Yammer in Projects

January 13th, 2012

Posted in Lifehacking, Projectmanagement, Uncategorized • 1 Comment
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I’ve recently started a project where the teammembers are spread across two different locations and within the locations over multiple floors and rooms. The activities we have to perform can be done mostly by individuals but other members depend on the output of others. So it is essential that the teammembers are aware of the activities of other teammembers and their status.

To discuss all important actions, risks and issues I scheduled a weekly projectmeeting where most teammembers attend in person and some by phone. Because we are spread across the two locations it always takes more time for some of us to attend physically. Another downside of us not sitting near eachother is that we don’t meet at the coffee machine to have informal chats about what we are doing and also formal meetings take a little more effort.

To improve the team collaboration I’ve setup a Yammer network. You can think of Yammer as facebook for businesses. I use a very limited set of functionality of Yammer, just the status updates which can be placed in the Yammer feed of ‘our network with Yammer’. I’ve asked all teammembers to regularly post a status update and check our feed daily. Of course I could have asked all members to send me a status update by email daily which I can then collect and spread within the projectteam. The latter would cost me time and I would delay the information flow. The benefit of using Yammer is that members can reply on the status updates of others.

If it turns out that my teammembers will not use Yammer actively I still have the alternative to organize one or two additional status meetings so people can meet and discuss their ‘things’. Instead of a couple of status messages which takes 15 seconds to write, they will be in a meetingroom for a hour.

I believe Yammer is a usefull addition to my projectmanagement tools to keep the team informed and in contact.

 

 

 
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EYE-FI X2 PRO, RAW files (NEF) & iPad

December 15th, 2011

Posted in Photography and Movie, Tech, Uncategorized • No Comments
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A couple of weeks ago I’ve been on a short holiday and that was a great moment to use my iPad and Eye-Fi WiFi SDCard for real. I did not bring my laptop so I had to rely on my iPad for transfering photos. It all worked out quit well and raised some questions too.

The setup was my iPad 2 with Eye-Fi app installed. My Nikon D90 was equipped with the Eye-Fi X2 Pro 8Gb memory card. A direct WiFi connection between iPad and Eye-Fi card was setup. Additionally, at the holiday location a public hotspot was available to use internet on the iPad.
I’ve set the camera to store both a basic JPG + RAW file. The Eye-Fi card was setup to transfer both file type to the iPad.

So I started taking holiday pictures. The first thing I noticed is that the Nikon RAW files (*.NEF) are transferred to the iPad as *.TIF files and within the iPad only a minor thumbnail is shown of this type of files. On the other hand, the JPG files were transfered too and shown correctly.

  • Is the TIFF file that is stored on the iPad actually a NEF file (Nikon RAW)?
Back home I’ve examined the TIF files and it turned out that they are the original NEF files. I believe they are renamed to TIF by one of the components so they are accepted by the iPad and more important, by Apple iCloud! So after transfering them to your PC, just rename them to NEF again.
Yes, the JPG and the TIF files are synced by iCloud. So it turned out that once my iPad was connected to the WiFi hotspot it began to sync the JPG and TIF files to iCloud. After a little while they showed on my iPhone too and back home, they synced perfectly to my PC! On the PC I could easily rename the TIF files to NEF again and import the files into Lightroom for further processing.
  • Can I transfer those files easily using an USB cable from iPad to PC?
Yes, connect the iPad to the PC and a removable drive is shown. Just copy the photo files you need. It’s good to know this option, but it might be obsolete because photos are synced using Apple iCloud!
iCloud only syncs the last 1000 photos, so if you take more than 1000 photos before saving them from the iCloud you might need the USB cable. (remember shooting JPG and RAW makes only 500 unique images sync because you have 2 files of a photo).
  • Can I configure the file type to be transferred (JPG and/or RAW) while I’m out in the field?

Actually this took a while to figure out and I’m not completely done with it. My current answer is:
Do it before you go out in the field. Connect both iPad and Eye-Fi card to a wireless network (I have not yet tested direct mode!)  and take a picture (to make the Eye-Fi really wakeup).  Then on your iPad in the Eye-Fi APP turn on or off the transfer of Photos (JPG), Video and/or RAW Files. Wait a couple of seconds and turn camera off and on so the Eye-Fi card reads its settings  from somewhere. Take a picture and test if it does what you want.

I still have to test this with Direct Mode. I will update this post with the results.

Conclusion:

Using the Eye-Fi card is great. Results of a shoot are directly visible on the iPad and files are stored (backup) on the iPad. The combination of the Eye-Fi with Apple iCloud is the best!  Back home, turn on the PC wait a while and all files are there. No cables necessary.

Only downside: You can’t see the difference between the JPG and RAW file on the iPad so you always have to guess when you open a file…. Does it open the high res JPG or the tiny RAW thumbnail. The fact that NEF files are renamed to TIF is not a big deal but when you think about it, it’s weird that it is necessary.

The Eye-Fi card can transfer images to online services like Flickr too. I have no need for that so I did not test it. 

 

 
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Why replacing your ‘good old’ printer might be a good idea

October 12th, 2011

Posted in Lifehacking, Tech, Uncategorized • No Comments
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Last week I took some photos of our daughter and of course there were some nice ones between the bad ones ;-) . When I want many photos printed I use an online photo service like foto.com where a photo costs nearly nothing. It only takes some time before the photos are printed and send by mail.

We wanted one photo printed at that moment so I started my big and huge HP Business Inkjet 2600 and printed a photo. As I had experienced before, the colors were not accurate and we were disappointed by the results (again). The HP is great for printing A3 project plans and other drawings but not for photo printing because of lack of decent color management. Next I used my older HP Color Laserjet 2550 to print the photo. Colors matched much better but resolution was average. This added to the fact that I was still using a very old scanner with document feeder on a USB 1 connection (sooo Slooow) and my wish for a faster duplex scanner, the search for a new multifunctional started (and the other printers were placed on ‘Marktplaats’ the Dutch e-bay).

After some searching I found the Canon Pixma MX885 with (Photo)printing, Scanning, Copy and Fax features and best of all, it has a duplex automatic document feeder for the scanner. Otherwise I might have gone for a little cheaper model or maybe an Epson. Last night I installed the MX885 and printed a photo on special Canon photopaper and I was amazed by the quality. The quality was at least the same or maybe even better than the photos I ordered online.

This post might sound like an advertisment for Canon but that is not my goal. What I want to state here is that even if you have some hardware that was great some years ago like the HP Business Inkjet 2600 was in 2004/2005 and it still works like a charm and is for heavy use, it might be wise to just look around to see what is offered today in 2011 and decide if you want to invest some money in a new device.
I think it is true: ‘You don’t know what you are missing if you haven’t seen it before’.

Another one is to think again before you are buying for 200 euro’s on cartridges and printheads instead of buying a new device. This Canon costed me less !!

 

 
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Eye-Fi Pro X2 – Transfer images wireless to iPad

October 5th, 2011

Posted in Computer How-To, iPad, Photography and Movie, Tech, Uncategorized • No Comments
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Last week I stumbled upon the following video from F-Stoppers about transfering images from your camera to the iPad directly using an Eye-Fi SD card with Wifi.

I’ve noticed the Eye-Fi cards before, but I did not care about wireless transfering the images to my computer. It takes little effort to switch the SDcard from the camera to my computers cardreader and import the photos.
The video above showed a (for me) much more useful feature which is to see the photo taken within 3 seconds on my iPad. This is way better than looking on the camera LCD.

There is an option to directly connect your iPad to the Eye-Fi card which will only work when you are not within reach of a knownWifi network. The Eye-Fi site is not really clear about what happens when you ARE in reach of a known and configured Wifi network (i.e. your own home wireless network). It both works like you expect. Take a photo, wait a couple of seconds and it is shown on the iPad. The direct connection is a little faster then the indirect connection (i.e. when your iPad and Eye-Fi card are connected to a know Wifi network). The benefit of the indirect connection is that you iPad usually already has connection with the network and you have internet access available too.

I don’t use the other functionality of the Eye-Fi card because I have no need for it (yet). I usually first post process my images before posting it to sites like Flickr, so no need to upload them directly from my camera.

 
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