Last weekend, my wife and I went to the Apple store in the Irvine Spectrum. She had made a One to One appointment so we could get a better understanding of our iPhones.

We have had our phones for nearly three months and it seems these little gems have some real quirkiness. I had three goals to accomplish at this one to One. First, the sync between my GMail account and iPhone wasn’t working right. Two, the Calender sync between GMail, iCal and iPhone needed to be adjusted. Last, being able to move my photos, videos and other files, to another device, without having to use some apple proprietary software.

I was a little disappointed that my issues couldn’t not be fully resolved to my satisfaction. The One to One trainers don’t really know anything beyond what Apple has to offer as in software or solutions. After the very eager and helpful person couldn’t really help. I was forced to get my answers else where.

The email and calendar ended up being the simplest to solve. The One:One trainer was able to point me in the direction of the IMAP vs. POP mail solution. My iPhone, GMail and Apple Mail Program were all set up with POP and not IMAP. This is why nothing was being synced between all three. However that was only part of the steps needed to solve the problem.

My iPhone when purchased was setup by the helpful individuals we purchased them from. I have actually gone back into the iPhone deleted all GMail and other accounts and reentered them with the Exchange feature. This is great. Now I can sync between my GMail, Apple Mail and iPhone. I adjust one and they all update.

Now, I just couldn’t understand why when I plug my iPhone into my Apple computer I couldn’t see the storage like I could on my iPods. I couldn’t even access this from the iTunes. I feel that I should be able to access the file system on my own equipment that I purchased. I should be able to access the file system to move photo and movie files to my computer without having to open iPhoto, download the files, then move them from iPhoto to a folder in my file system. Not only is this a pain in the Ass, but it a little totalitarian by Apple to assume i would be alright with this… Well, this is about to change…

Believe it or not while I was on Google’s Buzz I was reading a post from Chris Marquardt

How would you like to be able to mount a non-jailbroken iOS device as a disk on your Mac or PC? And what if this capability was (for a limited time) free? My guess is that a lot of you would take someone up on an offer like this.

Developer Macroplant has come up with a solution that runs on a Mac with OS X 10.5 or 10.6, or on a PC with Windows XP/Vista/7, that allows you to view the contents of your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. Phone Disk lets you open, copy and save files directly on the device, and you can mount multiple devices simultaneously. If you’re a Mac user, you see the iOS file system in the Finder, while Windows users can view it in Windows Explorer. The app runs in the system tray in Windows or the menu bar in Mac OS X, so it’s out of the way, but available when you need it.

Note that Phone Disk will not give you “real” root access to your iOS device — the program allows you to access media files (photos, music, and even apps), but system-level access still requires a jailbreak. Still, this is more access than non-jailbreakers can get otherwise — if you know where to look, you can even pull soundtrack files out of the apps installed on your iPhone.

Through December 1st, 2010, the developer is giving away Phone Disk for free. You just need to download and then unlock the software with the registration code available here.

This resolved the issue of trying to remove photos and video without having to use a Apple’s proprietary software like iPhoto, which I was surprised that it was still on my computer anyways. Now I can just drag and drop files into folder on my computer. I can also add file and folder to my iPhone where I want them…

Go to the Phone Disk page to ge more information, or download the file here. Phone Disk.zip. Don’t forget Through December 1st, 2010, the developer is giving away Phone Disk for free. You just need to download and then unlock the software with the registration code available here.

Cartoon By: Cam Cardow, Cagle Cartoons

The Lay's® Happiness Exhibit

Yesterday while I was on flickr, I found a flickr add that linked you to the “Lay’s® Happiness Exhibit.” This web site caught my attention, not because it was part of flickr, but, because I love the way this web site looks and works. The front page is laid out so simply, but is has a lot going on. I do find it interesting that they are partnered up with flickr. If you look in the lower right corner you will notice it says “Powered by flickr.”

I have been looking at a lot of web sites lately because I would like to upgrade my personal website and make it more functional or photography. My problem is that I am very technical and have a tendency to make things more complicated then it needs to be. I am trying to teach myself how to keep it simple (stupid). It is not as easy as it sounds for someone that is not artsy, but technical. So I keep looking and making notes and adding them to my list of web sites I  like. This sight has been added to my list because of it’s simplicity and that is was made with flash.

If you know how they built this site or have an expertise in this type of web design, I would be interested in hearing from you. Also, i would like any suggestions of clases I can take to learn how to make this type of site. You can place your comments and suggestions in the comment section below.

Now on with the Lay’s® Happiness Exhibit. When you look inside, you first notice that the images submitted are not by pro’s, but by the average point and shoot photographers. As you dig deeper you will find some very exceptional photos. It’s is easy to join and add photos. If you have a flickr account just go to the upper left corner of the frames, and you will see UPLOAD YOUR HAPPY PHOTOS and click on the Start Here. This will link you to your Yahoo or Flickr sign on. Sign-in and the follow the instructions to accept the API. Next when you go back to the Lay’s® Happiness Exhibit it will ask you to accept and a few other instructions to follow. When you are done you will be able to add images directly to the flickr group Lay’s® Happiness Exhibit flickr group or directly to the Lay’s® Happiness Exhibit.

If you don’t have a flickr sign-on you can follow the above instructions and create a new flickr account.

A friend of Thomas Hawk of Thomas Hawk Digital Connection has posted some great trip to increase your Flickr influence on the web and on the Flickr Social Media site. As a photographer, I have wanted to increase my exposure among Flickr circle. Since Flickr is one, if not the largest photography social media web site it should be a good place to my photography noticed.

With permission from Thomas Hawk I have reposted Thomas Hawks TOP 10 WAYS TO GET ATTENTION ON FLICKR .

“What is more pleasant than the benevolent notice other people take of us, what is more agreeable than their compassionate empathy? What inspires us more than addressing ears flushed with excitement, what captivates us more than exercising our own power of fascination? What is more thrilling than an entire hall of expectant eyes, what more overwhelming than applause surging up to us? What, lastly, equals the enchantment sparked off by the delighted attention we receive from those who profoundly delight ourselves? – Attention by other people is the most irresistible of drugs. To receive it outshines receiving any other kind of income. This is why glory surpasses power and why wealth is overshadowed by prominence.”

Caterina Fake, Co-founder of Flickr, 2005.

Over the course of the past 4 years, about every 2 years or so I’ve written a blog post that has been one of my most popular entitled “Top 10 Ways to Get Attention on Flickr.” It’s been a few years, Flickr’s changed a bit, and so I thought I’d take a bit of time today to outline some of the techniques that active power users use on Flickr to get more attention for themselves and their photos.

Fundamentally it comes down to a pretty simple equation:

quality photos + reciprocation² = attention.

But there are lots of other little tricks and tips, so let’s get right into them.

1. The order that you publish your photos in matters — alot. A lot of people will take 50 snapshots of that killer sunset on their vacation and then upload them at random to flickr. Some are better, some are worse. At Flickr, those that call you contact predominantly only see your last photo uploaded or your last 5 photos uploaded (depending on their settings) from the popular “your contact’s most recent uploads” page. The other 45 are effectively buried. Always upload what you feel are your best, strongest, etc. photographs as the last five and save the very last spot for the photo you want to pimp the most.

2. Explore, you whore. Explore is a section of Flickr where Flickr highlights what they feel are 500 interesting photos every day.

I used to have photos show up in Explore pretty much every week. Then Flickr staff blacklisted me from Explore (and their help forum) about 7 months or so ago after I wrote a blog post criticizing Flickr staff for nuking a popular group on Flickr that I administered. Payback’s a bitch, right?

After having photos regularly appear in Explore every week since it started, they capped my ass in there at 666 photos (cute, because I’m the devil, get it?). That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t consider Explore though. It’s probably the fastest way to get a lot of views on any of your photos. Whilst everyone bitches about how full of crappy photos Explore is, secretly you know you all love it when your photos show up there.

Flickr claims to have a “magic donkey” formula which picks the photos for Explore. This “magic donkey” is really just an excuse though to avoid transparency/accountability about Explore. In general, the more activity a photo has (activity = faves, comments, notes, blogged, etc.) the more likely it is to show up in Explore. By putting your best foot forward (see item 1) and by focusing on promoting a popular photo of yours on a given day, (see below) it just might get there.

3. Promote your photos outside of Flickr. What are you doing to promote your photos outside of Flickr? Some things are super, super easy and involve no active participation on your part other than setting something up. Popular content aggregators on the web allow you to publish your Flickr photos out of Flickr, with valuable links back to your photos on Flickr.

Have you configured Flickr Tab on your Facebookery page yet? Why not? It’s free and easy.

Have you signed up for Google Buzz yet? Google Buzz does a great job presenting your Flickr uploads and has a killer lightbox feature that allows people to see your photo BIG (if you allow it) on Google Buzz. I’m faving more Flickr photos that I’m finding on Google Buzz these days than from any other source. I fave more photos from Google Buzz than even Flickr itself.

Have you linked your stream to a FriendFeed account yet?

How about a photoblog? Anyone can set one of these up. They are so easy. And they have cool widgets that can do a lot of automated things for you. Check out the widget I’m using for my Flickr photos (to the right over there). It’s called Fidgetr. It automatically pulls in the six most recent photos from my “10 faves or more set” on Flickr, making sure fresh new photos are constantly being published to thomashawk.com. Don’t those large thumbnails rock!

4. Avoid watermarking, small-sized low-res photos, frames and other gimmicky crap. People don’t want to see this stuff. It’s a turn off. It pushes them away. Yes, yes, I know, you cry, but the thieves, the photo thieves, they all want to steal from me. GASP!

Get over it. You know what happens when people steal your stuff? Recently a friend of mine had an image of hers taken by a commercial entity. Do you know what we did? We contacted them, and after a little arm-twisting they paid her $700 for her photo. You know why? Because they had to. Because she could have sued them if not and probably gotten a lot more than $700 if she was inclined to put the time in it. Courts award statutory damages (not actual damages) for copyright theft. Trust me. If you like getting paid $700 for your photos, you WANT people to steal them. Put a big sign on the photo. “Steal Me, I Dare You.”

With tools like Tineye, it’s getting easier and easier and easier for you to find unauthorized commercial use of your photos on the web.

Sure, some dude is going to print up your big bouquet of sunflowers shot and hang it in his living room to impress his friends while they drink beer and watch football and you’ll never find out about that use. Trust me, that dude wouldn’t have paid for your photograph in the first place anyways.

As a byproduct, uploading full, glorious, high res, original photos to Flickr gives you one more backup of your precious photos in the cloud.

5. Moooooooooooo. Do you know about moo cards? Get some. They’re cheap — well, at least the little ones are cheap. Give them to everyone you can. When you are out and about and people talk to you about your photography say (in your best Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad voice possible) “Hey Yo, I’m slinging this camera, check me out here Yo,” and hand them a moo card. Trust me, it works.

6. Groups. Most groups on Flickr are a waste of time. Dead groups where photo whores dump billions of photos in pools that nobody sees. Your photos are quickly buried deep, deep, in the pool, never to be seen or heard from again. Avoid these groups. They typically have names like “Baskets! Show us all your photos of baskets!” or “You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato, show us all your photos of tomatoes!” Don’t just dump your photo into 30 random groups.

Instead pick a few meaningful groups and actually hang out there and interact with people. You might consider a local group for where you live. Or a photo critique group. Or whatever. But find a few active groups (meaning several new threads are engaged in a day) and participate. I belong to a number of groups on Flickr, but 95% of my Flickr group time is spent in the critique group DMU. (Note, DMU is uncensored and not for everyone. Remember above where I told you that Flickr nuked one of our groups? yep.)

7. Fave it Forward! Have you heard of Billy Wilson? Because if you haven’t, you will soon. Not to be confused with his second cousin and other Flickr legend Billy Warhol, Billy Wilson is the original Flickr fave machine! Billy has favorited more photos than anyone else on Flickr and he’s showing no signs of slowing down. Want to know what happens when you fave almost 200,000 photos on Flickr? Just check out Billy’s stream. How’s that for getting some attention?

Now, you don’t actually have to copy the Billy Wilson favoriting machine. He’s an original and that’s his gig. But. Don’t be stingy with your faves either. If you like something fave the hell out of it. You can start here at my “10 faves or more set” if you’d like. You have an unlimited amount of faves to give out on Flickr. People love getting faves. People reciprocate.

Be like Billy, fave it forward.

Same goes for comments too. If you like something say so. Maybe you can be the next “nice photo” guy. Or maybe you can be known as that super hot chick who writes deep, meaty, insightful, witty, quirky comments on people’s photos — especially then, you’ll be loved.

8. Tag for discovery. You know how people find many of your photos? Search. Don’t be “that guy” who tags the 300 most commonly used keywords to your photos no matter what they are. I don’t want to see that photo of your bikini clad girlfriend when I’m searching for puppy. Good boy.

But. Be descriptive. Be sure to tag the place the photo was taken. The subject matter. Anything relevant that people might use to search for your photo. Consider geotagging as well. The more discoverable your photos are, the more likely they’ll be seen on Flickr.

Oh, also keyword at the file level, not on Flickr itself. It’s much faster to keyword and geotag that way and also when Flickr ends up nuking your account (KABOOM!) you won’t lose all of those tags and geotags that you worked so hard on adding to your photos. When you tag/geotag at the file level, these tags/geotags are automatically populated at Flickr when you upload your photos. Read about my workflow here for more on that.

9. Are you allowing the search engines to index your photos? If you aren’t, you should be. You can check your settings on that here. I’d estimate that about 20% of the traffic to my own Flickr photos comes from search engines.

10. Certain subjects just get garner more attention. In general I’ve found that certain subjects tend to do better on Flickr than others. Your (and my) Egglestonian masterpiece of the sidewalk curb? Not so much.

But. Subjects that seem to garner a lot of attention. Attractive women (number one attention getter on Flickr, especially self portraits), motion or blur, silhouettes, images with stories in the description, some HDR, bokeh, abstract architectural photography, bridges, cityscapes, artwork by famed graffiti artist Banksy, you get the idea.

Also sometimes an interesting looking thumbnail will pull people in as well.

Well there you have it. 10 tips to get you more attention on Flickr. Use them in good health and with good company.

Disclaimer: remember my equation above? “quality photos + reciprocation² = attention” It doesn’t matter how much work you do optimizing the promotion of your photos if they suck. Find your voice. Make your style. Create your art. But put time, energy and pride in the work that you share. Make the world a more beautiful place with the amazing work that you are capable of creating. The best photos in the world have yet to be taken.

Oh, and one final way to get a lot of attention on Flickr? Write long blog posts about getting attention on Flickr. It works every time. 

You can find Thomas Hawk on Flickr here. You can find me on Flickr here.

The first video is the actual comercial. The second video is how it was done. Take a look, it is awesome to see how they played with each scenarios.

I Can't Believe it (55247)

In order to find out how many actuations you camera has taken you need to look in the EXIF data. Now I currently am shooting with a Nikon D70s and I have been shooting with this camera since June, 2006. Last night I had my camera with me while my wife and I were baby sitting her brothers kids. We took them to the park and had a good time chasing them around. The last image I shot last night was shutter click #55247. I figure that when my 4 year anniversary with this camera come this June, I will be up to at least 60,000 camera actuations. That is an average of 15,000 clicks a year.

Here is the link to the web site MyShutterCount that allowed my to grab this information for my Nikon camera. If you have a Canon or another brand go to the article on DPS to find your Shutter Actuations.

Known Issues

New in Lightroom 2.7

The goal of this release is to address bugs that were introduced in previous releases of Lightroom 2 and provide additional camera raw support. A comprehensive list of issues fixed in this release is included below:

Lightroom 2.7 and Camera Raw 5.7 are now available as final releases on Adobe.comand through the update mechanisms available in Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2. These updates include camera support for the following models:

• Canon EOS 550D (Digital Rebel T2i/ EOS Kiss X4 Digital)
• Kodak Z981
• Leaf Aptus-II 8
• Leaf Aptus-II 10R
• Mamiya DM40
• Olympus E-PL1
• Panasonic G2
• Panasonic G10
• Sony A450

Release Notes:

• Camera Raw 5.7 includes an updated demosaic algorithm designed to provide compatibility with settings applied in Lightroom 3 beta 2.
• Lightroom 2.7 also includes the same updated demosaic algorithm. The updated demosaic algorithm will appear as a subtle shift in noise characteristics at default values.
• By default Camera Raw will display the image adjustments exactly as performed in the Lightroom 3 beta 2 develop module.  However, at this time Camera Raw 5.7 is unable to support further adjustments to the following settings or tools:
  • Highlight Priority and Color Priority post-crop vignette
  • Enhanced Luminance and Color Noise Reduction
  • Grain effects
  • Process Version

There’s more to this update than I saw at first. According to Lightroom product manager Tom Hogarty, Lightroom 2.7 and version 5.7 of the Photoshop plug-in adds Lightroom 3 beta 2′s new “demosaicing” technology for processing raw images.
Specifically, Hogarty said:
• Camera Raw 5.7 includes an updated demosaic algorithm designed to provide compatibility with settings applied in Lightroom 3 beta 2.
• Lightroom 2.7 also includes the same updated demosaic algorithm. The updated demosaic algorithm will appear as a subtle shift in noise characteristics at default values.
• By default, Camera Raw will display the image adjustments exactly as performed in the Lightroom 3 beta 2 develop module. However, at this time Camera Raw 5.7 is unable to support further adjustments to the following settings or tools: Highlight Priority and Color Priority post-crop vignette; Enhanced Luminance and Color Noise Reduction; Grain effects; [and] Process Version.

Aerial video with a Canon 5D , 7D helivideo.com from Eric AUSTIN on Vimeo.