Tuesday Tips

Watch Your Whitespace

is today's tip. And a very important one when using Python script.

When I first started playing with scripts, I couldn't figure out why I was having a problem. When adding a simple loop in the code, I suddenly had a lot of error messages. But when I looked at my script, I couldn't see anything wrong. Eventually, I read that Python didn't handle mixed white space well. You can use either spaces or tabs for indentation, but beware mixing them.

I learned about using a Python-aware editor. That solved a lot of problems, particularly on scripts that I recorded and edited. But when I tried to modify a script that I hadn't created, I frequently got errors again. Since I didn't have any control over which editor other folks used in their scripts, I was puzzled as how to solve this problem.

Then I found an easy to use text editor that can take a script with mixed white space and correct it. With one easy command. And it's not an editor that is exclusive for Python. It provides color-coded syntax for HTML, Javascript, Perl, ASP, PHP and many other languages.

If you'd like to know Where in the World Wide Web I found this editor, just check back tomorrow. Did I mention that it's free?

Tuesday Tips

This tip is for any PSPXI or PSPX2 user, who has been frustrated by slow-downs or crashes.

PSPXI was my first PSP version and I loved it at the start. Over time, it became increasingly slower and crashed at the most inopportune times. I got used to exiting and restarting at regular intervals and that helped a little. I stopped leaving PSP open when I wasn't using it. But when it crashed 4 times in 2 hours, I gave up. I acquired PSP9, since I'd heard so many good things about it. The crashes disappeared and everything ran faster, but I really missed some of the features I'd had in PSPXI.

Last week, I was searching for something else and found a hint that seemed too good to be true. But I gave it a try. And it worked. I intentionally left PSPXI up for 3 days and there were no slow-downs or crashes. I shared the hint with my daughter and she experienced the same happy results. I don't have PSPX2 yet, but I've seen comments from PSPX2 users, who say this works for them too.

1. Close PSP
2. Use Windows Explorer to go to your
   C:/Documents and Settings/your user name/Application Data/Corel directory
3. Rename the file ImageDB.db to ImageDB_SAVE.db
4. Rename the file thumbnails.db to thumbnails_SAVE.db
5. From the menu, select File/New/Text Document.
   Name this file ImageDB.db
6. Right-click on this new file and select Properties. On the General tab, check the "Read Only" Attributes box.
7. From the menu, select File/New/Text Document. Name this file thumbnails.db
8. Check the "Read Only" box as you did in Step 6

Evidently the slow-downs can be caused by the Photo Organizer, which uses large amounts of CPU time. These instructions replace the Organizer's data files with a blank file. It does disable your Organizer. I don't use this feature, so it seems like a fine trade-off to me. If you try to use the Organizer after completing the steps, it will show the palette, but display a message: "no files match your criteria."

I'd welcome comments on how this works for you.

Tomorrow is Wednesday Where (in the WWW), a day devoted to interesting and useful links. Hope you'll check it out.