Month: November 2019

Pretty straightfoward.

✔ ~/bin
$ git clone https://github.com/exiftool/exiftool
 Cloning into 'exiftool'…
 remote: Enumerating objects: 727, done.
 remote: Counting objects: 100% (727/727), done.
 remote: Compressing objects: 100% (551/551), done.
 remote: Total 12272 (delta 443), reused 301 (delta 170), pack-reused 11545
 Receiving objects: 100% (12272/12272), 15.40 MiB | 12.58 MiB/s, done.
 Resolving deltas: 100% (10445/10445), done.

For instance, when checking some images I can see that there’s a ton of EXIF information in there, including the precise location where the image was taken:

✔ ~/blog
$ exiftool ./2019/11/IMG_20191111_2029432-825x510.jpg
 ExifTool Version Number         : 11.76
 [...]
 GPS Version ID                  : 2.2.0.0
 GPS Latitude Ref                : North
 GPS Longitude Ref               : East
 GPS Altitude Ref                : Above Sea Level
 GPS Time Stamp                  : 19:29:43
 GPS Dilution Of Precision       : 16.132
 GPS Img Direction Ref           : Magnetic North
 GPS Img Direction               : 178
 GPS Processing Method           : fused
 GPS Date Stamp                  : 2019:11:11
 [...]
 GPS Altitude                    : AA.A m Above Sea Level
 GPS Date/Time                   : 2019:11:11 19:29:43Z
 GPS Latitude                    : DD deg MM' SS.SS" N
 GPS Longitude                   : DD deg MM' SS.SS" E

Sanitize that.

✔ ~/blog
exiftool -gps:all= -r -overwrite_original -P -ext jpg .

This will remove the GPS data for all JPEG files in a folder and all subfolders.

I recently tested two portable disk drives to use for data backups but was appalled by how badly they performed. The drives would alternate between writing quickly (50 – 100MB/s) and stuttering to a halt (250 – 500KB/s), and I could not understand why.

Here’s what that looked like:

Continue reading Why Are My Backups So Slow?