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The dynamic photo you see here of my sleeping dog was shot with my DSLR and automatically uploaded to Flickr with only the press of the shutter button. He wasn't that impressed, either.
Last week I said I wanted to make some sort of practical—if dead end—advance this week and the good news is I've done so; the bad news is that it doesn't quite work as elegantly as I'd hoped.
As you probably don't recall, my goal this week was to build the "World's Largest Cameraphone," a wearable system that would allow me to snap shots with my Canon DSLR and have them automatically upload to Flickr. As I'm not much of a scripter, let alone programmer, I was delighted to find Ordinal Malaprop's Upload to Flickr Folder Action, which, once attached to a Mac OS X folder, will convert to JPEG and upload to Flickr via email any image file that is dropped into the directory of your choice. I removed the JPEG conversion step from the Applescript since my images were already being saved in JPEG, but it's nice that the script is already set up for that step, as even a dilettante like me could easily add in more "Image Event" actions to resize, crop, or convert my images—important when on slow internet uplinks, as even the smallest JPEG files from my camera are still around 400KB.
(A previous system I had almost completed to do this sort of upload with Automator sadly no longer works, as the Automator Action I had used does not work on Intel Macs, and I'm not wise nor patient enough to learn how to parse Flickr's API to build one myself.)
So the process, in whole, goes like this:
My camera is tethered to my Macbook Pro via a USB cable. Using Canon's EOS Utility—an updated version of Intel-incompatible software that was bundled with my Rebel XT camera, for which Canon wanted me to pay $20—I automatically saved each image I snapped directly to a folder on my MBP's desktop. (I could have also chosen to save a copy of the image on the card.) When a new image hit this particular folder it triggered Ordinal's script, which caused it to be sent to Flickr via Applescript-fired email. A pleasant side effect of using email to upload was the trademark Mail.app audio "whoosh" when a picture was sent on its way, obviating the need to add some sort of "all's well" noise via the Applescript itself. The picture you see above isn't the best example of what makes shooting with a real camera so much better than using a cameraphone, but even with a poor subject and a quick shot, it's far better than most cameraphones. (Not to mention the ability to use the full power of a DSLR, including extra lenses and flashes.)
As simple as that sounds—and it is pretty simple—it took me several hours over the course of the week to tinker with different scripts, try to secure the latest version of Canon's software, and troubleshoot what fat-fingered bug I'd induced in Ordinal's script that caused it to stop working from last night to today. I was excited to pop the whole rig into my backpack and take it out for a test run, until I hit my final two snags.
The first I had anticipated: My EVDO solution, a Novatel ExpressCard "Merlin EX720" interface to Sprint still hasn't been activated, due to an innocent mix-up between Sprint's PR folk and the Sprint activation agents, meaning that while I have all the hardware and service I need, but not the "go for launch" over-the-air activation I need for it to actually work. That's a minor problem that will be remedied soon, I expect.
What I hadn't banked on was the limitations of running my Macbook Pro with the lid closed, something that I've often heard discussed but never had need to try myself, as I always use mine at home plugged into the wall, attached to a second monitor, using the next-to-holy Synergy2 mouse and keyboard emulation to stitch my Windows and OS X desktops together. Turns out you can't run a Macbook Pro with the lid closed unless a USB keyboard and mouse are plugged in. And you have to be on mains power! I'd hoped to be able to just slip my laptop into a backpack with a few cables running out of the top. Now I'll have to figured out a way to shim it open to prevent the latches from activating the power-off sequence, which adds yet another thing to possible break when I'm huffing around town.
It has forced me to consider heat issues, too, as I have discovered several people complaining about dead Macbook Pros after the computers accidentally turned on in their bags without ample ventilation. I'll try to build some sort of solution for myself, because even if this temporary advancement does little to help the overall conceit of the project—the laptops are supposed to be worn on the front, remember—I wouldn't mind having even this rig-up for personal use. I'm thinking a bit of foam in between the screen and the keyboard, as well as a big, fat rubber band to ensure that everything stays closed. Cut a series of holes down one side to allow for some, if not optimal ventilation, and I should be ready to start walking around taking nice-looking snapshots using a camera with a proper lens.
And if I happen to break my work laptop doing it, Wired will gladly buy me a new one, right?
Right?
Next steps: Clearly I need to get a smaller laptop that I can go ahead and start building a front-mount harness for. It won't be an Apple, for the simple reason that the smaller Mac laptops don't have PCMCIA or ExpressCard slots I'll need for an EVDO card. I'm thinking something from Panasonic, capable of running Windows and Linux.
