Bee Butt and the End of a Magnolia Blossom
Posts Categorized: moleskine to mobile
How the Foursquare Pivot to Swarm Has Decreased my Mobile Usage, or Goodbye Foursquare – I loved You…
Over the summer, Foursquare pivoted from a fun, game based location mobile app to a location based restaurant review app with the aim to compete with Yelp. To throw a bone to loyal users who loved checking in, they created a second location based mobile check in app called Swarm*.
Swarm has a lovely new UI, they pick the location for you, most of my Foursquare friends are there, what I am supposed to do with it other than see where my friends are is unclear, and… Swarm is dull. As in boring.
I can still check in, sort of. I can still see what friends are up to around the world. But all the fun is gone. No points with quirky reasons for gaining points. No more competition with Juha Ristlainen, aka @Riussi, jockeying for position on the top of the leader board. No more bizarre user created location names. No more joy in using Foursquare/Swarm. No fun.
Yes, Swarm, I know that Jason, Annette, and Charlene are 30 miles away in LA. That’s nice. It was also nice to know that Lane was in LA 9 weeks ago. Thanks.
The fun of the old Foursquare was the reward of seeing how many quirky or mundane points that I would receive if I pulled out my phone constantly to check in. It was the reward of seeing what odd or outrageously named check spots people had created (25,000 cow farts for Harris Ranch or the local man cave in Seal Beach that I took great joy in stealing the mayorship of, etc. etc.).
With no more quirky points or named places, no more competition with friends in different time zones, and no mayorships to win or rest away/back my phone is staying in my purse or pocket unless I want to take a photo or specifically contact someone.
Gone is the Foursquare check in, gone is the laugh or groan at the points, gone is then the temptation to check Twitter or Instagram and then stay on those apps to view or chat, and then keeping my mobile in my hand wherever I am to then play with more apps.
Now with no reward or joy in pulling out my phone to check in on Foursquare everywhere I go, my Twitter and other mobile app usage has decreased to just a few times a day. And other than taking photos or complete a necessary communication, my mobile is now staying in my purse or pocket.
Who knew that the old Foursquare was such a gateway to more mobile usage all the way around? I didn’t until it was gone.
Goodbye Foursquare, I loved you, you were fun.
Now both you and Swarm are deleted/uninstalled.
* I got got an email from Swarm earlier this week which called Swarm the new Lifeblogging app. REALLY?!?!?!? 10 years too late on using that name for a mobile app. I will now slink off to my non-mancave to grumble in private.
Sunday Tidbits: After a bit of a lull – Apple says Game On!, Sharanya, Mie, and Fusion!
A quick round of Sunday tidbits and links for you…
1) T’would appear that Apple is waking up from its rather sleepy mobile photo lull and is declaring game on to the newly minted Microsoft Mobile (entity formerly known as Nokia Device and Services) in two sweeps with the declaration of:
Apple Patent Shows Off Unique Use of OIS for “Super Resolution” Photos
and the defection of a certain Mr. Ari Partinen from the top ranks of the Nokia Camera team…
Today will be my last day working for the amazing #Lumia family. In June I will start a new chapter in Cupertino, California. Much love!
— Ari Partinen (@Partinen) May 9, 2014
Now it should get interesting. One wonders if a certain Mr. Alakarhu and a certain Ms. Björknäs will stay put at the newly signed building in Espoo? Will Google / Samsung up their mobile camera game or will we have round ___ of the Apple v. Microsoft tech brinkmanship?
2) The ever amazing Sharanya Manivannan has published a short story, “Sweet”, in the debut issue of The Affair and is interviewed in “A Q&A with Sharanya Manivannan on her story ‘Sweet’, published in the inaugural issue of ‘The Affair’”
If you aren’t already following Sharanya on Twitter or reading her blog, go do it now.
3) In my searches for good recipes for various Japanese recipes, I have found myself at Cookpad and a bit baffled by the translations that Google gives me. Thus, when I read that Mie is now the North American office / staff member for Cookpad En, I was very excited. Not only for a great position for Mie, but also that means that Mie’s excellent abilities in blogging, cross cultural exchange, and blogging will mean the opening up and un-confusing a great wealth of contemporary Japanese foodways. So EXCITED. Go Mie, Go!
4) 3QuarksDaily asks: When are you Past Your Prime?
5) Charlie Stross has two great blog posts for thinking about technology, now, the future, and the world, read the comments:
a) The Snowden leaks; a meta-narrative – A call for the internet protocol to be rebuilt before it is too late:
The trouble is, the success of the internet protocols created a networking monoculture that the NSA themselves came to rely on for their internal infrastructure. The same security holes that the NSA relied on to gain access to your (or Osama bin Laden’s) email allowed gangsters to steal passwords and login credentials and credit card numbers. And ultimately these same baked-in security holes allowed Edward Snowden—who, let us remember, is merely one guy: a talented system administrator and programmer, but no Clark Kent—to rampage through their internal information systems.
b) The prospects of the Space and Freedom Party reconsidered in light of the crisis of 21st century capitalism – Given that the U.S. spent over $4 Trillion on the most recent Iraq War, what is a few fusion reactors at $100 billion a pop?
I’ve got two candidates for such investments: (a) commercial thermonuclear fusion reactors, and (b) colonizing Venus.
Fusion: we are not fifty years away any more. We’re about thirty years and $100Bn away. Or we’re about 8-10 years and $200Bn and a Manhattan Program level of urgency away—it depends on the political and legislative framework. However, building tokamak fusion reactors (like ITER) is never going to be cheap; to get 1Gw of electrical power out implies a 5Gw thermal reactor (and a third of its power is going to go into maintaining the fusion reaction). More realistically, tokamaks will come in 5Gw power output and larger sizes, making them an order of magnitude larger than today’s big-ass 1Gw PWR, AGR, and AP1000 reactors. We’re looking at startup costs of $25-50Bn per reactor, and a requirement for up to 1000 of the suckers if we want to roll it out globally as a major energy source.
So: it’s a project that will plausibly soak up $25-50Tn and take 10-30 years to roll out while needing 30-60 years to break even and start to provide a return on the capital investment. A good way of making the Koch brothers atone for their sins while preserving the illusion of their wealth, right?
Naah, that’s small beer
Go read, people, go read. Then comment.
Week 2400, Day 5
A portion of today, after work to-dos were handled, was spent moving folks from my ‘Nokian’ twitter list to my ‘SquashFolk’ list. Although, if I was being politic, I would rename the list Microsoft One or Microsoft Mobile.
—– A few Updates —–
The best of the goodbyes, from John Kneeland.
CNET on Farewell Nokia: The rise and fall of a mobile pioneer
Nokia’s HERE Maps appoints new CEO
—– An Opinion or Two —–
Ms. Jen says: I can only hope that the best of Nokia’s mobile DNA – the people, the ethos, the passion for design, the passion for innovation – will be injected into the Squash. Microsoft is in need of new passion. One can only hope.
CJ and Alvin say: UnleashTV Episode 76 : The One with ‘Microsoft Mobile’ [starting at 27:01]
Having fun with the DXOMark Filmpack Plugin
Wed 03.26.14 – A few months ago I downloaded the DxOMark Filmpack Lightroom Plugin, after seeing on a web site somewhere that the plugin would allow one to take one’s digital camera files and develop / digitally process them as various films – be it black and white film or color film.
Since I have fallen in love with Fujifilm Velvia 100 & 50 color slide film and Ilford Super XP2 400 black and white film this summer, and I really don’t like to spend time on post-processing, experimenting with the film pack has been fun. One just opens the images and presses the film you want to use, then save. Fast and fun.
Today, I took a photo of the Seal Beach pier before sunset as large, fluffy clouds were floating by. The top image is the original from my Nokia Lumia 1020 and the rest are various film pack processings. The DxOMark filmpack version of FujiFilm Velvia 50 is a bit over the top for my tastes, but I do like the black and white processings. Which do you like best?
Mobile: What is the best / most beautiful / most innovative / most creative use of a mobile phone recently?
Eight years ago, I conducted a survey on the creative use of mobile devices by creative professionals, which became the research base for my Masters thesis: Moleskine to Mobile.
But that was 8 whole years ago, which in mobile or technology time was practically before the dawn of Mammals. In the last few years, it seems many people have settled into the mobile version of humdrum suburbia: iPhone photos uploaded to Instagram, sharing updates to Facebook, making a video of one’s favorite pet/child/drunkfriend and uploading it to YouTube, or just letting others do it while one watches, etc.
Much like any supposed boring suburbia, there has got to be something interesting going on behind the facade of your mobile’s casing…
People! What is the best and/or most interesting, innovative, beautiful, creative use of a mobile that you have done, seen, heard of, have a link to in the last few months or year? Even if what you think is not really that interesting, but you haven’t told anyone else you are doing it, let me know.
Yes, you, photographer, artist, DJ, musician, banker, teacher, couch potato, maker, creator, builder, I am talking to you. Don’t be shy. If it isn’t you, then tell me about your creative friend. If it is you, share what you have been up to with your mobile. Doesn’t matter if it is a smartphone, feature phone, or super basic phone…
2014 – Let me know. Post the link to your or someone you know of’s creative/innovative activity with there mobile phone. Comment here or tweet a link to me @msjen.
**********
Nokia Connects has a fun program / award called MVC – Most Valued Connector (which really should be Most Valued Creative), wherein a group of us nominate folks who are doing cool and amazing things with their Nokia Lumia mobile phones or helping folks connect in some way thereof.
On top of wanting to see what y’all have been up to with any mobile phones, if you or a friend is doing some cool, creative stuffs with their Nokia Lumia phone, please send me the link so that I can recommend them for a nomination.
Y’all rock!
A New Black Phoebe starting in a few hours…
For a long time now I have been waiting for Movable Type to reach an iteration that works for my mobile blogging flow, but after many hacks and work-arounds it has not been working well or even barely for the last 3 years.
Since February 2011, I have made many attempts to kick-start, re-start, and jump start my blogging and moblogging practice to no avail. After Say Media sold Movable Type to SixApart Japan, I was hoping that the folks at SA Japan would make a kickass product.
And they have in MT 6, but it doesn’t work for me. I tried the beta trial and it was lovely, except that the mobile version works for iPhones and Androids and not other mobiles. As a dedicated other mobile human, I spent the last 6 months downloading and trying a variety of self-hosted modern blogging engines to see if they would work for me and my Nokia camera phone passion.
After much trial, error, and more trial, I have come upon a solution that includes a dedicated Windows Phone 8 mobile blogging app, a popular modern blogging engine, a plugin to make it static, another to have responsive lightbox image galleries, and a stripped down template based off of HTML5 boilerplate so that I could roll my (mostly) own code.
The feeds will all change. My current set up of a excerpted short feed for the public and then a private full feed for friends who email me will be changing for a bit until I can reset up the same after creating my own plugin to do so – please be patient as this may take a bit.
Please check your preferred feed as I will update it by hand when I have a new better solution. Or just resubscribe to the new feed starting tomorrow.
All of this to say, I have had a great time re-coding and mobile testing my blog. There will be a lot of new content, of which I will say more about as I have a series on Mobile Photo tips upcoming.
Thank you for your patience and sticking with me while I had a bit of a blogging block in the last 3 years. Black Phoebe :: Ms. Jen is back – back with daily photos, a couple times a week humor and longer text pieces.
Starting in a couple of hours the new feed will be at http://www.blackphoebe.com/msjen/feed/
Also starting in a couple of hours, there will be broken links. It will be apart of the process, as this blog is nearly 11 years old with thousands of entries and while I am doing the best to bring legacy stuff forward, I did decide to change the URI path structure. Out with the old, in with the new.
Here’s to the new Black Phoebe!
Update @ 3:30pm – The old site has been deleted and am now building the new.
Orion, as seen by my Nokia Lumia 1020
Photo of the Orion constellation taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia Lumia 1020.
Sun 12.22.13 – As most of the regular readers of this blog know, I am forever trying to push the boundaries of what a camera phone can do in terms of photography. I also want to capture the photo with my phone as it is, not as it could be with a lot of editing in Photoshop or Lightroom. My joy comes from taking the photos, not from the editing process.
The Nokia Lumia 1020 has a great sensor and lens, very good low light processing software, as well as the Nokia Pro Cam app that allows one to set the exposure time / shutter speed to 4 seconds max and a max ISO of 4000. In the above cropped photo of Orion, I used a shutter speed of 4 seconds and an ISO of 3200 on a tripod. The only editing is the addition of metadata and cropping the photo to focus on Orion.
The full un-cropped photo is up at Flickr, and if you and I follow each other on Flickr you can see the original huge photo here (7712 x 4352 pixels).
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