These days, I’m in the center of nowhere. I get the best ADSL connection this side of the desert: 512Kb/s, with multiple de-connections each day, and a bandwidth that evolves during the day, because other people are on the same link to the other side of nowhere. That’s the way it is in small villages of the countryside in France.

Given that XCode and iOS Betas are 2.8 + 0.4 GB, I get mad. I tried twice to download using Safari, only to see the connection lost at 2.2 GB. ah ah !

So I use curl. I identified myself with Firefox on the developer web site, then started the download. Which I stopped immediately.

I then exported all my cookies using Cookie Exporter, an add on.

At last, I could use curl to launch the download

curl -v -C - -O http://adcdownload.apple.com/ios/ios_sdk_4.1_beta_3/xcode_3.2.4_and_ios_sdk_4.1_beta_3.dmg -b cookies.txt

-C – will restart the download from where it stopped in case your download suddenly stops 145M before the end (live experience).

cookies.txt is the exported file of all my cookies.

This tip brought to you by Justin Lloyd and transformed by me in curl.

I just published a small utility called IPTCS Exif MetaBrowser. It’s a free app for iPhone under iOS4. Read more here

Find it on the AppStore

Here is a demo I did on my Mac of Meta Editor using what pictures I had available at that time.

It’s on Youtube.

Please allow me to make a few comments as well as many people have asked for it:

With the current version of iOS on the iPad (3.2), it is not yet possible to read your Exif or IPTC data from an image. I only get the image part of the file, not the full data. Thanks to the work they did on iOS, it will soon be available to the iPad too.

For the iPhone, I will upgrade and rename Photo Locations. It’s unfortunately not ready right now. One of the major drawbacks for the iPhone is that you can’t yet plug your camera connector on it. But people are asking for it.

I am selling the package hereafter:

• iPhone SDK Development (Dudney/Adamson) ISBN 978-1-93435-625-8
• Hello Android (Burnette) ISBN-13 978-934356-17-3
• Core Animation (Dudney) ISBN-13 978-1-934356-10-4
• Cocoa Programming (Steinberg) ISBN 978-1-93435-630-2

From Pragmatic Bookshelf: all classics by now.

And also the excellent and highly recommended

• HTML5 for Web Designers (Keith) Published by A Book Apart

The whole package is available for 30 euros plus shipping.

Books sold!

Today, I got another rejection by the AppStore review team. For this:

Yes, because of this icon. Why? because it looks like a Polaroid film. The app, when it will be released, one day, will be

A similar story happened to TweetPhoto last year apparently, but there is no blog post on that matter anymore on their web site it seems. Well, if you look for “polaroid iphone logo” on Google you might discover some articles.

I won’t discuss the fact that the icon looks like an old Polaroid film. It does.

But a Polaroid film is not a copyrighted or trademark thing. If you look at Polaroid web site, you will notice their logo/brand/copyrighted logo is the name of the brand with 9 squares/diamonds.

If you try to find a protected, or trademark using the same image from Polaroid, you probably won’t find (well, finding something that was protected a long time ago is always very hard, and I won’t pay a legal firm to do it).

If you look on Apple’s AppStore for items that use the same image regardless of the imaginary protection, well… You will find apps that have been accepted.

Look at the splash screen for PhotoPad

Look at this app on the AppStore

It’s not one image of a Polaroid film, but 4!

What Am I Gonna Do? Just bend over and walk under the Caudine forks of Apple. Pay some more to have the designer modify the icon, which really annoys me because I already paid and selected this one from a contest I did. And it is original work I asked for. Because I think this app should be on the AppStore, because photographers have asked for it.

And you know what? I’m angry, I feel it is really unfair, I have some pain doing it. But I will do it.

As a side note:

Here’s the message I sent to Apple when submitting my app.

There was a comment that the icon is copyrighted work by Polaroid. I think you may be mistaken regarding the ownership of the picture icon.

It is not a Polaroid logo. It is original artwork exclusive to me. No polaroid artwork is used in the app. I had the artwork created by a designer named Ernesto Lopez. I have a copyright contract available here:

http://99designs.com/buttons-icons/contests/tag-editor-ipad-43201/copyright/36533

The Polaroid Logo is a rainbow of colors, as seen on www.polaroid.com I don’t use the name polaroid, in the description or the app.

The app has nothing to do with Polaroid except the subject is photography. As per my contract, I still represent and warrant that my application does not infringe the rights of another party. Again.

And there is prior art. This app uses the same kind of icon: http://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/lifecards-postcards/id304401787?mt=8 this one too: http://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/pic-z-share/id322505569?mt=8 And especially this one: http://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/datamind-prism/id364898661?mt=8

Thanks for your warning.

Just for fun:

Yes I like it.

Yes, it sucks.

!!UPDATE

Meta Editor has finally been accepted in the AppStore, with a slightly different app Icon. I had to pay for the changes, of course. Well, I asked the graphic designer to make a change and proposed him some money to do it. He was very kind, understanding and helpful.

What made me most angry is that I sent a follow-up email to the appreview team, asking which image was a problem (there is the app icon, but also the photo library button). I’m still waiting for the answer. Actually, after 4 days without any answer, I resubmitted with the new icon.

If you use a Settings Bundle, you should put the version of your app inside it, for support.

Here is the plist magic to do it.

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC “-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN” “http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd”>

<plist version=”1.0″>

<dict>

<key>DefaultValue</key>

<string>1</string>

<key>Key</key>

<string>BuildID</string>

<key>Title</key>

<string>Version</string>

<key>Titles</key>

<array>

<string>4.5.1</string>

</array>

<key>Type</key>

<string>PSTitleValueSpecifier</string>

<key>Values</key>

<array>

<string>1</string>

</array>

</dict>

</plist>

Si vous êtes comme moi, vous appréciez d’avoir les bonnes infos sur vos photos: dates, personnes, lieux. Mais avec la masse de photos que nous prenons aujourd’hui, il y a des infos qu’on voudrait voir arriver automagiquement, plutôt que de se coltiner de renseigner soi même les photos.

C’est particulièrement vrai pour les lieux.

D’autant plus qu’aujourd’hui et demain, l’ipad et l’iPhone tirent parti de ces infos avec élégance. En effet, si vous avez bien géotaggé, c’est à dire renseigné les coordonnées de vos photos, vous retrouvez dans l’application photos de l’iPad vos photos rangées par carte.

Dans ces conditions, retrouver une photo prise a un endroit est très facile. C’est encore plus facile de retrouver toutes les photos de votre voyage en Italie, de votre randonnée sur le GR20, ou le séjour dans la maison de famille du Tarn.

Il faut y penser avant de faire les photos.

Pour vous préparer, vous pouvez soit emporter un enregistreur GPS genre garmin, prendre votre iPhone pour son appareil photo, ou utiliser GpsRecorder sur iPhone.

La première astuce, gratuite, c’est d’utiliser son iPhone en plus pour prendre des photos. En effet, celui ci geotagge votre photo, c’est à dire copie vos coordonnées dans la photo. Vous avez ensuite la mémoire de l’endroit où vous étiez à un instant. C’est assez difficile à exploiter comme ça, mais avec certains logiciels sur Mac, c’est possible.

Avec GPS recorder, vous pouvez enregistrer tous vos déplacements. Et exporter ces infos dans un format standard. Ou synchroniser directement avec HoudahGeo.

Mon conseil d’utilisation, c’est d’enregistrer de manière régulière de nouveaux lieux dans le même trajet. Commencez à enregistrer, puis quittez au bout d’un moment. La fois suivante, retournez dans le même trajet, et tapez sur sur continuer.

Pas de problème de coût, même à l’étranger: pour enregistrer, n’utilise pas de data, pas de connexion à Internet.

Pas de risque de perte de données, même si vous arrêtez inopinément l’appli.

Par contre, malgré tous mes efforts, comme toute appli iPhone qui utilise le GPS, GPSRecorder utilise beaucoup de batterie. Alors sortez de l’appli quand c’est bon.

La prochaine version avec l’os 4.0 tirera parti du multi tache pour enregistrer, même quand l’appli est en arrière plan, et sans bouffer toute la batterie( ça va pas être une mince affaire).

Découvrez comment synchroniser vos photos après avec http://gpsrecorder.fr/

I found an old video I made to explain how to geotag pictures using trackme (now gpsrecorder) and gpsphotolinker

It’s in French, but I’m sure you want to practice, so here it is.

Testing if it works again now. Apparently not. F…. u….ck!

And Can I use markdown?

Without the lt at gt issues? If yes, I need to practice my markdown syntax again

Header 1

Let’s put a link back to magic

So you know apparently it’s a problem with libxml 2.6.32 and PHP 5.2.6 . Yes, taht’s interesting

OK, retournons maintenant au cours normal de nos émissions.

This week end , a nice user of PhotoLocations asked me how to make his pictures from the iPhone appear on the “Places” tab of the iPad Photos App. It is easy as a piece of cake, if all your pictures are already geocoded.

But for most people they’re not.

Let’s see the different options you have. First let’s start with the most occurring situation: you have pictures on your PC (windows or Mac) that have been taken with your point and shoot or SLR Camera. You don’t have any special gizmo. In that case, you need to geotag all your pictures by hand. There are different options for you:

• iPhoto’09 on the Mac or Aperture 3 let’s you select a place and add the geo information inside your pictures.
• Lightroom from Adobe let’s you do the same kind of thing, in a more basic way (no map, no geocoding): you need to the coordinates of the picture. The Map is available through a plugin, maybe. I’ll leave that to you as a homework./
• HoudahGeo on the Mac, a very nice way to geo tag your pictures.
• JetPhotoSoft seems to be the recommended software on Windows, but I don’t know for sure, so I’ll let the comments open so readers can give their feedback.

All these desktop apps allow you to select one or more pictures, set their location and voilà! your pictures are geo tagged.

If you have many photos and many different locations, the best solution is to have a record of your movements and geo code your pictures from a GPX file. You can create a GPX file from GPSRecorder, my very first iPhone app.

If you use an iPhone 3 or 3GS to take your pictures, by default they must be geotagged, if you have accepted to let the app know your location. No need to add the geotag. What can happen is that the geotag is off by several thousand meters, or you want to add more metadata, or you want to use pictures from other sources and geotag them. That’s why I made PhotoLocations, but the geotag is only a second feature less important than metadata. It seems that the use of that app will change with the next version of the iPhoneOS, after reading the announcement of the Beta, and the fact that a technology called ImageIO is now available to us iPhone developpers.

Anyway, when you import your pictures to your desktop, the geotag stays in there.

So now you have a bunch of Pictures on your destop computer with geotags. How do you sort them in the “Places” of your iPad Photos App? The answer is simple: you don’t, IT’S MAGICAL.

Make sure that the import settings you decide in iTunes point to a folder or a data source (iPhoto, Aperture) where each picture has its geotag inside it, and iTunes will take care of reading the info and putting it in its database for fast display.

So if for example some of your pictures are not at the right place, or do not appear where they should appear, go back to the source, the file itself and check that you have the geo information. On a Mac, checking is easy: open in Preview, and open the ‘info’ menu. If there is geo data in your picture, you will see a GPS tab. On Windows, I don’t know any more, but I think Microsoft makes that info directly available in the info of the file.

—

Here are some info I discovered from tests and other users. Matt Farrugia of Bitwink reported that his test of the Camera Connection Kit import of a picture taken with his iPhone put that picture directly in the Places tab. That’s very good news for a lot of people. Makes life easier.

Less good news is the fact that if a developer tries to copy a file to the DCIM folder of the iPad, this picture’s geotag is not analyzed by the photos app yet. I mean if you copy by brute force. Hopefully that will change soon.