Flickr Groopy

The Groupie Look, originally uploaded by Me (?).

I have released the first cut of my pet mini-project that I have called Flickr Groopy.

Flickr Groopy exists because of a set of Flickr Groups called Views 25 through to Views 25000. The idea is that once one of your photos reaches 25 views you can add it into the Views 25 group. As soon as your photo reaches 50 views you remove it from the Views 25 group and add it into the Views 50 group and so on.

The group rules state that a single photo should only ever be in one Views nn group at a time. The Flickr GUI is a bit clunky for swapping pictures between groups quickly so I decided to learn PHP, CSS and the Flickr API to create a tool for viewing your photos, highlighting the photos that are eligible for promotion into the next group and providing a one click update of the groups that the photo is in.

The result was Flickr Groopy:

Flickr Groopy, originally uploaded by Me (?).

How it works:
Based on a search string the code uses the flickr.photos.search API call to get a list of the user's photos that match the search criteria.

For each photo in the response:

• Call flickr.photos.getInfo to get the number of views
• Call flickr.photos.getAllContexts to get the groups the photo is in
• Find out if the photo is already in a Views nn group
• Using the number of views and group list work out if the photo is in the correct group
• If the photo could be added to a Views nn group then highlight the photo
  

If the user clicks on a highlighted photo that kicks off an Ajax call to a PHP script to switch the photo into the correct group.

It is all implemented with HTML DIV elements and some CSS fun powered by PHP and phpFlickr behind the scenes.


Current features:

• Text search for a user's photos
• Grid display (restricted to 16 pics for performance) of the output
• Colour coded highlighting of pictures eligible for moving groups
• One click group update for eligible pictures

Planned features:

• Search for user's photos already in a Views group
• Tag cloud to inspire searches
• Search by Flickr set
• Notification of photos existing in more than one group with one click fix
• Support for the sister Faves set of groups
  

Known problems with the current version:

• Internet Explorer does not render CSS the same as Firefox and Safari so I need to work out how to get the CSS to look the same on all three browsers
• The drawing is quite slow - I have added some timing trace to the code and it shows that almost 0.6 seconds per picture is taken up with two Flickr API calls. There is not much I can do about this I am afraid. I am investigating whether I can make the calls in parallel to speed things up a bit but that involves Ajax threading and is a bit scary!
• The page should draw before it attempts to do the lengthy photo processing - working on a prototype Ajax version of the grid rendering
• There is a 1 second pause between clicking on an image and anything happening - also clicking on multiple pictures breaks the UI slightly as update responses get lost - need a wait icon and a way to disable additional clicks whilst a response is pending

Flickr Groopy is here: xrrr.co.uk/groopy

Driving in the US

Cat's Eye, originally uploaded by xrrr.

I suppose spending 99.99999% of my driving life driving in Europe I have been spoilt. Here are some reasons why driving in the US sucks for me:

• No cat's eyes - I have just driven 30 mins from Chappaqua, NY to White Plains, NY in the dark in the pouring rain and had absolutely no idea where the road was going 50% of the time. No wonder the speed limit is 55mph you would be mad to do more than that in this weather!
  
• Bumpy road surfaces - you think Surrey's roads are bad, just travel up Highway 22 near Armonk, NY it is like it is peppered with mole hills. With nearly 4,000,000 miles of road in the US it is no wonder it is hard to keep them up to scratch but I now know why US cars have got such soft suspension!
  
• Valet parking - I just tipped a guy $2 to fetch my car for me when it was parked outside the restaurant about 10 steps away from where I was standing - I had left my laptop and camera in the boot of the car and spent most of the night worrying about them because I had given the keys to some random chappie!
  
• American cars - the middle to lower range cars are basically shit compared to EU cars. Poor spec, poor styling and all with automatic gear boxes.
  

Maybe I am in a bad mood because of the rain!

Translation

Adapted, originally uploaded by Me (?).

Is it me or is auto-translation of Russian far far better than French, Italian, etc? We got teflon and WD-40 from the space race; is usable Russian computer translation a product of the Cold War?

This is what got me thinking:
Google translated iPhone blog
Original

The Beast 2.0

2008 BMW 330i M Sport Coupe, originally uploaded by Me (?).

For the past 18 months I have been 'almost' buying a new car. My E46 BMW 330i (a.k.a. "The Beast") was fantastic but I always intended it to be an interim car whilst I waited for the new shape Coupe M Sport model to come out. The sport model came out and I ummed and ahhed about changing for about 12 months and then eventually in March I ordered one.

After lots of phone calls and messing about with LeasePlan I eventually got a call 2 weeks ago from the dealer telling me the car would be delivered on the afternoon of Friday 18 April. w00t!
That was almost a month quicker than I had been led to believe what the lead time was. w00t!
That also presented a problem...

I live in a street with permit parking and we are limited to two permits per house. If I did not sell The Beast before I got my new car that would mean having three cars. And three cars would be a pain. Here starts the problem...

It turns out that 3 litre sports cars are not exactly hot sellers at the moment. I have come up with the following factors that made selling a problem:

• Global Credit Crunch - who wants to buy an expensive second hand car when the news is all doom and gloom about the economy
• Petrol Prices - with petrol at 111p a litre large engined cars are not popular
• Old shape - The Beast was the old E46 shape BMW and the new shape has been around for about 18 months meaning there are some new shape second handers for not much more than I was asking
• No Sat Nav - I rang around a number of garages to see if they wanted to buy it and all but 2 said they were not interested because the car did not have sat nav

So regardless of those factors I needed to sell in a hurry.

First step Autotrader. I spent £50 on an advert for the magazine and internet for three weeks of advertising. I put it on at £500 more than the Glass.co.uk guide price I had bought (£3.50). After a week I had had one phone call from a chap from Scotland who never called me back. A week later I dropped the price by £1000. Not a sniff of interest.

Next step eBay. I spent £15 on an advert for eBay. Took lots of new pictures and gave a very detailed summary of the car. I put a reserve on of £1000 less than the new lower Autotrader price. I had some minor interest but the car did not sell, it got within £400 of the reserve but none of the bidders I emailed got in touch.

Getting a bit worried now. Contingency plans involved leaving the old car at work so as to avoid parking permit problems but that was going to be a faff.

Next step second hand car dealers. I rang around and had a few low offers over the phone. Hampshire Sports and Prestige Cars offered me the same amount as the eBay reserve but wanted to see the car to discuss formal price. When I went over there the chap spotted I had two very worn tyres and was concerned about the proximity of a service. We agreed on a price and I sold. It was a bit lower than I was hoping but the hassle of selling was over and I was finally car-less two days before the new one.

Friday. Afternoon. Working from home. Waiting for the phone to ring to be told about delivery time. 13:00 get call from Darren the delivery driver. Darren says he does not think he will get up my street in his 65 foot long car transporter so can I meet him somewhere in an hour. Oh yes!

2008 BMW 330i M Sport Coupe, originally uploaded by Me (?).

I meet up with Darren and he hands over the car to me. Worryingly I did not have to show any ID but then I guess who else would be hanging around outside Vines Mini in Guildford waiting for a 65 foot car transporter.

2008 BMW 330i M Sport Coupe, originally uploaded by Me (?).

Got the car and drove home. Now I had been planning this day for a long time, the idea was to take the afternoon off work and go somewhere picturesque and take some photos of the new car. Problem was the weather was rubbish. I went for a drive but it ended up being school chucking out traffic and so I got hacked off being stuck in traffic so I went home.

BMW Remote Control, originally uploaded by Me (?).

Eventually the weather was dry this morning so Alison and I popped over to Farnborough to go somewhere I had scoped out already. We went to Farnborough Air Sciences Museum where they have a load of historic aircraft that fortunately you can park right next to. I parked up next to a Harrier jet and set up my tripod etc. Within a few minutes a chap comes out and politely asks me what I am doing. I apologised and assured him I was doing non-commercial photography and I am just an amateur with a new car that I want to take some interesting pictures of. I made a donation of £5 to cover the fact that we were not going into the museum but were still making use of the outdoor parts. The guy was very friendly and introduced himself as Brian.

2008 BMW 330i M Sport Coupe, originally uploaded by Me (?).

After a load of 'photofaffing' around the Harrier, Brian pops out and asks me if I want to take some pictures through the barriers and with a load of additional planes - i.e. special access. Of course I said yes and spent another 30 mins photofaffing around an ex-Red Arrows plane whilst Brian's colleague Malcolm supervised. Excellent stuff :-)

2008 BMW 330i M Sport Coupe, originally uploaded by Me (?).

So I have the car, it is filthy already from the rubbish weather but the car is FANTASTIC! Well worth the wait (and money!). I am looking forward to a driving holiday to Reims in May and then another driving holiday to the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales in July. This is all practice for another European Grand Tour in 2009 or 2010. Can't wait!

I have created a PictoBrowser gallery below. Click on the image to move to the next picture and move the mouse over the bar at the bottom where it says PictoBrowser to select other images.

Photobloc

Poppy, originally uploaded by Me (?).

We wanted to brighten up our hall and stairs and so decided to get a canvas print of one of my recent photos. Anyone who has seen my Flickr stream will know that there are quite a few to choose from!

We narrowed it down to the poppy picture above and ended up choosing a company called Photobloc for the printing. Photobloc's website looked the most professional and their prices seemed to be quite reasonable. I liked the way they offer a free photo tidy up and proofing service so that (if required) their in-house photoshoppers can sort out problems with pictures like removal of timestamps and the like.

We ordered Sunday, had the proof on Monday and the canvas on Thursday. That is pretty good service I think.

I put the picture on the wall this morning and I think it looks rather good :-)

Canvas Print, originally uploaded by Me (?).