Gummy Bears at FlickrBlog

By Mack D. Male · May 19, 2007 at 4:31pm

If you aren’t currently subscribed to the FlickrBlog, you should be. Here’s the RSS feed. I read a lot of feeds every day, and most of them are just text followed by more text. The nice thing about the FlickrBlog is that in addition to site news for Flickr, they often share “photo posts” like yesterday’s post on The Secret Life of Gummy Bears:

Since we don’t know how many gummy bears have actually been released into the world, there’s just one immediate solution: Eat them — as many and as fast as humanly possible. It’s not too late.

I don’t know why exactly, but the post just made me smile. Some other recent “photo posts” include Dogs on Roofs, Dogs in Pools, and the paper crane project.

It’s amazing how much time you can waste just hopping from photo to photo on Flickr!

Read: FlickrBlog

Website Changes

By Mack D. Male · November 14, 2006 at 11:10pm

Unless you read my blog in an aggregator of some sort, you probably noticed an updated color scheme and picture on my website today. I was getting bored with the blue so I decided to change it. I also tweaked things a bit so that it’s easier to change this sort of thing in the future. Thanks to everyone who has commented on the look already – some of you like the changes, some of you don’t. The picture is a little too formal for my tastes, so my Dad has agreed to take some new ones for me when he’s in town in a couple weeks.

I also added a find me online feature recently. Basically it’s a list of links to my various profiles around the web. I haven’t done it yet, but I am going to clean up the sidebar as well. It’s horribly out of date, and I think I could be using the space better.

Any other feedback, suggestions, or requests?

Geotagging at Flickr

By Mack D. Male · August 30, 2006 at 1:13pm

Just came across a pretty neat feature that Flickr launched on Monday! You can now geotag your pictures, meaning you can assign them to a physical, real-world location:

Adding location information on Flickr is done through the Organizr, under the Organize tab.

Users can search for photos by location in the Explore area. Set the map to a location (world down to street level) and type in a search query. Markers will appear on the map with photos that contain that query in the tags or description of the photo.

I just tried it out with a few of my pictures, and it seems to work pretty well. It’s all Ajax powered, so it feels pretty natural. You can check out my Flickr map here.

Read: TechCrunch

Signs the world is small

By Mack D. Male · August 23, 2006 at 4:21pm

You know how people say things like “it’s such a small world”? Well, it’s true. As a few of you noticed, I was quoted in the National Post today in a story on Suresh Sriskandarajah, a University of Waterloo graduate who has been arrested and faces charges related to an FBI probe of the Tamil Tigers. Turns out he was one of the Microsoft student representatives in 2004 (as was I), and we both attended the same training weekend in Toronto. I ended up taking a group photo at the time, which reporters from the National Post found yesterday and asked permission to use. I sent the photos I had in higher quality, and they used one of them for the front page of today’s paper. Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo credit, as I didn’t reply to their email asking if they should use my name or not until after the paper had gone to press. The photo will also be used in tomorrow’s Ottawa Citizen.

I can’t say that I know Suresh, other than meeting him that weekend back in September 2004. My quote is pretty spot on:

“He seemed like a normal guy,” said Mr. Male, who kept a souvenir group photo of the occasion. “We had a lot of fun together that weekend…. Nobody really stood out.”

I don’t know what is going to happen to him.

The whole experience just shows what a small world it really is, thanks in large part to the Internet. In a matter of hours, a simple photo I had posted from an event almost two years ago made it to the front page of a national newspaper. The other thing is – do I really know someone who could be a terrorist? I don’t know if the FBI are right or not about Suresh, but if they are, that’s a scary thought isn’t it?

Made me stop and think for a moment – who else do I know that might be a terrorist? I quickly caught myself, and metaphorically slapped myself in the face. If I lived my life wondering who could be a terrorist, I’d only be making Bush’s campaign of fear successful. There’s no harm in being cautious, about anyone, but I think if people become paranoid we’re going to have problems.

[Oddly enough, the story in the physical paper I picked up about an hour ago is different than the one online. In the physical paper, on page A3, the part with my quote has been replaced with more about Suresh's work abroad.]

Read: National Post

First attempts at HDR

By Mack D. Male · August 2, 2006 at 10:13pm

I think I have the HDR bug, if there is such a thing. Since discovering HDR photos on Flickr, I have been wanting to try my hand at the effect, as I think it looks really neat! If you don’t know, HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. Here’s an explanation from Wikipedia:

HDRI provides the opportunity to shoot a scene and have total control of the final imaging from the beginning to the end of the photography project. An example of this control is that it provides the possibility to re-expose. One can capture as wide a range of information as possible on-location and choose what is wanted later.

What I did was use the auto-bracketing feature on my Canon Digital Rebel to produce three shots – one over exposed, one normal, and one under exposed. I then followed a couple of the tutorials I found on Flickr and used Photomatix and Photoshop CS2 to produce the final images.

I am not entirely satisfied with the results, but I figure the two HDR photos I made (which you can see here) are a good first attempt. I found that images with the sun directly in them (you know where you get that glare?) do not work well. Also, you really should use a tripod or at least have the camera on something solid so it doesn’t move.

I’m determined to get good at this (as I just love the final result of some of the photos out there) so I’ll follow that common refrain – practice makes perfect! Practice and experimentation. If you have any tips, I’d love to hear them.

UPDATE: What I am striving for, is a photo as good as this one.

Read: HDR First Attempts

Flickr Gamma

By Mack D. Male · May 17, 2006 at 2:20pm

Flickr launched a new redesign yesterday, and upgraded the site from Beta to Gamma. I heard the redesign mentioned at Mesh by Chris Messina, who wasn’t exactly ecstatic about the changes. I for one love the new design, and think it is long overdue!

The menu at the top has been simplified and now contains dropdown menus to access various areas of the site. I found the old, two-tiered menu structure kind of confusing, so for me, this is a welcome change.
Search has been improved, and no longer just looks in tags.
There’s a new person menu on buddy icons.
Your Photos now shows to columns of photos instead of just one.
The Organizr is vastly different, and I haven’t really had a chance to play with it yet.

Great job Flickr, keep it up! I hope the site does eventually leave it’s greek editions to go final, but at least they are not stuck on beta forever. Perhaps a lesson (and new model) for others to follow?

Read: Flickr Blog

New Flickr Features

By Mack D. Male · August 7, 2005 at 3:58pm

I continually find myself getting lost in Flickr. Not lost as in, where am I, but lost as in, there are so many interesting photos to see! And the Flickr team has gone and added features that make getting lost even easier:

First up is clustering, a better way to explore photos through tags. You can still see the most recent photos with a given tag (say, summer) but now you can also root around the finer distinctions: summer beach vacations versus summer flowers and nature – and all the clusters are collected on one page. It’s neat!

At first I didn’t get what the big deal was with clusters, but now I understand, and it’s neat indeed. A good example is the tag turkey – the clusters show you the country, the food, and the holiday all in one page.

The other new feature is called interestingness and it’s huge! A long time in the making, interestingness is a ranking algorithm based on user behavior around the photos taking into account some obvious things like how many users add the photo to their favorites and some subtle things like the relationship between the person who uploaded the photo and the people who are commenting (plus a whole bunch of secret sauce).

That last new feature, interestingness, will be the end of me. Give it a try, and you’ll see why!

Read: Flickr Blog