It ticked over earlier this week but I finally got over 1 million views on Flickr.
I’ve been on Flickr for years and still have my grandfathered in pro account but sometimes I wonder why I don’t just switch to the free offering. I’ve also looked at other sites like 500px as Flickr has stuttered again recently and just looks to be in the wrong hands at Yahoo.
I don’t even know if thats a little or a lot of views but every so often I get a little thrill when a photo I’ve taken is being used elsewhere on the internet.
As for most viewed photo….it’s not even a photo!
Over 10 years ago I put up this image of my favourite 25 games. Since then it’s had over 100,000 views – not too shabby. Frustratingly the old Flickr notes feature meany I’d overplayed the image with notes about each of the games but that feature is no longer supported.
Thats the niggle with Flickr. It feels like they are doing enough to keep the service going but Google Photo’s and to a lesser extent Photos on Apple are showing the way.
So while a milestone for me has been reached this could be the year of the big photo migration. Come on Yahoo, show Flickr a bit of love.
One of my favourite app’s across Mac and iOS got a really nice update this week. Day One is a journaling app that I’ve used for the last few years and version 2 brings quite the upgrade.
On first launch on either platform you’ll notice that you can no longer sync using iCloud or Dropbox. Instead Day One uses it’s own sync platform. Import your entries from Day One, setup an account and then sync. I found the process to be fast considering I’ve over 800 entries within my current journal.
The previous version had support for only one journal and relied on tags to separate out entries. I had tags for work, movies and runs. Version 2 still supports tags but now supports up to ten journals which can be individually coloured so I’ve setup individual journals and it makes for a much better experience.
Journal entries haven’t seen much change but each entry can now have up to 10 photo’s which is Day One’s 2 ‘finally’ feature.
These are paid updates and both versions are available for 50% off for one week only. iOS is fairly priced but Mac feels a bit steep for relatively little change – £14.99 rising to £29.99 in a weeks time. Future upgrades are promised though.
Day One 2 is an admittedly pricey app but one I can’t do without. It’s polished and if you value journalling of any kind it’s well worth a look.
Without Fear or Favour – The Herald but more importantly Rangers come out of this looking awful. Rangers are a disgrace. Run by crooks for years and with a support that is decades out of touch with modern society. Officially disowned.
The 2015 Panic Report – Great write up on 2015 form Panic but his is sobering – More and more I’m beginning to think we simply made the wrong type of apps for iOS — we made professional tools that aren’t really “in demand” on that platform — and that price isn’t our problem, but interest is.
Hello 2016. Work begins for many tomorrow, or Tuesday for those in Scotland (mostly), and I’m looking forward to it. The breaks been long and health has been a bit poor again but the last few days have been much better. No resolutions but some goals and changes that I plan to make – all good 🙂 Anyway, on with the first link dump of the year.
A couple of months back I bought a Sphero BB-8. When I saw the video of it I just couldn’t resist…despite it being £130. Ouch.
When I got it the first thing that struck me was it was much smaller than I had thought – the size of a small orange…or a large tangerine. Like most things nowadays I had to do a firmware update on first use which took a couple of minutes (unlike most games which need a download or two to get working….Forza 6 and it’s 60 GB download on Boxing Day is the worst yet) but once that was done I was good to go.
The app allows you to steer BB-8 and it was much more controllable than I thought it would be. It was easy to steer around but also easy to steer into walls 🙂 When you do collide with something BB-8 would glow red, spin a bit and make a groaning droid noise. What’s a shame is that the video makes it look like the noise comes from BB-8 itself but they are all generated from the iOS app. You can get BB-8 to do pre-programmed paths – in a circle, square, spin, panic and run etc. The app is also voice activated so you can say “BB-8” and the app will then listen to your voice commands like “Go Explore”, “Go To Sleep” or “It’s a Trap” which is my favourite.
There is a message mode which lets you see holograms but this are displayed on the phone and you can record your own but this is a bit weak. You can also send BB-8 on patrol and he will merrily wander around your home or office while you work away. Neat. This is all done over bluetooth and the range is pretty impressive. Battery life is around an hour for three hours of charging which is also pretty good as you tend to get a bit bored with it before the battery ever runs down.
While there have been frequent app and firmware updates to add features I’m sure that for Star Wars Episode VIII we’ll see a new version which will have better hardware and maybe feature things like in built sound and a camera. Something to make it more feature rich than the current version.
Then I saw this tweet a couple of days ago:
If you just got a Sphero BB-8, roll over to the App store and grab the Tickle app – you can program him! So cool… https://t.co/VDSybIHvVe
Tickle is an app for iOS that allows you to easily build programs for a variety of smart devices. To program BB-8 you select a template, connect to it from Tickle and then you can drag and drop a variety of commands to give you a lot more control over BB-8 than the official Sphero app.
You can set the colour of BB-8 to almost anything, set it on a variety of paths and loops but also detect events. So if BB-8 collides you can make it shake, change colour, reverse – whatever you want. You can also detect events from the iOS device so depending on how it is tilted or if it’s shaken you can make BB-8 do different things. This is a great extension of what the BB-8 device can do and it’s opened up another avenue that I hadn’t considered.
Digging deeper I found this post on medium – Sphero BB8 robot toy — The Missing Manual. Really useful advice for any current or prospective BB-8 owner with links to a couple of Javascript libraries that allow you to hack BB-8 even more.
Overall I like the Sphero BB-8 but it’s hard to recommend at the price given what it can do although with the Tickle app it’s clear there’s a lot more to this droid than meets the eye and I’m pleased I picked one up.
