Thursday, November 20, 2014

Camera Test

Just a quick post to try out the camera on the replacement Nexus 4. The original phone has a broken microphone which makes it less than useful as a phone. It has a Barrow number to allow it to be reached from the toll restricted VoIP phones in the BARC. The replacement was ordered on Friday afternoon from Amazon and it arrived on Monday using "Standard Shipping". Impressive.

The new phone had to go through a long update process as it came with Android 4.4.2 installed and now has 5.0 aka "Lolipop". I like the Nexus line of phones as it has the true "Google Experience" without all of the junk software that cell carriers install on their Android products. Plus, Google controls the software update process not the carrier. It is also is carrier unlocked.

As you may notice in the snapshot, we have not received any additional snow. The roads have a thick layer of frost this morning left from the warm, foggy night. Hopefully, it won't get too much warmer. Last year we had rain the week before Thanksgiving and it pretty much shut down Fairbanks. Rain on top of cold roads made a thick layer of ice that hung around all winter.

The camera is supposedly 8 megapixels the same as the iPhone 5s but the pictures don't seem as sharp. I still haven't found a convenient way to transfer pictures from Android to the Mac or iPad nor have I found a decent blog posting app. Any suggestions?

18 comments:

  1. I have a comment and a question. First the comment. The picture looks fine as camera pix go. I have tried a lot of blog posting apps and in my opinion, the technical term is "they suck". Wish it weren't so but they all left me exasperated.

    And on to the question. I see you have blurred your license plate number. Lots of people do this. I've asked many times why and aside from some generalized "privacy" concerns no one could actually articulate what exactly is going to go wrong with a license number visible. Aside from any conspiracy theories can you offer some insight on the concern? I have blurred on or two on my pix but never could figure out why since people can see my plate numbers live.


    Steve Williams
    Scooter in the Sticks

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    1. Steve ... I can answer the blurred lic. plate number from my point of view anyway. With a license plate number anybody with a bit of tech savvy could end up in my driveway (not that they would but if they wanted to...) I prefer to make them take at least one extra step to find me ... that might give me an extra hour right - that is, provided I know they're coming! (I'm not paranoid.) In other words, it gives me a false sense of security and anonymity. You should have heard the 'tongue' lashing Bobskoot received when he used my first name on the WWW. It's a head thing.

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    2. Excellent question. I only blurred the plate since I noticed that it was one of the tools in the photo editing app on the Android phone. I wondered how it worked and tried it on the license plate. This is, by the way, the first time I've ever blurred a license plate.

      As far as anonymity is concerned, that ship sailed long ago. Everyone knows my first and last name from my domain and Google identity and I'm listed in the phone directory. I even put my cell phone number on my business cards.

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    3. As far as the blog posting app, I've tried a bunch, both free and paid, and none of the phone ones are worth the space they consume. Blogsy on the iPad is pretty good and I'll continue to use that but I haven't found anything on the iOS and just started to look on Android.

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  2. Sorry, I'm useless with the techy stuff. Good luck! :)
    I like the pic though.

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    1. It shows our serious lack of snow. The picture still looks blurry compared to the iPhone though it does look better on the new Nexus than the old one. The Nexus 4 doesn't have a separate cover over the camera lens. It just looks through the glass back of the phone.

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  3. I find blogsy to be excellent combined with Picasa. Easy and fast. but I am easy. android with picasa upload app. Blogsy download. done

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    1. Thank you. I've used Blogsy for years on the iPad but am looking for a phone app. I haven't tried the Picasa upload from Android.

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  4. Seems sad that Buffalo, NY has more snow than Alaska. Hopefully the weather world will revert to near normal soon.

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    1. I've seen tongue and cheek bumper stickers proclaiming "Alaskans for Global Warming". I think Buffalo always gets more snow than here due to "lake effect snow". Fairbanks' annual precipitation at 10" isn't much more than Phoenix while Buffalo, NY, is something like 40". We're pretty arid.

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  5. There is no more privacy I'm afraid. I used to blur the license plate in the early days of my blog until I realized its a futile effort given today's plethora of search engines, google's pervasiveness (all hail our benign overlords) and big brother. Anything online is exploitable. It is what it is.....blog accordingly, conduct business online accordingly....a little paranoia goes a long way. Having said all that, I do tend to not take pics of the house's number if I can help it. Futile effort to be sure, given the previous resources mentioned.....

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    1. You could take the Steve Jobs approach and buy a new car every six months and always drive around with a dealer supplied temporary tag.

      But you're right. Awareness is key.

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  6. Between my professional and blog persona everything concerning location, phone, age, appearance, etc, is available. On Google Streetview you can see my cars in the driveway and my neighbor mowing her lawn. They did blur her face.

    I just wish I was standing in the driveway with Junior and Vespa when the Google car went by. Can I schedule that?

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    1. My son spotted the Google car traveling around Fairbanks and he followed it for s while but was never able to find any pictures of him. I told him that they probably re-ran the route without someone following to avoid having to blur so many pictures.

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  7. Sure like the blue and white color combination of the Ural, especially against snow.

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    1. But you're biased towards blue and white anyway...

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  8. attempt#2: License plate blurring help that I use these days.......PIC

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