Share-to-Social and Email Marketing…

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Tracking the competition using Social Media…

Is your business using Geo-tagged Marketing?

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Global Maritime Sensing (GMS) is a digital data capture of maritime traffic via use of location technology and citizen science.  Locative, or location, technology utilizes the plethora of geo-spacial tools available in combination with mobile platforms such as smart phones.  With smart phones now having the capability not only of time and location, but also speed, acceleration and direction, a new “participatory sensing” has evolved. 

The participatory sensing is likened to “citizen science.”  Citizen science recruits any and all participants, regardless of expertise, to record observations toward a project. GMS employs all mariners to be “citizen scientists”  and to take photos for geo-tagging.  Geo-tagging is taking photos and uploading them the web for placement on a map.  The GMS map accumulates these data points and then evaulates the trends and overlays with intelligence.

Here in the Who’s Jack office we’re pretty excited about the launch of the new Sony Ericsson Satio camera phone. As well as being an amazing camera the handset is touch screen can also be used for watching movies or listen to music all avaliable with just a single touch. The camera is 12.1 megapixels and has geo tagging technology (so you’ll always know where your pictures were taken), face and smile detection as well as image stabalisation. Combine all that with WiFi and Bluetooth and it means you never have an excuse to not share your pictures with everyone you know.

After playing around with my new I-GotU geo logging device, here are some practical tips. As I said in my previous blog, the device is simple to use. Just be sure that you have manually synchronised your camera time with the device time. You do not have to actually set te device time. It logs the time automatically. You just need to synchronise your camera time with the device time and there is a facility to do so with the @Trip software that comes supplied.

The tricky bit comes when you upload the way point coordinates from the device. The wizard for loading the coordinates from the device defaults to a time zone and a default Daylight Saving switch. The device appears to tag the time of the way point coordinates according to the local time of the location which is fine. The problem arises when you move into a different time zone. Most cameras now have a feature for you to switch the time zone. With my Pentax K20D you can either select a Home time zone or a Travel time zone. When I went on a trip to Myanmar (formaly Burma) the time zone was 3.5 hours difference to my home time zone. You guessed it, I forgot to switch the time zone on my camera which meant that the pictures taken were 3.5 hours out of sync to the I-GotU device.

You can imagine my reaction when I loaded up the pictures and expected them to be neatly displayed in the @Trip maps but zip, nadda, nothing. The good thing is that there are two ways to fix this:

(a) Adjust the time zone of the trip in @Trip to your home time zone and @Trip will recalculate the times of each individual way point accordingly and reimport your pictures into @Trip and voila. The problem with this is that that times on your photos may look odd. A photo taken at 4pm would be tagged as 7:30pm but at least you have your photos geo tagged correctly.

(b) Adjust the time of your photos when reimporting then into @Trip when using the wizard. It allows you to reset an offset time of the first photo in the sequence and adjusts all photos accordingly relative to your first shot.  This resets all your photos to the correct local time so that they are geo tagged correctly.

So to avoid all this port processing make sure that you set your camera settings to the correct local time zone where you are at and all will be well

Unlimited storage, online image editor, improved geo-tagging, multiple layouts & browsing with focus on photos, BIGGER photos!

We are a company who believe in users’ rights to their own content. We believe we have a great service where our primary mission is to give as much power to the user as possible. We are competing with other services on features, but more importantly on our users’ rights to their own data, privacy, data portability and censorship (we don’t censor stuff like flickr). That is all good you say, but what about storage?

Today we are making Expono even better by introducing Unlimited Storage for all our Expono Plus users. Click here to learn more about Expono Plus.

This change is retroactive which means that our existing Expono Plus users will automatically be upgraded to unlimited storage. Expono Plus users who have purchased extra storage will have their account upgraded to unlimited bandwidth and their subscription extended to match the amount paid.

Online Image Editor

Edit your photos online

We also added support for one of the best online image editors available! Thanks to Pixlr, you now have a tool which is as close to Photoshop online as you can get, seamlessly integrated with Expono.

Bigger Photos

Multiple layouts for your enjoyment

Talking about BIGGER photos – we have introduced support for multiple layouts on photos and album browsing. We have added a couple on this release and more layouts will be released in future updates. We hope you will enjoy them.

Activity Feed Revamp

Improved layout on recent activities

We have also improved the visualization of recent activities on your userpage. Including filtering options so you can distinguish on album activities, comments or newly uploaded photos. Not only that, we have also increased the photo sizes so you can enjoy them even more! We also changed your dashboard and introduced recent friend activities with even more filtering options. You can even drill it down to groups and if you wish, see all recent uploaded photos by only your family or your poker buddies – as long as you fall into their privacy settings that is…

Improved GEO Tagging

We have enhanced Geo-tagging of photos, including the option of custom naming locations and we have also added drag-pin support. So now you can really pinpoint exactly where you took that beautiful photo near your summerhouse.

Other important fixes:

• Default colorspace for thumbnails changed to sRGB
• PNG thumbnails filesize bug fixed.
• Correct language is now supported on mail and notifications
• Fixed rare bug on missing tags and wrong tag proportions in your tag cloud
• External contacts from Facebook, Twitter and Friendfeed are periodically synchronized so your addressbook stays fresh!

Oh! We have also added Norwegian (nynorsk) translation. Thanks to Bjørn Svindseth for all the help! We hope to have more and better translations soon…

That’s all for now folks! Stay tuned for more!

For more on the account options and features, see http://www.expono.com/go/learn_more

more skate loveliness, but this time a campaign from element. the best campaign I’ve seen in a long while:

Ich habe mir vor einiger Zeit diese 2 geotrackr geholt. Nach einigen Test, hier mein Eindruck:
Software:
der absolute Horror für beide Geräte.
Bei Phototrackr ist sie noch etwas verständlich. Allerdings braucht man für das Übertragen der geo Daten in die exif Daten die 30$ Version. Die ist bei dem Gerät nicht mit dabei. Ich habe für Adobe lightroom allerdings ein plugin für die gpx Dateien gefunden. So verwende ich die Software von Phototrackr kaum mehr.
Die Software von Columbus ist immer noch ein Rätsel für mich. Es ist ein java Programm, dass auf allen OS läuft. Beim Überspielen der geo Daten in die exif Daten habe ich allerdings das Gefühl, dass die anderen exif Daten überschrieben/gelöscht werden. Auf jeden Fall sehe ich bei flickr die anderen Kamerainfos nicht mehr. Bei Phototrackr ist dies nicht der Fall. Vielleicht kennt da jemand ein paar Tipps/Tricks?
Gerät:
Phototrackr kann man nur ein- und ausschalten. Er braucht so ca. 40 sec. bis er einen Satelliten gefunden hat. Dann zeichnet das Gerät sehr genau auf.
Columbus ist schon ein bischen besser ausgestattet. Er braucht allerdings auch so ca. 40 sec. bis er einen Satelliten gefunden hat. Man kann während der Touren sogenannte “Point of Interests” eintragen. Für längere Reisen gibt es den sogenannten SypModus. Auch kann man ein Tempolimit für Autotouren eintragen. Beim Überschreiten dieses Limits gibt das Gerät eine Warnung raus.
Fazit:
Ich bin mit dem Phototrackr sehr zufrieden und er zeichnet mir meine Fototouren sehr genau auf. Der Columbus hat mir einfach zuviele Features, die ich nicht brauche (oder bis jetzt noch nicht verstehe). Zudem ist er mir zu ungenau.

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时间：day 3， 五月二号，二零零九
为了方便大家这里是链接
day 1 | day 1 with photo | day 2 | day 2 with photo | day 3
早上很早就睡醒了大概七点半吧，因为有个任务要完成，跟着就回吉隆玻宿舍了，找了附近一家店面吃啦喳面，听过吗？我也是头一次试吃。原来这跟古晋的果汁面（kueh chap面）是大同小异的，汤底用甜酱油汤，加猪脏，主料加淋面（青色的，我想因该叫淋面，哈哈，随便乱讲的），不过味道还很美好，我满意。

啦喳面

把房间的锁锁匙交还给了前坐后，退房往taman camay 跑，这也是我一身人第一次看到某人‘眼睛入沙’ 哈哈哈。寻找了五分钟后，终于被那可爱的士司机Shivam找到了那叫Latihan Yayasan Insan Istimewa 的地方，有三个铁门呢，我推开后，发现里头的人，很害羞，你们想知道这是什么地方吗，如果不知道的话？它就是，慈爱迟钝残障中心，待了一下后，有个讲广东话很流利的印度女人出来，我说，我想做些好事，捐一笔小钱给它们中心，她听后很开心，拿了涨本叫我写数据和我的名字。

慈爱迟钝残障中心

这时，我拍了一张他们的招牌照片，做geo tagging，放便我以后找地方。我身来了一个迟钝人士，她的名字叫‘美兰’，她很爱拍照片，她要求我和她拍张照片，哈哈，很可爱。我就顺手，帮她拍了两张照片，她还会向我要看preview呢，真厉害。这里想和美兰说句话，‘美兰，我会把照片寄回去给妳,加油活着，生命有很多奇迹的’。

美兰take 1

美兰take 2,这次我摆pose

注：以上照片如果引起任何人不舒服，请留言，我会把照片拿掉，主要表明他们要社会好心人士关怀，和呵护，我一个人力量有限；没有羞辱之意，得罪之处，多多包涵。

回到的士里头，有个忙卡里（mangkali）眼睛布满血丝，在擦眼泪哈哈哈，（别问为什么，how do i know？他就是那个某人咯）他送我回railway station 后，我问他‘how much?’他哽了说‘how much u want i also will give u’（是不是他不曾感动过XD哈哈哈哈哈，怪好笑的）。。我照常给他他要求的数字，和他握手say  bye bye n happy labor day。他笑了笑。

这旅程不止让我看到了某人的‘眼睛入沙’,三个月的压力被瓦解，还告诉曾经想寻短见的我四个字‘我很幸福’,我会努力活好每一天，做该做的事，向美好的明天挥一挥手。其实，另外有些不开心的拍照片事件，我没写下去了，希望大家，星期天愉快。

为了方便大家这里是链接
day 1 | day 1 with photo | day 2 | day 2 with photo | day 3

Unul dintre cele mai interesante telefoane de sezon – LG KM900 Arena – revine în atenţia noastră şi de această dată are de gând să stea mai mult.

LG KM900 Arena este pionierul noului concept UI al companiei sud-coreene, numit cu curaj S-class. Cu o fluiditate promiţătoare nemaivăzută înainte, cu un look intransigent şi funcţional, a început să ia lumea cu asalt. Ne îndoim că va fi pe măsura iPhone-ului, dar întregul pachet s-ar putea să ne surprindă.

Caracteristici:

* ecran de 3″ 16M-culori TFT touchscreen de rezoluţie WVGA (480 x 800 pixeli)
* S-Class Touch UI
* Suport quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE
* 3G cu HSDPA (7,2 Mbps)
* Wi-Fi şi receptor GPS cu A-GPS
* camera foto de 5 megapixeli, autofocus cu Schneider-Kreuznach optics, LED flash, geo-tagging
* D1 (720×480 pixeli) @ 30fps, VGA @ 30fps, video QVGA fast-motion şi video QVGA slo-motion
* 8GB de stocare intern
* Slot card Hot-swappable microSD
* Audio jack standard de 3,5 mm şi TV out
* USB Mass Storage
* Bluetooth 2.0 cu A2DP
* Accelerometru pentru ecran auto-rotativ
* Intrare multi-touch
* Accelerator hardware 3D
* Suport DivX şi XviD
* Echipament audio Dolby Mobile
* Radio FM cu transmiţător FM
* Office document viewer
* Apelare smart

Samsung i8910 Omnia HD dintr-o privire:

* General: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/1900/2100 MHz, GPRS / EDGE Class 12, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps
* Form factor: Touchscreen bar
* Dimensiuni: 123 x 58 x 12.9 mm
* Display: 3.7-inch touchscreen OLED 16M culori, 640 x 360 pixeli
* Memorie: 8/16GB memorie integrata, non-hot-swappable slot microSD pentru card (pana la 16GB)
* Sistem de operare: Symbian S60 a 5-a editie
* Camera foto: 8 megapixeli, camera foto cu auto focus cu LED flash, geo-tagging, Face detector, Smile Shot, Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) şi înregistrare video HD la 24 fps
* Conectivitate: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 cu A2DP, port standard microUSB, receptor GPS şi opţional Samsung Mobile Navigator cu Route66, HDMI (necesita dongle)
* Diverse: Accelerometru pentru ecran auto rotire, senzor de proximitate pentru auto oprirea ecranului, radio FM cu RDS, support video DivX / XviD
* Acumulator: bateria de 1500 mAh

]]> http://fahimakhter.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/connected/ Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:24:01 +0000 Fahim Akhter http://fahimakhter.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/connected/ http://patrick07604.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/gps-for-dyfs-workers-2/ Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:20:45 +0000 patrick07604 http://patrick07604.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/gps-for-dyfs-workers-2/

This blog is to help DYFS workers use their personal GPS units more efficiently. 

Contents:
     
     Why DYFS workers have purchased personal GPS receivers. 

     The GPS receiverI use: 

     DYFS worker’s use of a personal GPS 

 Why do DYFS workers have personal GPS units? The state of New Jersey has disabled the download capability of state issued cell phones, thus cutting off access to the GPS capabilities of state issued cell phones. The state also does not purchase cars with GPS units built in. Thus, if a state employee wants to have access to the capabilities of a GPS receiver you have to purchase a personal unit. Look in to the deductibility of this business expense and consider filing form 2106 Employee Business Expenses – talk to your tax advisor.

The obvious reason for a GPS is to find client and resource locations, and there are other reasons to use a GPS. We will suggest some of those other reasons and would like to hear from you for other uses that may not be addressed here. The capabilities that can be accessed are very dependant on the make and model. The older less expansive units performed basic functions, the newer – not necessarily more expensive (price has been dropping rapidly) – units have more capabilities and may offer subscriptions to online services can do vastly more than the first units on the market.

The Garmin 260W Nuvi I use:
The Garmin 260W, Nuvi series – relatively low end unit being replaced by higher functioning units with higher model numbers.
This unit does not have Bluetooth, does not integrate with car radio, no subscription capability, does not have FM receiver.

Those are the things it does not do here are some of the things it does do:

1. Navigation configurable for speed, distance or off road (off road gives a straight line to the destination, great for geocaching the Internet treasure hunt)
2. Text to speech capability – speaks the street names and destinations — about 50 different languages and voices
3. Points of Interest, 6 million pre loaded for this model – places to eat, fuel, hospitals, hotels, etc., the 6 million tells you the unit has lots of memory
4. Custom Points of Interest. Special POI files you can download to the unit, some free some for a fee.
Examples of free ones are typically lists of establishment like fast food restaurants, e.g. all the Sonic restaurants in the US.
Example of a fee custom POI file would be NJDOT fuel stops for state employees. The public list with coordinates added by the seller.
Custom Points of Interest feature is only available after you upload a custom POI file. It shows up under the “Extras” icon of “Where to?”
5. Favorites, lets you create your own address book, e.g. client list, resource list, etc.
6. Picture viewer for viewing uploaded images and slide shows or geo tagged images — you provide the coordinates or use a geo tag capable camera
7. Auto, bicycle and pedestrian modes
8. Map “City Navigator North America NT 2009.” Already out of date for the area where I live — Bergen County.
9. Time and World Clock (moving graphic of daylight and night light over the world, great for calling overseas)
10. SD Flash Card for lots of pictures, flash cards – like the ones in cameras — typically have a gigabyte or multi gigabyte capacity depending on what you buy
11. Mini USB port for uploading pictures, custom POI files, and anything else you want to store on the unit or the flash card. Depending on the units capabilities it may not be able to play back a file you loaded. For example I can load an image file and view it. I can also load a video file and this model will not play it back.
12. Mounting hardware which I do not use as I am hopping into a different car every day or sometimes more than one car a day. I use dysum cloth on the dashboard to keep the unit from sliding around.

DYFS worker use of a personal GPS
The first and most used feature of the unit I have is as a picture viewer. I have pictures of my family on the unit and turn it on daily instead of paper pictures. Sometimes show slide show when talking about family with co workers. The pictures are larger than on my cell phone.

Second feature is client and resource addresses to find the locations. I input an address and the unit brings me there.

Third most used feature is the Custom Points of Interest file of State Fuel Stops.

Fourth most used feature is marking a location for future reference, e.g. take a client to a location, a relative, a resource etc. Instead of writing down the location I use the “Where Am I” feature in “Tools” to mark the location. The map will also give me the address if I am on a map. There are times you are not on a map that is in the unit, e.g. you are in a parking lot. Every have the unit tell you to “Proceed to the Highlighted Route.” It says that because you are not on a map.

How do you use your GPS?

Gratis Osterkalender mit gratis Software zum Herunterladen

Chip.de bietet ab heute, Karfreitag, einen Osterkalender (anscheinend gibt es nicht nur Weihnachtskalender) mit gratis Vollversionen zum Herunterladen.

Der Eier-Kalender setzt den Adobe Flash Player voraus und erinnert ein wenig an das Moorhuhn-Spiel der 90er Jahre. Welche Software angeboten wird, wird nicht verraten.

Neuer Sony Camcorder

Ich gebe zu, wahrscheinlich ist die Handycam TG7VE nichts für ernsthafte Videofilmer und Videoschnittbegeisterte, doch als Frau sagt mir vor allem die Handlichkeit und das Design zu. Klein, leicht und schick: 280 Gramm MIT Akku, silber gebürstetes Titaniumgehäuse und gerade mal 30 x 117 x 62 mm gross.

Intern besitzt die Handycam über 16 GB Flash-Speicher, etwas störend ist natürlich, dass auf dieser Speicher nur mit einem Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo aufgerüstet werden kann (störend, weil Sony´s Speichermedium um einiges teurer als „normale“ SD-Karten sind). Aber dennoch halte ich 16 GB für einen kleinen Handtaschenbegleiter für ausreichend. (Vorausgesetzt, man hat sein kleines, schickes Netbook immer dabei.)

Was mir allerdings gut gefällt ist das integrierte Geo-Tagging – genau das richtige für Reisende – oder aber Leute, für die Namen und Orte nur Schall und Rauch sind. Face Detection erleichtert die Aufnahme von Gesichtern, Smile Detection nimmt nur lächelnde Gesichter auf (für alle, die die Welt nur durch eine rosarote Brille sehen möchten).

Wie gesagt – nichts für fortgeschrittene Videofilmer, sondern ein Spielzeug für die Handtasche, das meiner Meinung nach aber zu viel mehr fähig ist als seine Größe vermuten lässt.

Eine genauere Beschreibung findet ihr bei Sony.

Euch allen FROHE OSTERN!

En del software på markedet f.eks Adobe Lightroom gir deg muligheten for å lese av nøyaktige geografiske koordinater i bildenes metainformasjon. di- GPS-mottakeren er montert i kameraets blitssko, Nøyaktig posisjon kan senere om ønskelig hentes opp via f.eks Google Maps. Nikon lanserte for en tid tilbake GP-1 til dette formålet. Imidlertid har det vært litt problemer med leveringen på dette produktet. Det finnes imidlertid andre produsenter av GPS for montering på kamera. En av dem er Dawn Technology som produserer di-GPS. Denne fungerer i prinsippet helt likt som Nikons GP-1 og er  meget enkel i bruk. Di-GPS forhandles i Norge av bl.a  Ur og Foto i Bergen.

Geotagging or geocoding is a way to add geographical meta data to photos, RSS feeds, and websites. A geotag can define the longitude and latitude of the tagged item. Or it can define the location place name or regional identifier. It can also include information such as the altitude and bearing.

By placing a geotag on a Web page, website, or RSS feed, you provide information to your readers and to search engines about the geographical location of the site. It can also refer to the location that the page or photo is about. So if you wrote an article about the Grand Canyon in Arizona, you could tag it with a geotag indicating that.

Who Can (or Should?) Use Geotagging?

Before you dismiss geotagging as a fad or something that only “other people” should do, you should consider what types of sites you build and how geotagging can be used to enhance them.

Geotagging Web pages is ideal for retail sites and tourism sites. Any website that has a physical storefront or location can benefit from geotags. And if you get your sites tagged early, they are likely to rank higher in geotagged search engines than your competitors who scoffed and didn’t tag their sites.

Web pages with geotags are already in use in a limited format on some search engines. Customers can come to the search engine, enter their location and find Web pages of sites that are near their current location. If your business is tagged, it’s an easy way for customers to find your site. And now that more phones are coming equipped with GPS, they can get to your storefront even if all you provide are latitude and longitude.

But even more exciting are new sites that are coming online such as FireEagle. These are sites that track customer locations using cellphones and either GPS data or triangulation. If a customer of FireEagle has opted-in to receiving retail data, when they pass by a location that has been encoded with geo data, they can receive contacts directly to their cellphone. By geotagging your retail or tourist website, you set it up to connect with the customers who are broadcasting their location.

Protect Your Privacy and Use Geotags

One of the biggest concerns about geotagging is privacy. If you post the latitude and longitude of your house in your weblog, someone who disagrees with your post could come and knock on your door. Or if you always write your weblog from a coffee shop 3 miles away from your house, a thief might figure out you’re not at home from your geotags and rob your house.

The nice thing about geotags is that you only need to be as specific as you feel comfortable with being. For example, the geotags I listed above in the meta tags sample are for where I live. But they are for the city and around 100km radius around my location. I feel comfortable with revealing that level of accuracy regarding my location, as it could be nearly anywhere in the county. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with providing an exact latitude and longitude of my house, but geotags don’t require that I do so.

As with many other privacy issues on the Web, I feel that the privacy concerns surrounding geotagging can be easily mitigated if you, the customer, takes the time to think about what you do and don’t feel comfortable with. The thing you should be aware of is that location data is being recorded about you without your knowing it in many cases. Your cellphone provides location data to the cell towers near it. When you send email, your ISP provides data about where the email was sent from and so on. Geotagging gives you a little more control. And if you use a system like FireEagle, you’ll be able to control who knows your location, how specific they can learn your location, and what they are allowed to do with that information.

Colombo on Google Maps

Up until now, I’ve used Colombo eMap whenever I’ve wanted to plot a route in Colombo. Now there’s a better option.

Although it’s yet to percolate to the mobile version, Google Maps on the web now has street level information in Colombo and Kandy. Click the image above for a higher resolution screenshot. Google Maps also features photos and videos from users, so it’s only a while before Colombo and Kandy are nicely geo-annotated and referenced.

Compare Google Maps to the information available on Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, and the difference is evident. Click the image below.

Colombo on Microsoft's Virtual Earth

With the Ministry of Defense ban on GPS on mobiles now lifted (it’s unclear if the ban was ever official and gazetted) we may see later this year the growth of the same types of location based services available in places such as New York that combine the power of GPS, Google Maps and mobiles. At the very least, it’s now much easier to tell someone exactly where one is located in Colombo. On the downside, the Google Maps only has the current road names – Flower Road for example is Sir Ernest De Silva Road – a name which few know and use.

Still, I’m excited at the prospect the information that allows one to discover a city and explore its features (bars to restaurants, temples to museums, parks to bargains) is coming home.

On Friday the 27th February I gave a few online presentations (conferences) for the MoLeNET programme.

One was on GPS and location based learning.

Presentation on on GPS and location based learning using mobile devices, it covered some of the GPS devices out there and how location based learning can be used.