Snapshot of the day:
Category: flickr
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Collecting boring flower snapshots
I’ve added some new flower snapshots to this set.
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Best snapshot of 2013
The question is:
How do I find the best Chiperoni snapshot of 2013?My most productive month on Flickr in 2013 was May. Least productive – at least in terms of uploads – was August.
Here’s a quick review of my year on Flickr:
January 2013
February 2013
März 2013
April 2013
May 2013
June 2013
July 2013
August 2013
September 2013
October 2013
November 2013
December 2013
BTW, you’re seeing a new kind of image embed that Flickr is rolling out now.
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Photos of cellphone repair places in Blantyre
In 2009 I took these snapshots of cellphone shops in Blantyre, Malawi:
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#Klapprad http://flic.kr/p/hqbFKT
Che nostalgia. I had a foldable bicycle just like this.
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501 members in the Malawi Flickr group! http://bit.ly/1bfP07I
Awesome.
The Malawi Flickr group silently crossed the 500 member mark.
If you’re living in Malawi and have access to enough bandwidth, get the Flickr app ( Android | iOS ) and post everyday scenes to the group. Show what life in Malawi is like.
If you’re travelling to Malawi, share your best and favourite snapshots of your holidays in Malawi.
If you’re a professional photographer, we’d love to see how you see the warm heart of Africa.
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Print candidate http://flic.kr/p/h2ooiq
I think this photo http://flic.kr/p/h2ooiq would make a nice poster…
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#wokongola #malawi – Liwonde National Park
So close that i managed to get quite a good snapshot with my small digicam:
More Malawi photos to follow…
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Photo walk
I walked up Tüllinger Hügel and took some snapshots:
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A snapshot for every month
Sipping coffee, planning tasks, listening to the radio.
Here’s a quick review of my year on Flickr:
My most productive month on Flickr in 2012 was… September. I managed to upload 171 photos in one month. Least productive was May 2012 with 52 uploads.
January 2012
February 2012
March 2012
April 2012
May 2012
June 2012
July 2012
August 2012
September 2012
October 2012
November 2012
December 2012
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Unplanned photo tour
Walked thru parts of Riehen and Chrischona today. The weather was better than expected. Took lots of flower snapshots for the boring flower snapshot set. So boring they easily qualify.
I found this sign on my way back to my bicycle:
Made me smile.
I continued exploring Jekyll (see yesterday’s post). Bin gespannt.
Further snapshots:
sooo boring 
for the boring flower snapsot collection https://www.flickr.com/photos/chiperoni/albums/72157600272787982 -
Bike tour to Kandern and back
From Basel about 17 km one way.
Via Weil am Rhein, Binzen and Wollbach, along the railway tracks to Kandern.
Easy ride.
Wow, Google Maps now offers a bicycle option in its Get Directions menu. Though not for the route below.
View Larger Map -
Best photo of 2010?
How do I find my best photo of 2010 on Flickr?
Not easy.
I need an app for that.
I (still) don’t edit my photos according to composition or technical aspects.
I have been uploading snapshots at regular intervals.
Despite a busy schedule.
Still following my motto:
Document your life.Some spontaneous selections:
Feb 27, 2010
March 21, 2010
June 19, 2010
July 27, 2010
July 31, 2010
August 17, 2010
August 26, 2010
September 26, 2010
October 9,2010
October 16, 2010
October 29, 2010
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Link captions in WordPress
There is a plugin for WordPress that simplifies adding hyperlinks to captions
Many thanks to {a.} of Handmade 2.0 for sharing this info.
Link captions simplify the attribution of Creative Commons photos shared in the public domain.
Before using any photo, check the licensing conditions first.
At Flickr, these are listed in the right sidebar under the sub-heading Additional Information.
Please don’t just take, but contact the photographer and ask for permission. If you are using Creative Commons photos and graphics, which are free for non-commercial use, please follow the attribution conditions listed in the license. Usually this is the name, nom de web, or website address of the photographer and a link to the photo used. Contact the photographer to ask how he or she would like to be listed.
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Rules, guidelines, research and more
hmmm…
70% of your tweets should share resources- sharing others’ voices, opinions, quotes, blog posts, articles, content and resources
20% of your tweets should engage in conversations with others, responding, connecting, collaborating and connecting with others.
10% of your tweets can be chirping, chitchat as Angela calls it, on trivial details or self-promotion.
via 10 Tips For Managing Twitter As Your Usage Increases | Blog of Mr. Tweet.
All these rules, guidelines. Not sure I endorse any of them. I assume their target audiences are people tweeting for business reasons.
Twitter is many things to many different people. What works for you may not work for the next person. Or do you plan your conversations to include “70% of resource sharing”?
But by quoting this guideline, I am showing that this kind of article works. 10 steps to success… Follow this method and success will be yours.
Research on Jaiku:
Apparently… who knew… Research has found… Microbloggers are really boring… The article shows 3 things: either there were no linguists on the research team, otherwise they would know that a lot of content that is sent across the communication channel is “meaningless in itself” but serves the purpose of keeping the communication going. Or secondly if there was a linguist on the research team he or she failed to make this connection. And thirdly the amazing culture of searching (errr… by default gooogling) for everything. I entered the new disclaimer of this site as a search phrase “This is a very boring personal website” to find the article on Jaiku research.
In was für einer Welt lebe ich eigentlich.
Personal projects:
The MBA project is moving along. It was quite an experience to be on-campus at a large state university. One thing that struck me most was the vast expanses of ruralness. When I think of the US from my Euro-centric perspective, it comprises sprawling big cities like San Francisco, New York, Miami, Chicago. Influenced by visits and movies. But 2 weeks in West Lafayette have changed this image. Lots of farmland between O’Hare International Airport and the uni.
I learned – during one of the cultural classes – that China has 143 cities with a population of over 1 million. Compared with the US where there are about 52 metropolitan areas with a population of over 1 million.
Somehow I find it both comforting and scary that the superpower of the world is based on large expanses of small and mid-sized towns that depend on farming.
Compare this with the increasing pressures of urbanization in many parts of the world.
The big three: Land, water, food.
Another amazing fact from a euro-centric perspective: The wage rate in Indiana dropped from $30 to $15 within one year. That number alone shows the crisis.
New cam: Going to get an S90 to replace my overexposing Ixus 900 Ti.
Flickr wall: I want to build a Flickr wall based on this example. Wish me good luck…
Free advice for a Twitter/Google/Facebook/Friendfeed world…
And a finally word of advice: Remember that all of your precious UGC data that is stored at external, commercial sites may be gone tomorrow. Don’t take 5 years to learn this.
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Snapshot from Budapest
A quick snapshot that I took on my daily trek to class:
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Return of the Blog
Gigaom recently published an article that highlights an important point. A point that has been resonating through my head since Lift 07:
In this incredible sea of data that surround us, what happens to my data when a service like Twitter or Flickr or FriendFeed is sold to another company.
Gigaom writes:
The cynical me believes that it’s foolish for any of us to expect that Web 2.0 companies be in the business of providing services for charity. They are, after all, for-profit entities and when opportunity arises, everyone looks out for themselves. That’s just the way of the world.
I really like Flickr, Twitter and I recently started using Friendfeed more actively. Mainly ‘cos I can search thru my Twitter content more easily.
But… what happens when these services are discontinued?
It is my data. I am the owner. As the owner I want:
- To be able to download a backup copy when I want to
- Close, shut down and delete all of my data whenever I want to
- Control who sees which data, where and when
These are my minimum requirements for online, interactive web applications. Sound easy and straightforward.
End of topic. Well, not quite.
Many web applications – and I’m kind of shying away from the omnipresent social media / social network term here – don’t offer an easy Export/Backup all of my data/Batch Download function.
Flickr Batch Download
Consider Flickr, by all measures one of the more established and mature tools. If you click Get Help this dropdown menu displays:
It doesn’t list an item how to download photos. titles, descriptions and comments or create a backup of photos and comments using a batch downloader or similar.
The tools page only lists applications to upload files.
Apparently, the export feature is being discussed in the Help forums. I know that there are lots of threads, discussing download tools for Flickr, ‘cos I was worried about my data at Flickr. Yes, every dedicated photographer has a backup system in place for their photos.
There are some third party tools like Downloadr (I haven’t tested this yet).
Here’s an example how to create a backup of your Twiitter content using Dave Winer’s OPML tool:
How To: Backup And Search All Your Friends’ Tweets In Google Reader
But, my point is: the effort is on the users’ side. And I know many users forget or ignore this. Luckily, the RSS format offers a number of options.
One way street
Signing up and uploading is made as easy as possible. I have years of data at Flickr and I really like the application. So far the benefits outweigh the downsides by far. I like sharing my photos at Flickr. But since I signed up, Flickr was purchased by Yahoo and now Yahoo is partnering with Microsoft. Who knows what will happen in the next 1-3 years? A good web application should offer a batch export/download function.My advice if you’re signing up for a web application:
- Be aware of the fact that most web apps are one way streets. They are in the data business. They want your data to display on their website for business reasons.
- Read the terms and conditions carefully.
- Find out how you can export or download your data beforehand.
- Find out how you can close and delete your account.
- Be prepared to spend time and resources to learn the web application that you are using. Learn the advantages as well the disadvantages of the web application. It is important that you acquire web skills.
- A good web application should offer a batch export/download function. If it isn’t available, ask for it. Remember: It’s your data.
- Build your own blog. Get involved in building your own website. Your blog is your mothership. Consider services such as Twitter and Friendfeed as fast and zippy spaceship shuttles that bring visitors to your mothership. Rather than feeding Facebook and co., you will experience a learning curve that will benefit you in many other areas.
- Develop your research skills. We need independent, ad-free blogs more than ever.
Remember the continuous bootstrap curve.
But somewhere between my cynicism and people’s Utopian desires lies a happy place. It’s called the blog.
Your Opinion…
What are your thoughts on this? How are you backing up your Flickr and Twitter and Facebook and Friendfeed and Google data? Do you care what happens to your data? What precautions are you taking? -
How to Resize Photos
My family’s email account in Blantyre was blocked twice in the past week, due to well-meaning but over-sized Christmas and New Year email greetings. Attachments with over 2 MBs. The family is still on a phone line with a very slow connection rate. And downloading emails with a large attachment takes forever and a day. Luckily I can access their account via the web and move the large emails out of the way. But I thought I’d raise some awareness.
And point you to some resources describing how to resize photos.
Using MS PaintHow to resize your photograph by exact dimensions
- Right click on the image and select ‘Edit’. (This should bring up Windows Paint).
- On the menu bar at the top, select Image -> Attributes…
- If the image is a portrait layout, use a width of 640 and a height of 480. If it’s a landscape layout, use a width of 480 and a height of 640.
- Save the file. (You may want to ‘Save As’ to a different file so you don’t overwrite the original).
How to resize your photograph by percent
- Right click on the image and select ‘Edit’. (This should bring up Windows Paint).
- On the menu bar at the top, select Image -> Stretch/Skew…
- Change the percentages in the Stretch box for both Vertical and Horizontal. Make them both the same or else the picture will not be proportionate.
- Save the file (you may want to ‘Save As’ to a different file so you don’t overwrite the original).
Using Picasa
Resize by exporting
Exporting lets you resize your photos while controlling the JPEG compression (image quality) introduced by your applied photo edits. The result is newly resized copies of your photos, saved to any location on your hard drive. During the export process, you can adjust both the ‘Image Size Options’ and the ‘Image Quality’ settings in the ‘Export to Folder’ screen.
- Under ‘Image Size Options,’ select the ‘Resize to’ option and adjust the size slider. The number of pixels you select with this slider determines the length or height of your photo (whichever is longer). The other dimension is determined automatically to maintain the aspect ratio of the photo.
- Select the desired image quality for your photo using the ‘Image Quality’ drop-down menu:
- Automatic: Preserves the original image quality
- Normal: Balances quality and size
- Maximum: Preserves fine detail for large file sizes
- Minimum: Yields some quality loss for small file sizes
- Custom: Enables you to select your own value
Resize by emailing
If you’re sending photos by email, you may want to resize then in order to get under the attachment size limitation. To change the size of the photos you email from Picasa, please follow these steps:
- Click the Tools menu.
- Select Options.
- Click the Email tab.
- Under ‘Output Options,’ use the slider to set your desired pixel size when emailing multiple photos. Use the radio buttons to set the desired pixel size for emailing single photos.
- Click OK.
Lazy workaround via Flickr
I sometimes use Flickr as a lazy workaround.
- Upload or email photo to the Flickr stream.
- Go to the photo page and select All Sizes.
- Select Small or Medium and click Download the Small (or Medium) Size.
File format:
Always use JPEG.There are tonnes of other ways to resize photos with free software, such as IrfanView or The Gimp.
Within MS Word:
Don’t change the viewable size within Word (e.g. dragging the corners of the photo). Word will store the image in its original size. Resize the photo before inserting it into Word.Adobe PDF:
Check the conversion settings.Check the sizes of all files (Word, pdf, .jpeg) before sending them.
Be considerate and don’t send photos in their original size. Especially if you don’t know what type of connection the recipient is using.
It’s five minutes for you versus 30 minutes of expensive download time on a plain old telephone connection for them.
