May 24, 2013 · 10:39 pm

Google 2013

Following on from my review of sorts of the HTC One. There’s a reason I like Windows OS. And a reason I had reservations about Android. The former is a clean, slick, pretty hot looking operator. The latter is often ugly, functional and even clunky sometimes. One of the reservations I have about the new Flickr is that it looks a bit Google-ified. That’s to say, it could look prettier. To say the least. I blame Marissa Mayer. She’s from Google. Ironically, she herself is very pretty. But I’ll have more to say on Flickr another day.

Google constantly irks me. They buy up cool companies and then shut them down. They make ugly, ugly products. And yet they just work better than the competition. Tried searching for mail in Outlook.com? For all the prettiness of Microsoft’s email baby, it’s a decade behind Google. I gave it a good run, and still use the email address they gave me. Via Gmail.  But then, amongst all the Plain Janes of Google’s product portfolio, there’s that one stunner…

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Google Maps has always been the best. Again, Bing maps is pretty, and it actually works well. In some ways better. But it’s not as expansive, its version of Street View is very limited. Maps is the one product where they have the entire competition well and truly licked. Knocked out the park. On the desktop or on a mobile device, it has no peer. And to rub salt in the wounds of those competitors, Google Maps just got a huge make over and is better than ever.

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It’s Maps and Earth all in one, with genuinely useful (as opposed to frivolous and gimmicky) functionality built in. It remembers your locations and searches, brings up strips of images, has slicker street views and awesome tilt/3D views. I got my beta invite a few days ago and have been playing around a while to see if it breaks or if the new stuff wears thin. It doesn’t and they don’t. Want to see the new Maps for yourself? Request an invite. It took them a week to let me in, so the sooner you apply, the sooner you get to play.

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So, Mr Google. I give in. You win. I’ll throw my lot behind you. I’m kinda committed, I guess, having bought a new Android phone. Again, the beauty of that Sense 5.0 interface, as I mentioned in the review I did of the device, wipes all the traditional Google ugliness from view. I’ll give Google+ another go. Google+ photos too. I’ll switch back to using my Gmail address again.

I’ll let you resume your snooping around my hard drive. Credit where credit is due. Google keeps innovating. You keep churning out fantastic products. Even though you really, really pee’d me off when you killed Reader. I’m using Feedly now, by the by. It’s the best of the rest, sort of thing. It turns out that Feedly is just as good as Google Reader once you get used to it. In fact, it’s Googe Reader made pretty. It’s the product you should have made in the first place…

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May 23, 2013 · 8:54 pm

HTC One Review

Alternatively, I could have entitled this post ‘Why I Didn’t Buy A Galaxy S4, Nokia 925 or iPhone’. Let’s deal with the last two first, because they are easy. The Nokia 925 is a gorgeous looking phone, and I love the Windows 8 OS. But. If we put aside the fact that it’s not yet available (and I just can’t wait* another month for shops to start shipping) it’s just too under powered for my liking.

One of the key things I use a smartphone for is photography. I don’t want to wait 15 seconds for a photo to be processed. And those are the sort of reviews I kept reading. The specs make that perfectly believable. There’s also the lack of apps, but if it excelled elsewhere I could have forgiven it. The Nokia was almost a challenger. Almost…

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The iPhone? I’m not nuts. Why on earth would I want to pay the Apple premium to obtain a device which is inferior in almost every way to the latest Android sluggers? The screen is too small, the OS is stale, and its best features are, at best, only on a par with the latest and greatest from Google, Samsung and HTC. Let me put the iPhone in context. If all Android devices were removed from sale, then I’d wait for the Nokia 925 to come on sale before I’d buy an iPhone 5.

Really, my choice was only ever between two phones. The Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One. It’s a tough choice. They are both superb phones. There’s not much between them, as you can see from CNet’s Prize Fight. But they do approach things in their own unique ways. I like the fact that you can open the S4 up and add storage space in the shape of a mico SD card. You can swap a drained battery for a fresh one two while you’re at it.

You can’t do this with the HTC, but the trade off is a gorgeous one piece metal body. Holding the two of them in a shop, you feel you’re comparing a Rolls Royce to a Lexus. And as far as storage is concerned, truth be told, the 32 gigs you get with the HTC is enough for me anyway. The S4 screen is a 5″ monster, just that little bit bigger than the HTC. But  the HTC 4.7″ screen is big enough. In fact, I’m going to declare that 4.7″ is the ideal size screen for a smart phone. The sweet spot. It’s perfect.

So build quality is a big points scorer with me. There’s another two factors that HTC wins hands down as well. The speakers. Those dual front facing Beats speakers are fabulous. Sure, you’re not going to rock out an auditorium with it. But you’ll not be straining to hear what’s going on, even if you’re at the side of a busy road. They are phenomenal.

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The second factor? This was very much the X factor. I’ve been using a Samsung smartphone, the S2, for a couple of years. And I tried out the S3 and S4 in stores. It’s all very much about evolution, rather than revolution. The Touch Wizz interface Samsung uses is very functional and effective. And also very ugly. But it works, and hey…better the devil you know. When I ordered the HTC One, the HTC Sense 5.0 interface was the unknown element. Would I like it?

I love it. I love Blinkfeed. How best to describe it? Ok. You know sometimes you get home and switch on the TV because your favourite program is on. And sometimes you slump into that armchair and just start flicking through  channels until you find something interesting. That’s kinda like blinkfeed. Sometimes I pick up my phone and go straight to an app. Sometimes I just pick it up and flick through blinkfeed. I’ve set it up and get all sorts of stuff that interests me, a lot of it from sources I wouldn’t normally go to.

The rest of Sense 5.0 is also slick and easy on the eye. The dialer and phone book are a huge improvement over what Samsung offer. So it turned out that perhaps the best reason to switch from Samsung to HTC was originally not a reason – perhaps ever a deterrence. There is another test to come. What’s the camera like? It’s a 4 megpixels large sensored unit that, again, approaches things in a very different way to Samsung. I’ll run that one over on my photography blog, which I’ve decided will be the place for all my camera / photo related stuff from now on. I’ll link to it.

But as things stand, I’m delighted with my new HTC One. Thrilled. And absolutely convinced I made the right choice. Sorry Samsung, but adios.

* I can’t wait, because the Jelly Bean upgrade to my Galaxy S2 caused massive battery drain issues which were never resolved, and rendered the phone useless after as little as three or four hours.

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May 20, 2013 · 11:27 pm

Flickr Reinvented

I don’t normally publish two posts in a day. But…wow. Flickr just completely reinvented itself. I do mean completely. So many changes that it’s all a bit much to take in. I guess the first thing most people will want to know is that everyone now gets a free terabyte of space. That’s huge. In full resolution. No shrinking your images. For free. Ok, for free, plus the ads they’ll run.

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I’m a Pro user, so what does that mean for me? Unlimited space. Although, to be quite honest, I am decades away from the point where a terabyte will be insufficient for my purposes. But I get my Flickr account ad free, as well as unlimited. And stats. Free users don’t get stats. Want to go Pro like me? You can’t. No more new Pro accounts will be allowed. And I could, if I wanted, step back to the free account and get a pro rata refund. But I’ll keep my Pro status thanks, and I’m pleased to see I will be allowed to keep renewing. Good move, Yahoo.

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The next things I noticed? Wall to wall photos with a customization banner up top. Do I like it? Hmmm. I’m not sure. I guess I like the banner, once I’ve created something a bit funkier. You can choose one from your photos, but it’ll only let you select a recent photo. Perhaps offering us the chance to dig deeper into our collections would have been nicer. I’d like a little bit more space between each image as well. Is it just a bit too busy? I do hope I can get rid of the text on that banner though. I don’t feel I need my name, joining date and how many photos I’ve taken displayed quite so prominently.

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There’s infinite scrolling on the Photostream page. But not on the Sets page, which is disappointing. It’s quick and easy to see full screen images and slideshows. That’s a positive step.  The background is black. Most people prefer that. I am the odd one out. I prefer white, or grey backgrounds. Can I change it? Are there any new features I’ve missed? I always wanted the option of a custom domain. You know that new photoblog site that I just launched? That could lose it’s garydenness.com domain real quick…

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There’s plenty of news on this on the blogosphere. Flickr’s own blog (currently hosted on WordPress, but you’d imagine coming to a Tumblr blog near you soon…) has the full scoop. Flickrite Thomas Hawk offers his early impressions. Mashable chip in with the story too. I’m told that once I’ve finished typing this and go to my cell phone, I’m going to find a super duper all new Android App for Flickr waiting for me to play with.

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There’s one more button that’s quite prominent. It’s ‘Edit’, up on the banner. Click it and you get the layout above. But if you click on Photostream, it goes back to the normal layout. What’s the deal with that? I don’t know. But I guess I’m going to have plenty of fun trying out all this new stuff. And checking that the good old stuff still works. I checked the Organizer straight away – it’s the most powerful online photo management tool on the web. It’s still there and works just the same. So. Anyway. I’m off to check out this new Android app. The question is, for you non-Flickerites out there…..has a terabyte of free hi res apce tempted you?

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· 10:17 pm

The Slow Worm

We don’t have many dangerous animals in the UK. Because we killed all the dangerous ones. Most of them centuries ago. Many of them millenia ago. The antelope, woolly rhino, mammoth, elk, wolverine and walrus are amongst those number. More recent members of the not-so-exclusive UK extinction club include the bear, lynx and the wolf. Humans, you’ll not be surprised to hear, were wholly responsible for these recent extinctions. But us humans aren’t all bad.

There are efforts to reintroduce reindeer, wolves and beavers. Mostly in Scotland. One imagines that they chose Scotland to avoid problems with wild beasts like the wolf attacking humans. This has probably got less to do with lower population density and more to do with the fact that no sane wolf would pick a fight with a drunk Glaswegian on his way home.

But we still have plenty of wildlife, and an awful lot of it is very visible. We’re currently plagued with deer. There are too many by far. Why? Not enough wolves, apparently. Foxes can be seen darting from garden to garden at night. Badgers are rarer, but can still be seen from time to time. Hedgehogs are also pretty common. Although, truth be told, you’re most likely to see these in a ‘roadkill’ sort of setting.

In the mornings you’ll hear a proper chorus of birdsong. In the afternoon, buzzards and eagles can be seen soaring in the skies, looking for prey. Come evening, the birdsong chorus starts up again. Pigeons seem to get noisier in the evening. Britain has the fattest, most aggressive pigeons in the world. In other countries, kids chase the pigeons away, the synchronized flock spiraling into the air causing much merriment for the naughty children. Here in the UK, the pigeons chase the kids to try and rob them of ice creams. They really don’t give a you-know-what. Pigeons are probably a Scottish species. Once night falls, the chorus dies down. And silence settles. Punctuated by haunting toots from owls.

Other than the Scottish pigeon though, there’s not much in the way of dangerous animals on these isles. There’s the False Widow, but no one’s ever been known to die from one of their bites. The weaver fish, with poisonous spines on its back, has claimed a fatality. Once. Back in 1927. So. Not very scary. For scary, we have to look to the adder, a snake belonging to the viper family. But it’s shy and hasn’t killed anyone for nearly forty years.

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I’ve seen all of these animals in the wild. My adder experience being many decades ago. I fished a snake out of Rickmansworth Aquadrome in a little net and took it back to my family. They weren’t impressed. I’ve seen grass snakes too. But there was one animal that I’d never seen till yesterday. The Slow Worm. It looks very much like a snake. But it is, so I read, a lizard. Without legs. It was sunning itself on the drive. It’s not a very big creature. It is very docile. It’s also very much a gardeners friend – it loves to feast on slugs. That’s him in the photos above and below.

This dear lizard has a very glamorous golden coat to it, don’t you think? I poked his tail to check he was still alive. He gave me a slightly aggrieved glance. But he stood his ground. That’s not usually a good defence tactic for most weakly armoured animals. He should strike a cobra pose. If it works for tiddles, then why not for him?

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May 15, 2013 · 7:49 am

Stuck in Winter

Using filters in Lightroom helps bring out the best in what are often fairly ordinary photos. I like the image below. It has a glow/finish/saturation that appeals to me.  It appeals much more than the original. It’s one of a set of photos that’s been sitting in Lightroom waiting for some post processing for a few months. I purchased a bunch of presets from Stuck in Customs a while back, and recently got an email telling me to go download them again – there’s a new pack of filters waiting for me. At no extra charge. So I put those filters to good use. You can see the set of photos I ran through these filters on Flickr by clicking here.

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May 13, 2013 · 8:09 am

Mexile II

See the big red banner over on the right? My ten year anniversary as a blogger is rapidly drawing close. I started off blogging using garydenness.com as my domain. Nowadays I use the .co.uk version. But I’ve splashed out and bought the old .com address again, for old times sakes. And matched it to a new blog, imaginitively entitled Mexile II. I know, I do this sort of thing quite a lot. And generally speaking, my new splinter blogs become quickly superfluous and fade away into the virtual ether.

Perhaps this one will be different. Perhaps it’ll find a new niche that doesn’t fit this blog, and therefore doesn’t just fracture my content over multiple sites needlessly. I have in mind at the moment to simply use it as a showcase for my photography. Old snaps and new. With a brief summary or comment, not a long rambling essay. It’ll be simple, quick and easy to update.

I really like the theme I found. It’s clean, shows off full screen images on the homepage, has a neat sidebar, social network icons at the bottom and even has my latest Flickr and Instagram photos in galleries on the top menu. I really, really like the theme. If I were going to self host this blog, this is the theme I’d use. All it’s lacking at the moment are some posts to fill the blog section out a bit. And some comments to get the Comments widget in the sidebar showing some activity. I’ll add the content, you come and say hi… :)

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May 12, 2013 · 5:11 pm

London 1927

A few years ago I posted some old colour videos of Mexico City in the 1940s and 1950s. They were fascinating glimpses into the past of the city, and the colour reproduction just made them so much more…je ne sais pas quoi. But you probably know what I mean. I haven’t ever posted any videos of London. Partly because there isn’t an awful lot available in colour. Partly because there something of a proliferation of London videos. Partly because London, when colour film became more common, was a bombed out war zone.

A few days ago a friend emailed me a link to an old London video that’s somewhat unique. It’s old. Real old. As the title of the post suggests, it’s 1927 old. But it is colour film. All of the most famous sites are covered. It’s an awesome video. Fancy a trip back to 1927? Here we go then. Check out just how filthy all those monuments and buildings are though!

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