IFTTT - What in the world!? I just discovered this this morning while once again searching for alternatives to Google Reader, since it's dying in about 2 weeks. I tried Feed Demon at home, but it just didn't cut it; half of the problems being that it was yet another application (and a memory hog at that) that ran in the background on my computer. The other half of the problem is I kept forgetting it was there and couldn't access it remotely.
So I decided, perhaps I'd better port all my podcast subscriptions to iTunes. That's fine. I can deal with that. But what about the rest of my feeds? What about the hundreds of ICHCB titles that come through in a single day? What about InterfaceLift which I've subscribed to for YEARS!? How am I supposed to stay apprised of those?
In the past few days, I've been attempting to get back into Evernote, a service that I've had installed on my phone for about a year and have liked so far, but have not seen the potential of. Well, I thought, why can't I subscribe to an RSS feed via Evernote? Researching, I found nothing conclusive right off the bat. Just a lot of other people asking the same thing. Then one link that said, hey why not just set up an IFTTT link? IFTTT is great.
I asked, what in the world is IFTTT? These people seem to swear by it...so maybe I should look at it. And much to my surprise, it turns out it's just as cool as they say - programmatic links between accounts based on events in either account to cause a reaction in another account!! Want to create a new note in Evernote when an RSS post comes through? No problem. Set up IFTTT to monitor an RSS feed and post a note to Evernote with preset title, content and tag list patterns! Wish Instagram photos showed up in Twitter like they used to? Again, no problem. Have IFTTT post your instagram photos automatically as a Twitter picture attachment. You could even set it up to post the link to the original Instagram post in your Tweet!
Almost every social network I can think of is on there. The only concern I see is for every network you link IFTTT to, you basically click the "Allow IFTTT to do stuff on my account" oAuth button that everybody has. So basically, IFTTT has the capability of centralizing your entire online social life. And if someone got the password to THAT...well.......
For now, I'm attempting to remember all of my old Google Reader RSS feeds that I cleared out over six months ago. I'm sure I still have the list at home, but it should be interesting to see them all pop up in Evernote or whatever else I decide to publish them to!
Showing posts with label depwl9992. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depwl9992. Show all posts
PLC and Hardware Control
Aha! Thank you, Dad for my new Arduino hardware controller (and the partially-outfitted Craftsman toolbox to make my life simpler when building stuff)! Easy easy to program, and easier to wire up!
There was a time a few years ago that we were playing with a Seimen's PLC at my old job, and the process to program it via their development package was more confusing than anything. I've seen Lego Mindstorms being programmed: VERY complicated. Arduino has taken these shortcomings of other PLCs and simplified -everything- to make these things easy to understand. All you REALLY need to know is basic electronics and basic programming structure (preferrably in C) and you too can program up one of these things.
The interface is amazingly simple. No frills, no complicated menus, no toolboxes or hundreds of buttons to hunt for in some confusing tree structure of some far-off galaxy of a development suite. Open the development software and you get a single window with a single text box and a base menu. Open one of the examples from this window (simply File>Examples), and you get another window with some predefined text in the textbox. Simple.
So really, the only things keeping me from creating some amazing electronic system now is 1) lack of resources, and 2) a blockage in my own mental creativity.
If I wanted to create a mobile robotic system, I would need motors and drives for them: something which I simply do not have at the moment. But I don't know if I WANT to make a mobile robotic system. Or a light fader. Or a garage door opener (actually, NO I do NOT want to make this. It's been overdone), or something else. So for now I just have to settle for IBBLs in random or pseudo-random or extremely predictable patterns. Fun stuff though! More to come, maybe!
I want ideas. Perhaps if I open a poll, or something similar, I can get your feedback (and mine as well). I have about 25 minutes, so let's see if I can get something set up in that time...
Edit: See big fat link above (or QR below).
Geotag Hack for Garmin Nüvi/Panoramio Photos
How to manually geotag photos for the Garmin Nüvi 1490
Does NOT require the Garmin Connect software.
Recently (yesterday) I was nominated to read up on and figure out the Garmin Nüvi 1490 GPS unit for a friend of the family. Well, looking through the features, I found that photos can be loaded into the unit and displayed in various locations, such as the bootup screen, a simple slideshow, or even as a navigate-to-photo feature!
Now, I assumed that somehow the unit would read out Geotagging meta data from any old photo you might tag in something like Picasa and copy to the unit. But this is not so. Actually, Garmin has signed a contract of some sort with Panoramio, an online photo-sharing site specifically for photos of general public areas, usually landscapes, historical photos, or any other pictures based mainly on a location. By connecting the Nuvi to the computer, one can navigate to http://connect.garmin.com/photos, browse the map for specific Panoramio photo, which, if they have geotag information loaded, will show up on the map, and add it to a separate dock area, which, by using the Garmin Connect software, can be downloaded directly to the GPS unit.
All well and good, except that in the last month and a half, I've uploaded about 20+ photos to Panoramio and NONE of them are showing up on the Garmin Connect map, though they specifically said in the Panoramio forums that they would after some time. And to top it off, a photo that my dad posted about four years ago is also not appearing! Not very on top of this little feature, are we?
Besides that, all of the other threads on Panoramio boiled down to "downloading Panoramio photos to your computer is illegal" and NONE of them gave any helpful information.
So, I decided to do some research and figure out just exactly how the Garmin Connect tool synchronized with the photos feature. When I plugged the unit into the computer via USB, two new drives were mounted: the Garmin Nuvi drive, which is the image of the internal memory, and a Removable Disk, which was accessing the Micro-SD expansion port.
Navigating into the Garmin Nuvi drive (on my machine, I:), there are a number of files and folders:
Assuming that the Current.gpx file is updated regularly based on what the the unit is detecting, I decided to decode the Panoramio_20110810T103416.gpx file. And it worked! The conclusion I came to was the following: photos downloaded from GC/Panoramio are not tagged in the unit using JPEG metadata, and the unit can't detect JPG location metatags. Instead, Panoramio also sends location data alongside the photos that the unit downloads, and injects this information into the Panoramio_*.gpx file. THEN when the photos are opened in the viewer, the proper location-based tools are activated.
Here is a waypoint for a specific Panoramio photo:
------------
SUCCESS!!! I simply added a new <wpt> ... </wpt> section to the panoramio_20110810T103416.gpx file and when I rebooted the unit (unplugged it from the computer), the photo appeared in the list AND had the location tools in the lower corner, along with my username and all that!! WONDERFUL!
And just as I suspected, Current.gpx was also updated to reflect these changes, even though I didn't do a thing to them.
So all that needs to be done to add photos to your Garmin, and tag them without worrying about the Garmin Connect/Panoramio tool, simply copy the photos into one of the locations where pictures are kept on the unit. The tool downloads them to /Garmin/JPEG/, but I'm sure /JPEG/ will do just fine (/JPEG/ is where all the sample photos are kept).
Then edit the /GPX/Panoramio_<datecode>.gpx file and add a new waypoint using the <wpt> ... </wpt> tags as shown above. Or if you have a secondary program to save GPX files, I'm sure there is a way to just fix this up to save in this format. Also, the datecode in the filename is in the following format: yyyymmddThhmmss, so in my case, it was 20110810T103416. Just to keep up with the consistency, I also changed the filename to Panoramio_20110810T173100.gpx.
So in the end, here is the waypoint I manually and successfully added, along with the required XML and GPX definition tags:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<gpx xmlns="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1/gpx.xsd" version="1.1" creator="http://connect.garmin.com/">
Now to write a program to do this for me...
Does NOT require the Garmin Connect software.
Recently (yesterday) I was nominated to read up on and figure out the Garmin Nüvi 1490 GPS unit for a friend of the family. Well, looking through the features, I found that photos can be loaded into the unit and displayed in various locations, such as the bootup screen, a simple slideshow, or even as a navigate-to-photo feature!
Now, I assumed that somehow the unit would read out Geotagging meta data from any old photo you might tag in something like Picasa and copy to the unit. But this is not so. Actually, Garmin has signed a contract of some sort with Panoramio, an online photo-sharing site specifically for photos of general public areas, usually landscapes, historical photos, or any other pictures based mainly on a location. By connecting the Nuvi to the computer, one can navigate to http://connect.garmin.com/photos, browse the map for specific Panoramio photo, which, if they have geotag information loaded, will show up on the map, and add it to a separate dock area, which, by using the Garmin Connect software, can be downloaded directly to the GPS unit.
All well and good, except that in the last month and a half, I've uploaded about 20+ photos to Panoramio and NONE of them are showing up on the Garmin Connect map, though they specifically said in the Panoramio forums that they would after some time. And to top it off, a photo that my dad posted about four years ago is also not appearing! Not very on top of this little feature, are we?
Besides that, all of the other threads on Panoramio boiled down to "downloading Panoramio photos to your computer is illegal" and NONE of them gave any helpful information.
So, I decided to do some research and figure out just exactly how the Garmin Connect tool synchronized with the photos feature. When I plugged the unit into the computer via USB, two new drives were mounted: the Garmin Nuvi drive, which is the image of the internal memory, and a Removable Disk, which was accessing the Micro-SD expansion port.
Navigating into the Garmin Nuvi drive (on my machine, I:), there are a number of files and folders:
.SystemNavigating into the GPX folder, I find three files:
Garmin
GPX
help
JPEG
keyboards
Reports
Screenshot
Text
Vehicle
Voice
.Volume.icns
autorun.inf
nuvi_drive.ico
Current.gpxFrom my previous research using our own GPS unit, the GPSMAP 60CSx, I know that GPX files are an XML-based file that can be opened in any text editor, and record specific gps coordinates along with names of the locations, timestamps and sources. Knowing that the Garmin stored everything in GPX made decoding it so much easier! With this knowledge, I was able to determine that GPX/Current.gpx is the database that stored saved searches, tracks and tagged photos downloaded from Panoramio, GPX/Panoramio_20110810T103416.gpx is the list of geotagged photos downloaded from Garmin Connect/Panoramio, and GPX/Position.gpx is probably the unit's current position.
Panoramio_20110810T103416.gpx
Position.gpx
Assuming that the Current.gpx file is updated regularly based on what the the unit is detecting, I decided to decode the Panoramio_20110810T103416.gpx file. And it worked! The conclusion I came to was the following: photos downloaded from GC/Panoramio are not tagged in the unit using JPEG metadata, and the unit can't detect JPG location metatags. Instead, Panoramio also sends location data alongside the photos that the unit downloads, and injects this information into the Panoramio_*.gpx file. THEN when the photos are opened in the viewer, the proper location-based tools are activated.
Here is a waypoint for a specific Panoramio photo:
<wpt lat="40.615972" lon="-105.171969">With this information, I think it would be fairly self-explanatory to edit this file. I have yet to actually try it out, but when I figure it out, I'll get back with you!
<name>Northwest of Fort Collins</name>
<src>Panoramio <link href="Garmin/JPEG/Panoramio_11075531.jpg">
<type>image/jpeg </link>
<link href="http://www.panoramio.com/user/965071">
<text>WildernessShots.com</text>
<type>text/html</type>
</link>
<link href="http://www.panoramio.com/photo/11075531">
<type>text/html</type>
</link>
<sym>Scenic Area</sym>
<extensions>
<gpxx:WaypointExtension xmlns:gpxx="http://www.garmin.com/xmlschemas/GpxExtensions/v3">
<gpxx:Categories>
<gpxx:Category>Photos</gpxx:Category>
</gpxx:Categories>
</gpxx:WaypointExtension>
</extensions>
</wpt>
------------
SUCCESS!!! I simply added a new <wpt> ... </wpt> section to the panoramio_20110810T103416.gpx file and when I rebooted the unit (unplugged it from the computer), the photo appeared in the list AND had the location tools in the lower corner, along with my username and all that!! WONDERFUL!
And just as I suspected, Current.gpx was also updated to reflect these changes, even though I didn't do a thing to them.
So all that needs to be done to add photos to your Garmin, and tag them without worrying about the Garmin Connect/Panoramio tool, simply copy the photos into one of the locations where pictures are kept on the unit. The tool downloads them to /Garmin/JPEG/, but I'm sure /JPEG/ will do just fine (/JPEG/ is where all the sample photos are kept).
Then edit the /GPX/Panoramio_<datecode>.gpx file and add a new waypoint using the <wpt> ... </wpt> tags as shown above. Or if you have a secondary program to save GPX files, I'm sure there is a way to just fix this up to save in this format. Also, the datecode in the filename is in the following format: yyyymmddThhmmss, so in my case, it was 20110810T103416. Just to keep up with the consistency, I also changed the filename to Panoramio_20110810T173100.gpx.
So in the end, here is the waypoint I manually and successfully added, along with the required XML and GPX definition tags:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<gpx xmlns="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1/gpx.xsd" version="1.1" creator="http://connect.garmin.com/">
<wpt lat="40.631839" lon="-105.143142"></gpx>
<name>Sunrise Over the Neighborhood</name>
<src>Panoramio</src>
<link href="Garmin/JPEG/56784165.jpg">
<type>image/jpeg</type>
</link>
<link href="http://www.panoramio.com/user/5873911">
<text>Daniel P</text>
<type>text/html</type>
</link>
<link href="http://www.panoramio.com/photo/56784165">
<type>text/html</type>
</link>
<sym>Scenic Area</sym>
<extensions>
<gpxx:WaypointExtension xmlns:gpxx="http://www.garmin.com/xmlschemas/GpxExtensions/v3">
<gpxx:Categories>
<gpxx:Category>Photos</gpxx:Category>
</gpxx:Categories>
</gpxx:WaypointExtension>
</extensions>
</wpt>
I'm sure if you wanted to add non-panoramio files, it would be just as easy. Just change/remove the few <link> tags to reflect something else and you'd be good to go!
Now to write a program to do this for me...
Filehost
I've created an Apache-based filehost. This is generally for short-term downloads that I want to make available to certain people. Really, I don't expect to leave files in this folder up for very long, but only long enough for people to download. How many ways can I say this?
Anyway, you'll find the filehost at http://ppsstudios.myftp.org. If you see anything there that you don't think should be there, give me a buzz with the contact link, which is not at this exact moment available, but will be in a few minutes hopefully.
Enjoy!
Anyway, you'll find the filehost at http://ppsstudios.myftp.org. If you see anything there that you don't think should be there, give me a buzz with the contact link, which is not at this exact moment available, but will be in a few minutes hopefully.
Enjoy!
EVEN MORE VIDEOS
Seems like all I post about anymore is new videos.
And today is not an exception. I have uploaded nearly......15 new videos within the last two weeks or so. And in fact, most of them are linerider captures that I've made within the last year. The other few are fractal zoom captures and a quick clip of an event I volunteered with last week. Which was AWESOME!
Anyway, go to http://www.youtube.com/user/depwl9992#g/u and check them out!
And today is not an exception. I have uploaded nearly......15 new videos within the last two weeks or so. And in fact, most of them are linerider captures that I've made within the last year. The other few are fractal zoom captures and a quick clip of an event I volunteered with last week. Which was AWESOME!
Anyway, go to http://www.youtube.com/user/depwl9992#g/u and check them out!
New Youtube
I spent a huge portion of the weekend (like three hours) taking photos for ELEVEN new lego animations. Check them out at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=49D922322B602454.
Here is a list of the new ones:
Here is a list of the new ones:
Quote the Kid
What is this kid saying?
Comment to add your own caption, and we'll put up a poll in a few weeks maybe to see which one's the best.
Youtube:Newest Ten
I've just created a "newest ten" playlist in my Youtube channel. This is because my more recent videos aren't really getting viewed all that much. I post links to them here and there, but not many people read what I have to say. Therefore, I'm going to see what I can do about promoting them here. After all, isn't that what Youtube is really for? Getting people to view your videos more than everybody else?
I was so happy when the Galactic Conflicts series got 100 hits or so each. But then I look at the REALLY popular stuff and it's like 2 million hits in a single week or something insane. It's crazy! I need to step it up.
Anyway, here we are:
Edit: I just checked....in all, the cumulative views on my Youtube stuff is:
Videos: 19792
Channel: 1467
I should seriously check my sources before I go complaining.
I was so happy when the Galactic Conflicts series got 100 hits or so each. But then I look at the REALLY popular stuff and it's like 2 million hits in a single week or something insane. It's crazy! I need to step it up.
Anyway, here we are:
Edit: I just checked....in all, the cumulative views on my Youtube stuff is:
Videos: 19792
Channel: 1467
I should seriously check my sources before I go complaining.
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