As a result, I like to practice using features when I find them.  Some stick, becoming part of my daily routine and ritual, others fade away as simple novelty.  Knowing what your iPhone or Android phone can do is good.  Learning which features are right for you is better.

Just to give you an example, I was waiting for the wifie at the wine store and remembered Google’s photo search called “Goggles” that is part of the iPhone Google App.  Not really needing an excuse to buy wine (“google told me to”), I tried it out on a nice bottle of cabernet.

Googles Goggles (a tongue twister ain’t it?) went to work on my cab, using the image as the search query.  The result was pretty spectacular – even by the standards of the ever impressive Google.

In less than a minute, I was reading a great review of my selection and soon after SOLD.  It was a great shopping experience.  I was selected a bottle that looked about right (2 minutes), Googled it (30 seconds), learned about it (1 minute) and finished my purchase.  Not bad!  The process was fast enough that I would have happily continued to photograph bottles for a while, but the results rich enough to help me make an educated decision.  Sweet.

In closing for this rather short post, remember that the point isn’t Google’s Goggles.  The point is that my phone had a feature that was worth exploring and that a little practice was enough for me to see how I could use it in future.  That’s the key – use it and see if it’s useful to you.  If not, no sweat.  There are another 999,999 features to look into.

For the record, the wine was excellent.

~ab

The truth is this:  when your picture goes out into the lovely webs of cyberspace, it’s never gone.  It might be just sitting on a shelf without a label – that is, until the technology to link you to the evidence comes along.  As an example, try Googling yourself on Google’s image search:

When I tried this, I found my photo on page 17 of the results from a site that I had never seen before.  That alone was pretty strange.  However, don’t stop there – add a piece of information about yourself that others might know (like the company you worked for last) and you might be surprised how much the field narrows.  I went from page 17 with millions of hits down to page 1 with my picture as number 2, just by adding a former job to my search.

Companies liked LinkedIn and Facebook are the source of many of these images, but there are also companies that archive older pictures from the Facebook or LinkedIn database.  For example, Radaris (which does background checks) has a copy of my LinkedIn image (how is that ok?).  Long story short, even if you remove a picture from the site you’ve signed up with, you might be too late.

There really isn’t a fix for this. The best answer is probably not to post things unless you’re sure you want the world to see it.  I know that we’ve heard this before, but the supporting evidence is rarely so easy to find.

Best of luck staying safe out there!

~ab

What the program does

This program is for emailing new events to your Google Calendar.  It checks your Gmail account for new events that were sent to a special label every ten seconds.  It can only process one calendar entry every ten seconds (but if you’r emailing in more than that, it’s pretty impressive and you are far too busy to be playing with my software).

I couldn’t find any 3rd party services that do this, so I had to improvise using AutoHotKey and a script I wrote previously for quick adding events to Google calendar.  The result is a bit rickety, but it does the job.  Improvements may or may not occur over time and currently it does not work with google apps (although it couldn’t be that hard to fix this).

Setup

It requires three pieces of setup (these are the defaults which can be modified if you know how to script):

1. Create a Gmail filter that puts take email sent to youraddress+jaacal@gmail.com into a new folder/label called jaacal.  You can also say “skip the inbox” so these emails don’t clutter things up.

2. Download the zip file from this link – Email to Google Calendar (406) – and unpack it to a directory of your choosing.

3.  Change the logon.txt file to include your email, your user name (email without @gmail.com) and your password.  Make sure you keep this file in the same folder as the EXE file.

Workin’ it

Once you’ve done these three steps, run the EXE file and walk away.  Send an email with your quick add text in the subject line to the address above and it will appear on your calendar within about 20 seconds.  An example of a quick add subject line could be something like “dinner with Dave to thank him for such a good idea tommorrow 10pm”.  It doesn’t matter what you put in the body, the program will just ignore it.

Download Email to Google Calendar (406)

And that’s about it! Let me know your thoughts at ab@justanasterisk.com or in the comments.

~ab

Good luck!!!

~ab

You were right.  It took me nearly a year, I swore up and down that my Flickr account was the bees knees, I wrote articles and explanations of how to use Flickr’s advanced tool set, and I ruined perfectly good cocktail party conversations, berating all services that did not stack up to my personal choice.

A year has gone by and now, like a dope, I have to reverse my position.  Why?  Because Picasa just changed the game, and I can no longer ignore the beautiful integration between Picasa and all my other apps.  Before I start into the details, this isn’t to say that Flickr is a bad service – it’s just no longer for me (yes I’m trying to save face – but let’s not write off Flickr entirely… there are too many devotees).

Without any more ado, here are the top 4 reasons I’ve decided to change over.

1. I can host 80GB of files for $20 a year.

This was the clincher, so in a way, it’s normal that it be my number 1  reason.  Suddenly, Flickr and Picasa are essentially evenly priced.  Before this week, buying the required space for all my photos, and future photos, was simply exorbitantly expensive.  My last defense crumbled, which allowed me to acknowledge the next 3 points…

2. Integration

In Flickr, when I wanted to send a photo to someone, there were three options – 1. I had already done this before and saved the email address. 2. I had to go into my email and find the email address before hitting send back in Flickr.  3.  I could just copy the link and ignore the email functions because my address book wasn’t available.

In Picasa, I just click the share button below and poof – my contacts are available from Gmail.

As you can see from the picture, it even looks like a Gmail message.  This is what makes the integration between these tools so powerful.  You don’t have to learn anything new.

This doesn’t end with email.  There is integration with other Google products too.

For example, you can specify the site of the photo on a Google Map, exactly like you did when you were looking for takeout last night.

If your camera (or cell phone camera) can geotag to your photos (a longitude and latitude value), these will appear in the familiar Google Maps interface, just to the right of you photos.  This makes sorting photos by destination a very pleasant task.

As far as integration goes, using Picasa if you already use Gmail for contacts and email will save you a ton of time.  If you don’t use Gmail, you might not be better off…

3. Ease of use

Gmail caught on because it was easy and fast.   When I started evangelizing, often I heard “but I already have an email program” and “I just don’t get it”.  These same people are nearly all Gmail users now.  I have to believe that the snappy response time for searches and other tasks makes a serious difference.  I won’t rant and rave about how Picasa takes things to a new level – in most ways it doesn’t.  However, it does benefit from the same value created by Gmail and other Google products – a simple interface.

4. All the same features (or at least the ones I use)

Finally, it’s worth emphasizing that this is not a baby version of the other popular photos sites.  There are some serious features involved.  Hardcore photographers will be asking, where are the camera related details for each picture?  Where are the ISO settings?  Where are the exposure details?  Well these are all available (if you hit more info), but are hidden to make the screen less cramped and to provide a better viewing space for your work.

Other fancy pants features exist too:  We’ve mentioned geotagging above.  There is also facial recognition, allowing you to tag your friends photos (using their integrated contact information from your Gmail).  In addition, there are collaborative albums, fans, commenting, full tagging features, video capabilities, email upload, and mobile access…

In conclusion

Yes I was wrong, dear wife, but I’m working to fix it.  This probably won’t be my last change of heart in the technology department.  You do deserve credit for seeing most of this right from day one.  Nice work.  Feel like writing for JAA?

~ab