iPhone 3GI

Within weeks of the new iPhone 3GS hitting the stores there's already rumours of the next update, dubbed the iPhone 3GI...
Before you get too excited I should let you know that the report featured on the excellent site The Onion and goes into details such as:

"Not only is this our lightest and slimmest model ever, but as any truly savvy Apple customer can clearly see, it's also the most handsome product we've ever designed."

And describes "a multi-touch interface that provides those who are "cool enough" with a rich user experience."

If you've not guessed by now (or aren't familiar with The Onion's style of satire), it's a spoof, with the 'I' standing for 'invisible' but for a couple of days there was a growing number of tweets around it as people got a bit caught up in the next big thing from Apple.

PhotoCalc iPhone app

Recently I've been listening to the photo podcast Tips From The Top Floor from German photographer Chris Marquardt.


One of their recommendations was a handy little app called PhotoCalc which won't appeal to the non-photogs out there but for the technical togger it's a nice reference tool to calculate the Depth of Field of a particular focal length/aperture combination.
It'll also guide you on Flash Exposure settings, reciprocal exposures and plenty of other useful, but not all vital, camera related information.

You can find it on the iTunes App Store.


The other reason for this post was to test out the ShoZu app which allows you to update a number of different blogging, photo sharing and social media sites from within a single interface.
So far so good if you're reading this... there's also a rumour on Twitter at the moment that the app might move to being paid-for so I wanted to download it while it's still free.

Seems good so far but you can't post text and images as one post - hence the screenshot in the previous post.

iPhone remote trigger for Canon DSLRs

Canon already gives users of it's DSLRs the EOS Utility which allows them to shoot tethered, controlling everything except zoom from a computer. This is useful for timelapse photography or in a studio environment where you're not needing too much camera movement but want to take advantage of the ability to review shots on a larger high-res screen and save them straight onto a hard drive, especially useful if you're lucky enough to use one of the new 21megapixel Canon 5D mk2.

Photoshop and Lightroom plugin experts onOne have now extended this functionality with a new iPhone and iPod Touch app called DSLR Remote which lets you wirelessly control the computer/camera combination from the phone itself. You do still need the camera to be tethered to the PC, it's not a standalone remote but I'd be surprised if we didn't start to see wifi enabled DSLRs in the future that cut out the need to use USB cables for control or file transfer and this in turn would allow something like the onOne software to communicate directly to the camera. Of course you can always use the £600 wireless transmitter and grip but for most of us this isn't a feasible option.
An added bonus is that for LiveView enabled cameras the app allows live streaming, allowing you to see whatever the camera sees and almost turning it into a remote security camera while future versions of the app will also allow remote control of the video functions of the newer DSLRs.

It'll be interesting to see how useful the app actually is - there's already been comments suggesting that it's a case of "hey, this is cool" rather than fulfilling a particularly pressing need but I can see a number of uses where the app will come into it's own - plus there's no denying that it's rather cool functionality that I'm determined to make work somewhere!
For studio shooters who are already tethered then this probably will be useful, I can imagine the tog walking around with more freedom and being able to show the images to their model for more easily. It'll certainly be handy for self-portraits since you could recompose the shot and adjust aperture etc without walking back to the camera and the intervalometer will make it popular for timelapse photography.

It's not on the AppStore yet but when it comes out I'll be getting a copy to review on here. The Professional version is expected to cost $19.99 (UK pricing not confirmed yet) for full functionality but will be offered at a discount $9.99 initially, while a cut-down Lite version will give you remote shutter triggering only for $1.99.

onOne will be notifying us when the app is approved via their RSS feed and on twitter from @therealmikewong.

Nikon, Sony, Pentax and the others aren't supported yet but plans are to extend the app to include these brands in the future - see the onOne Q&A for a full list of supported models. Users of these brands shouldn't take this as a snub that they've gone for Canon first, I'd imagine that's due to the availability of the Canon SDK for developers.

When is a walk not just a walk?

....when it's a blog post!

A week or two ago we decided to take advantage of the unseasonal sunny weather to get out for a walk on the North Downs followed by a late lunch at the nearby pub. The sun was shining, I was spending time with my friends and the promise of a pint at the pub was really helping to keep me going so I did what every self respecting blogger would do and turned it into an opportunity to test out the GPS capabilities on my iPhone.

Tracking
The app that I'm using is MotionX-GPS which I trialled using the free Lite version but wanted more functionality so I've paid the £1.79 to get the fully-featured version. For this bank-breaking price you essentially get the features of a £350 handheld GPS like the Garmin Colorado 300; standard location, speed & altitude info, compass navigation, waypoint/geocache navigation as well as route tracking and the ability to display location and route onto both streetmaps or terrain maps. The other nice touch which will be welcomed by iPhone owners who have tried to use Google Maps GPS is that you can cache maps that you have previously viewed so that if you go out of range of your phone service you can still see the maps of the area since they're stored in the phone rather than downloaded on the fly, plus the maps are from OpenStreetMap which means it keep being updated with more and more details.
It's worth noting that the free Lite version of MotionX-GPS will actually do most of this with the exception of the visual mapping and a limitation of only storing one saved track.

I set the app running as we left the carpark so that it would track our route and also provide us with a handy compass-style pointer to later direct us back to the starting point, shoved it in my pocket and got on with the walk. I pretty much ignored it until we came to a point when our directions let us down and we got a little bit lost... so it was iPhone to the rescue! While it obviously didn't know where we were trying to go to it did show us where we'd been and also where the nearest footpath was. I could feel that beer getting closer!

Geocaching
This software is also suitable for geocaching as you can manually add a waypoint with the cache location and then it will navigate you towards it. The output from the app are .kml and .gpx files which it gives you option to email from your iPhone. These can then be used in Google Maps, Google Earth, Yahoo Pipes and any number of other applications. I've uploaded my route onto my Google account so you can see where we went.

Geo-tagging
Since I had my camera with me and had been snapping away throughout the day while the GPS app had recorded my position I took the opportunity to geo-tag my pictures. The free GPicSync software isn't pretty but it does the job it needs to, namely, matching up the timestamp from my photos to the time logged in the GPS route files and then writing the location back into the EXIF information of the photos.

Sites like Flickr and Google do a great job of visually displaying their photos overlayed onto world/location maps, allowing you to search images geographically as well as by name or keyword.
This software has a another trick up it's sleeve by letting you create a custom .kml file with location markers showing the photos and their location. I've imported this into Google Maps as well so you can see the camera icons and image links that are generated.

If you're interested in customising .kml files for use in Google Earth, Maps or any of the other places you can import GPS information then I'd recommend looking at the Google tutorial on the subject. The files are essentially just XML so they take you through the process of defining the look and feel of tracks, placemarkers and anything else you might want to overlay onto a map including 3D geometric shapes which I could imagine being useful for architects. If there's enough demand from readers then I'll write a how-to guide to simplify the process!

Lo siento mucho

I owe the painfully solitary readers of this blog a bit of an apology.

I know that it's not a huge thing in the scheme of things, and if you take the big picture it's barely important at all, but it's important to me.

So here it is. My confession. Mea Culpa.

It's nearly a month since I posted on my blog. Instead I've been micro-blogging on Twitter so there's plenty I could have been writing about but it's been condensed into 140 character chunks and spat out into the Twittersphere so I thought I'd do a little re-cap so that you don't think I've just been sleeping for the last four weeks.

A little while ago I posted about the trial of The Pirate Bay which has been carrying on in the background since then, in the process popularising the phrase "King Kong defence" in reference to their argument that it is the users of The Pirate Bay and not the operators that are breaching copyright laws. One of the surprising offshoots of the trial is that a new style of facial hair has swept Sweden emulating Gottfrid Svartholm.
A verdict is expected on the 17th April which will hopefully give a decisive legal answer to a long standing debate.

I'd also meant to post about the Digital Britain report, written by Lord Carter to set out a roadmap for the future expansion of the digital infrastructure of our country, but no matter how many times I started writing I couldn't get enthused about it.
In fact I've realised that my apathy towards it was a direct result of the report itself - where they could have taken the opportunity to put forward a proposal with bold and far reaching ideas, instead he describes some obviously needed network expansion and suggests that the national standard of broadband access should be set at a speed most of us are already feeling frustrated with.

Twitter came into the news recently after it was reported in the national news that the micro-blogging service had played a part in the search for two missing skiers in the Alps. Jason Tavaria and Dolphin Music founder Rob Williams became separated from their group in a blizzard, with Jason relaying his location to rescue services from his GPS enabled iPhone. Another member if the group, Alex Hoye, sent out a much retweeted message asking for Rob's mobile number so that they could get in touch with him too. I was one of many users who retweeted the request and so it was all the more poignant when we later heard that he'd tragically died in the accident.


I'm sure there were other things that I meant to post about but it's getting late and I can't remember them - follow me on Twitter if you want to get the regular updates but I do promise that I won't leave it this long between blog posts again.

I'll leave you with a link to a blog that Melanie Seasons (a friend of a friend) writes called Fake Plastic Noodles. It's normally a good read and her comments on the new facebook design perfectly echo my own thoughts so rather than rehash them I thought I'd point you in her direction.

Google catches up

After my post on how to sync the Google contacts and calendar to an iPhone I was wondering why it was necessary to go to such lengths when Google makes it so easy to do everything else. It turns out that the good people at Google must have been thinking the same thing since they've now released Google Sync Beta for iPhone which does exactly what I achieved using Nuevasync - I've not tried the service yet since I'm happy with how I've got my iPhone setup but the comments about Google Sync overwriting the existing contacts suggest to me that they've used very similar processes and emulated an Exchange server.



Since you can already sync Google calendars and contacts to Thunderbird, the open source email client from Mozilla, the new Google release removes another layer of complexity in keeping everything synced together.

I seem to be increasingly reliant on Google now - email, calendar, photos, blog reader, maps... oh, and web searches! I've still not succumbed to their web browser Chrome since I like Firefox but they're a big part of my online life!

Photography

One of my resolutions was to get out more with my camera (a Canon 400D Digital-SLR with a growing bag of lenses, flashes and assorted bits) since I generally just use it for snapshots which is a bit of a waste.

A D-SLR (the SLR part stands for Single Lens Reflex which refers to the fact that you actually look through the same lens that you'll be shooting through) is a great improvement on most compact digital cameras since it offers you complete control over every part of the camera while most compacts will just try to give you a properly exposed shot with the minimum of fuss. Fine until you want to be a bit more creative.
I'm not saying that you can't get good shots with a compact, or that a D-SLR will automatically give better shots but it does give you more opportunity to experiment.


I've been playing with mine and will be posting to the excellent flickr as I do more. My flickr page is in the links to the side but be patient since there's not too much on there at the moment.
One of the reasons I chose flickr rather than Picasa is the community element to it - posters are encouraged to share photography techniques and to leave comments on other people's shots whick makes it a great place to learn more about the processes involved in making the type of shot you like. It's always fun to check out flickr's interestingness page to see some of the best new uploads.


Helping me along the way are a couple of useful sites including the UK based ePhotoZine for general tips, review etc and the popular Strobist blog run by the American newspaper photographer David Hobby which focuses, if you'll forgive the pun, on using flash and light effectively.
Again the community of flickr comes to play with a very active Strobist group where you can post images for review, tips and see how others have achieved their shots.

Since I don't seem to be able to post without mentioning the iPhone I'll just throw a little link in to one of David's recent posts where he uses his iPhone as a handy light for low-light shots. Very inventive!
I'll also be posting soon on the GPS facilities of the iPhone, both standalone and how you can use that to geotag your photos locations so watch out for that.

iTunes goes DRM free

It's official, iTunes is going DRM free in a long anticipated move which will bring it in line with the other major music download sites.

Rumours
It's been rumoured for some time that Apple was changing the way it approaches Digital Rights Management (DRM) within it's iTunes store with users noticing that the "iTunes Plus" part of the store, which traditionally gave access to higher quality unprotected music, had vanished and the DRM restrictions on certain artists seeming to come and go, a fact picked up by Wired last month.

History
Digital Rights Management is the copy restriction process that distributors like Apple and the big labels use to ensure that the music you pay for and download doesn't get spread over the internet or shared between friends however the other major online sites like Amazon and Napster have all opted for DRM-free music which allows your downloads to be used on whatever device you choose. Currently an iTunes download can only be used on an iPod/iPhone, tying you to the brand.

Even on iTunes the story isn't clear cut since EMI opted to remove the DRM from it's catalogue some time ago so what we're really talking about here is whether Sony, Universal and Warner will follow suit.

The DRM restrictions in iTunes are one of the biggest problems users have with the service and when I first got an iPod about 5 years ago I steered clear of using iTunes since I didn't want to be forced into using the Apple programme for my music management on the computer, preferring WinAmp at the time, and also had a fear of wanting to use a different MP3 player in the future and losing my entire collection since they were all coded to work on my iPod. The old iPod finally died a couple of weeks ago which was a pretty good lifespan compared to those models which seemed to break the second you put it into your pocket - cue the purchase of a shiny new iPhone.

Despite my concerns, you can understand why DRM was introduced back in the heady days at the start of the century when music labels really woke up to the fact that people wanted to be able to download, transport and listen to their music without the cumbersome physicality of a CD. Even though people have been taping records and burning CDs for decades the idea of effortlessly passing digital music around really scared the labels so they loved Apple's implementation of DRM.

The real problem (at least for Apple) was that people exist who don't use iPods and that there are other music download services other than iTunes so there's a lot of people out there who aren't limited by DRM. All the big labels offer DRM-free music on these other sites, even if they are restricted on iTunes so it's pretty confusing why it's taken this long for Apple to down this route especially when it opens the iTunes service to every MP3 user out there. Steve Jobs went into this subject in some detail back in 2007 and came out supporting the removal of DRM.

The Future
So what's changed?
A couple of weeks ago during the MacWorld keynote speech Apple announced that they were finally removing DRM from their library. So far around eight million tracks have been altered with the expectation that all tracks will be free from protection by Easter. At the same time they have upgraded the quality of the music available on the site to match what was previously available on iTunes Plus. You can see more details from Apple themselves at the iTunes website

The changes will only be applicable when you download the music for the first time so your existing collection won't magically upgrade it's quality or remove it's copy protection - Apple are offering this for a hefty 20p per track for each one you want to release from the chains of DRM.

New Year's Resolutions

New Year's Resolutions
I don't like New Year's resolutions.

I've gone through the usual "Give up chocolate" variations when I was younger and for a couple of years stuck to the corny "I resolve to not make resolutions" in an effort to get out of it all but at heart I just don't like them.

Why should I suddenly decide to do or not-do something just because it's another year? Plus, they're always so negative, along the lines of "Lose weight" or "Give up ..." (fill in the blank with your favourite food/activity). I like to think I'm a positive person so I don't like to focus on a negative goal.

So this year I didn't make any and I nobody asked me what mine was so I didn't feel pressured into making one up on the spot - I guess we were all too busy keeping our neighbours awake with the late night (or early morning...) marathon session of Singstar that marked New Year 08/09 to be bothered with things like resolutions.  Phew.

Work
January is also renowned for being a difficult time at work.

You've hopefully just had a fun-filled December followed by some holiday leave, Christmas Day and a New Year's party so it's understandable that you start to feel a bit down in the cold, dark days that follow. It's made all the worse since a lot of tasks in December are tagged with a 'follow-up in the New Year' so suddenly you're back from your break with twice the work to do and no bank holidays in sight.

It's no surprise that more people hunt for new jobs in January than any other month but of course this year that's been tempered by the current economic climate - people are staying where they are since no-one wants to be part of the "last-in first-out" list of cash-strapped employers.

Resolving things
In an effort to snap out of the January blues I've done two things, stopped moaning to my long-suffering wife and instead shared some of my work concerns with colleagues (who turned out to be feeling the same so now we're all working to fix things rather than moaning about them privately) and realised that I've stopped doing a lot of the things that I used to do (or wanted to do) that I enjoyed.

I made a decision that I needed to have more fun, or if you like, I made some resolutions but instead of the usual negative ones mine are a bit more upbeat along the lines of "Get out and take more photos", "Be more creative" and "Go mountain-biking".

So far it's working well; in the last week or so I've been more positive at work again, I've combined two of the above and went out to take some creative photos which I'll put onto Flickr soon and also got thoroughly exhausted mountain biking on Sunday with Charlotte and some friends. It's all paying off and it's far easier being happy and relaxed again - maybe there's more to these resolutions than I'd realised.

I've also re-embraced my inner geek which used to be fairly present when I was younger and ran my own webdesign agency with a couple of mates but that side of me had recently been ignored apart from some fairly simple sites for friends and family. Hence my new iPhone and this blog - time to get back into the tech lane.

Syncing your iPhone contacts and calendar to something other than Outlook on Windows.... like Thunderbird and Google

Home Truths
Let's start with a couple of home truths:

1) The bulk of home computers run a Windows OS.
2) One of the benefits of a mobile device like the iPhone is to have roaming access to your contacts, calendar and email.

3) You clicked NO to the paid-for Mobile Me account that Apple want you to sign up for.

If you're a Mac user then it's all fine, Apple have helpfully given you all the tools you need to sync your iCal to the iPhone and email is handled well by the phone anyway although I confess to not knowing whether your contacts are sync'ed.

If, like the bulk of us you're running Windows then you're a bit more limited. For email then it's mostly fine, the iPhone will connect to most account types but to what happens if you want to co-ordinate your contacts list or calendar? Surely in the modern go-anywhere world it's nice not to have to re-input everything just because you want it on your iPhone as well as your home computer.

The choices presented by iTunes are Microsoft Outlook/Windows Address Book or nothing and unless you're running an Exchange server you have to plug your iPhone into the computer to sync. How restricting, how disappointing!

Holy Grail
So what happens if you use Googlemail, or an alternative email client like the excellent Mozilla Thunderbird with the Lightning calendar plugin?

Or if you're like me and you actually want to sync your Thunderbird/Lightning calendar to your Google calendar AND your iPhone as well as the contacts lists of all three? This is bordering on a kind-of holy grail of roaming data access.

The Solution
After a bit of digging around I found GCALDaemon which let's you sync your Google calendar to iCal compatible programs - lots of people have used it but some complain it's a bit too technical and for me it was only going to do part of the job so I'll mention it in passing but focus on how I chose to progress.

First thing is to link up your Google calendar to Thunderbird/Lightning - this bit is dead easy, simply go to the Google calendar settings, click on the link of the calendar you want to sync and scroll down to find the XML button. You need to copy the code this gives you and enter it into the Options screen in Lightning. That's it, your home life and mobile calendars are now linked!

To perform the same trick on your contacts list you need to use a third-party plugin for Thunderbird called Zindus which you download then install via the Add-Ons menu option from within Thunderbird. Make changes to either list and it will sync - either automatically when you open/close the program or manually by pressing the big SYNC button found on the Zindus menu option.

The next stage is to sync up your Google calendar/contacts lists to the iPhone. This should have been made easy by Apple since they bothered to give native support of the Google mail system but apparently they got bored before they finished extending the functionality to the rest of the tools.

The work around I've used is to sign up for a free NuevaSync account which acts as a Microsoft Exchange frontend to Google. You complete the very simple details for Calendar and Contacts then save it and forget about it. Now pick up that iPhone and go to the "Settings" screen, then "Mail, Contacts, Calendars" to add a new account as if you were adding a new email address.

Use the NuevaSync website address as the server and select "On" to both Contacts and Calendar in the iPhone account settings - I've not used the Mail switch since you can already access Googlemail on the iPhone.

Be warned that this will delete any existing contacts you have on your iPhone so make sure that you've got them replicated elsewhere, preferably in your Thunderbird or Google contacts lists since that's what it's going to be replaced with.

Enjoy!
That's all folks! You should now be able to access the same email, calendar and contacts in Thunderbird, Google and on your iPhone! That's what I wanted when I bought a mobile device and I'm disproportionately happy that I've managed to do it! Plus it's all done 'over-air', or as we used to call it, wirelessly.