iPhone Camera Use

Just came across an interesting graph from Flickr of mobile phone camera use over time.  As you'd expect, the iPhone has climbed the charts rather quickly only being bested by the Nokia N95 which has a much nicer camera.

Pingie

Pingie is a new web service I just read about which simply asks you to enter an email address, mobile phone number, and RSS feed URL.  When the feed updates with a new item, Pingie will send an SMS text message to your phone letting you know!  This is exactly the kind of web site I've been waiting for - there are many occasions when this would be handy; searching for something (like a Wii) on Craigslist is the obvious one which comes to mind.  Cool!

2008 and Web Stats

Happy 2008 everyone!  Work on TubeTV is progressing nicely and version 1.0 should be released in the near future; I think everyone will be pleased with the new (very frequently requested) features.  Keep in mind that the word "near" can mean many things, so interpret that as you see fit.  ;-)

In other news, here's an interesting graphic showing what times of the day people visit the Chimoosoft web site.  The graph is only since January 1st, but it tends to look about the same every month.  Enjoy. PS: The time zone for the graph is central time.

Photo Scanning Date Tip

If you've ever tried scanning old photographs and then managing them with modern software like Aperture or iPhoto, you know that date and time stamps can be a hassle. By default, a freshly scanned image will import into Aperture with the file's creation date (i.e. today's date), not the date the photo was taken. To remedy this situation, the free command line exiftool can be used with a command like the following:

exiftool "-dateTimeOriginal=1985:12:01 12:00:00-05:00" img036.jpg

The above example sets the date EXIF tag for img036.jpg to December 1st, 1985 (the time stamp is irrelevant). Even if you don't know the exact date the photo was taken, it's helpful to at least have the correct year in the EXIF tags. After setting the date, import into Aperture or iPhoto, and the photograph will be sorted correctly by date rather than appearing at the top with all your latest photos.

iPhone Web Sites

For all of you iPhoners out there, I thought I'd share a few of my favorite iPhone formatted web sites to enhance your holiday browsing and bring joy into your hearts. 

To begin with, although NetNewsWire is a great RSS feed reader for your Mac and has an online equivalent for your phone, the mobile version doesn't even compare to the new mobile Google Reader.   Google Reader has a stunningly well designed (and beautiful) iPhone interface which automatically keeps your reading list in sync wherever you read.  Read some news on your home computer, some more on your phone, and then even more at work (gasp) and Google Reader will seamlessly keep track of what you've read and what you haven't.   To view Reader on your iPhone, just go to the Google home page and click the reader button at the top; going to the normal reader link on your phone won't give you the mobile interface, so make sure to navigate there from www.google.com on your phone.

Another favorite when out and about is Amazon's iPhone interface.  Fairly well designed and handy for price or rating checking when browsing books at your local bookstore.  Great for making sure those bargain books are really worth it!  Just go to the normal Amazon site on your iPhone and it should auto-redirect you to the iPhone optimized page.

For mobile weather, Apple's built in weather widgets are great, but I often find myself wanting to see a real forecast with details rather than just a little sun or rain cloud with a temperature, don't you?  One of  my favorite weather sites, the Weather Underground, has finally made my dreams come true with their iPhone optimized weather site.  If you forget the URL, they have a little tiny link on the top of their normal website.  It's cool.  Seriously.  

Well, there you have it - three of my favorite little iPhone sites for getting your internet fix on the go.  Enjoy.

iPhone Number 2 Smartphone Already?

According to this article, the iPhone already holds 27% of the smart phone market share in North America and is second only to Blackberry!  Fairly impressive for a phone which is only six months old; just wait until developers get their hands on the iPhone SDK in February and all sorts of craziness will break loose.

The study looked at third quarter sales of smartphones and found that in its first full quarter, the iPhone has already outsold all of the Microsoft Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm phones and now holds a 27 percent market share in North America.

Holiday Season

It's the holiday season, and time to search for gifts for your hard to please friends and relatives. If you're considering purchasing a gift certificate from Amazon.com this year, and you buy it through this link , Chimoosoft will earn a small referral commission! What a great way to help out your favorite Mac software developer during the holidays!!

Amazon gift cards are a great idea simply because Amazon sells such a massive variety of products.  Books, music, movies, computer software and hardware, TV and stereo equipment, camera gear, etc.!  Free shipping on orders over $25, yada yada...