While I take a lot of photographs, I do not always take good ones. Typically, I am either capturing something that “looks interesting” or I plan ahead and am taking pictures of a particular subject matter. More often than not, the iPhone is the camera for the first category while my 2nd hand Nikon D700 (and a 20 yr old lens) is my camera of choice for the second.

If there is a good photograph somewhere in the many frames I've shot, I want to post it to this blog. That requires some form of workflow to get the picture from the camera, make any adjustments, compose the supporting narration, and then upload it to the blog.

For iPhone pictures, that all takes place within the phone. For shots with the Nikon, there are a few more steps.

I've previously written on using an Eye-Fi card with the D700. I have configured the eye-fi to selectively transfer images (uses the 'lock' or 'protect' feature on the camera). This gives me a level of filtering since I often take several pictures of the same subject, knowing some will have better composition than others.

Once the pictures are on my iPad, I use the built in camera roll App to pick the ones I will be using in the blog post or email. Those get a little more consideration. I'm currently using the Snapspeed App for most of my processing, including cropping, color balance, dodging & burning, and emphasis.

When I will be using more than one image, I decide if they will be used individually or as a photo set. I use Strip Design for making photo sets. One feature of Strip Design I am using more often is the ability to create a specific layout rather than use one of the predefined layouts. The above photo set is an example. I looked at the images I had processed with Snapspeed and from their relative sizes – tall, wide, square,etc. – I 'cut' a page into my desired layout. After adding the photos to he layout, I decide if I want any type of treatment, bordrs, etc. then I save the finished image back to the camera roll.

On the iPad in using the Blogsy App. While the app is pretty good, it does have one annoying limitation – it uploads your images and then uses CSS to scale the image to the page. I would prefer it to upload the image and then let me choose one of the optimised images which WordPress has generated.

WordPress automatically generates up to four scaled images for each upload – thumbnail, small, medium, and large. The blog administrator defines what actual sizes correspond to these descriptions.

My solution is to complete my work in Blogsy and have it load the finished article to the blog as a draft. Then I can just reload the draft and switch from Blogsy's CSS scaled image to one of WordPress's generated images. This makes the blog more efficient to load for readers.

Feel free to post any questions !

I recently read a New York Times article on police using a smartphone app to get information “on the street”. What I took from the article is that LEOs would love fast simple access to large amounts of data to get the snippet that is of value “right there; right then”.

One aspect of Mobile Computing that is “the game changer” is what I use to refer to as “just in time information”. Ten years ago it was a concept that was not possible. Now it is. The keys to just-in-time information is that the device knows some of the parameters of the search – the “when” and “where”. The user specifies the “what”.

While this model is too simple for all information requests, it does simplify most searches. Another capability mobile designers are slow to incorporate is voice.

Voice dictation / input is what I call a “first order” voice capability. We need to be thinking beyond that. For iOS users, this would be Siri-style integration. There are obvious security issues (we can’t give Apple access to all the necessary data) but it is a concept to be thinking about. All of this will be converging – and soon.

Two technologies are going to stretch our current thinking of Mobile First – smart watches and smart glasses. These will exploit voice, GPS, and constant display I/O to a much greater extend than anything we are targeting today. They will emphasize “just-in-time” information.

What is important is to be thinking about “what’s next”. When I lead discussions on designing for mobile I frequently remind the audience they can not think of their designs the way they did for the desktop. Many of the current mobile design patterns didn’t exist even 12 months ago. Change is happening much more quickly in mobile design than it has ever happened in physical design or previous generations of computer design.

Assume this to continue … at least until the next big change

I’m bummed that these apps are only available from SingTel in Singapore but having lived there, I always knew they had great ideas and creative ways to make them reality.

Do I want these apps for myself? Not yet

As the family “technical support” contact, many of the apps would solve some of the common challenges I face with an active iPhone touting octogenarian. Things like accidentally removing a contact from the “Favorites” list … or using the camera as a to-do list … or when a new medication needs to be added to the daily routine.

A Singapore-based company is developing intuitive apps that they hope will ease the transition to smartphones.

Silverline Mobile, a project under sustainable business firm Newton Circus, has already rolled out five iPhone apps targeted toward those 60 or older in the Singapore market.

“We want to create, essentially, a category. We want apps for seniors,” said Jason Aspes, co-founder of Silverline. Read more…

Over the past several years, I have been consuming more and more cloud services and optimizing my life with the capabilities they provide. However, recent announcements by Google has me questioning that decision …. and wondering if it’s too late to turn back now.

The first challenge came with the "winter cleaning" that announced the eventual death of Google Reader. I’m holding off solving that one to see if a few of the applications I use against Google Reader data will provide a solution.

Most recently was the realization that GMail stopped supporting MAPI access to email, calendar, and address book for "normal users". They grandfathered existing connections but prevent new connections. I didn’t even know it had happened until I replaced my iPad and was not able to configure it the same as my iPhone. For some, it may not be noticeable but I have both devices on my desk.

The difference between the MAPI access to GMail and the IMAP access is dramatic. MAPI pushes new mail to my iPhone almost immediately. It never seems to get pushed to my iPad. If I check my iPad, it will trigger the "checking for mail" but only after I open the Mail app.

MAPI gives you email, calendar, and address book integration and synchronization all in one. With IMAP, I have to setup a CalDAV configuration and a CardDAV configuration in addition to the email configuration.

The fact that Google has not provided an iPad experience for Google Voice (and the fact they keep breaking 3rd party apps) has me questioning that service too.

The problem is with the various business models associated with these cloud services. Personally, I’d be willing to pay an annual fee to keep MAPI support and for Google Voice. It would need to be a reasonable fee and I know that is very subjective.

I’ve read a number of comments saying "get this type of account or that type of account". But the options they are extoling are also cloud services so what is the guarantee they will be around in 3, 5, 10 years ?

I don’t have the answers. All I have now is one more thing contributing to my grey thinning hair.

Sometimes, things we think of as a “luxury” can really be a “necessity” …

HP M451DN Color Laser Printer

I held off for a long time, replacing my printers (yes plural). It just seemed extravagant. Many years ago I bought a HP B&W laser printer. It was probably unimaginably expensive back then. It has not had heavy use but it has always been reliable and cheap to operate. What I have liked best about it is that it has let me print when I want to. It just sits there is “low idle” 99.9*% of the time. I click “print”, it spits out the finished pages. No muss. No fuss.

While I considered a color laser printer a luxury for so long, having a printer that “just works” is a necessity to my mental health

I was recently asked to describe the role of a user experience (UX) designer and how it was different from a user interface (UI) designer. I pretty much failed at the task. The best I could do was a sound bite …

UX is how a person feels; UI is what a person uses.

An article in Mashable on UX Mistakes provides some examples that help give meaning to my “ten work answer” …

People expect technology to follow the same rules as human-to-human interaction. Think about it, how do you decide whether someone is truly kind, or if he or she cares about you and is acting in your best interests? It’s not the clothes they wear or whether they have the right accent. It’s the little things they do for you, and whether they come through for you in a pinch. The same is true of websites.

The article is a lot more than just that one quote. Anyone who works in software design – UX or UI – will find a nugget or two worth remembering.