2008 September | Keys Corner

Your chance to vote in the US election

By John, on September 27th, 2008

The Economist asks what would the outcome of the November presidential election in the USA be, if all those likely to be affected by the outcome could vote. They extend the electoral-college system to include every country in the world. Roll up and register your vote here!

WLAN SD-cards for cameras

By John, on September 20th, 2008

One hassle with using a digital camera is that you have to transfer the photos to your computer to process them. There are two ways, usually, that this is done: use a memory-card reader (often attached by a propriety USB cable which the camera manufacturer sells at a high price, if you ever need . . . → Read More: WLAN SD-cards for cameras

Risky – eating bread in Naples

By John, on September 15th, 2008

The Guardian reports that the mafia has started selling cheap bread in Naples, attracting lots of customers, but the local authorities warn that the bread could cause cancer and that it is not so easy to identify. Originally, it was sold from car boots, but now they are also supplying shops, making it difficult . . . → Read More: Risky – eating bread in Naples

Getting an i-Blue 747 GPS logger to work with OS X

By John, on September 13th, 2008

I bought an i-Blue 747 GPS track logger recently. You can pick one up, new, on eBay for around 40 – 50 Euro. The idea is to use it to tag photos with their position – our cameras don’t have GPS receivers built in, and often when we get back from holiday, its difficult to remember where exactly we took which pictures. If you set the clock in the (digital) camera before you set off, the time-stamp from the GPS log, together with the position data allow you add the exact position of each photo to the EXIF data that the camera stores when each picture is taken.

The problem is, few GPS loggers come with any software for downloading and processing the track data on a Mac. I’m not aware of any that supports OS X “out of the box”. However, there is lots of third party software around which can be used to read out the scans and process them on the Mac. It takes time to track them down, however. So here’s what works for me:
Continue reading Getting an i-Blue 747 GPS logger to work with OS X

Nikon / Microsoft tie-up – DRM for pixels?

By John, on September 1st, 2008

A few days ago Microsoft and Nikon announced a patent sharing deal. At the time a Microsoft employee was quoted as saying: This agreement is another great example of how industry leaders are coming together to collaborate through intellectual property licensing, and by doing so enabling innovation which that will ultimately benefit the consumer.

. . . → Read More: Nikon / Microsoft tie-up – DRM for pixels?