Entries Tagged as ''

missing from the EXIF – Hidden Cove

This is going to be kind of a short one…  and one I hope will surprise a few people…

This shot is from my recent sojourn to Tasmania.  We had a few days in Hobart and decided to do something different, and something that wouldn’t cost a fortune  (of course if more of you brought my prints…. but aside).  So the plan became do a day trip down to Geeveston down in the Huon Valley.  We have toured Tasmania extensively but still hadn’t made it down that part of the island and there is a very affordable public bus that goes down there, $40 for a whole day excursion for two people is damned cheap in my books.

So the bus leaves town at 8:30am and we head down the coast.  (Can you see where I am getting at….) It is a beautiful sunny/foggy morning in Tasmania and what do I do… I grab a window seat, tweak the polarising filter to cut out some glare, dial the camera to Sports Mode and start shooting.  Yes this shot was done at 80kph! out a bus window. It was one of 4 that I took as we rounded a bend where the sun was not shining on the bus so there were no reflections and that Cat said “Now” to.  She called out the gaps in the trees so I could keep shooting and not waste shots on trees and powerlines.  So there you go…   you can shoot fast if the location and the camera settings are right.

Hidden Cove

Camera: Nikon D90
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1250)
Aperture: f/4.5
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Auto, Did not fire
Date and Time (Digitized): 2010:05:21 09:37:30
Subject Distance: 4.73 m
Focal Length In35mm Format: 27 mm
GPS Latitude: 43 deg 8′ 52.56″ S
GPS Longitude: 146 deg 58′ 40.13″ E
GPSAltitude Ref: Above Sea Level
GPSAltitude: 6.25757575757576 m
GPSDate Time: 2010:05:20 23:37:30Z

And yes this image is on RedBubble for purchase as well

a week on #telstradesire

this is more of a quick ramble than a well thought out and cognitive argument…

Ok it has been one week since I started playing my HTC-Desire.  A week that has seen me change points of view on more than once occasion.  From pure joy, to frustration, to relief and back again.  Which to be honest is not what I should be going through.  You don’t see people looking at an iphone and going na.. but I think I can get it.  And that may well be the biggest problem with this phone.  Sure I don’t get the iPhone myself, but you only have to look at people and how they use it and I just don’t think they are struggling as much.

But that aside… and moving on as it were.  I still really like it.  It has taken me a week to get used to the keyboard and that is coming along, even starting to get used to using it on the bus and train.  The haptic feedback is helpful but still I make more errors than I would just using an SMS keypad.

I really want to like this device.  It is so powerful flexible and with so much potential.  But a lot of that potential is coming… oh the app store will get easier to use, oh Flash 10.1 is coming, oh DIVX is coming, oh you just need an app for that it isn’t built in.  And this is a major issue.  Some of these things may well be fixed in the next month if rumours are to be believed and I sure hope that when Froyo comes out Telstra stick on it everyphone they have in stock before they sell it out the door.

Being part of the review has meant that I have had access to minds that are a lot smarter than mine so I could “steal” their tips and tricks and yes I have found the apps to get around some of the issues.. but there are a lot of things that Android just needs a bit of polishing on.

Take ringtones on my Nokia.. I just select a song to listen to.. one of the options there.. make it a ringtone.  Simple.. but not on the Android, why not?  Where are those things.. those extra bits of UX UI that companies like Nokia have been thinking about for years.  This is just one example but can be applied across the whole device. (Correction… you can…. but I missed it…  when a song is playing you have to press the menu option then it can be set as a ringtone… but only when the song is playing.. the Nokia doesn’t need the song to be playing)

Of course there is a lot of good things to be said for it.. and I do feel I’m just nay saying in some respects. But I shouldn’t have to be, I said I would be comparing this phone to my 3year old Nokia and it comes so close and yet strangely is so far away.

One thing that has been amazing has been the coverage on the Telstra network, strong and coherent even down the bottom of Tassie where I went for a few days along with strong coverage for watching Foxtel Mobile on the train. I have a Telstra phone for when I get out of the city and head bush and must say the Next G coverage even out the back of Bourke has been amazing.  But then that was with my Blue Ticked Phone with an aerial and this is not a Blue Tick Phone.  I’d love to see a full HTC Android Blue Tick phone because that would really interest me.

I think I will grow into this phone and I think the Android OS is growing up real fast and that holds hope.

But then why am I complaining I have a 1ghz mobile computer that can see the whole world that fits into my hand….

another GPS trace from the #telstradesire

This time I took the bus and train to work. Electric Trains are notorious for getting a GPS signal even with a window seat it can be tricky to get a solid lock. I was very pleased with the strength of the signal and the trace. Once again I just used the GPS and not the WIFI positioning. There are a few drop outs in the signal when the train passed through some cut outs and some big road bridges. However the trace is still good enough to see where I went. Another advantage is that the trace actually has the broken lines. The traces via Sports Tracker fill in the blanks. Having the Gaps lets me see where the signal did drop out and most software for geotagging photos will let you infer location from gaps in the traces so this is not a major problem.

So here is the trace.


View Larger Map