Monthly Archives: March 2009

When is a Complaint Not a Complaint?

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When it isn’t a complaint.

Get a grip, readers! Not every negative thing you read in a blog is a complaint. Not every negative thing you read in a blog needs defending by someone who is apparently indignant that a negative comment can appear online.

I’ve been blogging over five years now. This blog is chock full of opinions — both good and bad — about a wide range of things.

It never ceases to amaze me that some commenters find it necessary to get all defensive about any “negative” opinions I have. Sometimes, they even come to the defense of comments that weren’t really negative at all — just an observation they didn’t like.

Case in point, my “Airport Codes: SBP” post. I wrote it last summer after flying from Wickenburg to Seattle by helicopter. One of our refueling stops was San Luis Obispo Airport (SBP). I’d never landed there before and although I had both a chart and a detailed airport diagram, I was not familiar with the local landmarks and landing procedures. So I did what any pilot might do: I said I was “unfamiliar” when I made my initial radio call to the tower. This, in part, triggered a fountain of guidance from the female controller. Way more guidance than I needed or wanted. I commented, in my post, that she was “chatty” because she talked so much it was difficult for other pilots to make their radio calls. More than one commenter on this post took issue with my opinion and came to the woman’s defense.

Give it a rest, guys. It was just an observation and opinion. It wasn’t exactly negative. And did you even bother to watch the video accompanying the post so you could hear her go at it?

And so what if I said she’s chatty? I’m sure plenty of people have used harsher terms about my motormouth sometimes. Do I take offense? Not usually. Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

My point is this: blogs are full of personal opinions. Not all negative opinions are complaints — just as not all positive opinions are praise.

If I mention that the car wash guy did a good job cleaning my car, am I praising him? It’s his job to clean cars. Of course he’s going to do a good job. But if I say he did a kick-butt job cleaning my car and that it looks brand new and that he was smart enough not to put that smelly spray crap in it or leave my steering wheel greasy with Armor All — well, then I’m praising him.

(And no, I didn’t just issue a veiled complaint about Armor All. Stop reading between the f-cking lines when there’s nothing there to read!)

In any case, non-positive opinions are not always complaints. Get a grip — and stop being defensive for no reason.

Embrace the opinions of the bloggers you follow. They open your world to a different point of view.

My Geotagging Workflow

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How I add GPS coordinates to my photos.

A while back, I decided I wanted to include the GPS coordinates in the EXIF data for my photos. Because my cameras (a Nikon D80 and a Nikon CoolPix something-or-other) don’t have built-in GPS features or communicate via bluetooth (or any other method) with a GPS, I have to manually attach the GPS coordinates to the photos.

I say manually, but I do this with software that automates the process. (I’m not a complete idiot.) Still, there’s a slightly convoluted workflow to get this all together. I thought I’d outline it here for two reasons:

  • Some blog readers might be genuinely interested. I’m not the only photo-snapping geek around.
  • By documenting this, I can look back, years from now, and see yet another example of how technology changes to make things easier and how I solved a “problem.”

So here’s the workflow rundown. I skipped the nitty gritty details to keep it short. (I read somewhere that people don’t like to read long blog posts.)

Step 1: Acquire the Photos

GlobalSat BT-335Bluetooth GPS w/ ChargersWhen I go out to do photography, I take minimal equipment. I don’t like to carry a bunch of stuff. But one of the things I do take with me (other than my camera) is a GPS data logger. I bought a GlobalSat BT-335 Bluetooth GPS Data Logger. I made my choice after lots of research, including this excellent review on bioneural.net. Three things sold me:

  • Price. It’s $69.95 on Amazon.com.
  • Size. It’s small and lightweight.
  • Connectivity. It’s Bluetooth, so I don’t have to deal with cables. (I hate cables.)

As an added bonus, when paired with my MacBook Pro, it puts live GPS data on my computer. Which is kind of cool, even though I currently have no use for this capability.

I’m not saying you should go out and buy this. I’m just saying that I did and I’m very satisfied. And while I certainly welcome comments that suggest other models, my choice has been made, so please don’t try to sell me on your solution.

A GPS data logger like the BT-335 does one thing, and it does it well. It keeps track of where you’ve been by recording GPS coordinates and corresponding times. It stores all this data inside itself with virtually no user interface. I attach it with a wrist strap I bought at a camera store to my camera’s shoulder strap. Before I start shooting photos, I turn it on and it does its thing. I basically forget all about it.

So when I go out to do photography, I turn on my GPS data logger and use my camera to take pictures. Pretty simply stuff, no?

It’s important to note here that the time on my camera must be right — at least within 10-20 seconds (if I’m on the move) or 1 to 2 minutes (if I’m moving more slowly). I check it against my computer’s clock (which is set by atomic clock) and adjust it a few times a year. The GPS data logger gets its date/time information from the GPS satellites.

Step 2: Get the Data and Photos on the Computer

The next step is to get all of the GPS data and the photos onto my computer.

LoadMyTracksAlthough GlobalSat has a perfectly fine utility for getting the data off its unit and onto a Mac, I use the freeware application, Load My Tracks. I tell it I’m using a GlobalSat DG-100 and because the unit is paired to my computer, it finds it. I can then download tracks into either GPX (which I need) or KML format. I download both — heck, why not? — into the folder where I’ll soon be downloading the photos. I then erase the data logger so I don’t have extra track points in it the next time I use it.

Next, I use a card reader with Image Capture, which comes with Mac OS X, to download all photos from my camera into the folder where I saved the track logs. They don’t have to be in the same folder, but I like it that way. Nice and neat. And it makes it easy to back up the logs with the photos.

Now I’ve got the GPS data and photos on my computer.

Step 3: Match GPS Coordinates to Photos

Next, I launch GPSPhotoLinker, another freeware application. I use the Load Tracks button to load up the GPX data file for the photo shoot. Then I use the Load Photos button to load all the photos I took during the shoot. I go into batch mode, which has my settings saved from the last session, and click Batch Save to Photos.

GPSPhotoLinker uses my settings and the data to write the GPS coordinates, including altitude, to each photo. It displays a progress bar as it works. When it’s done, the Latitude and Longitude for each photo appears in the appropriate columns in the list of photos. Here’s what it looks like while it’s working. (Yes, I took pictures of very big, red rocks.)

GPSPhotoLinker In Action

As for the big, red rocks, you can find them here. (But it seems to be off by a 10-20 feet; maybe it’s time to adjust the camera time again.)

Step 4: Backup

After losing a hard disk for the third time two years ago, I have become fanatical about backing up my data. After importing photos and linking the GPS data to them, I burn them onto a CD or DVD (depending on the capacity needed). When the burn is done, I check the CD or DVD to make sure it functions properly. Then I apply a label with the date and some descriptive information and file the CD or DVD in a box with a bunch of others.

I format the memory card for my camera in my camera to clear it out completely.

I then feel good about deleting photos off my hard disk, adding them to iPhoto, or modifying them in Photoshop or some other image editing too.

Sounds Like a Lot of Work?

It really isn’t a lot of work. It’s a whole workflow thing. Do it enough times and you can do it quickly. Steps 2 through 4 take about 15 minutes from start to finish.

That’s my flow for geotagging. What’s yours? Got a camera with a GPS or GPS connectivity built in? Please do brag about it by adding a comment here. I’d love to learn more.

Leaving Red Creek

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Another helicopter video.

I’m finding a bunch of gems on my hard disk. Figured I’d share them online.

We’d stopped at the Red Creek landing strip on our way down the Verde River when we saw another helicopter parked there. We were working on a video project and wanted to interview the pilots. They must have been down by the river because they weren’t anywhere near the helicopter. So after screwing around on the ground for a while, we took off back down the strip and turned downriver to complete our flight. This video was taken with a nose-mounted POV.1 camera.

Night Flight into Wickenburg

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It’s dark at the edge of nowhere.

I was going through a bunch of old video I had stored on my computer and came across some clips from a night flight from Falcon Field (FFZ) in Mesa, AZ to Wickenburg Airport (E25), in Wickenburg AZ. This particular clip was kind of cool. In it, I’ve just flown over town at night and the sky is pitch black. I turn on the runway lights by clicking my mic button, line up for landing on the taxiway, and set down on the ramp.

If you’ve ever wondered how dark it gets at the edge of nowhere, this video will give you an idea, from a helicopter pilot’s perspective.

Enjoy.

Why Print Publishing is Doomed

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At least in my opinion.

This morning, while preparing to write a blog entry about the importance of creating a meaningful bio for your social networking presence, I came across a link in my Twitter stream:

jenniferwhitley Reading @cshirky: “We don’t need newspapers, we need journalism.” http://tinyurl.com/bpxulr

Easily distracted by any task at hand, I followed the link. I found myself on a plain vanilla — indeed, default WordPress template — blog page with a long column of full-justified text just large enough to read without putting on my cheaters. It was unbroken by advertising (including unattractive or animated ads featuring jiggling fat bodies), images (including meaningless stock photos, inserted as eye candy), or even subheadings (used by so many writers, including me, to help the reader skip head to the “important” parts). It was pure content with only a trio of centered asterisks to indicate a shift in the author’s thought.

And it was good.

The blog post, “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable,” was by Clay Shirky. It summarized what has brought us to the middle of a revolution in publishing. Print publications are discovering that they can’t compete with the Internet for content delivery, no matter what they try. They’ve refused to see the reality of what’s going on. As a result, they’re not able to survive in the changing world of publishing.

Shirky compares what’s going on with the Internet and publishing today with the revolution of Gutenberg’s movable type and Aldus Manutius’s introduction of small “octavo” volumes that were less expensive to produce and easier to carry around. (I wonder…if Web publishing can be compared to movable type, can e-books and devices like the Kindle be compared to octavo volumes?) These innovation changed publishing. The brought about a revolution in how information was shared and who had access to it. This isn’t any different from today — information is more widely available than ever before.

My point here is not to summarize Clay Shirky’s excellent post. Instead, I urge to you read it. If you’re a journalist or serious blogger or any kind of writer at all, the history he summarizes and the points he brings up may be vital to your understanding of what’s going on in publishing. Indeed, I wish all of my publishers and editors would read it and begin to face the reality of what’s going on in our world. I believe that what he says applies not only to newspapers and journalism but to all publishing, including the kind of work I do.

My point is this: his finely articulated, well-researched, and extremely thoughtful piece is an example of why print publishing will ultimately go the way of hand-copied, “illuminated” texts. It’s quality content, easily accessible, for free, without advertising, on the Web.