Embracing geotagging: how to journal your trips (and contribute to Google Earth) with snapshots

Embracing geotagging how to journal your trips and contribute to Google Earth with snapshots

Geotagging. It’s not exactly a long, lost art, but it’s certainly not something most folks bother to do after a trip. Avid travelers, hikers and the general outdoorsy crowd have been embracing the feature for years, though, and it’s actually seeping into the mainstream without most individuals even noticing. How so? Smartphones. Given the proliferation of iPhones, Android handsets and Windows Phone devices making their way onto the market — coupled with the explosive use of geo-minded social networks like Path, Instagram and Foursquare — an entire generation is now growing up in a geotagged world. Phone users have it easy; so long as there’s a data connection and an embedded GPS module (commonplace in modern mobile devices), there lies the ability to upload a photo with a patch of metadata embedded. Snap a shot at a national park, upload it, and just like that, viewers and friends from around the world now have an idea as to what a specific place on the Earth looks like.

For travel hounds like myself, that’s insanely powerful. I’m the kind of person that’ll spend hours lost in Google Earth, spinning the globe around and discovering all-new (to me, at least) locales thanks to the magic of geotagging. It’s sort of the photographic equivalent to putting a face to a name. By stamping latitude, longitude, altitude and a specific time to any given JPEG, you’re able to not only show the world what you saw, but exactly when and where you saw it. It’s a magical combination, and with GPS modules finding their way into point-and-shoot cameras — not to mention external dongles like Solmeta’s magnificent N3 (our review here) — there’s plenty of opportunity to start adding location data to your photos. For more on the “Why would I want to?” and “How would I best display ’em?” inquiries, let’s meet up after the break.

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Embracing geotagging: how to journal your trips (and contribute to Google Earth) with snapshots originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Aug 2012 12:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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VIM 101: a quick-and-dirty guide to our favorite free file editor

In the world of text editors, there’s a plethora of options out there. If you’ve ever Googled “how to edit HTML sites” or some such, you know what we mean. Allow us, then, to introduce you to VIM, a free website editor that offers many of the same features as Adobe Dreamweaver, and runs on just about every desktop platform. Specifically, it comes by default on the vast majority of Linux distributions, OS X and commercial Unix systems. (It’s available to install on Windows, too.) And did we mention it’s free? That command line UI isn’t necessarily self-explanatory, though, so join us after the break for a quick crash course to help you get started.

Continue reading VIM 101: a quick-and-dirty guide to our favorite free file editor

VIM 101: a quick-and-dirty guide to our favorite free file editor originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How To Take Photos of Fireworks With Your Phone [Howto]

It just wouldn’t be the Fourth of July without the climactic boom of fireworks. If you want to keep that memory all year—or at least share it with all of your friends on Instagram—these tips will help you get lovely photos with your phone, even if you’re not a pro. More »