Traveling Down the Information Backroad

Yes, we at SCOCA are working on New Year’s Eve. I thought I would post this on my lunch break.

I’ve added direct download of building info to Garmin GPS devices that support the Garmin Communicator Plugin, available for PC and MAC. Most newer Garmin devices with USB will support the plugin. Once you have the plugin installed and your GPS hooked up via USB, here’s the procedure:

http://www.scoca-k12.org/netmap/example8.php

• Click a marker, or a link in he right column
• Maximize the marker window (+)
• Click the download to Garmin GPS link
• When the new window opens, click “Download Building Information”

On my nuvi, the waypoint is stored in my Favorites folder. If you have Bluetooth enabled with your phone and GPS, you can tap the phone number of the building to make a call. If you try this with a device other than the nuvi, leave a comment and let me know how it works.

Ideally, I would have preferred that the user be able to directly download from the maximised info window, but I couldn’t get the plugin to load there. So, I opted for a new AJAX window.

Buggy iframes

I wanted the ability to load dynmaic data into the marker tabs, so I’ve tried iframes. Using the same ilnk as above, click a marker, or a link in the right column, and then click the “more data” tab. This will display a test page from the SCOCA Conference. There are two bugs with this.

First, click the “info” or “Network” tab of the marker, and then maximize the window. Next, minimize the window, and then click the “more data” tab. It will be blank. Click the “info” tab. Click the “more data” tab, and you will see the information. Strange.

Also, in Firefox, the page loading indicator at the bottom keeps going and the page never fully loads. This doesn’t happen with IE.

It’s never as easy as I think it will be.

technorati tags:google maps api, garmin, gps, nuvi, communicator, iframes

Worst Podcast #1

TWiT 124: Nerdgasm – Anytime John C. Dvorak can’t get a word in edgewise, you know something is wrong. Hear more about Intel/Microsoft/OLPC than you could possibly care about. To top all of that off, the incredibly rude Cory Doctorow rails against Audible.com as Leo is trying to do the spot for the company. I hope Mr. Doctorow’s new book tanks.

Worst Podcast #2

TWiT – The iPhone Show – I’m too lazy to look up the link, and you don’t need to hear it anyway. To his credit, Leo warns at the beginning of the episode that if you are sick of hearing about the iPhone, don’t listen. He was so right. You know the overhype is going to continue when this podcast starts by asking each guest what the experience was like waiting in line on launch day. The single best line in the podcast is this:

 

 Standard Podcast [0:03m]: Play Now | Download

The above quote makes me sorry I never commented on the power button of my Garmin nuvi. These are bad moments, but I still think TWiT is one of the best tech broadcasts out there.

Favorite Podcast Episode

The Digital Photography Show #21 – This show actually aired in September 2006, but I first heard it in October of this year. It’s the only podcast I listen to that I’ve gone back to download all of the previous shows. The hosts are friends, they have fun doing the podcast, and it shows. It really brightens my drives. This particular episode contains co-host Michael’s “riveting cheese story” , relayed at a time when Scott is trying to lessen the “bantering” on the show. Every week you hear some tips, or learn about new software or books to improve your photography.

Good Tech Books

Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax: From Novice to Professional

If you code PHP and want to do a Google Maps Project, this is the book to get. Excellent, although it is naturally already a bit behind the times with all of the new functionality added to the Maps API this year.

Flickr Mashups – I haven’t coded anything using the flickr API yet, but I’ve read much of this book. It’s good.

Bad Tech Book

Head Rush AJAX - I’m a visual learner, but if I need to learn coding I prefer a linear book. I found this book to be gimmicky and bad for use as a reference. It has some good reviews on Amazon, but it’s not my style.

This year I took a little over 4,220 photos, about twice as many as in 2006. Here are the photos that I like the best in no particular order, and they are all on flickr. Note that although I like them, some of them haven’t been viewed very much by other flickr users.

I thought for sure this would be a popular photo on flickr, but it hasn’t happened. If I could have only waited another 5-10 minutes, I could have shot the small tornado that formed from this storm front. The lightning was getting too close, I was in an open field, and my camera doesn’t have weather sealing. This is a good excuse for me to upgrade to a Nikon D300

I like this not only because it is a pretty landscape, but also because it reminds me of one of the most beautiful, clear days of the year. I think the composition is nice.

I’m sure a lot of people think that this is just a quick snapshot, but I spent a lot of time setting up my framing to get the flags and headstones the way I wanted. I took many shots to finally get it so that the flag in the forefront was still, as the others waved in the breeze, but so that you could still see most of the front row. I duotoned this so that hopefully when the photo is viewed, attention is paid to the flags and headstones. The original color version is a bright and sunny sky. It’s hard to believe that an hour later I took the “almost a tornado” shot above.

This type of shot is such aa cliche, but I like it anyway.

I think the glow I added to this shot really sets it off. I guess a lot of people are put off by cemetery photography, but I really anjoy the landscaping and old statuary.

I love the art deco look of this former hotel in Huntington.

This shot of a street in Pomeroy, Ohio is my best “small town America” photograph.

This is a popular photo on flickr, and was selected for Explore. I remember a very hot day when I shot this.

The John Rankin Historical Site in Ripley, Ohio. This came out well, and is the closest thing to a snapshot that is in this post. It would have been hard to take a bad photo on such a beautiful day.

I love the contrast and texture of this photo. No one else does.

Technically, this is probably the best photo I shot this year. If you view this “large size” on flickr, the shades of grey all the way back to the hills are very good, the contrast of the photo is nice, the water ripples are good and it’s definitely one of my better composed shots. No post processing was done on this. It was shot with in-camera Black&White mode.

I have several photos from my vacation that I also like, but this post is much too long already.

technorati tags:photography

These are photos from other flickr users that I added to my favorites list, listed here in no particular order. Looking at these, I see what a long, long way I need to go to better my photography. To see these photos on flickr, visit my Favorites page.

The framing of the girl in the open dryer door was very reminiscent to me of an 18th or 19th century cameo.

This was done by rcvernors, another flickr photographer here in Huntington. He does a lot of Photoshop post work, and his photos are characterized by bold colors.

This is so good. You really need to go to flickr and view this sized large.

Beautiful color range and symmetry.

I’m a sucker for duotoned portraits, and the added green really sets this off.

I love sailing ships, and this is so evocative of the sense of adventure and freedom.

4th of July, 2007 – Micanopy Florida

Beautiful macro work.

I am the middle child of five in our family. Yeah, that’s it. The reason I’m a gadgetholic. I will say that I only buy gadgets I’m sure I’ll use, but inevitably, some fall by the wayside because they didn’t deliver what I thought they would. Here’s some gadgets I purchased this year and use all of the time, in order of their use (I’ve linked them to Amazon for convenience):

Sigma 10-20mm Superwide Angle Lens – I know, readers of this blog were certain it would be the Garmin nuvi 660 in the number one spot, and I only mentioned this lens in the blog in passing, but this lens has rarely been off of my Nikon D70s since I purchased it in February.

One of the disadvantages of digital cameras is that due to the crop factor, finding a good wide angle lens has been a challenge. I have a Nikon 17-35mm lens, and on my N80 film camera that lens satisfies my need. If I attach that same lens to my D70s DSLR and take a picture at 17mm. the crop factor gives me an apparent view of roughly 25mm. The Sigma lens has given me the ability to get really wide shots with the D70s, and has helped make my landscape shots better by being able to add more foreground interest with a great depth of field, or to achieve some cool wide angle effects:

Sigma makes this lens with mounts for Nikon, Canon, Pentax, and Minolta/Sony DSLRs. The lens is worth the investment if you like shooting landscapes and architecture, and it’s also great for rooms indoors.

Garmin nuvi 660 – There’s not much more to say about this GPS that I haven’t already posted on this blog. It has brought me peace of mind while driving, plays my music, podcasts and audio books, and is just a great device. At this stage you might want to check out the new nuvi 760 for more features, and a slightly slimmer profile.

Sony GPS-CS1 Data Logger - If you don’t have a GPS, or your GPS doesn’t allow for marking waypoints or keeping a tracklog, then a data logger is almost a must-have for geotagging photos. Press one button and this unit will begin recording your position every 12 seconds or so. After a day of shooting photos, you simply plug the unit into your PC via USB, and software will match the geographic point times with the time you took your photo, and record the data into your picture’s EXIF metadata. Sure, there is plenty of software (including flickr) that will let you drag a photo onto a map, but if you shoot lots of pictures, using a data logger is a huge time saver, and the Sony GPS-CS1 is one of the most popular loggers on the market right now.

You might also consider the Gisteq PhotoTracker. This logger is less expensive, has more accessories included, and is supposedly more accurate than the Sony unit. Some of the reviews on Amazon aren’t glowing, but other blog posts and reviews that i’ve seen indicate that this is an excellent unit.

Flip Video Ultra 60 minutes - I‘m using this much more than I expected I would. This is one of those rare purchases that I got simply to see what the device is like, and I’m keeping it. So far i’ve used it mainly for posting short videos for my family to view. I also hope to use it on this site for some videos. AS you can see in the photo, the USB plug flips out of the unit, and you plug it in to your PC. The software is on the device, and even allows for direct uploading to a few video sharing sites.

Most camcorder sites I’ve checked have mentioned that the video quality is terrible compared to just about any typical (and more expensive) “real” camcorder. They’re right, but missing the point. The video is good enough, and if I want to make short video clips this is so much easier than hauling out my HD camcorder, and then having to capture back into my PC and re-render to the online format I need, and besides. the video is going to look bad on almost any video sharing site due to recompression. Everyone who has viewed video from this camera on my TV are surprised that it looks much better than they thought it would. Stick it in your pocket and you are good to go. It even has a tripod mount. In November, Sam’s Club had a pallette of these priced at $149.00 each.

Sunpak Compact Floor-Standing Monopod – I wish I had purchased this inexpensive monopod much earlier in the year instead of right before the start of this year’s SCOCA Conference. It extends to 60″, but you need to be careful as the last three leg sections can’t be twist-locked. I have had no problems so far. For still camera shooting, this is so much better than lugging my heavy tripod around. I intend to purchase a really good tripod in 2008, and I’m sure it is going to be an expensive purchase to get the low weight and features I need, especially for shooting video. I’m also sure that this monopod will get a lot of use with my DSLR in my outdoor shooting. Below is a night shot using the monopod as a support:

STO-FEN Omni Bounce for Nikon SB-600 or Olympus FL-36 Flash Units – It Just so happens that I own both of the flash units listed for the Omni Bounce. This white, translucent piece of plastic fits over the flash head, providing nice, softer diffusion and apparent wider coverage in a flash shot. I used it for all of my Flash shots at SCOCA Conference, and it really helped my photographs. Here’s an extreme indoor example below:

[tags]garmin nuvi, sony gps-cs1. data logger, gps, sigma, 10-20mm, monopod, sunpak, diffuser, sto-fen, omni bounce, nikon, sb-600, photography, flip video, pure digital[/tags]

This is an interesting list to me, because the two subjects I’ve written about most, photography and the SCOCA Mapping Project, don’t appear here. Another interesting factoid is that three posts about coding are in the list, and outside of talking about the map project, I don’t have a particular desire to write on that subject. I realize that the stats are telling me to concentrate on coding articles, but there are a bazillion sites that do that much better than I ever would.

1 Adobe Creative Web Suite 3 Premium – This is still a somewhat disappointing software package, mainly because Dreamweaver CS3 should have been so much better. In early December the product kept crashing on me when I would try to use certain plugins. Not a single email from Adobe on what the problem was. After digging around I learned I needed to delete a software cache file because of a European time change. Go figure. And yes, I still consider this product to have the worst installer…ever. Add to this the fact that SCOCA paid for an upgrade with less PHP/database capability than the previous version of Dreamweaver. The SPRY Framework is OK, but new features for SPRY are appearing at a snail’s pace. It almost seems like the new emphasis is on ADOBE AIR and FLEX.

2. Create Geotagged Google Maps with Google Spreadsheets - This post got a good bump from the Google Maps API blog, when I linked to an article on their site.

3. Dreamweaver CS3 – Dynamic XML Data with PHP and SPRY Part Two

4. Dreamweaver CS3 – Dynamic XML Data with PHP and SPRY – Part One of the post above.

5. Garmin nuvi 660 – The first of eight articles I wrote about this GPS unit.

6. flickr as a Genealogy Tool – This is about history, not necessarily photography.

7. Upload Your Google MyMaps to Your Garmin GPS

8. GPS Data Loggers for Geotagging

9. flickr Genealogy Part Two

10. Using PHP/MySQL with Google Maps - This post links to a good starter article on the sunject, written by Pamela Fox of Google. PHP seems to be the most used language for creating Google Maps API projects, and there are now several more articles on this subject.

[tags]2007, review, flickr, genealogy, history, php, mysql, dreamweaver cs3, adobe creative suite 3, spry, google, maps, api, garmin, nuvi[/tags]

The picture below was taken in February 2006. It is my Christmas card this year.

I want to wish everyone Happy Holidays, and thanks for visiting this site. I’ll have new posts beginning the day after Christmas.

This is the time of year that writers post heart-warming stories. I don’t have one, but the following story is true; known only by a few close friends.

As a music major at Marshall during the early 70s, I was called upon to perform in almost every musical performance at the University and around the town of Huntington . It wasn’t that I was a good musician, but the fact was that MU didn’t have that many musicians who played percussion as their major instrument. In fact I believe I’m the third student to graduate from the school as a Percussion Major.

I liked playing keyboard percussion (marimba, xylophone, vibraphone, etc.) and in performances of musicals in the area I was usually one of the two percussionists in the pit orchestra Thus I found myself performing in the pit for the production of Camelot by the Huntington Musical Arts Guild. If you’re not familiar with the story, it basically involves the love triangle of King Arthur, Guinevere, and Sir Lancelot. The song, If Ever I Would Leave You, became a standard.

Playing musicals was a lot of fun, but a bit challenging. Usually the orchestra rehearsed only once by ourselves, since we were the “professionals” of the production. The music was direct from hand writing, making it slightly more difficult to read, and sometimes as a percussionist I needed to quickly change between instruments. I would need to move from keyboard intruments, to tympani, triangles, wood blocks, etc.

I don’t know how it is with other pit orchestras, but in playing many performances, coupled with the fact that you basically just sit between musical numbers, boredom can set in. Some orchestra members would bring books to read, and I distinctly remember the trombone professor at Marshall bringing a stack of Archie and Jughead comic books to pass the time. The clarinet professor had a shoeshine kit with several pairs of shoes.

One of the big scenes of the musical involves many cast members and the chorus in King Arthur’s Court. Near the edge of the stage close to myself and the other percussionist, one of the cast members had a large sheepdog (the sheepdog was involved in the story, but I don’t remember why). The other percussionist was a friend of mine, and for some reason we were fascintated by the dog, keeping a close eye on it during full cast rehearsals and the first night performance.

We hatched a plan.

The night of the second performance I arrived with a box of dog biscuits, and my friend had procured one of those silent dog whistles. We carefully laid a group of the biscuits right at the edge of the stage.

When the big court scene began, the sheepdog dutifully hit his mark downstage center, with his master holding the leash in his right hand. My friend simply bent over a bit so he couldn’t be seen and blew the silent whistle, that we weren’t sure really worked or not.

Oh, it worked.

My friend had blown the whistle just as the chorus was starting their big number. The dog starting barking and howling and looked right at us, and then I guess he spotted the biscuits and start lunging violently towards them. The dog’s master is really having a hard time holding on to the dog at this point, while trying to maintain his composure as the full chorus performs.

At this point my friend and I are actually crying from laughter while playing our intruments, and also trying to maintain composure. The dog kept up the howling and lunging all the way through to the end of the song. Yes, it destroyed that part of the perfomance.

No one knew what the heck had happened. In all rehearsals and through the first night’s performance the dog had almost been a statue on stage, and never barked. Being the young guys that we were, my friend and I kind of felt bad about what we did, but not that much. Our experiment had been a success, and we didn’t try it again.

When the curtain closed on the act and intermission began, you could hear the dog’s master yelling behind the curtain, “What the **** was wrong with that ****** dog?!”

Anyway, that’s one way to cure pit orchestra boredom.

I found the AJAXed WordPress(AWP) plugin today, and can finally embed objects using the inline element. this means iI can directly drop in embed code from Google MyMaps and other web sites. The plugin has a ton of features, but I simply installed it and dropped in some embed code from takitwithme. Below you see their newest feature, which is the ability to embed Google Maps or Google Earth KML files into a blog post or web page. What sets this aprt from embedding from Google MyMaps are the buttons for viewing larger maps, direct Google Earth, and GPX file download to your GPS. Very cool.

I made the decision today that I’m going to give up on Paint Shop Pro, and I’m really going to try and learn Photoshop as best I can. I’ve used PSP since version 4. Version 9 of the product was the best in my opinion, and at the time was well ahead of Photoshop Elements in features. Corel purchased PSP from the original maker of the product, JASC Software. Corel’s version 10 of the product wasn’t very good, especially in the changes made to the photo browser, and tweaks to other tools that weren’t needed. Version 11 was a distinct improvement, although the software seemed to start to be dumbed down a bit. The latest verstion is X2, and is the best effort from Corel so far. The browser is actually useful again, and there are nice photo correction tools.

I use PSP not only for photography but also for almost all of my web graphics work (along with Adobe Fireworks). I’ve also found some tools in PSP to be better than their counterparts in Photoshop. For example the straighten tool is much easier and faster than using the ruler tool in Photoshop to straighten wanky horizons in a photo.

Why am I making the switch? I was ticked off today when I installed a 40+meg update to PSP X2 only to discover that they hadn’t provided RAW support for my Olympus e410 that I purchased last August to use when I don’t want to carry my large Nikon around. The e410 has been out for months, and support should have been provided by now. Unlike the Photoshop family which provide RAW support though the separate Adobe Camera RAW application, RAW updates in PSP require that the entire app is upgraded, so you don’t see RAW updates until other features in the application are fixed or added.

Another reason for switching are the better layer features in Photoshop, and more tools overall. PSP X2 has fairly nice layer features, but is behind Photoshop.

The switch is going to be difficult for me. I really don’t like the GUI of Photoshop, and it’s hard to switch from a program I’ve used for over 10 years.

Enter Scott Kelby.

I purchased Kelby’s Photoshop Classic Effects and loved it. It has a “to the point” style which is like reading recipes. In fact, after trying many of the effects, I almost could start to know what to do on my own. I think Igot bogged down in a large SCOCA project, and never went back to the book. It’s a great resource for creating photo and graphics effects that can be used for the web.

For doing a full photo workflow I’m considering both

The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers

or

Scott Kelby’s 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3
As usual with Scott Kelby’s books each of the above has received great reviews. I’m leaning towards the 7 Point System, because I think that may provide better workflow solutions for my photography.

Probably everyone reading this already uses one of the Photoshop products, and wonders what I’m worried about.  I hope Scott can make it easier for me.

[tags] scott kelby, photography, graphics, photoshop, paint shop pro[/tags]