Greg In The Desert

I really like the image quality from my first generation Canon Digital Rebel but I quickly got tired of caring around a big SLR. I have a Canon G9 but it stopped working when it became out of warrantee. I’ve been looking at the 4:3 mini-SLR types cameras but they are expensive and still seem to have issues.

After my Canon G9 died, I vowed to never buy another Canon camera again. Then the G10 and G11 came out with positive reviews, I considered them but they were lacking enough features to reconsider my anti-Canon stance.

At CES last week, Sony annouced the DSC-HX5V camera loaded with nearly every feature I have been wishing for.

• First and foremost, It includes an SD slot. Being forced to use a Memory Stick was enough to keep me from even considering a Sony camera.
• It includes a GPS and Compass. I often carry around a GPS recorder so I can geotag photos later with the coordinates. It’s been a pain and sometimes the GPS doesn’t record. It’s yet to be seen if Sony uses some weird formatting of the GPS data.
• Auto HDR. I don’t have to annoy my friends by making them stay still for those multi shot pictures.
• It records full HD movies in the AVCHD format in 1080i. Why Canon didn’t include this in the G11 is beyond me but it’s something I will use often. It won’t do the 24fps mode of my dedicated HD camera, but i can live with it.

It’s not a SLR but I expect the image quality to be very good. The only missing feature I haven’t read about is if it will shoot in RAW file format. For $350 I will find out unfortunately I will have to wait until March.

As I try to get back into posting interesting iPhone applications, I am still surprised at the amount of crap that is available to the iPhone store. Mac users always complained that sure, Windows has a more software available to it but most of it is crap. I think that is true with the iPhone.

The Wordpress App is not one of those crap applications (that is, is you have a Wordpress installation you can use it with). I’m not sure why they created an all new iTunes entry for the 2.0 app when both the 1.0 and 2.0 apps are free.

Although I find the iPhone to difficult to write entire blog posts on, the Wordpress app is great for creating basic drafts that get me started, fixing existing posts and managing comments.

Wordpress 2 is available on the iTunes store for free.

WordPress 2 is the only iPhone app that lets you write posts, upload photos, edit pages, and manage comments on your blog from your iPhone or iPod Touch. With support for both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress, users of all experience levels can get going in seconds.

What’s new in version 2.0:

- A new, more efficient user interface that makes it faster to switch between comments, posts, and pages.
- Various user interface refinements and bug fixes
- New Comments interface, with Gravatars and the author URL shown in the comment list
- Passwords are now stored in the keychain
- Posts are now automatically saved and restored if network connection is lost during publishing
- Added persistence, so the app re-opens in the blog you last used
- Added an interface for manually entering the XMLRPC endpoint for non-standard setups
- Fixed rotation-related visual glitches
- Fixed errors where malformed XML prevented access to XMLRPC endpoint
- Fixed edge case where local drafts were sometimes not saved
- Fixed the order of photos so that they’re displayed in the order they’re uploaded

For support, please visit our forums at http://iphone.forums.wordpress.org — we aren’t able to respond to support requests submitted in an iTunes review.

Charles Platt has had a number of posts on Boing Boing about Arizona (Unfortunately there’s no way for me to link to just his posts on Arizona or just his posts on Boing Boing). Since I am from Arizona, I have particularly enjoyed these posts. Arizona is so much more than the heavily populated and oppressively hot Phoenix Metro area.

His latest is about the Titan Missile Museum in Sahuarita, Arizona. I have never heard of either. Sahuarita, Arizona is located south of Tucson near Green Valley. There are about 1000 pictures related to the museum on Flickr.

I also liked his post with a view from a “former mining town” somewhere in Arizona. It could from a number of places. He doesn’t mention where exactly (probably Jerome).

I also have a number of photos on Flickr about Arizona and posts here on this blog you can check out.

Titan Missile photo from Telstar Logistics on Flickr.

Momento Live is a service that goes along with the wifi enabled Momento digital picture frames. It allows you to stream photos from your Momento Live account to other picture frames.

I purchased two of these frame partly for this feature. I wanted to buy frames for my family then be able to stream my pictures to them as without anyone having to do any configuring.

Today I get a email that the service is being terminated. Not only is their site not updated to reflect what the email says, they seem to provide no work around to provide the same kind of service that they currently offer or to remove it from the frame’s software.

I think someone needs to hack the frame to run linux.

Dear Member,

The Momento Live service will be terminated on February 25, 2009. After that date you will not have access to the Momento Live website or services. However, your Momento frame will be unaffected so you can continue to enjoy viewing your photos on your frame.

The closure of Momento Live web site means you can no longer store your photos on the Momento Live server and/or and share your photos with other Momento Live members.

Important note! Any pictures that you have stored on Momento Live server will be permanently lost after February 25, 2009. If you have any images stored on the Momento Live server, please ensure you have a copy of them stored on your PC. Any images that are hosted on Flickr, Picasa, SmugMug, or similar services will not be affected.

When currently visiting the Momento Live web site you may receive a website security warning as the SSL certificate has expired and will not be renewed. Please ignore this message. You are welcome to continue onto the website to retrieve your images.

To visit Momento Live please click here.

Any questions you have may be directed to momentosupport@imate.com

Thank you,

The Momento Support Team

I have several pictures on Schmaps Guides. They can all be viewed on their new iPhone version via these direct links.

Grand Ole Opry: http://www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=nashville&sid=all_sights&p=18821&i=18821_1

Eiffel Tower: http://www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=lasvegas&sid=sights_attractions&p=191871&i=191871_3

Grand Ole Opry: http://www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=nashville&sid=all_sights&p=18821&i=18821_2

Isotopes Park: http://www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=albuquerque&sid=all_events&p=321723&i=321723_6

Isotopes Park: http://www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=albuquerque&sid=all_events&p=321723&i=321723_3

Albuquerque International Sunport:
http://www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=albuquerque&sid=all_sights&p=228464&i=228464_1

MacOSaiX lets you build mosaic images from various photo libraries, including your, google images or videos. It’s been in alpha state for ages, but glad to see it’s finally updated and Leopard compatable.

Version: 2.0
Released: Nov. 19, 2007
New features:
Now compatible with Leopard.
Newly found images now “zoom” into place.
Image sources can now be designated as “filler”.
Saving mosaics as very large images is now handled more gracefully.
Handling of EPS images is improved.
Bugs Fixed:
Folder image sources no longer reset when a mosaic project is re-opened.
Symbolic links are now handled correctly by Folder image sources.
Searching for flickr photos that match all of the given tags now works correctly.
Google images sources are working again when running on Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther).
Google images sources now load correctly when a mosaic project is re-opened.
QuickTime image sources now behave better.
No longer crashing when using red-, green- or bluescale colors with a Glyphs image source.
No longer crashing when getting the count of matching photos from flickr.
No longer crashing when an invalid image is chosen as the original.
No longer crashing when double-clicking the hand-picked image source.
No longer crashing at some point after editing an image source.
No longer crashing on quit when there is an unsaved Glyphs image source.
No longer crashing when clicking in the menu bar when no windows are open.
Many memory leaks were fixed.
Known issues:
Hiding the status bar is not working.
Zooming the window causes it to jump around.

I took a early morning trip to the Balloon Fiasco as we often call it. I would have probably had four times as photos if I didn’t run out of battery power. You can view the flickr set or watch the slide show below.

There’s been yet another story of someone’s pictures taken from Flickr and used without permission. In this case, a picture of a girl was used in a Australian Virgin Mobil ad at a bus stop. Here is a picture of the ad on Flickr.

Every time I read of someone’s photos being used without permissions from Flickr, I become concerned. I have and my photos marked with a Creative Commons Attribution, non commercial license for some time. The same as chewywong’s photos. The problem with the Creative Commons licenses on Flickr is once you have set your photo to that, it automatically gives any user fully access to the full resolution image. Which allows large prints to be made. If Flick would allow a CC licenses and still give control over who has access to the high res versions, most thefts would probably be deterred.

I have no changed my the license to all of my photos to All Rights Reserved. I hope Flickr will address this issue.

Listpic is a alternative to interface to Craigslist for viewing listings. It shows only the listings with photos and shows the photos first. I have used it nearly everyday since it came out to quickly see what people have for sale.

All the pages indicate that it’s been blocked and point to this forum to complain. According to comments in this Apartment Therapy Chicago post, the owners of the website have received a “Cease and Desist” order.

Hopefully Craig Newmark will make a comment that they plan their own such interface, or I see a user revolt on their hands.

Update 7/7/07 9:12 PM: Response from Craig

Here’s some honest info… < craig° > 06/07 18:15:20

I’m swamped, traveling, so here’s the short version regarding the listpic thing.

The listpic technology was taking a lot of bandwidth from our servers making it harder for the vast bulk of people who visit our site.

The listpic people are aware of this and other issues, which they do not disclose.

Perhaps they should disclose those reasons here, and also, maybe explain their attempt to monetize our site.

thanks!

Craig

I have a Epson Stylus Photo R1800 that I specifically bought to make large prints of my photos. I need to replace the cartridges but want to get the cheapest price I can. I also want original Epson cartridges since they have the archival quality inks.

I only use this printer for the high quality prints, I use a Stylus Scan 2500 for normal printing in which I refill the cartridges. Generics would be OK, as long as they are archival and I would want to see the data on them.

Any suggestions?