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Take more screenshots (2022)

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Re: Take more screenshots (2022)

#61
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense. This archive tool is even more out there because it's not a direct link or file of the content, but just a capture of what the content would be. My work is mostly UI/UX and design related, so the capture is actually pretty valuable. I'm a bit of a digital packrat, and sometimes like to review personal files from nearly a decade ago, so I think something like this would increase in value for me over…

Sort of. The more you hoard, the more painful it is to trawl through the hoard to review. It reminds me of Linus Torvald's "Only wimps use tape backup. REAL [adults] just upload their important stuff on ftp and let the rest of the world mirror it." -- let your work be remembered on the basis of who it had an impression.

I've been looking into Nextcloud/Photoprism for a more efficient storage/browser experience, but honestly the software seems pretty amateur so far (vs Google Photos / Apple Photos).

For now, everything is loosely store on an SSD, with different folders for year/month/day (of backup). Screenshots are stored by year.

I'd really like a google photos browsing experience for all my data backup, regardless of content type (well, with filters).

Re: Take more screenshots (2022)

#62

> For example, my oldest files were made in Microsoft Word on an iMac G3 running Mac OS 9. I can open them in a modern word processor, and they look similar – but it’s not the same. Some of the fonts and graphics are missing, and I don’t know where I’d find replacements. > It’s even harder for an undocumented side project I abandoned years ago. Having the code isn’t the same as a working application. The author's sol…

  > For software, side project or not, it should probably come with dependency configurations (granted, in early 2000s this isn't as mature as it is today) and some tests.
These may or may not help. Things have certainly changed in the past several years, but if we have learned anything, the "infinite memory of the internet" is anything but. Dependencies vanish and die all the time. So, while you may have a list of dependencies, if you don't have those actual dependencies locally with you, you may be out of luck. Even if the actual project still exists, the older versions you depend on may not.

I can't speak to others, but if you were to actively shelve a Java project, and were using Maven or relying on its infrastructure, I would clean out your local repository cache, rebuild and test the project, then snapshot the project directory and the repository cache. At least then you might have a solid chance of resuscitating the project later on if you needed too.

Re: Take more screenshots (2022)

#63
post #47

So, if I write a script that takes screenshots of my desktop every minute or so, are there any tools out there I could use to “de-dupe” based on some arbitrary threshold of similarity to existing screenshots? I imagine it would be quite straightforward for identical screenshots, but what about stuff that’s just “mostly unchanged”?

A very low tech approach would be to create a video from the screenshots, and let the video codecs do this for you. Av1/x265 are quite mature in detecting differences between frames.

I agree that's not a bad starting point, but it should be possible to do a lot better than this because a screenshot will often be very similar to an earlier one that's not the previous one. For example, repeatedly switching between a few views. Video codecs are optimized for (a) streams that rarely go back to an earlier pattern, (b) minimal ongoing memory usage, and (c) realtime decompression, so they aren't going for quite the same use case.

Re: Take more screenshots (2022)

#64
I use SnagIt to capture a screenshot with a single keystroke when I hit the print-screen button. I have configured SnagIt to automatically store .png file with a date/time stamp.

Out of 100 screenshots, 99 will never be viewed, but that 1 out of 100 is valuable.

Re: Take more screenshots (2022)

#65
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My regular life is being interrupted by taking screenshots all the time, so I have relatively less time to work on important things. I think I lack perspective on this and am not quite understanding what you mean. Where is the interruption coming from? Why do you need to take screenshots?

> I think I lack perspective on this and am not quite understanding what you mean. Where is the interruption coming from? Why do you need to take screenshots? I have this too but it's in the form of saving URLs of interesting things. I just fear stumbling upon something nice, not saving it and then not being able to find it again (which happens regularly btw; Google search and reddit search are pretty bad at finding…

Safari (and I think other browsers) has some great history search features. You maybe could explore those.

https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/search-your-web-brows...

Re: Take more screenshots (2022)

#66
I used to sent screenshots of chat conversations to my ex all the time because she was always "reinterpreting" the details of past conversations. Turns out this was a maladaptation to cope with her abusive behaviour and wildly untreated borderline personality disorder. So FYI, if you find yourself in the same situation, take a step back, reevaluate, and ask others around you for help.

Re: Take more screenshots (2022)

#68

I use SnagIt to capture a screenshot with a single keystroke when I hit the print-screen button. I have configured SnagIt to automatically store .png file with a date/time stamp. Out of 100 screenshots, 99 will never be viewed, but that 1 out of 100 is valuable.

> SnagIt [1]

$62.99 for something that you could hack together in a few lines of (power)shell script?

[1] https://www.techsmith.com/store/snagit

Re: Take more screenshots (2022)

#69

I use SnagIt to capture a screenshot with a single keystroke when I hit the print-screen button. I have configured SnagIt to automatically store .png file with a date/time stamp. Out of 100 screenshots, 99 will never be viewed, but that 1 out of 100 is valuable.

Win + PrintScreen does exactly this already?
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