Then Eric pointed out that the zoom in the BlackBerry is just a digital zoom anyway. Good point.

Resizing a photo taken with an iPhone or BlackBerry without zoom in Photoshop would probably result in a better quality photo than the digital zoom in the camera phone will give you.

ShareThis

However, I may be close to changing my mind on this.

As I was heading out to lunch yesterday I decided to leave my little point and shoot at home because I didn’t want to bulk up my pockets. Last week I was hanging out with Danny and checking out his Nokia N95 with a 7 5 (thanks Derek) megapixel camera in it (and a second smaller one for video conferencing).

If my cell phone had a reasonably good digital camera in it, that might be something I’d use after all.

UPDATE: Some comparison photos from the N95 - pretty nice looking. Hopefully this is where things are heading.

ShareThis

ShareThis

I’ve been working hard to get everything done before I leave and I actually did so this afternoon. Now I can relax all weekend without anything hanging over my head. This is a very good thing since I’m starting a big project on Monday,

I also picked up a Canon SD630 and a nice big SD card for the trip. I chose the SD630 in part because it will shoot movies at 320×240 pixel movies at 60 frames/second and one of the things I want to do with the camera is get a few videos of my golf swing without lugging around the video camera.

We’ll see how well it works. If I get anything worthwhile, I’ll post it when I get back.

ShareThis

• My desktop machine is using a RAID 1 configuration, and is backed up nightly to an external drive using SuperDuper.
• The critical data on my web server (MySQL and SVN) is backed up to S3.

I do like having secondary off-site backups for stuff that is hard to replace, and photos definitely fall into this category. In fact, photos are really the only hard drive recovery data I’m holding out hope for at this point (I’ve had to re-create most everything else I was waiting for).

I really like my experience with S3 so far, but I’m considering using Flickr for my photo backups, because it has the added benefit of optionally making my photos available via a web interface if needed. A Flickr Pro account along with the Flickr Backup project or similar seems like a pretty decent combination.

Anyone out there tried this?

1. All of the effort I’ve spent to work with them has been a complete waste of energy. I’m basically writing off those hard drives and the data now - if I ever get it back or hear from them again it’s a bonus. [back]

ShareThis

Yep, it’s been snowing here in Colorado.

Yesterday we shoveled about two feet of snow from the driveway to get a car back in the garage. Today, we shoveled another three+ feet of snow from the driveway. Some of that was windblown, but I think it’s safe to say we got a solid 3-4 feet of snow in about 24 hours.

No mail or package delivery the last 2 days - which I’m guessing means a few things that were expected to arrive before Christmas may not make it.

Since I work from home, being stuck inside for a couple of days isn’t the worst thing in the world for me. And the dog loves being able to go out and romp around in the drifts; some higher than she is. Check out the photos, isn’t she cute?

Unfortunately, the timing of the storm is pretty bad. With the Denver Airport (DIA) closed for nearly 3 days, and high traffic holiday travel days at that, folks coming and going have had their travel schedule turned upside-down on them.

My parents were due to fly in today, they were able to re-book and will now be coming in mid-day on the 25th. My in-laws were due to fly in tomorrow (and had even checked in online), but even though the DIA will be open again when their flight is due to arrive, their flight was cancelled.

The plane for their flight is stuck in Denver and won’t make it to Minneapolis in time for their flight’s departure. Unfortunately, they were unable to re-book their flight (the first available was after they were due to return), so the entire visit has been postponed. We’re very disappointed.

There are a lot of folks who are worse off than we are though. Steve O’Grady ended up scratching his return to Denver before his trip home for the holidays, and way too many people were stranded at the airport or are unable to get home.

ShareThis

I like that they are using OpenID for their logins. If you’re a Flickr user, Zooomr will be pretty familiar feeling.

ShareThis

I played golf in short sleeves on Sunday - a beautiful fall afternoon. Today, we get our first snow of the season. I’ve talked about the weather more since moving to Denver than I ever did before.

Here are a few photos… the dog is completely unfazed by the white stuff.

ShareThis

I’ve finally finished a project that has been in incubation for quite a while: a digital photo frame.

The process looked a little something like this:

1. (2004) See article on web.
2. (2004) Think “that sure would be cool!“
3. (2004) Put it off for a while.
4. (2004) Leave space for it when I design my desk.
5. (2005) Put it off for a while.
6. (2005) Realize that 19-20″ LCDs are really pretty cheap now, order a 19″ from Dell.
7. (2005) Have a father in-law that is a skilled wood-worker. Realize that visiting him in Minnesota over Christmas is a perfect opportunity to get some help building the frame.
8. (2005) Father-in-law builds a fantastic frame (I did help a little on the design).
9. (2006) Stain the frame.
10. (2006) Buy a mat (and drill a little hole for the power button).
11. (2006) Install heavy duty hangers and a cable on the back of the frame box.
12. (2006) Assemble and blog it!

My father in-law, Harlan, gets all the credit for the top notch carpentry work. We sat down with the monitor and my initial ideas, and he basically ran with it from there. The first thing he did was create the inner frame that the holds the monitor. You can’t see any of this wood now that it is done, so it’s not the prettiest lumber.

The inner part of the inner frame is hollowed out so that the monitor sits less than 1/4″ inch back. The bottom of the monitor sticks out more than the top and sides, so the bottom was thinned out more than the top and sides. We also drilled holes in front of the buttons so they’d still be accessible.

We (and when I say “we”, I mean “Harlan”) made the outer box next, matching the dimensions of the inner box. We added a series of holes to the top of the outer box frame for ventilation because you can’t see the top of the box anyway now that it is on the wall.

To attach the back, we took out a portion of the edge of the outer box so that the back could slide into the area and sit flush. There were ventilation holes added to the back too, along with 2 blocks on the inside of the back that allowed my wire attachment loops to sink into some real wood rather than the thin back piece.

The face trim was baseboard molding from Home Depot, skillfully cut by Harlan and glued together. Once the face trim was glued together, we glued it to the outer box frame.

Once I got back to Denver, I stained the frame and had a local store make the mat. The outer mat is a nice linen while the inner mat is a simple while.

Though we drilled holes for all 4 of the buttons in the inner wood frame, I only chose to drill a single pin hole in the mat over the power button. I can push a paper clip in there to turn on and off the monitor as needed.

Going from front to back, the finished product goes something like this:

1. Face frame
2. Mat
3. Inner frame
4. Monitor (sitting in Inner frame)
5. Back

Running this baby is a Mac mini that has taken residence under the desk, sitting atop the Quad. I may set the mini up as my new backup system as well if I’m not able to resurrect my PowerMac G4¹.

I will be setting up a little rsync action to move photos from the Quad to the “frame” as I optimize them for the size, etc. Right now I have a keyboard and mouse attached to the mini, but I’ll probably put those away in favor of VNC once I have it all set up the way I want it.

Without Harlan’s help, I don’t know how long it would have taken me to get the frame built - and I’m sure it wouldn’t have turned out as well as it did. Once again Harlan, thank you for all your help!

I’m really thrilled at how this all turned out and I’m looking forward to loading it up with my photos.

1. I’ll find out tomorrow if it is just a bad power supply or not. [back]

ShareThis

My criteria, again:

• Quick rendering in the browser
• Batch creation of copies of the images
• Watermarking
• Sharpening
• A nice simple, clean, elegant UI

Without further ado, and in no particular order:

EasyBatchPhoto

First Impression: According to the web site description, this should be just what I’m looking for. Launching the application brings up a window for setting up your batch rules. It is fairly straightforward, though I had to look up what some of the options meant (for example, “Fit to rectangle” means “scale to this maximum size maintaining proportions”).

Usage: Watermarking using my .png file worked as it was supposed to. The way it popped up dialogs for things I’d already set was a little strange, but I’m sure that after using it a few times I’d get used to that.

Conclusion: There really isn’t much to this app - it does what it says and that’s about it. I’d have to compare the output closely, but from my initial usage I’d put it right behind miniBatch for a batch processor.

Price: $25

DropWaterMark

First Impression: Hmm, from the web site I’m guessing this may be developer-itch-scratch-ware. We shall see.

Usage: Well, this isn’t the easiest software to use… I didn’t even understand the ittle tutorial that popped up on first launch.

Conclusion: This only seems to watermark, not resize. I’ll pass on this one.

Price: $16.50

Batch

First Impression: The web page is the “higest form of flattery” to Panic. The VersionTracker listing says:

Batch is the easy, yet very powerful image viewer/editor/batch processing solution for digital images…

Sounds perfect! Let’s try it out.

Usage: Hmm, you have to double click an item in the tree view to get it to show images - that seems a little awkward to me. There is an “import” function for bringing in photos from an outside source like a digital camera - an intersting choice to include that.

Conclusion: Finally, a combination image browser and batch processor. Unfortunately, I feel that it falls a little short of the best of breed options for either image browsing or batch processing.

Price: $15.95

ViewIt

First Impression: Sounds like an image browser first, with some other options added via plugins. I’m intrigued.

Usage: Very quick thumbnail preview, slick little control for moving between images in single image mode. The ‘Create Web Pages’ option will do an export in 2 sizes, very nice. There doesn’t appear to be any watermarking functionality unfortunately, though there is a ‘Launch Shell Script’ option - would writing a PHP script for doing all this be a fool’s errand?

Conclusion: This is a very well executed program, if it had watermarking support it would be very close to a solution for me. I’d also like to see the integration of a folder tree pane into the image browser window.

Price: $20

I haven’t yet found a perfect solution… when my new machine shows up I’m going install miniBatch, Batch, Caffeine Browser and perhaps ViewIt and try them out for a while. Please let me know in the comments if you know of a software package you think I’ve overlooked.

Please note: All versions reviewed were the latest available at the time this review was published. Software changes with each release, so these reviews may become outdated at any time.

ShareThis

My criteria, again:

• Quick rendering in the browser
• Batch creation of copies of the images
• Watermarking
• Sharpening
• A nice simple, clean, elegant UI

Without further ado, and in no particular order:

iMagine Photo Automator Actions

First Impression: Batch process images using AppleScript, huh? I think I’m looking for something a bit less DIY.

Usage: I read through the documentation and decided not to actually try any of the sample scripts.

Conclusion: Great level of control, but that isn’t something I need in this tool.

Price: Free

PicMark

First Impression: Minimal, clean web page with a couple of screenshots. First launch… where are the windows?

Usage: It isn’t the easiest program to navigate, with all the different little windows. However, it popped up the right window at the right time for me (I need to choose a folder of photos, how do I do that? Ah, it just popped up.). The batch processing worked nicely and as expected.

Conclusion: While this generally does what I want, it has a second step for creating thumbnails (duplicating the original watermarking process) and it doesn’t have any “background color awareness” or variables for the text watermark color so you have to basically pick a mid-tone and hope for the best. Also, there is no sharpening or resizing during the batch watermarking, you’ll have to do that beforehand. A good tool, but still not quite what I’m after.

Price: Free

MiniBatch

First Impression: The web site has a feature list along with screenshots that indicate a well-designed application. First launch gave a little “nag” message, then shows a window that lets you set up batch rules.

Usage: After setting up my batch settings, I previewed an image and my .png watermark image worked perfectly! I tried to add the settings to “Favorites”, but got the nagware prompt - turns out this is crippleware. I processed a folder of images and was quite pleased with the results.

Conclusion: So far, this is the best batch processor I’ve used. It can save batch settings and it even supports RAW images. I think the interface could be a little more user friendly, and i wish it would output from 2 batch settings in a single pass, but it works well.

Price: $9.95

I’ll keep working through my list of potential options and posting them here as I go. The comments are open.

Please note: All versions reviewed were the latest available at the time this review was published. Software changes with each release, so these reviews may become outdated at any time.

ShareThis

My criteria, again:

• Quick rendering in the browser
• Batch creation of copies of the images
• Watermarking
• Sharpening
• A nice simple, clean, elegant UI

Without further ado, and in no particular order:

Caffeine Browser

First Impression: The web site is clean and simple, a good sign. The app launches to a typical demo/register dialog with a countdown, then shows the main application interface. The interface is simple, clean and inviting.

Usage: Choosing a folder from the tree menu shows thumbnails of the images in that folder. The images display pretty quickly, though there seems to be a huge amount of padding around each image which reduces the number of images you can see at a time (I couldn’t find a setting for this). At the size of the window and thumbnail that was comfortable for me, I could only see 4 images at a time (2×2) and 9 (3×3) would have easily fit in the space. The watermark option goes away when you select more than one image, and there doesn’t seem to be any ‘batch’ functionality.

Conclusion: Caffeine Browser doesn’t really have most of the functions I’m looking for, but it does do a fairly nice job with what it does. If it weren’t for the padding issues, I’d probably like this quite a bit as an image browser. If you were a Curator¹ user, you’ll likely find this to have a similar feel.

Price: $14.95

Downsize

First Impression: Web page is simple and looks good, but it not terribly informative. On first launch, the application starts right up and there is a red banner at the top of the screen telling me how many days I have left (20) to try out the software. I like this better than the countdown approach. The application is pretty straightforward - it’s basically a settings pane for you to enter your batch processing settings.

Usage: By default, the source list shows your iPhoto albums. This is probably a smart decision overall, but as I don’t use iPhoto I’d like a way to turn that off entirely. The Resize tab is quite easy to understand, as is the Watermark tab. I don’t like adding “frames” to images, so I didn’t really look into that functionality. Once you’ve chosen your batch settings, you can hit the Preview button to see how everything will come out -very nice. Clicking the ‘Process Images’ button chugs through everything as you’d expect with very nice results.

Conclusion: Simple, but effective. This tool does a great job batch processing images, but it is missing a few features that would make it really shine. First, there is no way to save your batch settings. For each batch of images, I want to create both a 640px max image (w/ watermark) and a 160px max image without a watermark. I’d have to manually change the settings each time to do this. If Downsize added the ability to save batch profiles, it would be awesome to be able to select multitple profiles to be applied to the selected photos - creating both versions of the image at once.

Price: $19.95

Imagewell

First Impression: The web site is a bit less polished, and reveals that this will be a “metal” application - oh boy… On first launch - I have no idea what this is.

Usage: The interface is not intuitive - settings when applied don’t seem to take effect visually in the sample - I can’t tell what I’m doing. This only seems to want to upload a single image to the web.

Conclusion: This one isn’t for me.

Price: Free

Picture the Batch

First Impression: The web site is a little sparse, though it nicely shows that this product is available for both Mac and Windows. As a Mac user, I always get a little apprehensive about products that also have a Windows version - the average application design aesthetic doesn’t seem to be the same on both platforms. At first launch, I am presented with a message telling me that anything I do with this app will have a demo watermark on it - I’m tempted to ditch it right there.

Usage: A big window titled “Drop Window” opens up after I click ok on the “you can’t actually use anything you create with this product until you buy it” message. This has a not very attractive random smattering of images in it, and some kind of gray background - I’m sure to indicate that this is where you drop your photos. In case the imagery isn’t clear, there is big text on the bottom: Drop your image files onto this window. Unfortunately, it seems that I don’t follow directions well because when I dropped the folder containing my photos onto the window, I was presented with a little toolbox window with the following:

No valid image files were dropped.

I guess I need to drop the files themselves instead of the folder? Ugh - how hard would it have been to support both? Ok, dropping the photos… now a batch processing settings window has popped up. This shows a drop down of presets - nice, I’ll make a new one. Huh? You can only set the scale as either a percentage of the image or the size of the width or height of the image - no max size as (I thought) was the standard for this sort of thing. No preview option and I’m a bit tired of not liking this at every turn so I’m not going to actually go through the batch process.

Conclusion: If you’re more forgiving than I am regarding usability and polish, this might work for you. I really didn’t like it.

Price: $19.95

I’ll keep working through my list of potential options and posting them here as I go. The comments are open.

Please note: All versions reviewed were the latest available at the time this review was published. Software changes with each release, so these reviews may become outdated at any time.

1. Which was produced by Caffeine software - is there a connection here? [back]

ShareThis

It’s been a while since I posted any photos of Noonan, here are a couple recent shots.

She’s doing quite well, though today she seems a bit bored and is coming in to play every 5 minutes or so. I need to go run her a bit a lunch.

ShareThis

Yesterday the blinds for the basement windows came in and the painter finished spraying the base color for the house. I was able to knock a few things off my list last night:

1. Replace the outside light fixtures (no more brass!)
2. Install the blinds in the three downstairs windows
3. Replace the brass peep-hole in the front door with one that has a nickel finish.
4. Replace the ugly plastic doorbell with one that has a nice metal face.

Progress! Having the blinds makes the rooms feel a lot more “finished” - no more staring at the concrete window wells. 3 Day Blinds delivered a quality product; of course it took nearly two weeks to get the darn things, but they fit great.

I have bit of a compulsive problem with lists - as soon as I finish one thing, the next thing on the list becomes my “must do” event. This tends to work well when I’m creating software because I never leave a feature half-complete; the unfinished details niggle at me. However, when waiting on others, I really should do a better job letting this stuff go.

And an excellent bit of news today - the 2.5ghz quad-core PowerMac G5’s were finally released. The price went up a bit, but the price of the 30″ Cinema Display dropped so they basically offset each other. I’m getting my order in today - I hope.

ShareThis

It’s gone from Summer to Fall overnight here in Colorado, it was even down to the high 30’s last night. The trees are changing colors too - it’s a good time for photography.

I took this today. I think I’ll try getting a large print of it from ElcoColor. I was really impressed with the prints Adam got from them.

I need to go find some nice “turning leaves” shots this weekend.

ShareThis