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Hvor svært kan det der med positioner i EXIF-data egentligt være?

07 14

Udgivet af henrik under fotografering, software | Ingen kommentarer (endnu)

Jeg troede egentlig at det var sådan ret ligetil – men se så her.

Sådan er billedets position sat ud i programmet GeoSetter:

Som det er sat i GeoSetter

Som det er sat i GeoSetter

Det er sådan set meget godt.

Og 23hq får da også positioneret billedet rigtigt (se på 23hq):

Sådan er det sat ud på 23hq

Sådan er det sat ud på 23hq

Også ganske fint :)

Flickr har tilgengæld opgivet fuldstændigt (se billedet på Flickr)…

Sådan ser det ud på Flickr

Sådan ser det ud på Flickr

Mens Panoramio har placeret det på Nordpolen (se selv)…

Sådan er det sat ud på Panoramio

Sådan er det sat ud på Panoramio

Om det bare er GeoSetter der er basket eller hvad der er problemet ved jeg ikke – men dumt det er det da…

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Getting to know 23hq a little better

04 14

Udgivet af henrik under IT, fotografering, internettet, software | Ingen kommentarer (endnu)

So – after having used 23hq for a couple of weeks, and getting my feet into it’s quirks and queues, it’s time for a little follow-up posting :)

First the bad stuff:

  • There was some problems with certain albums (which was sets on Flickr), being created as one new album for each photo. This generated a total of 258 albums. After tidying them, I’m down to 52. I’m not really sure if it was Migratr, Flickr or 23hq though. As You can see on the following list, there isn’t a clear and unambiguous indicator of what went wrong:
    • Absalon returns (16 april 2009)
    • Emergency at Esplanaden (17 mar 2009)
    • Karneval i Aalborg (23 may 2009)
    • Københavns Karnveval (30 may 2009)
    • Setting the stage (18 may 2009)
    • The crane that got it wrong… (20 dec 2007)
    • The miscellaneous of a miscellany
  • Some photos was only added to one album, and not all albums that would equivalate the sets they where in on Flickr.
  • Each photo had it’s title duped. Unlike Flickr 23hq doesn’t have a separate field for titles, but simply utilizes the first line of the description (which is a pretty cool thing actually). Unfortunately something got messed during the transfer, so all the photos came with two identical lines in the top of the description.
  • In FireFox the organiser seems to have some problems handeling large amounts of photos (in my case 1.200), producing JavaScript time-out errors. This may also be the case in other browsers.

Being the needygreedy bastard I am, what I’d currently like to see added to 23hq is:

  • The option to sort the photostream (now it’s latest uploads first)
  • Dynamically number of photos in rows (as seen in the MediaWiki gallery-function)
  • The option to add templates to photo-descriptions (similar to the {{template}}-style from MediaWiki)
  • I miss the upload and replace photo function. I can improve photos using Picnick (which can do upload and replace) but not by a regular upload. It may be available through the API someway.
  • Please. Let go of that ridiculous space-separated tag-system. Come on people, do I have to explain this to everybody?
  • And how about a search for Wikimedia Commons compatible images? That would be cool :)

But now onto the cool stuff:

  • I can customzie way more than colours. In fact I can be very very specific in creating my own design using CSS. Me like.
  • Searching for a tag makes it possible, to browse through all photos with the same tag. Similar to the way one can browse through photos from the same group. Pretty cool :)
  • The conversations-page. In a quick and very easy-read layout, I can monitor comments on my photos, comments on photos I’ve also commented on and comments I’ve made. It works well.
  • The status-updates as we know it from i.e. Facebook. On photos. Also a nice one.
  • RSS-feeds on just about everything. I like RSS. I use it where-ever I can.
  • Repeat on slideshows. I’ve really really missed that on Flickr.

Lot’s more to come, but overall I’m happy I’ve made the shift :)

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exit Flickr; begin 23hq

04 3

Udgivet af henrik under IT, fotografering, internettet, medier | Ingen kommentarer (endnu)

I’ve been a Flickr user since march 2007, but as of today this has come to an end. I’ve even been a pro-user for three years – obviously this has also come to an end.

There are in fact several reasons for my departure from Flickr, and in all fairness I do have had more good than bad experiences with Flickr, but certain factors has just gained to much weight now. My main reasons for departing from Flickr are (in prioritized order):

  1. The interface. It’s not very intuitive, and after three years I still get lost sometimes.
  2. The staffs “infatuating” concern with being nice and only doing what’s politically correct. Of course being evil and all shouldn’t be a goal by itself, but when honest opinions are being suffocated with “Now that’s not being nice. Let’s close this thread.” it’s taken to far…
  3. Their more and more aggressive censorship and oppression of freedom of speech. This is somewhat connected to the point above, but when you remove a collage made in protest of theft, limit accessibility for an entire country or closes a guys account simply because he posted critical comments of president Obama it’s over the limit. Not cool.
  4. Statements like “Let’s close this puppy” when a thread has reached a conclusion and “Flickr has the hiccups” when there is a technical malfunction of sorts really rubs me the wrong way. I’m an adult. As are most Flickr-users. Please – oh pretty please – treat us like adults and not five years. We can handle the real world you know.
  5. The Flickr tagging system. Separating tags by commas is pretty much standard. I’d say that something like 19 out 20 systems does tags this way. Flickr separates them with spaces and uses “’s for tags with more than one word. Why not go standard?
  6. I’m bound to a Yahoo!-account. Why? Use OpenID or something fancy, but don’t force me to create and use an account I wouldn’t have otherwise (Panoramio suffers from the same – it’s just Google-accounts there…)
  7. Lack of control of the layout. I have like six options for the layout of my pages. That’s it. No changing colours. No custom sizes. Only the six ways Flickr has defined. And I don’t prefer white background…

So – there is enough of reasons for me to depart Flickr. After reviewing the main alternatives: 23hq, Picasaweb, Panoramio, PhotoBucket, photoSIG and Zoomr and ended up choosing between 23hq and Picasaweb. I’m already a Panoramio user, but it simply offers to little as a primary photo-sharing site (like where are groups?). PhotoBucket and Zoomr are even lower cut. photoSIG did present some interesting elements (like a very clever rating system), but it’s more a photo evaluation site than an actual sharing site.

Picasaweb is actually pretty good, but I can’t see it being a photo sharing site. It’s more like a digital photo book which isn’t quite what I’m after either. So I ended up with 23hq and here’s why:

  • I decide the layout. At least way more than compared Flickr.
  • It has albums and groups (though no sets).
  • It’s a Danish company. Yes that actually counts for something for me :)
  • It’s under constant development. New features seems to be added regularly and the developers actually listens and act upon user-input.
  • I can also choose a license of my favourite flavour here.

Of course 23hq isn’t all happy-happy-joy-joy though. It doesn’t seem to be able to extract geotags from EXIF, it has a way lesser user-base, it does also have a horizontal limit in the gallery and I’m having trouble getting their uploader working on MacOS X. Also I now have to find a replacement for Flickr Uploadr, which works rather good (for Flickr).

So this is what I’ve went from and to:

My Flickr streamThe Flickr-stream. Three photos horizontal is the maximum, so there is a lot of waste-space. Also it’s white-only background.

My 23hq stream23hq. Now I can at least have five images in a row, but there is still some waste-space. Also note the nice black background :)

And getting there? I’m using this cool little freeware tool called Migratr. It does moving, titling, descriptions and albums automatically. That’s pretty sweet. It isn’t 100% perfect; I’ll have to do a little neating of all the photos (1.204 items), but it has certainly saved me a lot of work. Me like :)

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Flickr – eller ej? Og hvis det er ej, er det så 23hq?

09 13

Udgivet af henrik under fotografering, internettet, sociale medier | Ingen kommentarer (endnu)

Jeg har brugt Flickr siden starten af april 2007, og har egentlig principielt været glad for det. Men flere ting har fået mig til at kigge efter nye græsmarker:
  • Flickrs halv-skæve brug af censur-lignende handlinger. Som f.eks. den halv-gamle men ikke desto mindre relevante sag om Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir, der fik fjernet en collage af egne billeder, som blev lagt op i protest over et firmas tyveri af nogle af hendes billeder); indførelsen af begrænsninger på hvilke billeder der kan ses fra Tyskland; eller manden der fik lukket sin konto, fordi han kom med kritiske kommentarer i det Hvide Hus’ foto-stream.
  • Deres åndsvage tag-system, hvor tags er adskilt med mellemrum og ikke kommaer som i stort set resten af verden.
  • Især èn af deres meget aktive staff-personers evindelige insisteren på overdreven politisk korrekthed, grænsende til Morten Korch-lignende sødheds-kvalme.
  • Deres tunge og ikke altid lige intuitive brugerflade (efter 2½ år farer jeg stadigvæk vild en gang i mellem).
  • Man kan ikke selv vælge baggrundfarven på ens billed-side. Onexposure har sort baggrund, Fotopedia har sort baggrund, en hel del brugere bruger hacket ‘View on black‘ til at præsentere deres billeder på sort baggrund. Det er ikke tilfældigt. Mange billeder ser bare bedre ud mod en sort baggrund.

Jeg har således kigget rundt. Prøvet mig frem på 23hq, Picasaweb, Panoramio, PhotoBucket, photoSIG samt Zoomr. Ud fra let brug og et par uploads er den hurtige konklusion, at det mest brugbare alternativ til Flickr er 23hq, som jeg har leget lidt med.

23hq har en dejlig og simpel brugerflade, der er let og intuitiv at navigere rundt i. 23hq tillader mig at definere udseendet på min profil (en ting jeg virkeligt! har savnet hos Flickr!). 23hq har et fantastisk kommentarsystem, hvor der er en høj grad af sammenhæng og basis for interaktion.

Men det er heller ikke et sted uden udviklingspotentiale (okay – alle steder bør altid være åben overfor et udviklingspotentiale). Jeg savner lidt mere geotagging integration (man kan se hvor et billede er taget, men ikke se hvilke billeder der er taget et givent sted), og 23hq har samme tossede tilgang til tags som Flickr. Men det er småting.

Mine to største problemer med 23hq er dels, at jeg ikke kan bruge den normale flash-baserede uploader fra Mac OS X (den virker tilgengæld fint fra Windows 7), og dels at der ikke er så mange brugere, så specialist-grupperne er sjældnere og mindre.

Spørgsmålet er så om de to ting bliver opvejet af at komme væk fra Flickr… Jeg har endnu ikke besluttet mig og er endnu ikke færdig med at lege.

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