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You know those moments when you see something and you think, wow I wish I had a camera. I get those moments all the time… (of course I still want a real camera) but having my Nokia N95 with its 5meg camera on me all the time means I can get those photos that I have always wanted to.

Tonight was no exception. I caught up with an old friend over a glass of wine in town to discuss how to build some web presence for a friend of hers and ended up catching the train home at dusk.

So here are the best 4 of the photos that I took…..

But instead of just saying here are the photos, I thought I would add a few more comments.  Firstly, 70% of the photos I took worked… that is to say what I saw on the screen of the phone was what I saw on the screen of my computer.  But of course that leave 30%.  One of the reasons I don’t often load images straight to Flickr or Ovi from my phone is that on the 320×240 screen they look great.  But take that 5mg image and see it 1:1 on a big 24″ monitor and it looks utter crap.  There is still a big fail of expectation between what you see and what you get.  Sure some of it is me but a lot isn’t.

The other catch is that controlling the colour is an interesting experiment most of the time.  Of course what I see in the camera is what I get, but it is often not what I actually see But notice that, I did refer to it as a camera. Not my phone.  When I am calling some one my nokia is my phone, but it is now my camera as well.  And depending on when I am using the device and for what is often how I refer to that device.  Perhaps for me at least convergence of technology has reached a threshold.  For a truly convergent device is one that does many things with out you thinking about it.  This has become such a device.

Of course I still don’t have my real camera.  I know which one I want however (and for the record I have my heart set on the Nikon D90), and whilst my heart it set on it, my wallet is not able to stretch that far.  But maybe next year I will get the camera I want.  But then even when I do get it, I will still have my phone on me the rest of the time… and then that will be my camera, or was it my phone.

Tags: General, Photos, n95 by Me
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Macro on the Sun

Originally uploaded by wolfcat_aus

Two reasons for this blog post… 1.. seriously this is one of my better photos for a while. It is a photo that I am happy with both on a technical and an aesthetic value as well.

This is a photo taken on a phone. I do think people need to stop and think about that for a while. We all rush to get the latest tech all the time. I remember the first digital camera I purchased in 1997 (yes I am an early adopter) it had a resolution of 320×240 (and yes I was a poor early adopter) . Now my phone (yes my trusty Nokia n95) has a 5mg camera with an amazing lens that captures photos like this. The other thing to notice is that this photo is geotagged. My phone has my GPS as well. First time I got to play with a hand held GPS was a Magellen Unit back in 2001. Now I am lost (not figuratively) with out one. I used the GPS on my phone to find this particular object that I have photographed here.

So I do think we all need to stop and think what really interesting times we live in.  Now I am reflecting on less than 10 years of tech in the above paragraphs…. consider what we are going to have in another 10!.

And the second point, is the subject.

Artist Chris Lansell has created a 1.1billion scale model of the sun. Not only that but now has been now laid out from St Kilda to Port Melbourne in the same scale the rest of the solar system. From the model of the sun to Mercury is 58 metres, then other 100 or so to Venus, then Earth. Saturn in scale is nearly 2 kilometres away from the St Kilda marina. Poor old Pluto is 5.9km. (all controversies about it status aside :-))

for more info on the project go here. http://www.melbournesolarsystem.com.au/ .

But for getting a sense of scale of our place on the planet you should go and visit the St Kilda foreshore.

Tags: General, Photos, gps, n95, nokia by Me
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Nokia have expanded their QR Code Generator to now give you the ability to create Business card barcodes.  More than just a URL, it will embed all the standard business card info.

(See the funny red square of to the side… that is what I am talking about)

Watch the video to see how to do it

more here… Nokia Beta Labs

and now there is a downloadable version of the QR code reader as well…. http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/scan.htm if you don’t already have it..

In case you are wondering if you do… Nokia N82, N93, N93i, N95, N95 8GB, E66, E71, E90 or 6220 Classic should all have it preinstalled.. but you can get the Nokia version for the Nokia N78, 6210 Navigator, N96by clicking on this installer file  Nokia_Barcode_Reader_S60_32.sis

Plus you can find readers for other phones here… http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/scan.htm

Tags: Mobile, n78, n95, nokia by Me
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Nokia Photos has hit 1.5 (Beta that is) …. (which is kind of amusing as I didn’t realise there was a 1.  But I digress with my lack of knowledge….)

• Better integration with Share on Ovi
• Maps view and geotagging: your photos and videos on the map
• More supported devices
• Import pictures from also from your digital camera
• Ovi look and feel

“Fully supported: N70, N71, N72, N73, N75, N76, N77, N78, N80, N81, N81 8GB, N82, N90, N91, N91 8GB, N92, N93, N93i, N95, N95 8GB, N96

Partially supported: all Nokia S60 devices and most digital cameras (import pictures/videos only).

PC system requirements:

• Operating system: Windows® XP (Home and Professional, Service Pack 2 or later), Windows® Vista”

Important! If you are a Windows XP user, you must first update your computer with the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 from here. This update is not necessary if you are using Windows Vista

………

So that is the standard hype… here is what I think…

It does things that lots of other things do for my photos already…  yet for me this is the big and very nice kicker… the maps.

And by using the Navtec maps it means I can zoom in nice and close (unlike Flickr) on street level to see where to place a photo that did not get geotagged correctly.  Once you have opened a photo you can move its geodata as well. The one thing that is missing from the Navtec Maps however is a Satellite view.  So what most people would say… but if you have a photo that is not correctly tag and you took the photo in say a wilderness area that is easy to recongnise from Satellite imagery then you can easily tag it, this you can’t do.  I have actually got quite good at this, but that is mainly due to flickr using yahoo maps for Australia which basically suck big time.

The software is not without it bugs mind you.  I am having trouble navigating between images in map mode for example. Also it says it can intergrate with other hosting sites, but it does default to OVI.

Perhaps, just perhaps I will shift a bit more to OVI for my photos as well.  Yet this is a bit of software I think I am about to become very accustomed to.

But if you want to set up Nokia Photos with flickr (and I do)

here are the instructions… (care of http://europe.nokia.com/support/nokiaphotos)

Settings for Flickr:
Note: Flickr requires Nokia Photos to use a special login that is different from your normal Flickr/Yahoo! login. Get your special Flickr login here.

• Server address: http://www.flickr.com/services/atom/
• Username: get your special username here
• Password: get your special password here

I am going to set it up at home simply to use it as the primary way of accessing my photos at home.  The geotagging and maps feature alone mean that I will want to use this over anything else.  The maps are not another application that has to be launched and then data passed back and forth.  They are a tab.

Now I must go and start geotagging 10 years of digital photos….

Tags: Photos, gps, n95, nokia by Me
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I have entered a Sony-Ericsson competition to win a trip :-)…

So please click the link below…

vote for my photo

to vote for the photo below… (this is one of my favs taken with my N95)…

The global Expert’s Choice winner will receive a trip of a lifetime to one of five destinations worth approximately £10,000/12,500 EUR.

The global People’s Choice winner will receive a trip of a lifetime to one of five destinations worth approximately £5,000/6,250 EUR.

The rules just want a camera phone photo only, taken in 2008….  All the rules are available here- and you can enter the World View photo competition here.

The competition runs from now until the end of October.

Tags: General, Photos, n95 by Me
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