opened up a big black box. WTF?
After some investigating, I realized these are not RAW files at all. The dead giveaway is that they are all the exact same size as their JPEG counterparts, meaning they contain no extra data. Something got messed up in the iPhoto import process, and all of the actual RAW data was lost!
Thinking that I had lost the precious image data files from one of the most important days in my life, I had a minor panic attack before realizing I had not yet erased the original SD card in my camera. Thanks for the coronary, Apple!
I spent hours searching Apple's site and found a page claiming Mac OS 10.5 supports my camera. Obviously, this is not entirely true.
But it is partly true. As an experiment, I shot a photo in RAW-only format, and it imported properly as a large (10MB) file with a viewable thumbnail instead of a black box. So iPhoto does support my camera's pure RAW files, just not the RAW+JPEG files.
After more hours of googling the rest of the interwebs, I came across two separate discussion threads confirming that this is the case. Sadly, the complaints I found date back to September 2008 -- well over two years ago -- yet Apple still has not fixed the problem. They've deployed multiple RAW compatibility software updates, one as recently as 4 days ago, but none have patched this major glitch.
I tried completely uninstalling and reinstalling the RAW compatibility drivers, but this didn't help.
So it looks like I am going to have to manually delete several hundred corrupted RAW files, import them using the Canon software (or my PC), then re-import the true RAW files into iPhoto. I'm looking forward to that about as much as my federal income tax filing.
References:
January 7, 2011
3rd Generation iPod cannot charge via USB
I have an old 3rd generation iPod that I bought in 2003. No, not the iPhone 3G, not the 3G iPod Touch, not the 3G iPod Shuffle, not the 3G iPod Nano. Not an iPod Mini, not an iPod Video, not even an iPod Classic... just plain "iPod," that's how old it is. It's got 15GB, a black and white screen, no click wheel, and I still love it.
This model used to be called the "iPod with Dock Connector," since it was the first model to feature a 30-pin port on the bottom. Of course, now all iPods (and iPhones) have one now, so that moniker is pretty meaningless.
Worse, as I discovered, not all Dock Connectors are the same. Which means not all iPod accessories that utilize the Dock Connector actually work with the 3rd generation iPod.
In fact, almost none of the accessories on the market today work with the 3rd generation iPod! That includes power chargers.
As it turns out, 3G iPods like mine cannot charge via USB like almost every other iPod still in use today.
I found out the hard way when, in an attempt to reduce the amount of cabling on my iMac, I removed my FireWire dock and started plugging my iPod into the USB-to-iPod cable that came with my wife's Nano. It synced up just fine, which led me to believe it did exactly the same thing as the FW cable. Wrong!
The iPod kept running out of juice and I had no idea why. I researched the issue and learned that USB ports can lose power when an iMac goes to sleep. But when I turned off the sleep function, the iPod still drained while connected.
After more hours of Internet searches, I finally discovered that the 3G iPod cannot in fact charge over USB because USB doesn't provide enough voltage. USB provides 5V, and the 3G iPod needs 9-12V. I'm not sure how the newer iPods get around this, but there you have it.
Years later, having forgotten all that I learned on this subject, I found myself in the same loop of frustration when buying a car charger for my 3G iPod. I ordered and returned two different models because neither worked, even though they both fit with the iPod Dock Connector. Granted, the manufacturers did not mention support for the 3G iPod, but I just assumed they didn't bother listing it because it's so ancient. I couldn't see any reason why these accessories wouldn't work with mine.
One was a simple iPod-to-USB cable that came with a USB-to-car-charger piece. I got it because it also split off the audio feed from the iPod so I could plug it into my car's auxiliary port. The aux-in worked great, but the charger did nothing. Well, actually, it was putting out juice, as indicated by the status lights, but the amount was insufficient for my 3G iPod.
The other charger I tried was a more sophisticated one with play/pause, prev/next controls. I own other iPod accessories that have these controls, so I assumed this one would work, too... nope. Not only did this charger not charge (even with no USB involved), but it did nothing but freeze up my iPod when I pressed the control buttons on the charger.
I later learned that Apple totally changed the Dock Connector interface for modern iPods and iPhones. Since most current accessories are built for modern iPods and iPhones, they don't send the right commands to my antique iPod.
So I just ordered a third car charger, this one with no controls and no audio aux-in, and I made sure it is 12V and not USB-based. You'd be amazed how hard this is. Even the websites that specifically list the 3rd generation iPod to help folks search for compatible accessories suggest USB-based chargers that are clearly not compatible.
We'll see if the third time's the charm. I'm not holding my breath.
References:
This model used to be called the "iPod with Dock Connector," since it was the first model to feature a 30-pin port on the bottom. Of course, now all iPods (and iPhones) have one now, so that moniker is pretty meaningless.
Worse, as I discovered, not all Dock Connectors are the same. Which means not all iPod accessories that utilize the Dock Connector actually work with the 3rd generation iPod.
In fact, almost none of the accessories on the market today work with the 3rd generation iPod! That includes power chargers.
As it turns out, 3G iPods like mine cannot charge via USB like almost every other iPod still in use today.
I found out the hard way when, in an attempt to reduce the amount of cabling on my iMac, I removed my FireWire dock and started plugging my iPod into the USB-to-iPod cable that came with my wife's Nano. It synced up just fine, which led me to believe it did exactly the same thing as the FW cable. Wrong!
The iPod kept running out of juice and I had no idea why. I researched the issue and learned that USB ports can lose power when an iMac goes to sleep. But when I turned off the sleep function, the iPod still drained while connected.
After more hours of Internet searches, I finally discovered that the 3G iPod cannot in fact charge over USB because USB doesn't provide enough voltage. USB provides 5V, and the 3G iPod needs 9-12V. I'm not sure how the newer iPods get around this, but there you have it.
Years later, having forgotten all that I learned on this subject, I found myself in the same loop of frustration when buying a car charger for my 3G iPod. I ordered and returned two different models because neither worked, even though they both fit with the iPod Dock Connector. Granted, the manufacturers did not mention support for the 3G iPod, but I just assumed they didn't bother listing it because it's so ancient. I couldn't see any reason why these accessories wouldn't work with mine.
One was a simple iPod-to-USB cable that came with a USB-to-car-charger piece. I got it because it also split off the audio feed from the iPod so I could plug it into my car's auxiliary port. The aux-in worked great, but the charger did nothing. Well, actually, it was putting out juice, as indicated by the status lights, but the amount was insufficient for my 3G iPod.
The other charger I tried was a more sophisticated one with play/pause, prev/next controls. I own other iPod accessories that have these controls, so I assumed this one would work, too... nope. Not only did this charger not charge (even with no USB involved), but it did nothing but freeze up my iPod when I pressed the control buttons on the charger.
I later learned that Apple totally changed the Dock Connector interface for modern iPods and iPhones. Since most current accessories are built for modern iPods and iPhones, they don't send the right commands to my antique iPod.
So I just ordered a third car charger, this one with no controls and no audio aux-in, and I made sure it is 12V and not USB-based. You'd be amazed how hard this is. Even the websites that specifically list the 3rd generation iPod to help folks search for compatible accessories suggest USB-based chargers that are clearly not compatible.
We'll see if the third time's the charm. I'm not holding my breath.
References:
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