I recently started using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 for advanced RAW photo editing while using Apple iPhoto 09 for quick edits and as main library to keep everything organized.

By default, Lightroom can't access to original photos managed by iPhoto, because they are within a bundle. I found a nice way to workaround this limitation and allow iPhoto and Lightroom work of the same library.

Short Description: Create a symbolic link (symlink) in Pictures to the iPhoto Library "Originals" folder.

Step-by-step:

1. Install SymbolicLinker from Nick Zitzmann
2. Use the Finder and go to /Pictures/iPhoto Library
3. on the file - use context menu action "Show Package Contents"
4. Go to "Originals" folder and use the "Make Symbolic Link" action in More
5. Move the Symbolic Link into /Pictures (and rename if you like)
6. Start Lightroom and use the "Import Photos from Disk..."
7. Navigate to the Symbolic Link
8. Use "Add photos to catalog without moving" for file handling drop-down (should be default)

Credits: Moving Your Images From iPhoto to Lightroom from Gene McCullagh. He is using an "Alias" and recommends to copy the files - but that duplicates all photos.

Posted by Cedric at 8/08/2009 06:01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

People close to me know - one topic I like to contemplate about is: how to create space for people to be efficient and innovative (personally and in a team setup). I shared some stuff about local.ch here and here.

The big part of the "create space" task in a corporate environment is in the responsibility of the management. It struck me reading the comments on the majority take over of search.ch by the publisher tamedia.

Myself being involved in a few mergers and ownership take-overs - had to learn how not to do it. One the buyer was clueless and did not know what to do with the acquired technology. Another was "collateral damage" - being part of a bigger deal - and ending up with an internal competition the management did not wanted to "solve" (with the end-effect that both were put to rest). Again another was to deliberately create an internal competition to solve the innovators dilema (sort of) and thereby crunched the potential.

Back to search.ch

It looks like the task to create space for the acquired team - to serve the new owner in its intrest - went wrong. At least one side did not felt comfortable with the setup. Actually funny - the new owner is a media company and publisher - they should know better how to do audience targeted communication?

Arguably, there are various management styles that lead to successful fulfillment of a goal. Each style requires the appropriate workforce (choosing the right people for the setup). In time of a merger - a clash of different styles - most probably end up in a reduction of value of the assets acquired. (I'm sure there are also styles that enrich each other - example?).

What are the options? Don't do the acquisition if it doesn't match? Keep the acquired team independent?

Well.. if there is no straight way from A to B - add as many "via points" as necessary so the involved parties feel comfortable executing in their full potential along the way. Sounds easy right? It's not - I know.

I wish more people would invest more energy in "creating spaces" for people/teams with high potential. I'm not talking about letting them do "what" they want - but let them do it "the way" they want.

Posted by Cedric at 10/05/2008 01:43:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

In March 2008 I spend some time talking about the opportunities of open transit data - making public transport better discoverable. By that time - one of the ideas I was throwing around was the "urban nomad compass". A mobile phone based tool that can instantly show me the public transport connections from my current location (via GPS) and my next destination.

A lot has happend since then - the tools are now available:

• First was SBB to release it's own NaviGo. I only did a short test - but I was disappointed as they tried to solve too many use cases. And the feature I use most is hidden behind a lot of clicks.

• Then Google added the public transport routing into the Google Maps for Mobile. It's the coolest implementation - as it is map-based - but lacks public transport data coverage throughout whole Switzerland. Note that the built-in version in the Apple iPhone can't do it - yet.

The most useful implementation (for me) - is GottaGo. An Apple iPhone exclusive application that does exactly this. Get my location - enter destination - hit GottaGo - and run.



Today a new release of GottaGo has been made available in the App Store. To install search for "GottaGo" on the iPhone App Store and pick the one with the ! at the end - or via iTunes follow this link: http://liip.to/gottago. I had the opportunity to put the new release into real-life test in the last few weeks. I'm pleased with the result.

Last Saturday I discovered new ways navigating inside Basel. Although I'm familiar with the trams and buses - finding the fastest public transport connection between me and my destination - using multi-hop connection with tram and bus - is not something ordinary people can do without help of such a tool. (I know there are people knowing the whole schedule in their brain - but I have other hobbies).

But what is the difference between the mobile timetable and GottaGo? 2 things:

• you don't have to provide your departure station. Sometimes it's faster to walk 5min to another bus stop - instead of taking the tram just near-by! The "normal" timetable don't tell you that.
• it's instant - having my favorites/history present - some tabs with your finger - and run

Credits fly out to Marc - the team at Liip for supporting the efforts.

Posted by Cedric at 9/24/2008 08:36:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I made a bold statement - that not being able to listen to your visitors cursing in front of your web site - would be an innovation killer.

In my top list I wrote:

Wisdom of the crowds applied to your web site usability. You would be surprised how much insights you would win when you could listen to them. Simple trick: add a shout box into the footer. Keep track of page, browser, screen resolution, shout and start learning! Much more could be done here..

Yoan added as comment:

About the “wisdom of crowd” applied to your website, the first rule of usability is: “Don't Listen to Users”

Fair enough. Let me share my experiment with doing exactly this.

There is a fundamental difference between asking somebody "what do you like?" vs. catching somebody in affect ranting / or asking themselves questions while using a web site for real (not testing!). The expression of joy or frustration while doing real use cases - or trying to accomplish a goal - is imho the most valuable feedback.

How to get it? At local.ch we added a shout box into the footer of the page:


We keep track of every shout including the context (page, browser, screen-size). And use this information for various purposes. But - what kind of "cursing" do we get? How useful is it?

First of all - is a "reality check" - they tell you what sucks. Be careful with these - only make judgments if you have enough data and context to back-up your decision to change something.

Grouping comments by page type allows you to spot patterns in the questions/comments. You can try different implementations (things as little as naming of a button) to see how the feedback/comments are changing over time.

People will tell you what they expect to see (they try to achieve) - without you asking them! This is a great source of inspiration to innovate on. Be it incremental improvements - or crazy ideas (there are geniuses out there - believe me).

Do people except answers? Am I going to be busy answering questions instead of coding? My original ideal of the "shout box" do not encourage people to enter their e-mail. At local.ch we tried various versions of the box - the current implementation is bigger (more text and comment about e-mail). In this case you get more people requesting information via this form - what kind of defeats the purpose.

And yes.. it can be fun too. It's interesting to see how off-topic or just plain clueless people can be.. sometimes I'm asking myself if they do that deliberately.

Disclaimer: Creating a web site that is good usable requires more than "listing to swearing". Consult your favorite usability agency to implement an user-centric interaction design.

Posted by Cedric at 9/16/2008 11:15:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Time for some ranting and finger-pointing. But are these problems not opportunities?

make sure your fancy webapp keeps working on IE6

Not sure how much of an innovation killer - but for sure the top cost causer in web development. Add up all hours you need to fiddle around with CSS and JS hacking - and send the bill to Microsoft. I'm certain it would be cheaper for Microsoft to pay the necessary work to remove the hurdles inside enterprises, so they can update to a recent browser - vs. paying all your IE6 hacking bills? Anybody did the math?

Yes - Internet Explorer 6 has still around 25% market share (that is as much as Firefox and Safari together!)

send SMS worldwide (to a decent price)

Beyond simplicity - the success of Twitter is thanks to the clever use of SMS to keep users involved. There is one problem with SMS - the cost for sending them to your international users. Twitter had to shut-down the service for Europe - in process to negotiate prices with the telcos. Aren't there businesses specialized in SMS gateways with wholesale prices for worldwide usage?

We would see a lot more websites using SMS as "remote command line" to keep users updated and involved.

building Webapps like we did Microsoft Access projects in 1997

Imagine you have a meeting with your client/product manager - while talking about the wireframes, functional design and change requests - you can just roughly do them and instantly see the result to iterate with feedback. Yes - I did that back in 1997 (with MS Access). It's hard to find people today that can do that using the web technology stack. Am I missing something? (True - I'm impressed by the Django admin-forms)

location awareness in mobile browsers

We will remember 2008 as the year where location awareness came to mobile phones (Assisted GPS, Loki and other techniques made it possible). But wait! I'm a web developer and I can't get the users location from the handset. Why is it again Google that gets the stuff done? Hello Nokia? Sony Ericsson? Apple?

Why would I want location? Because websites should be able to adapt to my current location. You don't get it? Buy yourself an iPhone and get a treat with location-based apps.

hear when people are swearing in front of your site

Wisdom of the crowds applied to your web site usability. You would be surprised how much insights you would win when you could listen to them. Simple trick: add a shout box into the footer. Keep track of page, browser, screen resolution, shout and start learning! Much more could be done here.. (Read more on how to catch in-front-of-website-swearing)

micro-billing never took off

Paypal helped a lot. But it's not efficient to transfer small amounts of money. I find it interesting to see how Amazon is handling it's Webservices pricing - a model for the future? But then again - it kind of works with "free".

The HTTP spec has a return code 402 - Payment Required. -> "This code is reserved for future use."

Update September 16th:

Comment on reddit: "Pretty shitty list."

Fair enough. Come up with your own list of guesses why for example:

• your company has (still) not made its processes transparent to customers over the web (what has that to do with me as web developer? - go figure!)
  
• although you are a talented developer - creating a good web GUI has turned into specialist job (and generally takes too long to get done)
• you spend more time with software infrastructure than solving your real challenge

It's easier to come up with innovation "enablers" - than with "killers" (aka known unknowns)

Posted by Cedric at 9/14/2008 07:30:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Imagine you blog & everybody is reading!

I was - like many - starting to ask questions if the polling feeds concept will scale - the more services and people are starting to use personal aggregators services like Tumblr and FriendFeed. I guess this presentation was a tipping point and call for action - that caused a wide-spread discussion and solution proposals interesting to follow.

I used the opportunity of the BlogCamp Zürich to create a presentation providing an overview of the challenge and explaining some of the possible solutions.



The links/sites mentioned during the presentation

Posted by Cedric at 8/31/2008 11:20:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

End of August - a Barcamp-style unconference focused on blogging related topics will be held in Zürichs Technopark. More information and sign-up at blogcamp.ch. Although the conference agenda is only made on the day of the event - some people choose to pre-announce the topic they want to talk about. Check the (Un)agenda.

Last year I talked about the Geoweb.

This time I going to contemplate about the push vs. poll concept. The meltdown of Twitter, the aggregation galore of Friendfeed et al and the iPhone "push" features revived discussion if the breathless polling for updates is the right way forward.

Todays web architecture (HTTP, HTML) already offers simple techniques to reduce polling and provide near-realtime updates. Newer concepts have emerged - one example being Comet. I plan to provide some insight on todays issue - an overview of techniques (simplified - no coding skills required ;-) and show examples in the (micro-)blogging world.

Feel free to join the discussion - see you there.

Posted by Cedric at 8/17/2008 06:08:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Real user performance - when does the user think a website is slow?

My 7min speech at webtuesday explains what perceived performance is - with the progress bar example. Then talks about the social web - how fast writes should be visible to the various users (me vs. friends vs. strangers). At last show some stuff we at local.ch do to measure perceived render time.

Slide showing the social web metric


Movie from the speech


Thanks to Hugo and Corsin for recording the session.

Links mentioned and sources of the information can be found on del.icio.us/keepthebyte/perceivedperformance

Posted by Cedric at 7/13/2008 11:35:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Was just going through some old paper stuff.. when I found this on a print out. It must be from my first ego searching activities back in 1997 - searching for sources with my name in the by-that-time small internet. Unfortunately I don't have the URL on the print out.. and Google doesn't have it in the index today.

As I found it well-fitting back then - and sort of still is - here for your amusement:

From an unknown author - a characteristics of the name Cédric:

The name of Cédric creates a stable, responsible nature. It makes you very quick and active but far too intense, and one of your problem is the inability to relax. You are inclined to drive yourself too hard, thus creating tension in the region of the solar plexus, which could cause you to suffer from nervous indigestion or stomach ulcers.

Anyone working under you finds you very demanding but has to admit that you work just as hard as you expect him to. Under this name you would be very independent and work best when you are given free reign to come and go as you please, and when you please, without interference.

This name gives you vision and foresight, which help to make you original and creative in your thinking, and you could do very well in the creative arts or as a cartoonist. By nature you are sceptical and outspoken, especially when pressed or crossed in any way; and if you are not careful to guard your tongue, uncontrolled or caustic speech could be your downfall. You have a restless, seeking nature and a thirst for knowledge that is never satisfied.

To the lazy web: Is there a full text search on archive.org et al?

Posted by Cedric at 6/14/2008 06:01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Posted part 1 yesterday - talking about people adding more words if a search engine finds 0 results.

Great comment from Adrian:

German guy (0), Crazy T-Shirt (0), Piano Player (1)

0 Result matching all your terms.

Hint: Some of your terms did match entries in our database. Please click on the term to display them.

Showing the result count for each single "term" to visualize that the sum of the terms have no match.

In fact - at local.ch we have a feature we call "guidance" that tries to find possible valid result sets when 0 results are found with the original query - or when bad quality results are found.

• try tel.local.ch/q/claudia+meier/ (searching in the wrong field)
• try tel.local.ch/q/Giebenach/Hochbauzeichner.html (search in nearby towns)
• try tel.local.ch/q/Basel/Rinigungsdienst.html (typo correction)
• try tel.local.ch/q/coifeur.html (shows results - and guidance for better results)

but the case in question - an over-specified query - is not handled yet.

A good example - thx Angie for the hint - is how eBay.com is doing it. Try to find tickets for the Counting Crows concert next week in Zürich:



Instead of showing results of the single terms - they try to find successful combinations and presenting the most promising to the user. Looks good - like it.

Posted by Cedric at 5/22/2008 11:06:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post