Archive for ‘technology’

March 19th, 2008

Benefit of Taking a Nice Photo?

by Michael Dinsmore

I suppose its flattering to have a picture selected to be used for a travel guide. It just happened to me the other day because of a picture I took and posted on Flickr. The managing editor of Schmap Guides sent me an email asking permission for “inclusion in the second edition of our Schmap Italy Guide, to be published mid-April 2008″. While I’m not getting paid for this and it helps their commercial venture, I decided I’d let them use it. Here’s the picture they liked:


Santa Maria Novella

Famous for its elaborate facade of inlaid black-and-white marble, Florence’s Santa Maria Novella church contains works by Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Giotto and others.


One reason why I had no reservations against it was after my iPod cases got popular, I realized that pictures regularly get copied around the Internet without any asking beforehand. Case in point, my photos of my iPod cases on Etsy or Flickr were copies all over the place. After the very popular high tech and gadget site Gizmodo posted an article titled “Hand-Carved Wooden iPod Cases Deliver a Touch of Class”, a large number of other sites picked up on it and also copied my photos. I’m sure I only know about some of those sites too (at least I was referred to as a “talented Massachusetts artist”).

For those interested, here’s a short list of sites who picked up and reported on my iPod cases:

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October 12th, 2007

Why, Oh Why Can’t an iPod Touch Fly?

by Michael Dinsmore

I owned a Macintosh at RPI that a professor gave me back in the early 90s. I had an Apple Newton. I currently use a Powerbook for work. I’m an Apple stockholder. But what I’m not, unfortunately, is an iPod Touch owner.

I’d love to be, but as a professional with a life, family and things going on, I’d like more than something to play songs with for $300, especially when there’s no technical limitations causing it. The 8GB or 16GB either is fine with me — but why can’t I have a Weather app or a Stock app (or, perhaps, even a Mail app!) when I’m in a WiFi spot? For something quick and easy like that, I’d hate to break out the laptop. A fully functioning Calendar app would be nice too.

Let’s look at in in another way – a more full-featured iPod Touch is a greener solution. Rather than powering up a laptop or turning on the TV for just a simple weather report, you just tap your iPod and get the info with “watts of savings” (the pun was not intended)! When the toddlers are playing, running around or screaming, the few seconds it should take with an iPod Touch would really, really make this a family friendly device for me. Plus, I’d love to watch my woodworking video podcasts on the commuter rail when I go home from Boston.

Categorytechnology | Comment1 Comment »

August 22nd, 2007

Trying out flickr

by Michael Dinsmore

So I’ve been bugged by several people to use flickr instead of Picasa Web Albums. I admit that Flickr has a prettier interface, but nothing really beats the ease of use of Picasa when you use that tool to manage your photo albums on your computer (or if you use iPhoto on a Mac and use the Picasa plugin).

Anyways, I’m giving it a try…

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