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.

qmail in some circles has had a bad rap because of its overly restrictive licensing policies and possibly its punctuation problem. Overly restrictive? Yes, it could only be distributed in source form. In order to use it you must compile it yourself. You could not distribute it compiled form and you couldn’t distribute patched sources for qmail.

Daniel J. Berstein recently made a public announcement that qmail, and the rest of what he has written and proviced to the public, is now placed in the Public Domain.

Watching the video I get the feeling that it is a reactive protest to other freely distributive licenses such as BSD and the GPL varriants. Whatever the reason, this means that all Linux projects like CentOS and Fedora can now distribute qmail without any licensing problems.

Now projects like QmailToaster and Dag Wieer’s RPM repository can now distribute compiled rpms instead of src.rpms.

Timberline Dealerships main website has had a face-lift. Many direct to employee email forms have been added. Click through links to google maps have been added on every listed address. Google provides (usually) great turn by turn driving directions. If you happen to have an iPhone, or a Shoretel with a slight modification, phone numbers are click through links too.

I’ve finally found something that I don’t like about the Windows Live Writer. The only maps it supports by default are maps from Microsoft’s website. Birds Eye View on Microsoft’s website is a lot of fun except it doesn’t work on Safari. So what I really don’t like is that the bird’s eye doesn’t work on Safari. I changed all the links on my sites that  had linked to Microsoft maps over to Google maps which has better support for more browsers.

My list of the most necessary plug-ins for WordPress 2.2.1 include:

PlugInstaller 0.1.95: Author’s Site, Repository
This is one of those features I missed from the other CMS/Blogging systems. It allows plugin installation without using a ftp client. The author now has cleared up the problems I found in an earlier version of this plugin.

WP-DB-Backup 2.1.2: Author’s Site, Repository
Ever need to refer to a backup? This tool allows you to backup the WordPress database, package it up neatly and email it to you or let you download it. It can even be setup to run on automatically.

Front Page Excluded Categories 1.0.3: Author’s Site, Repository
This plug-in make it possible to put only a certain category of posts on the front page. When setting up select all categories then remove the ones you want to show on the front page.

Google (XML) Sitemaps 3.0b7: Author’s Site, Repository
This is one of those necessary evils. You have a page. You have to tell somebody it is there.

Google Analyticator 1.5.3: Author’s Site, Repository
This adds the Google tracking code to your page. You must setup a tracking account for this to be of any use.

All in One SEO Pack 0.6.2.6: Author’s Site, Repository
Just telling people that you exist is not enough. You also have to tell them a bit about yourself. This plug-in helps you do that.

Social Bookmarking RELOADED 2.2: Author’s Site, Repository
This is based off of Social Bookmarks. It is designed to easily submit a page to one of the major bookmark / blog bookmark sites. This one auto centered and fit better in my themes than some other social bookmarking plugins I tried.

WP-o-Matic 0.2-beta: Author’s Site
Almost ready for prime time. It took a bit to be able to install this. Once installed it creates posts from rss feeds. See what I have already written about this plug-in.

cforms II 5.0: Author’s Site, Repository
Allows creation of multiple mail-to forms.

There are other great plug-ins available. These are the plug-ins that I would argue on having in the WordPress download.

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