Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with timestamp

What tools are there for synchronizing photos to audio by time in a slideshow?

friedapplepie — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:59:15 -0800

What tools are there for synchronizing photos to audio by time in a slideshow? I have a set of digital photos taken manually, at about a photo each second but not quite. I have audio recorded at the same time, and I'd like to be able to match the photos up to the audio by time. What's the best way to do this? Mac tools are preferred, but I'd love to hear all suggestions. Thanks!

NTFS folder timestamp metadata

Barrows — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:10:49 -0800

In NTFS if you have a file at the bottom of a directory tree like c:\a\b\c\d\file.txt and the file is modified (thereby changing the time/date stamp on the file) is there some way of detecting that by looking at information (err metadata?) in the folder node itself - in other words does NTFS flag a folder as containing items that have changed. Because right now it seems like the timestamp for d\ is fixed at the time it was first created and does not change when its contents change. We want to write a program that will let us know that we should look in some folder because it knows something changed in there. we want to have to avoid drilling down and looking at the files because there are jazillions of them. Oh and it needs to be agentless - no tripwire

Simple Filename Parsing Question

yellowbkpk — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 07:33:42 -0800

Should-be-simple Linux timestamped file parsing question. I have a directory with what is now 10k jpeg files in this format (number of seconds since 1970):

1202499302.jpg
1202419201.jpg
1202439301.jpg
1202459401.jpg
1202479501.jpg
1202499602.jpg
1202419502.jpg
1202439601.jpg
1202459702.jpg
1202479801.jpg
1202499901.jpg

I'd like to use a script of some sort to shuffle these images into directories based on month, then day. Note that the "last modified" times on the file system are not necessarily the same as the timestamp in the file name, and I'd like to collate the files with the file name timestamp, not the filesystem timestamp.

Can anyone suggest a way to do this?

Now for a FarAway() function, and we can code up a fairytale!

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:37:33 -0800

How do I convert RSS feed timestamps to relative timestamps or "time ago", for example: "12 minutes ago?" I've got a bunch of aggregated RSS feeds, and I would like to display relative timestamps - "timeago", "timesince" or "fuzzy time", it seems there are many names for it - in the HTML output, like Recent Activity does for registered Mefi users.

Here's an example (self-link). Those of you who have seen Electicker will note that the site already does this (self-link), but those feeds are run through Feeddigest and I'd like to move the legwork to my own server (if only for the more frequent updates).

Do any of you know about an elegant way to do this, preferably in PHP or even Yahoo! Pipes? Note that I will want to do this for a whole bunch of feeds from various sources and native timezones, so I'm guessing there will need to be some timezone conversion (to UTC or something) involved.

Thanks in advance!

How to prove that a web page that's there now, was really there, once it's not there anymore.

ManInSuit — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 19:48:44 -0800

How to prove that a web page that's there now, was really there, once it's not there anymore. Here's the deal:

I'm havine a semi-public disagreement w. some folks. They have some slightly incriminating information on their web site that makes my side of the story look good, and their side of the story looks not so good.

My concern is that they're going to replace the incriminating information with unincriminating information, and then claim that the incriminating information was never there.

Are there any steps I can take now, while the incriminating information is still up, that I can use to prove later that it was there.

I thought about submitting the site to the wayback machine, but the timeframe is all wrong - if they take the site down, they'll do it soon. If I need to demonstrate it was there, I'll need to do that soon, too. I think the wayback machine works on a schedule of months...

(Details left out because they are too embarrassingly boring to explain - neighbourhood politics. Bah...)

I just want a good time...

tmcw — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 09:34:30 -0800

DATETIME, TIMESTAMP, TIME, DATE. Which should I use for general-purpose date storage in a recent MySQL version? So I'm building a calendar among other things... and I'd like to store the date that events start. It's in PHP and CodeIgniter. I'd like to store dates in something reasonably mainstream and efficient. I've seen both Timestamp and Datetime used, rarely Time or Date. What are the +/-s for these guys? Or, at least, which you would use?

Thanks, this is a total mystery to me.

Timestamps in ircII?

PuGZ — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 22:59:17 -0800

ircII: How can I display timestamps next to each message? I thought this would be simple enough, but depressingly my Google-fu fails me. I'd rather not have some ridiculous complex script, either - if possible.

HT verify timestamp of an email?

mdion — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:50:42 -0800

I received an assignment by email from a student five days after it was due. The 'sent' date on the email is the day the assignment was due, but the 'received' date was five days later. Can I verify the real time the message was originally sent from the email header (below)? If not, if the email originated from a university address, should the IT staff be able to get the information? Thanks MeFi. The email header:

Return-Path:
Received: from tunnel.mail.XXXX.edu ([unix socket])
by tunnel.mail.XXXX.edu (Cyrus v2.1.18) with LMTP; Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:55:27 -0400
X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 2.2
Received: from dXXXXX.XXXXXXX.edu (XXXXXX.XXXXX.XXXXX.edu [XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX])
(using TLSv1 with cipher EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA (168/168 bits))
(Client CN "XXXXXXX.XXXXXX.edu", Issuer "Tech Support CA" (verified OK))
by tunnel.mail.XXXXXXX.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id XXXXXXXXXXXX
for ; Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:55:27 -0400 (EDT)
(envelope-from XXXXXXX@XXXXXXX.edu)
Received: from XXXXXXX.XXXXXXX.edu (localhost [XXX.0.XXX.XXX])
by localhost (Postfix) with SMTP id 09C874CE
for ; Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:55:27 -0400 (EDT)
(envelope-from XXXXXXX@XXXXXXX.edu)
Received: from XXXXXXX.comcast.net (XXXXXXX.comcast.net [XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX])
by XXXXXX.XXXXXXX.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 640DA4CC
for ; Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:55:26 -0400 (EDT)
(envelope-from XXXXXXX@XXXXXXX.edu)
Received: from [XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX] (XXXX.hsd1.XXX.comcast.net[XXX.XXX.XXX.X])
by comcast.net (XXXXXXX) with ESMTP
id ; Wed, 18 Oct 2006 00:55:24 +0000
Message-ID:
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 11:53:23 -0400
From: XXXXXXX XXXXXXX
User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.7 (Windows/20060909)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: XXXXXXX@XXXXXXX.edu

Subject: XXXXXXX
References:
In-Reply-To:
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="------------050700XXXXXXX400070200"
X-XX-Spam-Details: The following antispam rules were triggered by this message:
Rule Score Description
DATE_IN_PAST_96_XX 0.205 Date: is 96 hours or more before Received: date
X-XX-AVAS-Version: 5.2.1.279297, Antispam-Engine: 2.4.0.264935, Antispam-Data: 2006.10.17.173442
X-XX-Spam-Rating: (8%)

SQL: Virtual Grouping?

odinsdream — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 11:42:16 -0800

SQL: Virtual Grouping? I'd like to get a count of transactions organized by the hour, so that I can determine which time period in the day is the busiest. I can get the count for a single hour with this:

Select Count(Distinct TimeStamp) From Transactions Where TimeStamp Like '00:%'

Our timestamps go from 00:00:00 to 23:60:60.

So, what I want to do is consolidate a long list of these queries into something more efficient and versatile, if possible a single query:

Select Count(Distinct TimeStamp) From Transactions Where TimeStamp Like '00:%'
Select Count(Distinct TimeStamp) From Transactions Where TimeStamp Like '01:%'
...
Select Count(Distinct TimeStamp) From Transactions Where TimeStamp Like '22:%'
Select Count(Distinct TimeStamp) From Transactions Where TimeStamp Like '23:%'

What are some good ways to do this? Many thanks!