Timberline Employee Blog

Microsoft recently released Pro Photo Tools for XP and Vista as a free download.

MS Pro Photo Tools is an easy way to edit your photos meta-data information. You photos already have several items stamped on them from your camera but they probably do not have longitude and latitude in the photo.

“Why would I want that?”, you ask?

Latitude and Longitude is how we mark a spot on the map. Say you are looking at your photos and you can’t remember where they were taken then this, or a similar program, is for you.

You will need a GPS so you can download a track log to your computer. Many hand-held GPS units will allow you to do this. I have had great luck with Garmin hand-held units. You will need to take your GPS with you and have it on while you are taking your photos.

For best luck synchronize the time on your camera and gps before shooting.

After you do a test photo shoot you will need to get your data to your computer. Copy your photos to a working directory on your pc. Then you can use a program like EasyGPS to download your track log as a gpx file. The makers of EasyGPS are the same people who have pushed the gpx format and made it popular.

Open up Pro Photo Tools and open your images. Load up your track log and now you can attach latitude and longitude info to your photos.

If you don’t want automated location information you can even skip the GPS and add this information using the built-in Microsoft Virtual Earth to select your location.

When you are done save your work.

Now how do I view the locations?

Version 1 of MS Pro Photo Tool’s will let you view photos on a map but it doesn’t auto center on a selected photo which makes it difficult to use to view already tagged photos. I had to resort to a third party program to view geotagged photos. Google’s Picasa/Google Earth combination work nicely. You can also click through to a Google map using Apple’s Leopard operating system on geotagged photos.

This wasn’t our best buy. The numbers looked good before purchase but I think we could have bought something a bit more sturdy.

Anyhow, I had to search high and low to get a drum code reset and here it is

#*C* - Enter 24-07 and Start - Then reset the printer.

It is as easy as that.

Remember these? Long ago there was a time that we used floppy disks that were actually floppy. The 5.25 inch disks is what most households had who had computers with disk drives. The common format was a singled sided 5.25 inch 180K disk.

5.25 inch floppy disks had a hole along the side that when covered acted as a mechanical write protect when this hole was covered.  This notcher would put a hole in the flip side of the disk so the drive would think you were working with an unprotected disk when you flipped it over. In effect you now have 360K to work with on a single disk.

Floppy disk manufactures didn’t tell you that the single sided disks they were selling actually were double sided disks. These manufacturers eventually came out with the statement that the flip side often contain manufacturing errors. I had no problems on the flip sides when I used this device.

It became unnecessary to use this device once you upgraded your hardware to a double sided disk drive.

If you are going to use use Windows Live Writer and WordPress 2.3 it is suggested you install the wlw manifest helper as found at this blog. You may have to have Windows Live Writer redetect your blog.  Once done the keywords field should be activated for you to use as your WordPress Tags.

Update:

WordPress 2.3.1 has this built in now.

WordPress 2.3 now has built in tags. Tags are similar to categories.You’ll need to have these installed and running.
WordPress 2.3
Tag Suggest Thing

Tag Suggest Thing by the author of Ultimate Tag Warrior will query Yahoo for tag suggestions. This is easier than trying to come up with tags yourself and type them in.

At http://richgilchrest.com/how-to-add-wordpress-23-tags-to-your-current-theme/ we learn how to add a tag cloud to your theme. There are two suggested places this would be good at. As a widget using Execphp, or directly in your themes code.

If you are using execphp you would add in a simple line of code that looks like:

<?php wp_tag_cloud(’smallest=8&largest=36&’); ?>

For more options see the WordPress document. (smallest, largest, unit, number, format, orderby, order, exclude, include)

The other way to see a tag cloud is to edit your theme directly. You can add it to each post, or add it to a side column. To add it to each post you will edit your themes index.php and single.php. And add code like the code above.

If want a tag cloud in a side bar you would add this code to your themes sidebar.php.

<?php if ( function_exists(’wp_tag_cloud’) ) : ?>
<li>
<h2>Popular Tags</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_tag_cloud(’smallest=8&largest=22′); ?>
</ul>
</li>
<?php endif; ?>

If your theme is widget ready, consider using the tag cloud widget instead.