TidBITS#881/28-May-07
=====================
Issue link: <http://db.tidbits.com/issue/881>
Our gaze wanders far and wide this week, with Jeff Carlson offering
a review of Ovolab's Geophoto, a tool for giving your photos
location tags and then browsing through them via a cartographic
interface. Jeff also alerts us to the latest security update from
Apple, passes on tips for making multiple-page documents in Adobe
Illustrator, and points to a useful shopping list for HD video
editing gear. Not to be outdone in the tip department, Adam collects
oodles of scroll wheel-related tips, notes that MacLink Plus 16 can
read Word and Excel 2007 for Windows documents, and expresses both
amusement and alarm about the latest news from the copyright front.
Articles
Security Update 2007-005 Released
Copyright Fun and Games
MacLinkPlus Deluxe Converts Word/Excel 2007 Documents
DealBITS Winners: SmileOnMyMac's PageSender
Making Pages in Adobe Illustrator
Scroll Wheel Tips
A Personal Shopper for HD Video Editing Gear
Geophoto Puts Your Photos on the Map
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/28-May-07
Take Control News/28-May-07
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Security Update 2007-005 Released
---------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9005>
Apple has released its fifth Mac OS X security update of 2007 to
patch a number of potential vulnerabilities. Security Update
2007-005 makes changes to CoreGraphics, iChat, VPN, BIND, crontabs,
PPP, and other components, in most cases correcting problems that
require either local user access or access to the Mac via a local
network. However, several fixes are more important. An update to
BIND prevents a possible remote denial of service attack (but
because it reportedly overwrites the BIND launchd plist file, it may
both turn BIND off and cause other changes to be lost, a potential
problem for Mac OS X Server machines), a new version of fetchmail
prevents possible disclosure of passwords, and a fix for
CoreGraphics in Mac OS X 10.4 provides additional verification of
PDF files to avoid possible crashes when opening maliciously crafted
PDFs. The update is available via Software Update or for download in
four varieties: for Mac OS X 10.4.9 as Universal (29.2 MB) and
PowerPC (15.7 MB) installers; and for Mac OS X 10.3.9 Client (42.5
MB) and Server (56 MB) systems.
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305530>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate2007005universal.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate2007005ppc.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate20070051039client.html>
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate20070051039server.html>
Copyright Fun and Games
-----------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9006>
In the fun category, Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University has
created a video review of copyright principles. You're probably
thinking, "How could anyone make a video about a legal concept even
mildly entertaining?" But Faden's truly inspired video works on many
levels because it consists entirely of extremely short clips (often
no more than one word) from a wide variety of animated Disney
movies. It's thanks in large part to Disney that copyright - which
was designed to encourage creativity by giving the creator control
over copying for a limited time - now lasts for the life of the
creator plus 75 years, or, for a work of corporate authorship, 95
years. But thanks to the short length of the clips, its non-profit
educational nature, and the fact that it would in no way affect the
potential market for the copyrighted works, Faden's video
undoubtedly falls under fair use.
<http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/documentary-film-program/film/a-fair-y-use-tale>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension_Act>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use>
Moving from fun to games, the latest idiocy to emanate from the U.S.
Department of Justice is a legislative proposal (in other words,
something the DoJ would like Congress to turn into law) that would
criminalize copyright infringement. (For a selection of entirely
reasonable, real-world copyright infringements that could be
criminalized by this proposal, see my article, "J.D. Lasica's
Darknet: People in the Copyright Wars," 2006-06-05.) Under this
proposal, the RIAA wouldn't have to settle for extracting money from
citizens who may have infringed copyright; instead, they could just
get the federal government to take away the miscreants' computers
and throw them in prison. That's right - the DoJ wants people who
even attempt to infringe copyright to be liable for property
forfeiture and prison time, just like drug dealers.
<http://politechbot.com/docs/doj.intellectual.property.protection.act.2007.051407.pdf>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8552>
And to make sure that none of these attempted copyright
infringements go undetected, the DoJ wants to allow law enforcement
to wiretap personal communications in copyright infringement
investigations. The sheer audacity of this proposal is astonishing -
it's hard to do more than sputter, "But but but!" as you read it.
But what you can do is write to your elected representatives to urge
them to oppose this proposal if it is introduced; the Electronic
Frontier Foundation has a tool that makes it easy.
<http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=299>
MacLinkPlus Deluxe Converts Word/Excel 2007 Documents
-----------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9007>
Thanks to Jim Dewitt, who alerted me that DataViz's venerable
MacLinkPlus Deluxe, now at version 16, also includes read-only
support for the file formats used by Word 2007 and Excel 2007 under
Windows. So, if Microsoft's free beta converter doesn't work for you
(see "Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter in Beta,"
2007-05-21), and you want an alternative to Panergy's docXConverter,
check out MacLinkPlus Deluxe. DataViz deserves kudos for sticking
with the conversion game for so long and with such a large list of
file formats. My experience is that conversions are seldom perfect,
but any automatic tool that brings you closer to the desired result
is a good thing.
<http://www.dataviz.com/products/maclinkplus/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8995>
<http://www.panergy-software.com/products/docxconverter/features.html>
DealBITS Winners: SmileOnMyMac's PageSender
-------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/8999>
Congratulations to Paul Michaelis of pmds-search.com, Gerry Swislow
of certif.com, and Scott Gay of mcleodusa.net, whose entries were
chosen randomly in last week's DealBITS drawing and who received a
copy of SmileOnMyMac's PageSender, worth $40. Thanks to the 412
people who entered this DealBITS drawing (and who received a
discount on PageSender), and we hope you'll continue to participate
in the future!
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8876>
<http://www.smileonmymac.com/pagesender/>
Making Pages in Adobe Illustrator
---------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9008>
When writing about the end of FreeHand last week (see "Farewell
FreeHand," 2007-05-21), I mentioned one of the features that Adobe
Illustrator still lacks, the capability to create multiple pages
within a document.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8997>
A few readers quickly pointed out that multiple pages are possible,
though not as easy to implement as in FreeHand. Charles A. Reeves,
Jr. wrote:
"I'll admit to never using FreeHand, so I don't know how it handles
multiple pages, but it is possible to do multi-page documents in
Illustrator. I do it all the time, and in fact have several booklets
I publish which I print directly from Illustrator. Just go to
Document Setup and create an artboard that is big enough so that all
the pages will fit on it and is a multiple of the document page
size, and then click the button next to Tile Full Pages. A simple
example would be a two page document. Make the artboard 11 inches
high by 17 inches wide. When you go back to the document window you
will have two side-by-side pages with little non-printing numbers
"1" and "2" in the lower left corners. You may have to pull up Page
Setup and select the printer and letter size, and then click on the
Page Tool to get the pages oriented correctly."
John M. Stafford pointed out a feature that I was unaware of (since
I need to use Illustrator only occasionally):
"Since version 10, Illustrator automatically includes a PDF in each
document. So in the case of your two-sided postcard, use Acrobat Pro
and combine the two sides. Now open the resulting document in
Illustrator, and on open it will present a dialog asking which page
you wish to edit."
Lastly, long-time reader Brendon Cheves of Hot Door, Inc. pointed me
to his company's MultiPage plug-in ($100) for Illustrator, which
looks like what I'm accustomed to in FreeHand.
<http://www.hotdoor.com/multipage/index.php>
So, the next time a client needs me to massage an Illustrator file,
I'll have a better idea of how to think like Illustrator, not
FreeHand. Thanks for the tips!
Scroll Wheel Tips
-----------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9003>
Thanks to our buddy Bill Rabel in Seattle for the impetus to write
this article. After Mark Anbinder wrote in "Call Me 'Two Finger'
Mark" (2007-05-21) about how he was surprised to find himself
addicted to two-finger scrolling on his MacBook (which is equivalent
to using a scroll wheel or Mighty Mouse scroll ball), Bill went
spelunking and found a trick I hadn't previously known, causing me
to look for other scroll wheel tips. (And if you're interested in
the history of the scroll wheel, check out "The Evolution of
Scrolling: Reinventing the Wheel," 2004-12-13.)
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8991>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/7925>
**Scroll Horizontally** -- Many applications, such as word processors,
are oriented vertically, so scrolling up and down with the scroll
wheel is intuitive. But what about applications like Microsoft Excel
and ProVUE Development's Panorama database, which often require
scrolling horizontally? Just hold down the Shift key and your scroll
wheel switches to controlling the horizontal scroll bar instead of
the vertical scroll bar. Applications must support this Mac OS X
feature explicitly, so it may not be universal to all applications
with a horizontal scroll bar.
**Zoom In, Zoom Out** -- Hold down the Control key while you scroll
with the scroll wheel and Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later will zoom the
screen smoothly. Mac OS X has long provided screen zooming (see the
Universal Access preference pane), but it required keyboard
shortcuts that were awkward and jerky. Screen zooming isn't just for
those who have trouble reading too-small text or for presenters who
want to focus on a particular part of the screen, though; it's also
great for zooming tiny Internet videos up to full-screen size. Of
course, they pixelate more at larger sizes, but that's fine if
you're sitting further back from the screen anyway. The only
downside is that it's hard to get the mouse pointer out of the
picture when you're zoomed in on a video; normally you want the
pointer to stay in the zoomed screen.
A further tip: if you take a selection screenshot with
Command-Shift-4 or Snapz Pro X while zoomed in, the screenshot
reflects your zoom level properly (trying to take a screenshot of an
entire window while zoomed doesn't work, though).
**Scroll to Switch Applications** -- I'm not sure if this is any
easier or not, but if you press Command-Tab, let up on the Tab key,
and then use your scroll wheel, Mac OS X will scroll the selection
in the application switcher. Of course, you can also just keep
pressing Tab, which seems easier, or hover the mouse pointer over an
application's icon to select it.
**Per-Frame Advance in QuickTime Player and iMovie HD 6** -- Want to
see if animators hid secret messages in individual frames of a film?
If you can open it in QuickTime Player, using the scroll wheel
pauses playback and then either advances or rewinds a frame at a
time. It's probably a little easier to do with a real scroll wheel
that has little detents as you scroll. Alas, this trick doesn't work
in iTunes, DVD Player, or VLC, though you can play .m4v files from
the iTunes Store in QuickTime Player.
The same trick works in iMovie HD 6, too, but with a caveat. The
scrolling seems to work only as a per-frame preview; if you press
the left or right arrow keys, which also rewind or advance per
frame, the video jumps back to the point where you started
scrolling.
**Tab History Navigation in Mozilla-based Browsers** -- Here's the tip
Bill found. If you use Firefox or Camino with tabbed browsing, hold
down the Option key and turn the scroll wheel to scroll backward and
forward in the tab's history. These browsers navigate back or
forward one page for every scroll detent. It's a fast way to move
back through a lot of pages in a tab, though it's easy to overshoot
your target. Oddly, Netscape and Mozilla use Shift as the modifier
key to navigate through a tab's history, and Safari and OmniWeb
don't have the feature at all.
**Change Font Size in Firefox and Camino** -- It's all too common to
run across a Web page with text that's too small to read (Geoff
Duncan explained this in "Why Windows Web Pages Have Tiny Text,"
1999-02-15). All Web browsers make it easy to expand or shrink text,
usually with Command-+ and Command--, but you can also use the
scroll wheel to do this in Firefox and Camino. Just hold down
Command-Control and scroll to adjust text size.
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/5284>
**Slow Down Text Scrolling in Firefox** -- Normally, if you're
scrolling through a long Web page, the speed accelerates as you turn
the wheel. That's good, since it means you can get to the bottom of
a page quickly if you want. But at times you might want a slower
scrolling speed so you don't accidentally scroll past where you're
reading. Hold down the Command key while scrolling in Firefox and
scrolling will slow to what seems to be an almost fixed rate. It
might be useful if you prefer to keep your eyes in one spot on the
page and scroll the text past that spot.
**Zoom In and Out in Word and Excel** -- Speaking of small text... In
Microsoft Word and Excel, if you find yourself squinting to read
text at the default font size, you can zoom in and out with the
scroll wheel. In Word, hold down Command-Control and scroll to
change the zoom level by 10 percent increments per detent. In Excel,
hold down Control-Option to zoom in and out by 15 percent
increments. If you're using two-finger scrolling on a trackpad,
zooming in and out in this fashion may be hard to control.
**Control Time with iCal** -- In iCal's Day and Week view, you
normally see the hours from 8 AM to 6 PM, or whatever you've set in
iCal's General preference pane. But by holding down Option and
rolling your scroll wheel, you can increase or decrease the number
of hours that appear in Day or Week views without opening the
preferences window. Note that the changes are persistent, but they
aren't reflected in the preferences window.
**Scroll Through the Years in iPhoto** -- In iPhoto 6's Calendar pane,
Apple gave us funny little up and down arrows on either side of the
pane's title for scrolling through the years. An easier way to
scroll forward and backward in time in that pane is to use the
scroll wheel - just make sure the mouse pointer is over that portion
of the screen first.
There is one notable place where the scroll wheel doesn't match up
to dragging the scroller in the scroll bar. In iPhoto 6, when you
scroll by dragging the scroller, iPhoto pops up a translucent
display containing the name and date of the current film roll,
updating it smoothly as you drag. Alas, that doesn't work if you
scroll with a scroll wheel, so here's hoping that iPhoto 7 rectifies
that situation.
A Personal Shopper for HD Video Editing Gear
--------------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9009>
When friends and family need to buy a new computer or accessories,
they often turn to me for advice. I've learned over the years that
they're usually not looking for one of my "history of computing"
answers that explains not only how much RAM the computer should
have, but how RAM works and why more is better - they just want to
know how much to get, and where to get it inexpensively. So, I'll
spend a few minutes online and work up a couple of options.
However, my experience extends only so far, and although I've
written several editions of a book on video editing ("iMovie HD 6 &
iDVD 6 for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide"), I've not had to deal
in the higher realm of editing uncompressed high-definition video.
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321423275/tidbitselectro00/ref=nosim>
Fortunately, Mike Curtis lives and breathes HD. His Web site, HD for
Indies, is geared toward independent filmmakers who are focused more
on getting great footage and creating a movie than on the ins and
outs of pushing HD video through a system.
<http://www.hdforindies.com/>
If you're looking to edit your own indie feature or starting a
business editing video for others, Mike has taken on the role of
personal shopper and put together three recommended Mac-based
editing systems. In addition to the computer (all Mac Pro machines,
but not necessarily the most powerful ones), Mike's picks include
LCDs and video monitors, RAM, graphics cards, HD capture devices,
and multiple storage options. The bundles range in price from $9,000
for an entry-level system capable of editing uncompressed HD footage
to $23,000 for a well-equipped system.
<http://silverado.cc/shop/home.php?cat=107>
He's worked out a deal with Silverado Systems (and he gets a cut of
the order), but all the information is there, with notes and
explanation, if you prefer an alternate vendor.
I've followed Mike's site for a while, and even though I don't shoot
HD video, it's always an entertaining and insightful read.
Geophoto Puts Your Photos on the Map
------------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9010>
Photography is a visual medium, and yet our tools for locating
digital photos are mostly textual and temporal. When you open
iPhoto, you can visually scan through the pictures, but that becomes
a problem in large libraries when hundreds of thumbnails streak by
as you drag the scroller. Instead, you're more likely to search
according to date: scrolling down the page, the names and capture
dates of iPhoto's film rolls appear. Or, if you're thorough, you may
set up photo albums that describe their contents ("Africa Trip," for
example). In each case, you're using a text-dependent, non-visual
approach to finding images.
Now, think about how your mind locates images. In addition to
knowing roughly when the photographs were taken ("March," or
"Spring," or "Sometime in the last two years"), you no doubt
associate a location such as "home," "Los Angeles," or "Africa."
Unless you had the foresight to set up albums or keywords with that
specific information (and instead of "Los Angeles," the location
could have also been specific nearby areas such as "Glendale" or
"Anaheim"), there's no good way to use that information in your
search. At least, not in iPhoto or most other photo-cataloging
applications.
Ovolab's $20 Geophoto looks to add that visual element to finding
your pictures, as well as images from around the world. Geophoto
lets you place your photos on a map, so you can easily find the ones
you've taken in Montana, Madrid, or Pretoria. It also lets you
subscribe to photo feeds over the Internet, whether or not those
images are tagged with geographic data. A trial version of Geophoto
1.3 is a 42.5 MB download; it's a universal binary and requires Mac
OS X 10.4 and a graphics card with at least 64 MB of VRAM.
<http://www.ovolab.com/geophoto/>
**Get Out the Map** -- Geophoto opens with a slowly rotating satellite
image of the Earth, which you can manipulate by clicking and
dragging with the mouse. It feels very much like starting up Google
Earth. Zoom in or out using the mouse's scroll wheel, menu commands,
or keyboard shortcuts.
<http://www.google.com/earth/>
(An aside: The keyboard command for zooming in is Command-+, with
the plus sign being a long-established common shorthand for "zoom
in." However, you actually must press Command-Shift-= because the
plus sign is the shifted character on the equal sign's key. I
understand the literal context at work, that you're not zooming in
by pressing "Command-equals." But since Command-= does nothing
except produce a system beep indicating you pressed the wrong
button, why not map that key to zoom in too? You can get around this
by pressing Command and the plus sign on an extended keyboard's
number pad, but that doesn't help laptop users. Geophoto is by no
means the only culprit in this regard, but merely the program where
I want to put my foot down and beg developers to anticipate such
minor user interface annoyances so users aren't compelled to write
lengthy parenthetical asides like this.)
Photo albums appear in a sidebar list to the left of the globe and
the photos themselves run horizontally across a pane at the bottom
of the window. Initially, a new Geophoto library is empty. To start
adding photos, you can drag photo files to the Geophoto Library
Pictures collection, but it's more likely that you already have a
bunch of photos stored in iPhoto. If that's the case, you can import
iPhoto albums directly by clicking the iPhoto Album button and
selecting an album. Geophoto doesn't duplicate the photo files
(thankfully, so it doesn't chew up hard disk space), but only
references the files linked to your iPhoto library
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-05/geophoto_interface.jpg>
Another way to add photos - either your own or those of others - is
to subscribe to online photo feeds - either an iPhoto photocast or a
photostream from Flickr. This is a fun and interesting feature that
provides an ongoing selection of photos that's refreshed manually or
when you launch Geophoto. You can specify a Flickr group (for
example, the Flowers group) to see the 20 most recent photos without
going to the Web, a handy feature if you want to view photos from
several groups at once. Even if you're not as interested in
attaching geographical information to pictures, Geophoto turns out
to be a nice image browser for online feeds.
<http://www.flickr.com/>
<http://www.flickr.com/groups/florus/>
You can also subscribe to the feed of a specific Flickr user, but
you must take a roundabout way to get to it. The dialog asks for one
or more tags (words describing the image; "geotagged" is
automatically filled in) and the user's name. It seems odd that I
can't instead just enter the URL of the RSS feed that appears at the
bottom of every user's photos page.
Unless you imported photos that already contain mapping information,
the thumbnail images in the strip at the bottom of the window
display a globe icon with a slash through it. The next step is to
place your images on the map, which, surprisingly, is one of
Geophoto's shortcomings.
**Mark the Spot** -- Geophoto offers a few different ways to tag your
photos with location data; these methods range from easy to
maddening, depending on how precise you want to get.
Of course, the real solution to recording location metadata will
require that digital cameras have built-in GPS capabilities. A few
cameras already do this, and there are various accessories and
techniques for existing cameras, but until such capabilities are
widespread, you can use Geophoto's tools.
<http://www.google.com/search?q=digital+camera+GPS>
The preferred method seems to be Go To Location, a button and menu
item (but not a keyboard shortcut) that displays a Mac OS X sheet
with a Country pop-up menu and a field in which you can type a city
or landmark name. Search results appear at the bottom of the sheet
in another pop-up menu. Although most of my queries were successful,
I encountered a few strange results, too: the search located teeny
Bitter Lake in Seattle, but not the larger and more scenic Green
Lake, although Green Lakes in Wisconsin, Alaska, and other states
appeared. Actually, while typing just "green lake" brought no
correct results, typing "green lake washington" popped up several
options that did appear to be in Washington, but weren't the one I
was looking for.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-05/go_to_location_sheet.jpg>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lake_(Seattle)>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Lake_(Seattle)>
Another method is to drag a photo or album directly onto the globe.
If you're not zoomed in very far, this approach could result in your
Paris vacation photos being displayed in Brussels or Berlin or
Warsaw. So you'll find yourself zooming in on sections of continent
looking for more specific areas as you get closer to the ground.
Bringing up the contextual menu (Control-click or right-click)
offers a Zoom In command that centers the mouse pointer's location
in the window, which helps somewhat.
But you'll soon get frustrated, because Geophoto ships with a
limited amount of geographic detail. Unlike Google Earth, or
Google's satellite maps on the Web, zooming in doesn't automatically
increase the resolution of the terrain. To move beyond a thick soup
of blurry pixels, you need to open Geophoto's preferences, click the
Imagery button, and download the next-best quality of satellite
images. I say "next-best" because there's no option to just download
the highest resolution; you need to increase your view of the world
in waves, downloading one set of files, then the next, and so on,
four or five times.
The highest-resolution data (an average of 0.13 miles per pixel) is
still pretty far away. Performing a search for Cornell University
yields a patch of Earth roughly 50 miles square. I can zoom in
further, but I have to take it on faith that dragging photos from
the strip to the middle of the map will put them at the right place.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-05/geophoto_cornell.jpg>
Fortunately, there are two options for fine-tuning your photo
placement.
Selecting a photo and bringing up the Inspector reveals a Set button
next to the Latitude and Longitude fields (which are not editable,
so you can't plug in those values if you happen to know them).
Clicking Set takes you to the Go To Location sheet; after you get a
search result, clicking the Set button positions your photo at that
location.
(Selecting one or more photos in the strip and using the Set button
is more efficient than finding a location and dragging photos onto
it. However, Geophoto's highly visual approach discourages one from
looking for solutions in dialogs or palettes. Also, the introductory
sticky notes that appear the first time the program is launched
emphasize dragging photos to the globe and make no mention of the
Set Location approach; you have to stumble upon it or find a
reference in the getting started PDF.)
The other option is to display the Loupe. In traditional
photography, a loupe is a magnifying glass that you place over
negatives on a light table to inspect the quality of the images you
shot. In Geophoto, the Loupe bridges the gap between the
middle-altitude view of the globe's highest resolution and street
level. Within the Loupe's square field of view is a Google street
map; the resolution depends on how far you're zoomed in on the map.
Holding the spacebar and moving the mouse keeps the Loupe stationary
and moves only its contents if you're looking for something in
particular, but clicking the mouse jumps you right back to where you
were before pressing the spacebar.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-05/geophoto_loupe.jpg>
If you find a more accurate location for your photo (like the city
block where the picture was taken), you can move the picture to a
new spot by Command-clicking it and dragging. A red crosshair
appears to help you pinpoint, but its movement can be jerky
depending on your zoom level.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-05/geophoto_crosshair.jpg>
Basically, placing your photos with any degree of accuracy beyond
city level is a lot of work. Perhaps this is because we've all seen
how the operation should work: like Google Maps on the Web or Google
Earth, where the image resolution dynamically increases as you move
closer to your destination. Using Google Earth and the Yahoo Maps
feature in Flickr, for example, I was able to pinpoint the parking
lot from where I shot a photo on Seattle's waterfront. Geophoto
couldn't offer that level of detail, and even in cases where you
might be able to narrow a location down to a city block, it's not
easy to get there.
<http://maps.google.com/>
<http://www.flickr.com/map/>
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffcarlson/477982194/>
Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 under Windows provides just this type
of geotagging, giving you a window to an interactive map that lets
you drill down with usable resolution. (Photoshop Elements wasn't
updated beyond version 4.0 for the Mac.) Geophoto should adopt the
same approach.
<http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/>
If you're looking for specificity, the better approach is to tag the
images with geographic data using Flickr's tools, then import them
as a Flickr feed in Geophoto. However, I don't have a sense of how
precise most people want to get. It may be enough to drop a folder
full of images onto London to differentiate that set from photos
taken in Seattle.
That leads to another problem, one which Geophoto is more adept at
handling.
**Find It Again** -- Once you start adding large numbers of photos to
Geophoto, you'll find yourself in the same situation that brought
you to the program in the first place: searching for the photos you
want to view. Assuming you've tagged your photos with locations, you
can spin the globe and select stacks (multiple photos grouped
together) based on their thumbnails; a slider in the lower-right
corner of the screen controls the size of the thumbnail previews.
But especially when you're zoomed out, the stacks merge together so
you're still seeing only one thumbnail image with a number
indicating how many photos are in the stack, not everything you've
shot. (I actually like the way this effect operates, because visual
clutter can be just as bad as scarcity when looking for something.)
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-05/geophoto_stacks.jpg>
Geophoto's tools for locating photos in its database are smooth and
quick. Double-click a thumbnail to zoom one magnification level with
the photo set centered, up to the globe's maximum resolution. From
there use the other zoom features to get closer if necessary.
But even zoomed out, clicking a group of photos makes them all
appear in the strip at the bottom of the screen. From there you can
double-click an image to view it at full size in an attractive
slideshow screen.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/2007-05/geophoto_slideshow.jpg>
A Search field actively narrows the number of visible images by
searching the photos' metadata, such as title and description, much
the way the iTunes Search field finds songs as you type. And
providing further textual filtering, a Tag Cloud floating palette
lists every tag, with some sized larger than others to denote more
frequent usage. Click a tag to view the photos it describes, as well
as the other tags applied to those photos.
What I find most interesting about Geophoto, despite its
difficulties in applying geographic data, is its focus on
exploration. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Geophoto is
primarily a fun application for photo discovery, and secondarily a
tool that serious photographers might use to geotag their picture
libraries.
For example, I've already mentioned how it's possible to maintain a
running collection of the most recent images uploaded to Flickr
groups. But you can also create new, custom Flickr feeds by
positioning your mouse pointer on the map and choosing Find Flickr
Photos in this Location from the contextual menu. Geophoto casts a
virtual net over the area visible in the globe area and grabs 20
geotagged images. (It's not as entertaining as FlickrVision, but not
as fleeting either.)
<http://flickrvision.com/>
**Photos in the Real World** -- The proliferation of digital cameras
is dramatically altering photography, democratizing it in a way that
I think few people thought would be so pervasive. Geophoto
contributes, too, by enabling you to export the location data back
to the photos in your iPhoto library (choose Update Original with
Location Information from the Item menu); the metadata is added to
the image file. So if you applied a location in Geophoto, you can
upload it from iPhoto to Flickr (or another service that can pull
the data out of the file's metadata) with the location intact.
People all over the planet are not only snapping pictures, they're
uploading and sharing the images with anyone who happens to stumble
into their corner of the world - a corner that's easier to find when
spotlighted on a globe. Geophoto may be only an early and somewhat
awkward solution to this desire, but it shows where we - or at least
our digital photos - will be going.
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/28-May-07
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9011>
**Backwards from DVD to iMovie?** Is it possible to extract the video
from a DVD without requiring an intermediate conversion application?
(1 message)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1303/>
**Other scrolling utilities** -- Mark's article on two-fingered
scrolling brings up a suggestion for a utility that works on older
Macs. (1 message)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1304/>
**Keeping Home (Desktop) and Hearth (Notebook) together** -- Readers
share their solutions for keeping data on multiple machines in sync.
(5 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1305/>
**Recording Streaming Video-Audio** -- Who needs to take notes during
class when the class has a video stream? Here are some suggestions
for capturing that stream to disk for later viewing. (5 messages)
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/1306/>
Take Control News/28-May-07
---------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/9012>
**One Day Left in Take Control Sale** -- Here's a quick reminder that,
because of the Memorial Day holiday in the United States, our 50
percent-off sale on all Take Control ebooks continues through
29-May-07.
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/catalog.html?14@@!pt=TB881&cp=CPN70518TB17>
$$
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