For several years now, I’ve been attempting to acquire G.I. Joe (legally) to watch. I missed when they were first re released on DVD. Well, really was living on a shoestring budget when they came and went. It looks like in preparation of the new G.I. Joe Movie coming this summer, the original animated series is being re released.

I’ve already preordered my copy and hope that the rest follow at a similar price point of ~$25. It might mean that you could acquire the entire series for the same amount as a quarter of the series when the original distribution ended. I’m sure folks trying to sell their used copy of the original go around will be bummed. I for one am pretty excited.

Ben found this and pointed it out to me. I thought it might require a little re-post…

1. Anyone know any places like this in New England, New Hampshire, Seacoast region?
2. I want something like this to succeed, gain popularity, and hopefully be more evenly distributed throughout the U.S.

The concept is simple but genius. By offering come and go office space with what professionals need, you give people who may often work alone a chance to brainstorm and network. It’s something that when I used to consult, I lacked but needed. It also gives you a chance to have an office that your customers can come to without you needing to worry about those dishes from last night’s dinner, or if the kids are killing zombies in the living room.

Good luck QWIRK!

Future plans for The Lebowski Podcast include more excellent guest speakers, interviews with artists and musicians who are fans of the film, and special Listener Spotlights celebrating the podcast’s biggest fans and best listeners.

For more information about The Lebowski Podcast, visit www.lebowskipodcast.com. The website features downloadable episodes, merchandise, a collection of Lebowski-related links, and an all-Lebowski blog.

Getting GPS Data

Since I take a lot photos when we’re on vacation, I almost always have a laptop with me to back up my shots. Because of this, I’ve settled for the clunkier but much more cost effective Street Atlas 2008 with
Earthmate Lt-120 GPS receiver option for in-car navigation, if needed. The added bonus is that you can do all sorts of cool stuff with it. Including just turn it on and let it track where you are, which is the first step in geotagging. When your done for the day, you can save the GPS log from your day’s journey. Street Atlas saves the log file as a special Delorme .gpl format. There are conversion tools out there that can read that and convert it, sometimes, but Delorme is cool like that, they know you want your data, it’s yours. If you click on the Draw tab, where you would normally design a set of waypoints for a trip, you can import the gpl file as a layer in either track, or waypoint data, to name 2 of the 3 important types. From here you can save it right back out as a .gpx file, or GPS XML file as they are known.

The GPX file is gold, this is what you want for output from what ever you plan to collect your gps data with. It’s an open and specific XML format, which means you can even open the file in something as simple as notepad and view the data. It also means that most of the free software for combining GPS and EXIF data can read it.

A little about EXIF data

Exif data, is metadata stored inherently in some formats of photos. Jp(e)g files and camera raw (raw, nef, etc). You’re probably familiar with it, just not sure what it was called. Most commonly seen on flickr, is the “This photo taken with an ________ camera.” This is just one of the things you can enter in exif data. Other common data that gets stored when you take a photo include iso, f-stop (aperture) and shutter speed to name a few. It doesn’t have to stop there.

A more and more common phenomenon is the inclusion of GPS data in the exif data, which can answer the question “where did you take that photo?” This data typically includes Latitude, Longitude and Altitude. According to the software, you can also automatically include data like Town, State, etc. The best software to do this I found it available for free (donation recommended) For Mac OSX Tiger and Leopard.

Software

The software, GPSPhotoLinker is available at http://oregonstate.edu/~earlyj/gpsphotolinker/. This software is sweet. You can load multiple gpx files and load directories of photos, or individual files. By clicking on the batch tab, you can run a batch write to the photos and be done with it. The sweetest part is that file formats included nef files, Nikon’s raw format. This meant that I didn’t need to convert all my raw files to jpg and then process, as I only keep the nef files on my server and upload the jpgs to flickr then delete them.

This photo was shot with my Nikon D40. I also shot other photos, like the ones on the right, on a timed sequence using a great little web camera from Logitech. The QuickCam Pro for Notebooks is a 2 megapixel (1600×1200) web camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and built in auto focus. I used Webcam Surveyor

to capture photos from the web camera every 3 minutes and save it to the hard drive of my laptop. The effect would be similar to timelapse, but in stead, by saving each photo separate instead of into a movie file, I could pick and choose the photos I wanted to keep, and still create a time lapse movie later if I wanted to. The software is only $30, and can do all sorts of great stuff including time lapse photo/movies, motion detection and recording (with the ability to mask) and other great stuff. It’s worth checking into. You can try it for 30 days to make sure it will work for your needs, I’m sure it will.

Work flow

Make sure your camera’s time matches your local time based on UTC time. HA WHAT? It’s simple. The date/time in the gps stuff will be based on UTC time and adjusted to your area. Look at your gps and see what time it says, and set the clock on your camera to match. The matching of gps location and photo is done with date/time photo was taken and the time stamp in the gps log.

I shoot in raw, probably don’t need to, but I do. I like knowing I have the most flexibility with my photos I can when I get them home. IT gives me warm fuzzies inside. So it was important for me to have software that could work with the raw files. Again, this is why GPSPhotoLinker is so great. However, I did find two things that I had to work around by adjusting my work flow. Really not a big deal now that I know. This is also why I went on several test runs prior to the big trip where I wanted the system to be flawless. I use Adobe Bridge from the Creative Suite to manage my photos. I use it to sort, tag and rate my photos. The first time I tried compiling the results, I did my normal sorting out, adding additional metadata to make it easier to find a photo later, rated the ones I wanted to post to flickr with the stars and did a little color correction, cropping and sharpening, then ran Photlinker to add in the GPS data. Here’s where I hit one small snag. Somehow, the link to the xmp file (xml file containing edits to the nef file) was lost. Metadata stayed, but exposure correction, cropping, and ratings in bridge were lost. I had to go back and do it again.

The other slight snag I hit was that the photos recorded from webcamsurveyor did not have exif data that could be read correctly. I had to use a second piece of software called GPicSync to tag those photos. It was able to read the file created date to enter the gps data into the exif data. I suspect though, that this is more from the way photos from a webcam are saved then GPSPhotolinker.

Summary

I could go into so much detail on this process that you would never read the whole thing, maybe you didn’t. . . Anyone still there? If so, congratulations! There are much better ways to do this, including gps data loggers that clip to your pack if you’re straying from your car, or devices that clip into your hotshoe and write the gps data when the photo is taken. But these can cost from $50 to $400 respectively. I’d be interested in finding out if any of you have tried this out, and what you found worked for you.

I’ve also been experimenting with geotagging, or the correlating of GPS data with the exif data of photos. I think I have a semi working method involving a laptop in the car running Delorme Street Atlas 2008 and some great software available on both Mac and PC. There are much better ways to do it, but this method used existing hardware/software to my inventory to proof the concept without paying out any monies.I’ll elude to writing something about it at a later date, but don’t wait holding your breath, o.k.?

Finally, I’m angrily waiting for the Amazon Associates program to pay me for the referral fees from you folks shopping through my store. For 4 straight months now I have far exceeded the minimum amount for payment, and received no payment to date. I’ve been fed “We’re looking into it” for 2-3 weeks now and latest inquiries have gone unanswered. I’m sure an in depth write up will occur soon as well.

As far as the Dude you’re getting a Dell story, things turned out ok in the end. Anonymous got the machine, albeit by driving from Concord to Portsmouth to pick it up at the DHL location the Saturday before Christmas. Where he was in line with other folks picking up their Dells. A long and frustrating tale goes along with that, but it’s a new year. He also got a small refund for the annoyance.

So as I eluded, I’ve been taking photos, so here are some of the latest.

Proof

So lets think back to what brought this blog to life. . .

Oh thats right, those damn raccoons. They’re still around, in fact I had great fun, ehr, I mean I was left no other option, then to shoot one a couple weeks ago with my paintball gun while I had the electric fence repurposed on the garden for the summer.

But of course, I wouldn’t be here with such an audience if it wasn’t for my peeps. Those folks that both read my insane ramblings, and those that link to my blog. So since I can’t thank every single one of you by name, I’ll be certain to report out what WordPress tells me are the good folks linking to my site.

Thanks!

• Notes to Marquis
• Wii Sixty: File under – Suck it Sony
• Strong Kids, Safe Kids
• Moldy Snack
• mandymag.com
• Users Suck!
• spiralbound.net

On closer inspection, I realized that it was from the sender “PU Joint Subcomittee on Inter-Campus SNK Proliferation” I couldn’t wait to open it and see what the PUSOICSNKP had sent me! My boss thought it was Lego, but I knew it would be better, and I was right. I was sent several useful items, that no geek could live without, the most important of all, caffeinated beverage. Behold, the glorious bounty, Arr.