Boy, I sure feel old

A few weeks ago in my EMT refresher class, the instructor mentioned something about the movie Airplane! to one of the students. The student, who was about 21 or 22, didn't have a clue what the instructor was talking about. While I can't remember if I saw the movie in theatre (probably not because I was 7 when it came out), I did see it and the sequel sometime during the 80's. I really felt like I was getting old because it didn't seem all that long ago that the movie came out.

Stop wrapping dmg files in zip archives!

I routinely download software that ships as a Mac disc image, but when uploaded to a web server is placed in a zip archive. The dmg file is already compressed, so the zip file doesn't reduce the size that much and just adds one step to decompressing (when I decompress, I'm left with the zip file and dmg file; I then have to trash the zip file). My suspicion on why this is done is that the web server isn't setup to send dmg files as binary and people get a mess in their browsers. So solution (for apache servers), is simple. In /etc/mime-types, add dmg to the octet-stream line like:

application/octet-stream        bin dms lha lzh exe class so dll img iso dmg

First look at OCR

A recent comment on my blog struck a nerve where the commenter said that OCR would basically put a competitor to ReceiptWallet above it. While I still don't believe that OCR is all that useful for receipts (if there is one mistake when you're generally only entering 3 small pieces of data, you've wasted time because you have to review each entry carefully), I took a look at an open source OCR package. While this code is a bit rusty, there has been some recent work on it. My first test was a Rite-Aid receipt where I was looking to see if it could read 3 pieces of data, the merchant name, date, and total. It failed on the merchant name because it was a graphic, however, it picked up the date and total in such a way that I could parse the data and grab what I needed. I then tried 2 other receipts, both from Costco and the results were completely miserable such that I couldn't get anything from them. I'll keep plugging away and testing to see if my results are better.

In addition, I put in a request for a quote for a commercial OCR engine. However, I suspect that it will be cost prohibitive. If it costs $5,000-$10,000 upfront plus a per copy licensing fee, I can't afford that as it would completely wipe out any profit unless I significantly increased the cost of ReceiptWallet.

If anyone has more information on OCR engines for the Mac (commercial or open source), please let me know.

Goldilocks and the 3 keyboards

I somehow managed to spill stuff on my keyboard (not the internal one in my MacBook Pro) and have been looking for a replacement for awhile. I dried it out enough so that it has mostly worked, but I kept missing keys. So I bought an Apple keyboard from CompUSA a few months back (when they still had a San Diego store) and had 2 problems with it; first off the unit was defective as not all the keys worked and second, it was too small for the keyboard tray that I have (it has spring loaded holders on the side). I returned it and ignored the problem for awhile. On Friday I went to my most hated store, Fry's, and got another keyboard. It looked OK, but when I got it home, I discovered that the command key was too small. My choice of wired keyboards is quite small for the Mac; I want wired so that I don't need drivers and it works with my KVM switch. I also want a Mac keyboard as the Windows keyboards that are Mac compatible have the command and option keys switched unless you install the drivers.

Back to Fry's today and I picked up a macally keyboard. It seems to work well, doesn't require drivers (they have drivers, but I have no idea what they're for) and fits my keyboard tray. The only problem is that I paid $10 over retail. It's not worth my time to return it to Fry's and then order it online (or maybe it is as it is $45 from Amazon with Free shipping).