Picasa on the iPod Touch

Posted on December 12, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

I was playing around with my Picasa account on the iPod Touch and suddenly everything looked different.  I thought I had adjusted the browser somehow to make Picasa look better on the Touch.  As it turned out, Google did an upgrade to the site and optimized it for the Touch. 

ipicasa1.jpg

In addition to better Picasa integration, gMail and gReader have also been tweaked for the Touch.  I still need the “open in a new window” option for the browser, but I am finding the portable browser to be so convenient, I use it more than my laptop.  It turns on in a couple of seconds and can do everything except Flash. 

More later…

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Google Charts

Posted on December 11, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

Need to create a chart and embed it in a web page?  Now with the Google Chart API, you can add a chart using simple HTML image code.  Here’s an example.  The URL for the chart is below.

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=t:0.5,36,5&chs=460×250&chl=Florida|Ohio|Arizona&chtt=Where%20Alvin%20Has%20Lived

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Wii Multi-Touch Whiteboard

Posted on December 10, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

Last month, I saw Johnny Chung Lee’s video that showed how to detect finger movement using a Wii remote.  He summed it up best at the end of the video when he said it was cool, but he couldn’t really think of something useful to do with it.

Now he has a video that shows how to make a multi-touch interactive whiteboard using the same Wii remote.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

This could be very useful in the classroom.  I own a Wii with two controllers and over break I plan to try this one out.  I need to pick up the Bluetooth adapter.

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Mary was inspecting a child

Posted on December 9, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

christmasprogram2007.jpg

Tonight was the Christmas program at church.  You can always count on a slip of the tongue here or there.  This year Mary was “inspecting” a child. 

Kids in the Christmas performance are always so genuine.  This year was no exception.

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Flickr Maps Change… not for the better

Posted on December 8, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

If you have watched the growth of photos tagged with remarkableohio on the Flickr map, you should have noticed a fundamental change in the way it works.

My original plan was to have one page that showed every marker tagged with “remarkableohio”.  Now you get a listing at the bottom that says there are 277 pictures, but only about thirty red dots show up on the map.  It takes a lot of work to see the rest of those dots.

I thought zooming in on an area would show all the markers in that area.  This is not the case.  From the full Ohio map, I zoomed into the Findlay area.  I stopped when Hancock County filled the screen.  I waited for the red dots to show up.  I waited a long time.  Nothing happened.

In other words, no markers showed up in Hancock County.  This is about as bad as it can get.  I have specified a tag with at least fifty hits around the county where I live and none of the markers are on the map.  To get those markers at this new zoom level, I have to do a completely new search by clicking “Search the map” and then TYPING my tag.  Flickr doesn’t even remember that I have already typed the tag on the previous page. 

After a new search, Flickr says there are 54 matches but still only shows about half of those markers.  If you want to see all the markers, you must zoom into a specific area and TYPE another search.  I zoomed into downtown Findlay, TYPED a new search and still don’t see almost half of the markers in the downtown area.

Way to take a killer application and cripple it, Flickr.  Why isn’t there a button that says “Show all markers”???

Also, why did the scroll mouse zoom go away?  I used it all the time.  Now it’s gone.

Please give me my old Flickr map back!

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