For a few days now I’ve been looking through thousands of pictures to make sure that they’re synced from iCloud to the Photo app before they’re deleted. In so doing I noticed how far in front of a group I was hiking a few years ago. Instead of hiking with the group I was so far in front that I could get group shots without trying. Eventually, they did pose, as if it had been intentional rather than my walking habit.
What you see in the pictures is that I did stop and I was with the group a lot, waiting for people to catch up, take pictures as they did, and then go fast again. During a more recent hike I found that I was fast until 3000m and then I slowed down to become one of the slowest. I don’t know whether it was lack of energy, which it could be, or that I’m not used to being at altitude. This will be especially true this summer after two summers spent at low altitude.
If I was an extrovert I wouldn’t be walking at the front of the group taking pictures. I’d be in the middle having conversations, and if I was having conversations then, then I wouldn’t be writing so many blog posts now.
Normally I’d look at the images and I’d enjoy them, and that would be it. As tomorrow is the day for Valentine’s Day content I can squeeze this post in. It’s because I saw a woman smile at the camera in so many images that I wish I had been closer, rather than at a distance. I am thinking of the opportunity I had but didn’t consolidate.
It’s a cruel paradox of life that we will see the same individuals for years of sporting activities without fail and yet when we’re interested we only see them at three or four events. I often joke “everyone I appreciate leaves”.
Not that it isn’t fun to pretend that I care about Valentine’s day for the commercial reason I actually care about the day because back in 2003 I got my driving licence and that was the start of me having the freedom to drive myself without having a passenger. Yes, there is a pun in there. My first drive was to drink hot chocolate with a girlfriend and a best friend, who was also female. That day was special. The freedom of driving a car, the freedom of the open road, the freedom not to wait for a train or a bus. The freedom to have all of the adventures that I write about in this blog.
I could write more but I think it’s time for me to go for a virtual bike ride as it’s windy and rainy out in the real world.
Too many video podcasts are badly produced and that is why David Pogue’s most recent episode was enjoyable to watch. He has a distinctive style. Whilst most video podcasters are content simply using a fixed camera at a desk he takes the time to create entertaining demonstrations of how the tech he is discussing is interesting.
In one episode he talked about how phones for children were great for some things but let down by others. He demonstrated his frustration at having an iPhone yet not being able to talk about it because he was under embargo. In one episode he was testing noise-canceling headphones and wore all of them at once as he left through the front door of his house. Each of these little acts helped to make his podcast both entertaining and different from others.
In his most recent episode, he brought attention to this fact, claiming that he would do it the same way as other video podcasters. He did do some things in a similar manner but overall he demonstrated creativity. By using cutaway shots and gags he still avoided a static shot of someone talking and even makes his audience laugh. The way he did this was by demonstrating a mallet and a sensor and how you can smash your computer’s screen virtually.
It’s great to watch these podcasts because they are well shot and thought out.
There are a number of podcasts that I find are lacking in quality. They re shot in high definition but the person is in a studio. In other cases, they perform interviews but use no cut away shots to illustrate the person’s character and profession and as a result, the interview is very hard to watch.
We’ve got great technology at our fingerprints. Almost any computer can now be used for editing and almost every household has at least one video taking device. Everyone has watched hours of television yet people have not learned how to produce videos to the standard that is required to make it entertaining. There is one advantage to today’s media landscape.
Those who are good video producers and content creators will attract a wider audience and as a result, may be able to sustain what they are doing and expand on their initial idea. Quite a few people have made their mark and are now living comfortably thanks to the ideas they have brought to fruition and shared.
A Climbing two year old is ordinary. They try to climb on to chairs, they climb to stand up. They climb up the stairs and the swings. What is less ordinary is for a two year old to rock climb like a grown up. As I watch the video below what inspires me the most is to see such a young human climb like a grown up. She learned by watching others and by being given the opportunity to practice at home and in climbing gyms.
This video makes me happy because it is nice to see such a young person learn to climb. If I had been given the support and opportunity, and if the sport had been more evolved, then I too would have started climbing at a young age. I used to climb trees, climb on to garage roofs and occasionally climb rocks from which I could eventually get down. I had to wait until I was more than 20 years old before I could climb my first “dalle”. This child was given access to that world from a very young age. Her first memory will surely be of climbing.
To make this story news worthy they had to add conflict of course. They had to speak about how some people who watch this think that it is dangerous to allow a child to climb. As the mother said “When she climbs in the gym we are watching her and she has 19 inch thick matts to fall on. The playground and the street are more dangerous”. They go on to say that she face planted on a street. Every single child does that. That’s the beauty of being a child. You’re bound to fall, cry, be picked up by your parents, and then a few minutes later start playing again. Climbing when you’re with the right people is no different. When and if I have children I will teach them about snowboarding and rock climbing and snorkelling. I want to pass on my passions. I want them to be the next generation of sports enthusiasts.
Over the last two days, I have been playing with Infomaniak K Drive, Swisscom MyCloud, Apple iCloud and Google Drive. I settled for Swisscom Mycloud because backing up pictures is free with my current contract and it’s cheaper than two terabytes with Apple iCloud. It’s free.
Infomaniak K drive is interesting because you can back up images automatically but when you have over ten thousand images on your phone like I do it cannot work through the backlog without timing out. The only way for me to update would be to keep the app alive for several hours as it uploads images and videos.
Swisscom Mycloud has the same issue but I invested yesterday getting all the images to upload from my phone. With patience, I might be able to upload all the videos but this may take several weeks. Both services have the flaw that when the app goes to sleep they stop uploading, and as video files are large it takes more time to determine which files still need to upload than to start uploading again.
Flickr also has this issue but as Flickr raises their yearly fees every year, and makes downloading files a messy and painful experience I am happy to find alternatives.
Both iCloud and Google Photos do not have this issue either because I’ve been synching as I go along or because they have the right privileges to work through the backlog.
Infomaniak K Drive is around 65 CHF per year, Google Drive and iCloud are around 100 to 120 CHF per year.
With Swisscom Mycloud I have “free” unlimited storage for photos and videos as well as 250 gigabytes for online backup of other files. I can then look at these photos via Swisscom TV, not that I do.
Swisscom Mycloud could be made more interesting by adding duplicate detection as well as the ability to upload from two or three devices at once.
Features I would like
Duplicate detection, so that I could upload images from several sources at once
Multidevice support, so that I can upload from the desktop, the phone, and other devices.
Background uploading, when on WiFi. Video files are heavy and the app times out on iOS devices before the upload is complete.
Select by day, because pictures from one day may be of a specific event. When you have more than five images selecting images individually takes too much time.
360 image and video support. Content on my phone is of spherical images and videos
Features I like
Placing images on a map. It’s fun to look for images by location. As you zoom in you can see everywhere you’ve taken pictures. This uses Exif data rather than location information based on where your phone has been, as with Google Maps.
Unlimited free storage of images and video. Since mobile phones aggregate pictures and videos from 360 devices, cameras, and other gadgets it’s nice to have as much data as we need for the storage of these images. It gives us an offsite backup in case we lose or break our phones.
It’s fast. Uploading new images is fast. Within seconds of taking a picture, it is backed up. Accessing images is also fast.
Smooth Integration With Swisscom TV. As soon as images are uploaded to Mycloud they can be viewed via Swisscom TV on the screen of your choice. This is interesting for videos and images that are worth seeing on a big screen.
Easy sharing of images and image folders. I like how easy it is to share images and folders and to allow other people to add images. What I would like to see on top of this is the ability to allow specific people to see the content. It would be nice to restrict access to chosen phone numbers, e-mail addresses and more. I would also like to password protect folders as I am not comfortable sharing certain images openly.
Select All and download, Should you desire to download all images at once this is possible. Select one image, then choose “select all”, press “download” and theoretically, you will be able to download all images at once. I say theoretically because I selected over 10,000 files which included videos and photographs. Google Drive is limited to 500 images per zip file and when I tried downloading from Flickr I found the process clunky and messy. Flickr strips all EXIF data so you’re left with a mess of images. (A media asset manager’s nightmare because of the volume of work, but a dream, because of the hours of work) 😉
Why The Interest?
iPhones, iPads and Android devices now have 120 or more gigabytes of storage each and with this amount of data, it is easy to reach the 200-gigabyte wall beyond which you pay ten CHF per month for storage. A “free” option like Swisscom MyCloud Standard is interesting for those on the right contracts because it’s free. This means that no matter how much storage their phone has their images are backed up. It also means that as time advances and they gather more and more images it can expand.
Apple and iPhoto want you to believe that they are the best integrated, slickest option. When you’re in a situation like this they say “You have 30 days to download your photos in the photo app”. There is no “select all and download” option. There also seems to be a limit of how much bandwidth you can use in a single day.
And Finally
The reason for which MyCloud, Google Photos, and other solutions are so interesting is that we have moved to a laptop-based workflow and as a result, the hard drive on our laptop is as big as the one on our phone so backing images up locally requires an external hard drive.
I had Firewire 400, 800 USB 2, 3 and USB C drives. Apple loves to de-standardise ports and so hard drives that were once convenient to use become problematic. With increasing bandwidth and online storage solutions we can stop worrying about external hard drives on a daily basis and use them when we need to “desaturate our drives”. I apologise for the diving term.
With online storage, we’re backing up when we’re hiking, cycling, climbing, doing via Ferrata, traveling and more. We don’t need to worry about our box of cables, adaptors, or which drive what material is stored. As a media asset manager, I can help you consolidate your media assets into a single location, along with backup solutions.
I hope that this blog post helps you understand this topic and provides you with solutions.
I like that I can watch days of television series and that I can’t spend 90 minutes watching films. Television series are about people, places and situations and the characters are realistic. In contrast films are superficial, shallow and too full of special effects for a story to be told. The cinema loses out because it is too superficial, too pretentious without offering something contrast at the end of the donated time.
We do donate time to the media we appreciate and gain from.
Video is one of those mediums that is great because it captures several moments and amalgamates them into a sequence. Those moments are with the voices and sounds, the excitement, and more. It’s too much information for most and that’s why video is a hard medium to use at parties.
The more impersonal a video the better it works, within the realms of you being at the event with your friends.
In contrast, photography is far better accepted. People have been using for photographs since before they comprehended what that box with a big piece of glass actually does. As a result, they were desensitized to being photographed. There are no objections and by the time they realize you’ve taken their picture objection is futile.
With video, you point the camera and watch from a distance. It’s not because you’re a stalker or a voyeur but rather because that is the nature of cinéma verité – Kino Glaz.
How can someone be comfortable when they know that what you’re doing is getting a precise recording of both their conversation and expressions. It makes them uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable.
That’s why the camera points up as soon as people realise they are being filmed. it’s my signal that I know that they don’t want to be filmed anymore and I move on. Over time people are desensitised to this “invasion” of privacy and there are occasional video lovers. Theatrical people are one example.
During the last two years of High school every night, I would go down and shoot their theatre performances and they’d buy the tape from me. of course, I almost got in trouble with their lecturer but I was not breaching copyright. I was providing them with a visual record of their activities.
Performers also enjoy having copies of their work. Ingyama a few years ago, Anarachic hand and of course last year’s first-year music students. It’s a way for them to show the world what they have produced. Sometimes it’s not good so they prefer to forget about it but when it’s good they’re happy and post it on their websites, whether myspace or specific domain names.
The World Wide Web and the network of networks are not ready for the proper sharing of video at the moment. It’s fine for three or four-minute segments but any longer and you’ll find your audience disappearing. That’s because internet service providers aren’t always giving their customers enough bandwidth. In other cases, it’s just that it’s boring.
The Silent Disco was really well received within a small community in part because it’s anonymous but also because it’s made up of good memories for them. it’s good memories for me too by the way.
My collection of undercroft pictures ended in October and I want it to continue. we’re in March now.
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