Capitalogix

Photology - A New Way To Find What You're Looking For

Overwhelmed by too many photos?  Too busy to sort and tag them?  Try this.

Photology helps you navigate the flood of digital photos on your computer by finding photos using simple and intuitive filters like faces, sky, color, location, and time of day ... automatically.

Can't find the photo of you in that pink silk jacket from the 4th of July party on the beach a few years ago? No problem, even with seemingly endless folders of random photos.  You know the expression, "finding a needle in a haystack," right? Thanks to Photology, haystacks of photos will get a lot smaller, making it much easier to find the "needle" you're looking for – even if that needle is an a pink jacket.

How do you do it?  Well, like this.

First stop questioning why you own a pink silk jacket.  Then start remembering what you can.  It was a few years ago (probably 2006).  The photo was of faces.  It was outside.  You were wearing pink.  And It was sunset. 

You can also combine, mix, and match any or all of these tidbits from your memory to find your photo.  It is fast, fun, and very easy to use.

Try it yourself with this online demo.  After the demo launches, try the filter options on the left.

I paid this software - and it was worth it.  Now it is free; an even better value proposition.  I'm still going to use Photoshop Elements for the heavier lifting ... Still, Photology has its place in the toolbox.

So click here to download the software.

Happy Holiday Season Wishes

I put together a short photo album and holiday card.  I hope you'll click this to watch.

Make a Smilebox photobook

Best wishes for a happy holiday season and a terrific 2009.

This Holiday Season ... Beware of the Doghouse

A funny reminder of what not to do this holiday season.

When I asked what she wanted for a holiday present, my wife asked me to buy her an Apron.  Really.  She also wants a saw to cut wood, and a steam cleaner for the carpets.

I might have been born at night. But it wasn't last night.

Yes my wife claims to want certain things ... But I've been trained better than to buy them as gifts.  I give them to her the day before ... "just because". 

Here's why.

Direct link to YouTube video.  Also, here is their website.

Extra: Click Here for "Things You Don't Say to Your Wife" video.

Can A Beautiful Mind Create a Beautiful Face?

A team of scientists recently developed software that, using a carefully tested and proven understanding of facial proportion, greatly improves the attractiveness of your face without damaging your defining features or whether people will recognize that the picture is of you.

Ever seen a picture of yourself that was a little too good? You’re still you, just a tiny bit better than the real-life you. That’s what this software supposedly does. 

The inventor says this technology could become a product or web service where people upload their photographs and have them enhanced or beautified by the software. 

So, if there was an “optimize portrait” button on Facebook, would a lot of people use it? Probably.

Here is a short video.

Here is a direct link to the video.

Related Articles:

• Examples of Digital Beautification.
• Reuters Article.
• Is Face Improvement Ethical?
• Researchers Promise to Make a More Attractive You.

"Stand By Me" Music Video from the Playing for Change: Peace Through Music Project

I saw this and thought it was worth sharing.  It is a video of different musicians, around the globe, combining their talents to create a worthwhile version of of the classic "Stand By Me". 

Here is the direct link to the video.

"Playing for Change: Peace Through Music" isn't really a documentary as much as a global concert film, recorded on the streets of New Orleans, Barcelona, South Africa, Tibet and elsewhere.  The filmmakers (Mark Johnson and Jonathan Walls) traveled across the globe, finding musicians to record versions of "Stand By Me" and Bob Marley's "One World" by themselves, and without any of the individual musicians ever having met each other. The finished project combines these performances to create an a "music video" of these artists playing together on these inspirational songs, as well as playing their own music.

The purpose of the project is to help impoverished people in the areas visited, and to show how music brings people together regardless of their cultural differences.  Find out more at Playing For Change.

Turn Talking Into Typing, Automatically

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 gets it right.  Finally speech recognition that is surprisingly accurate, even with little or no training.  Here is a 20-second video of me talking - and it typing.

I wrote about using dictation before.  This is different, because it gets smarter as you use it. There are easy ways to edit results, and the program learns from each correction.

For me, I know it works because I find myself using it to create drafts of many things.  And if it wasn't easier and more convenient than typing ... I wouldn't use it.  Instead, I often wait to create the draft at the computer with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.  The writing ends-up sounding more natural if the first draft was spoken.

This program has matured nicely.  Earlier versions were temperamental and took a long time to train.  This one worked out-of-the-box.  I use it with a simple usb microphone (not even the noise-canceling headset they include). It also works with my handheld Olympus voice recorder.

Give it a try.

"Now" Widget

I saw this and spent some time watching the items change. 

It's got lots of tickers and content that change as you watch.  You just weren't aware that you would enjoy knowing how many emails are being sent or spam emails being received.  There are also recent news updates from The New York Times, CNN, Newsvine, top Google searches of the day, and lots more.

Here are some tidbits from the background audio patter.

• "Welcome to Now," the computer says.
• "How about a big bowl of Now?"
• "Please keep your hands inside the moment."
• "Your hair has grown 5 millionths of centimeter in the last second."
• "It is Now in all timezones."

Very clever and well-done.

Below is a limited version.  The link to the complete version is below. 

Click to play with the full widget.  Here is a screenshot of it - and, yes, that is me in the middle.

Seemingly Endless Elections

The election is finally over.

Did you take the Red Pill or the Blue Pill?  No, not that blue pill.

Regardless, it seemed to take forever.  Didn't it?

Here is a political cartoon that sums it up well.

from Boston Globe.

Also, here is a skit from Saturday Night Live.  This provides an interesting commentary on how elections are changing.  John McCain appears live, the weekend before election day, and participates in what I took to be gallows humor.  Was it a Maverick move?

Here is a link to a description of the jokes. (CSMonitor Blog)

Since I indulging in a little election humor, here is one more that made me smile.

from USAToday

Staying Informed and Up-To-Date

 Last week I went to visit my son, Ben, at a Duke University parents weekend. This April, I will return for my 25th reunion. A lot has changed since I was in college.

One of the biggest changes I noticed was how much information the Internet puts at each person's fingertips, regardless of where they are on campus. Doing research no longer means a trip to the library. And books, magazines or newspapers are a distant second-place to online research and news items.

Staying informed is a big part of my business as well. I used to receive several newspapers daily; and my morning routine started by scanning them cover-to-cover and clipping items that might be of interest to me are someone I knew. I rarely read a newspaper anymore, except when I'm on airplanes.

Now, my daily routine uses news-feed readers and web sites to access a wide variety online content. This is a great way to sort, sift, filter, and act on relevant information.

So, this week, I want to share some of the news sites that I find useful.

News Aggregators:

These are sites that combine news from many sources and create an updated mash up of information it gives me a quick view into what's happening each day.

The Basics: There are no surprises here; still Google News and Yahoo! News are so good that I have to list them anyway.

Next Generation: Some of the newer aggregation sites are quite clever.  Here are a few that I really enjoy:

• NewsCred: Easily personalized to pick sources and rank by credibility.
• Topix: Comprehensive and well categorized. Has a nice look and feel. Uses RSS well.
• Newser: Nice summaries and related links. Uses pictures well, too.
• Daylife: an example of an intelligent content service platform (read: little human editing).
• Newsvine: well done; with social-sourced news flagging.
• Regator: Specialty is organizing and finding blog posts.
• Slate: A little different than the others; more editorial content.

Slate has a number of interesting features.  Today's Papers summarizes current newspaper coverage.  Another summarizes current magazine stories.  And a third, called Today's Business Press, does just what you'd expect. 

All three are quick to read and well done.

Also worth checking: Digg, Technorati, and Techmeme.

Tune-Up Your iTunes Music Collection, Automatically

For years I took my music collection for granted. I ripped many of my old CDs to disk, and simply allowed the computer to save the information anyway it chose to. Over time, it became clear that there were mistakes, missing information and, in general ... a mess.

After several limited attempts to clean my collection manually, I started looking for a better way. I certainly found something that worked for me. It's called Tune-Up.

Tune-up is a software add-on designed to clean your iTunes music collection. For me, that means fixing and standardizing the artist, album, song titles, and other data that helps me find the right music for my mood. I also appreciate how well it finds and updates cover art for songs and albums.

Tune-Up accomplishes a lot of its magic by connecting to various data services (like Gracenote's MusicID).  While Tune-Up does most of the heavy lifting, I appreciate that it allows me to have the final say. It's very easy to accept its suggestions; yet, I still have the ability to ignore or override it based on how I want my music categorized.

There's also feature that recognizes the song you're playing and displays other relevant information, like related concert dates in your area, links to videos by the artist, and recommendations about other songs or albums you might like.

Bottom line:  This tool saved me a lot of time and works better than the other tools I've tried.

If you don't use iTunes, or just want to check-out another good alternative, you can also look at MediaMonkey. And if you want a clean your music collection by finding duplicate tracks or to clean-out entries where you deleted or moved the actual music file, I recommend looking at Marklesoft's Dupe Eliminator.