bioneural.net

Open Share Icon from idea to Google

Bruce — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:27:23 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

You know a concept has merit when it's picked up by Google. Google have adopted the Open Share Icon (OSI), the product of a creative partnership that I'm proud to have played a part in. This is something to celebrate: you don't need highly paid professionals or deep pockets to pull off a good idea: you just need plain-old enthusiasm and an unmet need. Here is the story of how the Open Share Icon (OSI) came to be. The Google toolbar—now with OSI A proposal On 20 March 2008 I read that Shareaholic had been threatened by ShareThis.com over the use of the Share Icon in their functionally similar Firefox extension. After discussing this with David Hall and Icerabbit we agreed that next day I would write to Jay Meattle, entrepreneur at Shareaholic, to seek confirmation this was so—and to float the idea of his involvement in an alternative icon project. Having recently proposed and completed the design of the Geotag Icon we were game to be involved ourselves: If you needed assistance with the vector graphics, moral or other practical support, I know of at least a couple of volunteers ;-) Iteration after iteration Things moved quickly: we didn't wait for a response. David, Icerabbit and I exchanged an enormous number of design candidates within the space of a few days. Most of our designs involved hands: Our final selection came down to stylised "seeing hands", which we described in the design note I sent to Jay on 24 March as follows: We just couldn't help ourselves ...

Air Sharing between iPhone and Mac

Bruce — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:14:38 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Air Sharing is a fab app for iPhone that lets you mount a file store on the device to the desktop as a wireless share. You can browse your files using any decent web browser, and even upload files to the phone—albeit one file at a time. This limitation can be overcome by mounting the iPhone as a network drive (on Mac from the Finder Go > Connect to Server... and enter the server address). Rather than have to visit this menu each time, wouldn't it be nice if there were a one-click way to mount iPhone? There's a app for that. Yep, there's an app for that if you're willing to make one. Fear not, this is very simple using Automator which brings AppleScripting to the Rest of Us. The iPhone supports Apple's Bonjour networking protocol, and can be recognised by either the assigned device name or IP address. If like me you use your iPhone on more than one WiFi network, it might be assigned a different IP address via DHCP. Because of this it makes sense to use the iPhone's Bonjour name rather than IP address, which you can identify from within Air Sharing by taping on the WiFi icon: My Air Sharing app is built with three Automator actions: Get Specified Servers, Connect to Servers, and Show Growl Notification (Growl is an essential OS X add-on). In Automator drag these actions to the right side of the window in the order shown: In the Get Specified Servers action click Add ...

Geotagging on WordPress.com

Bruce — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 08:08:38 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

WordPress.com has introduced geotagging of user profiles and posts. Location is input manually via an integrated Google map or automatically via GPS, the W3C Geolocation API, the Google Gears Geolocation API, or guesstimated from your IP address. The geodata are recorded in posts via the geo microformat plus geo.position and ICBM meta tags, and in feeds via GeoRSS and W3C geodata standards. More here; where's the geotag icon?

Twitter release per-tweet geotagging API

Bruce — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:19:52 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Twitter's geotagging API is official. There is now a checkbox to enable geotagging in your Twitter account settings; enabling this option allows third party applications to annotate individual tweets with location data. Developers could previously integrate only profile location with the Google Maps API as here.

Castles in the sand

Bruce — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:55:02 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Taken at Sugar Beach, Flic en Flac, Republic of Mauritius. Click thumbnail to enlarge imageCastles in the sand

A Mini adventure

Bruce — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:05:21 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Apparently the diminutive Mini is 50 years old this year. Worthing played host to a Mini rally today and—although not fans—we took the opportunity to have a look at what it takes to be an enthusiast. Herewith a few shots taken with my iPhone's equally diminutive 2MP camera. A political statement on the UK automotive industry: This one might have had a small part in the Transformers movie if it wasn't pink: Initial attempts at cross-breeding with Smarts were semi-successful, resulting in the Mini 0.5 Edition: Retrofitting a Space Shuttle main engine to a Mini... the power of dreams: Yep, that essential engine component really is made from a Red Bull can: Restoration on a budget using a repurposed jam jar with coat hanger mounting: This Mini toots like a truck:

Apple silence and secrecy

Bruce — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 09:10:45 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

This Dilbert strip may shed some light on why Apple engineers won't publicly acknowledge a defect that causes the 7200rpm Seagate drive upgrades in June 2009 MacBook Pros to make clicking and beeping noises associated with pauses in system responsiveness. Apple's cloak of corporate silence is becoming notorious, with the recent disclosure of an exploding iPod-related gagging order. Google returns many hits relating to Apple's culture of secrecy. It seems like a sure-fire way to alienate the traditionally loyal customer base.

The MacBeep Pause

Bruce — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:11:52 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Potential buyers of Apple's new (June 2009) MacBook Pro should be cautious about specifying a configure-to-order faster and larger hard drive 'upgrade'. The drive supplied by Apple, a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 (model number ST9500420ASG) appears to be operating improperly, with some users experiencing random pauses in disk activity associated with disturbing clicks and beeps. Apple are telling some of us that their top-of-the-line laptop is supposed to lock up frequently, and that the beep is normal too (so I guess my previous Macs were all defective as they lacked such 'features'). Here is the content of my letter of complaint to Apple: 14 July 2009 Customer Relations Apple Operations Europe Hollyhill Industrial Estate, Hollyhill Cork REPUBLIC OF IRELAND Dear Sir/Madam, Re: AppleCare no: supplied MacBook Pro serial: supplied Case reference: supplied Issue: Unacceptable performance of ST9500420ASG (Momentus 7200.4) On 30 June 2009 I reported to AppleCare a loud random beeping that I suspected was related to the hard drive in my MacBook Pro, with a configure-to-order 7200rpm 500GB drive 'upgrade' as above. As advised I took it to my nearest Apple Service Centre, who heard the beep and thought it was possibly related to drive calibration and of no concern so long as it was infrequent. Subsequently the beeping became more frequent (ranging from several times a minute to several times an hour) and more evidently associated with complete system pauses. This is demonstrated in a video posted to YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsg84yqzvhs. Multiple users with the same drive are reporting this same issue at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2049659. Tier 2 Support then sent me an Apple app called Data Capture ...

PhotoLinker evolves geotagging on Mac

Bruce — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:32:35 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

PhotoLinker 2.0 ($US50, 30 day trial) is described by its developer as a 'pro geotagging and annotation tool'. Geotaggers who were familiar with GPSPhotoLinker will recognize the family resemblance, but will also appreciate the magnitude of changes this new app brings. It's no longer dependent upon use of a GPS track logger for a start, as integrated mapping now supports a manual geotagging mode (hence the dropping of 'GPS' from the name). There are improvements to workflow, a map viewer, a facility for track and waypoint management, and the pièce de résistance—EXIF metadata annotation. And yet it retains the incredible flexibility and the same precise control over automatic geotagging parameters that I appreciated in my review of GPSPhotoLonker. This post takes you on a visual walkthrough of the many new and refined features. Disclosure: A single user license for PhotoLinker was provided by Early Innovations for the purposes of this evaluation (v2.0.1). I have a personal interest in the success of the Geotag Icon. Offset When you first click on the Geotagging Console button a HUD prompts you for the time zone your camera was using when the photographs to be geotagged were taken. As a general rule this is easier if your camera is always set to UTC (GMT) which is what your track logger will also be recording. The HUD helpfully prompts you to use a date and time-shifting tool if the images and tracks you load don't appear to match. Adding tracks and photos You can add GPX tracks, single or multiple, ...

A Nikon lens with double vision

Bruce — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:24:30 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

I was most disappointed with the images I obtained during our recent trip to Florida. Many telephoto shots appeared out-of-focus despite the well-regarded image stablilization (vibration reduction) built into the Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR DX attached to my new Nikon D90 body on it's debut outing. As was my habit, to protect my investment the lens was fitted with a screw-on skylight filter. I couldn't believe how poor my shots were when viewed on a 24" display: Was the camera (still in warranty) malfunctioning? Had my photographic skills regressed? Could something be wrong with the (now out-of-waranty) lens? Why was the centre of some images sharp, with progressive blurring or even 'double vision' towards the peripheries? These were questions for Nikon to answer. The image below illustrates the problem nicely (showing why I discarded 4 in 5 images I shot). It was taken in bright sunlight while standing still, handheld with VR active, on Auto program mode at f7.1 with a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second. AF lock was confirmed in Nikon View and corresponds to the central circle overlaid on the image: The bannisters in the central circle are in sharp focus; the bannisters in the peripheral circles are blurred, perhaps even double, with the amount of blurring seemingly worsening as you move towards the image edge. Each circle is the same focal distance from the sensor. I was at a loss to understand the optics behind such a result, and my local camera store recommended I speak ...