The brain, remember, is not foolproof

Bell 1

Bell 2

Butterfly

Well, I'm almost done with the photo book. There are 72 pages, as I managed to cut eight pages from the initial version. Still too many pages, but I'm getting tired of going through the book again and again. The title of the book is Climbing hills and fells: Vuokatinvaara and Sallatunturit, which is not terribly original but may suffice.

Right now the iMac is hot while running PDF conversions using Ghostscript. This takes some time: a) compressing the 170 MB PDF file to about 18 MB, and b) rendering individual pages as images to be imported into Blurb BookSmart software as full-bleed pages. I did this already once, but spotted a mistake, so I'm redoing the conversion.

I'm thinking of printing the photo book as hardcover, using ImageWrap for the covers, and ProLine uncoated paper. This is somewhat more expensive than the basic softcover, but as I have put something like 10-15 hours to making the photo book, not to mention the effort of taking the photographs, I don't mind.

Another thing is that the trackpad of the five-year-old MacBook Pro is no longer working properly, it doesn't register the clicks as it used to. This is really really awkward when trying to do some writing etc. on the computer.

I did a lot of searches on the net, and finally it turned out that the culprit is the swollen battery, which lies below the trackpad, preventing it from working properly.

Then there was the question of buying a replacement battery. Searching the net, I found several shops selling relatively cheap replacements. And here I must - rather embarrasedly - report that I was apparently caught by a scammer, who had put up a shop looking like a real deal.

I made a payment through PayPal, and in the receipt there was mentioned someone called "lin feiyun" instead of the shop name. Only at this stage did I start to question whether I'm being swindled. The domain name of the shop is "http://akku-kauppa.com/", and I really should have been more careful. But maybe I can get this sorted out via Paypal. In any case, it seems that the battery type may also have been a wrong one, as the specs didn't quite match.

Well, I found another shop selling a battery looking like the real deal. This was more expensive, but at least I got a real confirmation of my order, and the shop seems to be working as it should.

The photographs above were taken while returning back home from Lapland.

Update: The photo book is ready, and I ordered a copy from Blurb, going all the way to hardcover, ImageWrap and Proline Pearl Photo version, which was rather expensive, but "made for use in high-end photo books" was just hard to resist. Usually Blurb has been rather fast in delivering the books, so it may be that it arrives before August 13 which was the estimated delivery date.

I uploaded the book to Scribd also, so it is available for viewing from two places:

• Climbing hills and fells: Vuokatinvaara and Sallatunturit (18 MB PDF file)
  
  • Blurb version available
    

(Note: I first uploaded to Scribd the original 170 MB PDF file instead of the Ghostscript-compressed 18 MB PDF file. I re-uploaded to Scribd and updated the link to the more compact version.)

Another thing is that the second shop from where I looked for a replacement battery for my MacBook send a message that the battery will be shipped today. Seems to be ok. Of the first shop I haven't got yet any response.

(Posting title is from the poem You Would Know by Marvin Bell.)