Lost your USB-stick?

Now I finally have my Microsoft Windows devices tuned and synchronized. I have of course a desk top computer in my office, a laptop at home, a Lenovo tablet (8”) and a Fujitsu hybrid tablet (10”) all running Windows 7 or 8.1. Two Windows Phones, a Lumia 920 and a Lumia 1020 finalize my working environment.

As a geographer I work often in the field and need georeferenced data, pictures I take must be georeferenced and they are automatically stored on the OneDrive cloud when I am in reach of a WIFI connection notes I store on OneNote and I can access this data on all devices, even on my iPad which I still use as also here I can access OneDrive. All my data is stored directly on OneDrive for Business or on my Personal OneDrive.

USB-sticks seem to be already old fashioned, but still I carry some with me, as in some parts of the world internet is still not reliable and access can be slow or impossible. And to be on the safe side, it can be very sensible to make some backups on DVD disks, because we cannot be sure that OneDrive will be always there, for example F-Secure’s secure encrypted cloud Younited was sold and discontinued, leaving its users in the cold.

For important data, I can only recommend to do regular DVD backups, as everything else, USB-sticks, hard drives, everything can be stolen, broken, burnt, destroyed or get lost. Working with a cloud server gives you instant backup, but for permanent storage still a physical copy is the best you can get.

My next project will be to see how well an Android device will fit into my “ecosystem”.

Geo Cam and Lumia 1020

Geo Cam and Lumia 1020

We all know that you can geotag pictures storing location (and other information) of the image using your smart phones. If you want an image that displays this information visible in the picture you should use Geo CAM, (Geographic Camera) 

This is an easy to use and handy application for the more geographically minded.

I also got a Lumia 1020 now, the image quality is of course suburb, nothing new about that, but the GPS outperforms my old Lumia 920. The GPS gets ultra-fast fixes, and works even inside an airplane, if you are seated next to the window.  It also gives you the opportunity to save pictures in RAW format, which gives you all the possibilities of post-editing using for example Photoshop. 

GeoPhoto, another application to show the geographical places you visited

Geophoto is an App like Nokia Storyteller, but has less features, and is therefore much faster. Unlike Storyteller, GeoPhoto shows the actual images on the map, the icons can be round or square. By clicking the image you can get access to the information regarding the image, location, time, etc. You can also access the navigation software like Nokia Drive to navigate to the location. You can edit the location, share it with your friends and a lot more.

All in all, all very great application for free, and if you want an advertisement free version just pay a few Eurosa, it is worth it. 

Nokia Storyteller

Nokia Storyteller is designed to show your mobile images according to time and place. It works only correctly if you have the location option of the camera application ON, recording the GPS coordinates of every picture taken. I use this feature always, because it is a great way to keep track of images later, for example in Picassa.  Storyteller gives also the possibility to add notes to the images for later use.

The iamges are organized by location, and on the map you will see circles whit a size depaneing upon the number of pictures taken in the area. Zooming breaks donw the circles into smaller ones, untill you will have only dots indicating the locations of separate images.

The only shortcomming at the moment is the fact that there are no “miniature” images showing on the map, only dots when zooming in. Clicking on the dot will oopen the image. I remember in Symbia we had this feature in the Nokia map software.

Amber and the end of an era

t was actually quite surprising to read that Microsoft bought the Nokia phones business, but these things happen and we can only speculate about the reasons. Perhaps this was the plan from the beginning, rebuild Nokia phones, and transfer it to Microsoft when the product is ready. Now it is ready, a complete line of Lumia devices, from low end to the high end 1020 super camera phone. Market share is increasing and profit is around the corner. This kind of radical moves have been seen before as Nokia dumped consumer electronics to concentrate only on mobile phones in the 1990j’s.

Now Windows Phone and Lumia is still great, that does not change, and only the future can tell whether Microsoft is able to use this new asset wisely , please consumers and make profit.

Now what about the Amber update, actually it did something great, it extended battery life nearly three times, at the moment I get nearly three full days from one charge, from the previous less than one day. It also put in some new features, Camera Pro, a clock you can use without opening your phone and other features. But I think most of the Amber update is not directly visible, but did a great deal to improve the phone.

The update itself takes a long time, several hours, not minutes, and just leave your phone untouched, I had mine plugged to the charger to be on the safe side and went for lunch. It looked dead for a long time, showing just the empty battery sign, but in the end it started an entirely new life. I am very pleased with Amber.

 

Photo with Lumia 920, end of summer 2013

More hours from your Nokia Lumia

Battery drain is a problem on all smartphones, there is a lot of advice to improve this, but most “tricks” have only marginal effect. One major energy consumer is the cellular data 83G) network. Using 3G data transfer the Lumia warms up, and as heat is energy, this is a major loss. Using WIFI (WLAN) the energy loss is much less, and the phone hardly warms at all. So by installing for example the Cellular Data Switch App, available for free from Marketplace it is easy to switch 3G data off and use only WLAN. There is a separate App for WLAN. Actually it would be nice to have one App to do both.

By switching cellular data off, and use it only when necessary it is possible to get a battery life on 48 hours, using 3G data I get only 24 hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

WP 8 and W 8

IT seems to me now that the Windows Phone 8 is working very well, applications are readily available and the Store concept works fine. Many free quality Apps are available.  Power consumption is still a problem, the charging pad would actually be a good idea.  Actually these smartphones can be rather dangerous, if you would need an ambulance in a remote area it could just be out of power.  A solar power charger would be handy when back packing. I also use frequently the power save option, with the advanced setting "untill next charge". This will help a lot.

The Windows 8 operating system for my Laptop (Aspire V5) has still some flaws. For example the issue reported by many, the lack of a START button in the old fashioned basic Windows screen. It is rather clumsy to use the right swipe or the keyboard button. Also many applications still lack the functionality of Windows 8, and will run only in the basic window, for example Google Earth, Chrome and many others. Microsoft Office 2013 however, works fine, however, the amount of W8 Apps in the Store is still lagging.  I disabled the irritating touch keyboard, for instructions go to http://superuser.com/questions/488322/permanently-remove-disable-touch-keyboard-in-windows-8-taskbar