High Earth Orbit » Blog Archive » Geo search in Leopard Spotlight

High Earth Orbit » Blog Archive » Geo search in Leopard Spotlight: "Spotlight has been in Mac OS X for quite awhile now, but in general, I haven’t found it very useful. However, when this tip came across at Mac OSX Hints on how to use operators for ranges in Spotlight metadata I got some ideas about doing geo-searches on my desktop machines. To summarize, Spotlight is a system-wide metadata storage engine. Mac OS X provides a nominal vocabulary of metadata you can store, but you can also extend this to add your own metadata. Various applications like Yojimbo add metadata keys to store tags and other info with files. What’s especially great is that by applications using Spotlight, it means you can tie into this underlying metadata without having to use the application itself. Using simple command-line parameters, you can do search for words, or specific metadata such as file type:"

Geotagging photos with Macbook

Geotagging is now quite a popular "exercise" for people use on line album to share their photos. With an additional meta data of geo location, photo album can be organized in a new way.

However the more interesting thing is how this geolocation technology to let people see the world from different aspects and with more details. When I logged on to Flicrk, I could see 38 million photos with location information. There are not many cameras equipped with geotagging capability. The easiest way to do it is to use a "GPS data logger". I use AGL 3080 since it uses generic USB interface which doesn't require special driver installation to retrieve route data. Once I started my trip, I started route logging. It record travel route automatically in the device.

Then comes the question of how to match geolocation data with the photos you take. The trick is the gps logger logs your travel routes and time simultaneously. Standard digital cameras store some meta data, such as when the photo is taken, settings of the camera, picture resolution, ISO value, and so one, of pictures you take. You need a software to sync both picture and coordinates by time information.

JetPhoto is a free software to allow you do such things. It has a quite well designed mac version. Download and install it to your macbook. After you come back from the trip, just do the following:

1. Create a new album with JetPhoto
2. Import your picture
3. Click on the ">>" icon on the top right of the application
4. Select "GPS & Geotag" on the right side of the expanded panel
5. Click GPS importing
6. Select import from NEMA file. Then it will pop up a window to ask you file location
7. Plug in AGL 3080 with USB cable and select the GPS log according to the date it's taken
8. Select Automatic locating. It will sycn your photos with location coordinates by time.
9. Select Web Album from the tool bar to upload your pictures to Flickr.

Then you are done. You can see the geotagged photo at flicker like this.

Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2008 Photo Blog - Opera Minis

Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2008 Photo Blog - Opera Minis

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Zomboi has a new way to navigtae way for mobile phone. I can't help thinking did Apple came up this innovative idea or did it pick it up from one of its partner? I would guess it's latter case.

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Why Nokia should not buy Yahoo..

While reading Stephen Wellman's article "the top 5 reasons Nokia Should bid on Yahoo" , I found a guest comment to oppose these argument more interesting.

Five reasons Wellman listed for Nokia to bid on Yahoo:
1. Nokia wants a stronger desktop presence if Nokia wants to be a web company.
2. Navteg+Yahoo=Nokia's dominance of mobile location
3. Nokia needs to grow its U.S. market share and Yahoo is a brand that could help it.
4. Nokia is a mobile ad company that needs to grow its share of onine advertising
5. Nokia cannot afford to let Microsoft or Google gain any more online market share.


Comments from one of the guests read this blog:
1. Nokia doesn't need a desktop presence. Destops are dinosours. (I agree on this point. I would think a paradigm shift is what Nokia should make to allow mobile become a digital information/media platform. It should just bypass desktops)
2. Nokia can manage well without Yahoo. It owns the end devices.
3. Nokia's care of US market is less than $45bn. The far east and developing nations is where the mobile growth is.
4. Why would they spend that money trying to shoehorn themselves into an already saturated market, that has such a dominant encumbent?
5. Adding Yahoo to Google is just a blip on their revnue sheet and Microsoft is not even dominant in thir home.


I really think that Nokia (or anyone else) should focus on a paradigm shift of digital world. It's just like my first feeling to hold on OLPC. Why should we chose a costly "laptop computer" (even though it's already under US200) to bridge digital divide in the developing world? Mobile platfrom with multiple function capability can do a lot now adays and iit's gonna be a lot easier to have it close to $100. What would be more important is how the content is deployed to the device.

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