Really don’t make changes to your site’s CSS code when you’re really tired and about to go to sleep. All you do is what I did last night – break things so badly you have to go to backups to get it back to where it was. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, of course.
As a quick followup to my free iPhone GPS geotagging post, I’ve incorporated the GPS data into my photoblog. The first GPS enabled photos goes up Tuesday morning. Installation takes all of 10 minutes. Download and install the ‘easyMap‘ plugin for pixelpost, slap it into your addons directory and enable it. I’ve modified the files slightly so if there isn’t GPS data found, it displays nothing instead of warning that ‘no geodata was found’ or ‘location no set’.
Also, if you’re using the nightly builds of WebKit as your primary browser, the map overlay won’t load properly. I’m not sure why, but reverting to ‘just’ Safari 4.0.2 made it all work again.
It’s weird to watch him grow up so fast. This week we discovered that he loves peaches. Loves them. Despite the faces he makes sometimes when gnawing on them. We’ve been peeling the skin off little slices and sticking them into a mesh-bag like pacifier, and he goes to town. We had tried banana in the past. He didn’t dislike them, but he never got into it either. The peaches he can’t keep out of his mouth. After we finish eating our dinner, we give him a slice or two to let him chew on. Tonight, for the first time, he swallowed some and didn’t spit it back out a few seconds later. So, I think he’s finally had some of his first solid food – though we’ve been encouraging him for nearly two weeks now. Here’s his angry face:
Eating peaches has never been this tough
The other big development is that he’s trying really really really hard to breakdance crawl. Laying on his belly, he’ll get up on his arms, pushing himself really high up, and then drop himself onto his face and kick his legs. It’s almost like he’s learning to clutch, and hasn’t quite gotten out the terrifying-your-parents-in-the-parking-lot phase yet. Once he’s on his face and kicking, though, it’s really cute. He gets crazy, rocking his body all around, and it looks so much like those videos of kids from the 80′s busting a move. We of course, can’t stop laughing.
In all of this we’ve noticed that he’s starting to become very independent. That’s not really the right word for it, but it’s the best I can think of. If we’re trying to feed him a slice of peach, he wants nothing to do with it if we’re holding it or trying to put it in his hand. He turns his head away until we’ve put it down on the tray in front of him, and allow him to pick it up, and try to eat it. Of course, half the time, he drops it on the floor (which Greta loves), but he’s got to be the one doing it. If you try to give him a toy, often he won’t gnaw on it unless it’s in his hand, under his direction. Thankfully he will still take toys handed to him, but it’s going to be tough if he decides he needs to pick everything up as well.
I often wonder where I had been standing when I took a picture, and what was around me. I’m getting close to 40,000 images in my Aperture library, and so many locations are now lost in the hazy reaches of my long term memory. There’s a solution to this problem – geotagging – embedding location data in the EXIF tags of photos, and the good news is that it’s getting more and more popular these days. So popular that Nikon has released a dedicated GPS tracking device that looks pretty slick and interfaces directly to the newer DSLRs. The bad news is, that like all of Nikon’s branded accessories, they want an outrageous price for it: MSRP $249.99
The good news is if you’re willing to do a little extra work, and you have an iPhone 3G, you have already spent all the money required. First get a copy of EveryTrail for your iPhone, and head over to EveryTrail and setup an account. Load up the application, associate your account and do a test trip to make sure everything works as expected. Once the trip is saved and uploaded to the EveryTrail server, you’ll get an email with a link to the trip on a google-maps mashup. At the bottom of the screen is a “Download GPX” option. This is the GPS data in an XML feed, suitable for use in the last step.
Once you know it works, and you are comfortable with the app’s interface, get ready for your photo tour. Make sure that the time in your camera matches the time on your iPhone. The iPhone can set it’s time automatically so you don’t have to do this before you leave your house. In the field, launch the app, start recording location data, and use the lock button within the EveryTrail app. (This keeps your phone from going to sleep and losing track of where you are.) Take as many pictures as your battery and memory card(s) will allow, unlock EveryTrail, and go home. On the drive back, go ahead and upload the saved GPS data to the EveryTrail service.
You’ll need another freeware application for the last step – GPSPhotoLinker – and the GPX file you can download from your saved trip on EveryTrail. Simply plug your camera into your Mac, and it should show up as a USB drive. Load those pictures into GPSPhotoLinker (with the “Load Photo” button on the right), as well as the GPX file (with the “Load Tracks” button on the left), go into Auto mode, and select “Batch Save Photos”. It will grind away for a few minutes, and embed GPS data into the files on the memory card.
Now, when those images are brought into Aperture or iPhoto, they will have the location information stored within. When you upload them to flickr, FaceBook, or Picassa, etc, people will be able to see where they were taken.
Note: This also works with the 3GS, but not so much with the original iPhone or the iPod Touches. You really need the GPS in this case – the SkyHook wireless location service just won’t cut it for what we’re trying to do. And yes, I’ve been muling over this post for awhile, which is apparent if you look at the post ID for this post (868) vs the previous post (1014).
I write tasty words. Sometimes I have to eat them. The next Halo game is coming out. Looks like I’m going to figure out a way to work some console gaming into my daily routine, starting in October sometime, as well as making sure the TV still works – and maybe try to hook up some proper sound.
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