Review on Jackenhack

Pythonista Review - Programming iOS with Python for iPad iPhone

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Pythonista, finally programming workflow automation for iOS?

I’m doing most of my writing on my iPad or occasionally on my iPhone, and I write everything in Markdown. There are some great scripts in my current favorite language Python out there for doing Markdown conversions, image manipulations, etc., but unfortunately, Apple rules regarding programming apps on iOS devices are pretty stringent. But an app for programming Python on iOS called Pythonista have some smart ways of getting around some of Apple’s restrictions. And one of the wonderful things you can do is home screen shortcuts, making your scripts available directly from the home screen of your iOS device. All you have to do to create a Pythonista home screen shortcut is to go to a web page and enter the script name and optional arguments. After that, add the page home-screen with Safari’s bookmarks button. Another way of starting your scripts is directly as bookmarks in Safari or another web browser. I found the app from this article about making life easier by scripting with Pythonista, a great read of all the functions available in the app.

Because they added a Python library for managing the clipboard, you can copy pictures or text to it, then start your script that reads from the clipboard and then put the new modified text/picture back to the clipboard, ready for pasting into any app. Very handy!

GeoTagr - my iPhone-iPad GPS DSLR Geotagger of choice

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

GeoTagr

To be able to tag your DSLR pictures with GPS information is both fun and practical. But to date, most DSLR cameras don’t have GPS built-in or is an expensive hardware add-on option. That includes the Wi-Fi iPad you might own. The last couple of years I’ve used a lot of different solutions to track GPS data while I’m out taking photographs. My first way was to use a Garmin GPS unit and then transfer the information to my Mac, but now, with mobile phones like iPhone and Android, there’s no reason to tug along yet another device.

My weapon of choice now is an app for iPhone and iPad called GeoTagr, a universal app for logging GPS tracks while you photograph, and then tag images with location data. For me, the pictures I want to tag are the RAW images that I import into Adobe Lightroom 4. And with this app, it’s straightforward to accomplish.

1Password Secures computer passwords on the web

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Instead of having one favorite password that you use on every account you create on the web,making it very easy for someone that gets ahold of it to wreak havoc of you life. Wouldn’t it be great if you had different, impossible to guess passwords on each site? But you only had on password to remember? Well, 1Password can help you both generate random passwords and to help you log in automatically to those sites using just one master password.

Asus PA246Q ProArt Professional monitor review

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Asus PA246Q ProArt Professional monitor – Made for photographers

As a photographer you need to be able to really get the most out of your images, you need a color accurate monitor. You usually have to pay a lot of money to get a good monitor that’s factory calibrated and uses a IPS panel, a panel type that is better at showing correct colors than the more common (and cheaper) TN panels. But there are some reasonably priced monitors. One of them is the Asus PA246Q ProArt monitor. It’s factory calibrated and even ships with a printout of the calibration result from the factory. You can set the monitor to sRGB or Adobe RGB 1998 color space directly on the front controls of the monitor. It’s also has fairly high resolution with 24" size 1920x1200 pixels.