Navizon + iPhone = GPS?

        I am way too busy with classes... But I am taking a break this evening so that I can mess around with a few things. My super l33t hax0red iPhone loves to keep me busy when I should be doing other things. My only lament is that it lacks GPS... or does it? Via Installer.app I found a new app called Navizon. Basically, as you are walking around, it triangulates your location based on available WiFi networks AP and cellphone towers! The only catch is that someone has to have documented the coords of cell towers and WiFi spots in your area with a GPS for it to work. But, thanks to their handy app, one can drive around town with their GPS enabled laptop or smart phone, and everything will be compiled and ready to drop into their database. They will even pay you for it!
        It seems to be a small venture so support is limited and bugs are plentiful, but the cleverness of the idea makes me giddy. Sadly, their app is a spindly java client that emulates a cell phone on your computer. It is having problems finding my GPS and iPhone attached to the Powerbook, so my network/tower locating days may not be coming for awhile. le sigh... It would be like a lame version of geocaching.. except you get paid! WOO! Why do they have to taunt me so?!
        Hopefully everything will get worked out soon and then we could have GPS(ish) on our iPhones! *drool*

Geotag iPhoto with HoudahGeo

        
        So you want to geotag/geocode? I know I’m a bit late with this... I have been messing around with my iPhone, and will talk about that soon (tonight?). But for now is time to learn how to quickly Geotag photos on a Mac! If you are looking for a super fast way to do this, simply download HoudahGeo and it can be as easy as click and drag! I’ll give you a quick step by step just for help and to clear up any doubts about this cool little app! This program can work with or without a GPS, I’ll explain both!

        But first, what is Geotagging? A Geotag is a bit of metadata attached to an image or even a blog/wiki article, that shows the lat/long/alt of the subject of the media. So, if I take a picture of the Grand Canyon, and geotag it, Google Earth, Flickr, and many other apps and website will be able to quickly lay the photos on the map! Here is the most famous example on flickr! http://flickr.com/map/ Basically... its super awesome if you are taking pictures of obscure locations, where other people may want to visit.

        Kristin and I went on a quick bike ride around Tacoma the other day. I brought my GPS and made sure that it was set to track, and also made sure my camera matched the time of the GPS. Once I got home, I plugged my GPS in on one side of the my Powerbook, and my camera in on the other, and away I went (YES! Garmin will work on a Mac wonderfully with Google Earth, GPSBabel and HoudahGeo! Comment or email me if you want to know more about it!).

        What HoudahGeo does, is compare the time of the tracks, with the timestamp of each photo. It then adds lat/long metadata to the photo. After quickly uploading picture to iPhoto, drag the pictures you want tagged directly into HoudahGeo. You can then either upload GPX info from a GPS receiver or a saved file. There is even a cool feature for people without GPS receivers! Just select the photo, then select the point on the map. Then bam! Just hit write EXIF tag and you are done! You can even export directly to flickr! Check mine out here!
http://flickr.com/photos/bentup/map/ Here is the clipping from Google Earth:


It all works really well, and will cut a lot of time off of any geo blogging experience! Im stoked! Expect more posts soon! And please comment/email if you have anything to say!