Today, McKenzie had her five month photos taken. While waiting, I was playing with my new Treo 700p, my Father's Day gift. While browsing the web, I checked out my Flickr account. Through the FAQ section, I learned that I could upload the images taken with my Treo 700p phone directly to Flickr by emailing the images to a special email address. The subject line becomes the image's title, and the body of the email becomes the image's description. The image to your right is my first test.

Imagine the possibilities. Gone is paper. Images are now posted for public view within the time it takes your thumb to finish pressing a button. The new EvDO data network is much faster than the older data network. Though not as fast as DSL or cable, network speeds are much faster than dial-up. Technology and information convergence continues to amaze me.

Today in History:
06/27 Helen Keller born, 1880
06/27 100 degrees, Fort Yukon, 1915
06/27 Bill Graham closes the Fillmore East, 1971
06/27* Fast of Shiv'a Asar B'Tammuz (Romans breach Wall of Jerusalem)

Kiet

Yesterday I was snapping some photos and came across two very similar, yet different images. About two months ago, I came across a simple morphing program for Mac OS X while surfing the Internet, MorphX. I thought that these two images were a perfect opportunity to do some experimenting with image morphing. Click on the image below and see the fruits of my labor.

Kiet

Back on January 14th, I wrote:

Apple has introduced the concept of photocasts, similar to podcasts, but for your digital images. Utilizing RSS feed technology, users can share their albums with other users with other iPhoto 6 users or RSS-compatible browsers, such as Safari 2 or Firefox, or RSS reader software. I managed to put the concept to the test, photocasting my album of McKenzie photos at http://photocast.mac.com/kietc/iPhoto/mckenzie-katherine-callies-(month-1)-website/index.rss, and Jill subscribed to the photocast on her laptop. It worked like a charm.

I had mistakenly given the wrong feed address. Apparently the feed given above works only with iPhoto 6. The proper feed to work with RSS-compatible browsers or RSS reader software is feed://web.mac.com/kietc/iPhoto/mckenzie-katherine-callies-(month-1)-website/index.rss.

Kiet

Of course, there is the major announcement of Apple's introduction of its first computers with Intel processors. I am especially interested in the new laptop, the MacBook Pro, and will wait for the initial reports to come in before I begin to think about replacing my current PowerBook. However, there were two other releases that really piqued my interest.

First was Apple's release of iLife '06. Of course, as soon as it was made available at the Apple Store on January 11th, I ran down to Portland and picked up a copy. The two applications I managed to spend some time with have been iPhoto and GarageBand.

iPhoto 6's response is much faster than the previous version, especially if you have a large number of photos in your library. That in itself is worth the price of the upgrade. However, there are other enhancements that add to its upgrade value.

Apple has introduced the concept of photocasts, similar to podcasts, but for your digital images. Utilizing RSS feed technology, users can share their albums with other users with other iPhoto 6 users or RSS-compatible browsers, such as Safari 2 or Firefox, or RSS reader software. I managed to put the concept to the test, photocasting my album of McKenzie photos at http://photocast.mac.com/kietc/iPhoto/mckenzie-katherine-callies-(month-1)-website/index.rss, and Jill subscribed to the photocast on her laptop. It worked like a charm.

Other enhancements are a fullscreen editing mode with several editing enhancements, cards and calendars (like prints and books) ordering, tight integration with iLife's newest application, iWeb (another entry for another time), and, what may seem be a minor detail, the ability to sort photos in ascending and descending chronological order.

Apple seems to have recognized the emergence of podcasting and has enhanced GarageBand for podcast production. Users can now produced polished podcasts from start to finish. With the development of McKenzie's audio library, this feature is especially compelling.

Second is the introduction of Google Earth for Macintosh. I first experienced Google Earth on a Windows machine and was in immediate awe. The detail of the satellite imagery is amazing. After flying over the globe, the world has become a smaller and more intimate place. If you haven't explored Google Earth, I definitely recommend that you do.

Kiet

Those of you who have recently visited my website will have noticed the addition of my del.icio.us tags in the sidebar and may be wondering what are they.

del.icio.us is social bookmarking. Essentially it is a repository for your favorites, which in turn are linked to others to have bookmarked the same favorite on del.icio.us. For example, I have bookmarked Realmac Software with this service. As of this writing, 49 other del.icio.us users have also bookmarked this same web site. I can then view who those other 49 people are and what other web sites they found interesting enough to bookmark.

Where it gets interesting is when you begin to organize and tag your favorites with keywords, hence my del.icio.us tags. What you see in my sidebar is what is known as a tag cloud. Tags with more links become larger and bolder, giving the viewer an idea of where my web browsing interest lie. Your tags are subsequently linked to other del.icio.us users who have tagged their bookmarks with the same tags. A single bookmark can have multiple keyword tags.

For example, I recently have taken an interest in CNC milling machines, have bookmarked a couple of web sites I had found and then tagged those web sites with the keyword cnc. I can click onto a link that allows me to view all the bookmarks from all users who have tagged their bookmarks with the same cnc keyword, beginning with the most recently added bookmarks tagged with cnc. I also have the option of viewing the most popular bookmarks tagged with cnc. I have the research resource of a thousand, as if I had a thousand research assistants scouring the web me.

This is the power of social bookmarking. Relatively speaking on the time scale of information technology, del.icio.us has been around for some time now. Joshua Schachter created del.icio.us in 2003 to help him and his friends save and share web pages. Of course, I read something about it in Wired magazine or on CNET when in its infancy but never found it compelling. However, this was due more so to my own lack of comprehension and imagination.

Go to del.icio.us. Establish a free account and start social bookmarking. You never know where it's going to take you.


Today in History:
11/19 Gettysburg Address delivered, 1863
11/19 Anniversary of the 1968 Coup by the Army in Mali
11/19 Discovery Day in Puerto Rico
11/19 Feast Day of S.A.S. Prince Rainier in Monaco
11/19 Garifuna Settlement in Belize

Kiet

Here I am trying to test the podcasting concept.

Maybe I got too ambitious with starting with video. Rapidweaver supports podcasting. Technically, it supports all different file types; however, it has only drag n' drop support for audio files. I decided to test an audio file next to make sure that I am not completely screwed up.

My test looks good, and this audio files works in iTunes.

also available via

Kiet

This morning was one of those mornings. I was up at 5:00 AM, my mind tossing and turning, hungering for something to occupy it, so I turned to my computer and began surfing the web. Of course, I am sure everyone has their own set of bookmarks of websites that they visit daily, mine include the various Macintosh news and software sites, various local fly shop fishing reports, the New York Times RSS feed, Wired RSS feed and CNET RSS feed.

On my weekly rotation of sites to visits is the QGIS homepage. QGIS is a powerful open source mapping software package, which I find extremely interesting. I use QGIS for work at the Amphitheater. I import ticket sales reports grouped by ZIP codes and map them out on a regional map to see where and how many tickets are being bought. Though a useful marketing tool, I mainly use it to for traffic and parking planning. Anyways, I check the site to see if there are any updates to the software.

This morning I went beyond the checking of the software's version number. Like I said, my mind was hungry for something to occupy it. I checked out the links section and looked at the GIS data links, 37 total. I was amazed at the amount of detailed map data available for free download.

Maps have always fascinated me since I was a child. I remembered discovering the dumpster behind the Milwaukee Map Company when it used to be located on North Avenue and finding huge rejected maps of metro Milwaukee. Back then, these were gold. Now I continue to mine for gold, but without getting my clothes dirty.

One of the GIS data links was to the National Atlas, where I discovered you can download various map layers of different data sets. They have categorized their layers as agriculture, biology, boundaries, climate, environment, geology, government, history, mapping, people, transportation and water. In terms of a physical metaphor, think of these map layers as different transparencies that you can overlay over the top of each other. One transparency shows the individual states. Another transparency shows the U.S. rivers. Another, the major roads. Another, the dominate vegetation cover. And the list goes on.

We have the ability to better understand our world with increasing simplicity and ease, and I find this amazing. I urge you to download QGIS and some of the GIS data and explore your world.

Kiet

We live in an interesting and amazing era. Never before have we had such an extensive arsenal of technological tools to help record our history. Most recently, I have discovered the integration of my GPS, or Global Positioning System, tracks with my blogging and photos. Those who have recently read my Flyfishing Journal may have noticed the topographical map showing the stretches of water I have actually fished. This has come to fruition with the help of my GPS unit, Rino 120. Here is how it works.

Your digital camera records the date and time you snapped a picture. Your GPS unit records its position on the globe, along with the time and date it recorded that position, over regular, short time intervals, also known as a track. Afterwards, a piece of computer software, with our digital images and GPS tracks, matches the date and time of your picture to the closest date and time of a recorded position in your GPS track. The assumption is that your digital camera and GPS unit are in the same proximity at the time you took the picture and therefore gives is a pretty accurate location of where the picture was taken.

I am a Mac user, so the software I use is GPSPhotoLinker. However, I have also recently discovered another great piece of software called JetPhoto Studio.

I believe people don't quite understand and grasp the significance of this technology. I am confounded that my children's children can one day review my GPS tracks and know to with a good deal of accuracy when and where I was during my life. Less than a hundred years ago, the average people would be overwhelmed by the vastness of the world, not truly knowing where they were, let alone their location's relationship with the rest of the world. Understanding only stretched as far as the eye could see; now it stretches across the globe.

We now have the ability to record our existence for future generations, which begs the question are we leaving an interesting historical record. It prompts to live an as interesting life as possible.

Kiet