Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

Squirrel and apple core at Glacier Point

Yosemite, California
September 2007

I'm trying out the beta of the latest version of the Flickr Uploadr, and I'm already tempted to say: "Great job, chaps". Sure, it's beta code, and there are still known bugs, but it seems to fix most of my issues with the Uploadr.

This is a complete rewrite of the old Uploadr, using a completely different set of technologies. The biggest visible change is a cross-platform UI built using Mozilla's Xulrunner. The result is an application that looks very similar to the site's recently updated web-based uploading tool, but with many more features.

My favourite feature so far has to be batch tagging, the ability to select a group of images, and quickly apply the same tags, descriptions, and titles (as well as other basic image settings). That's the big win for me - it makes uploading a day's images a lot easier, and reduces the time taken tagging. Group management has been improved too, and if an upload fails, tags and targeted groups are saved for the next attempt.

The result is a big improvement in work flow. I can get a batch of images tagged and uploaded in a few minutes, when using a mix of the old Uploadr and the web UI took at least three times as long...

Recommended.

Black and white shot of a jet in a clear blue sky over Yosemite.

It just seemed the right thing to do...

Yosemite, California
September 2007

I recommend clicking to see the larger versions of this - it's a 6 image stitch of the view over Lake Tenaya in the Yosemite National Park, on a beautiful early autumn evening...

Yosemite, California
September 2007

I'm quite impressed with the stitching tool in Windows Live Photo Gallery - it makes producing this type of image a matter of a few clicks, and as it uses a graph cut algorithm, produces a very smoothly blended panorama with no need for intervention...