iCraig

Developing

craig — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:22:54 +0000

I’ve spent this morning setting up my new MacBook’s dev environment to match what I had before. I’m now ready to get back into coding and polishing up the donationware items I released in my former life as a developer. The last two years have seen a lot of my personal time devoted to getting my body and mind into shape for months of isolation and hardcore exercise that comes with crossing countries on foot. Now I’m back on solid ground, thinking about arranging millions of 1s and 0s in a row. It’s an entirely different challenge and one I welcome. I haven’t decided if I can announce where I work just yet. Not that it’s a state secret but I’m not sure on their policies of personal blogs. Rest assured that it’s something I’m really looking forward to in a field I can be pretty happy I’m working in. I’ll try not to bang on about it at parties though

I’ve a week of induction and set up. Then once my brain is back in gear it should flow through to my own projects, if I’m not busy moving house, which I will be.

Google Earth 4.3 only showing first image

craig — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 02:42:07 +0000

It’s been brought to my attention that Google Earth 4.3 only shows the first image that is viewed in a the KMZ files produced by iPhotoToGoogleEarth. After that all images in that file are shown as just question marks. This is not a bug in iPhotoToGoogleEarth, it complies with the KML specification and has not changed in a while. Google Earth however has changed and other people have noticed it too. According to this bug report you can view the images if you decompress the file first (rename the output to have a “.zip” extension and double-click it), or use the PC version of Google Earth. Other than that it’s just a matter of waiting for Google to fix the bug.

A reader writes

craig — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:42:53 +0000

I got an email last week from “an aspiring traveller” and it’s a question I’ve been asked a few times so I thought I’d share it.

Dear sir,
I am just curios as to how do you continue your travels and have ample budgets for your expeditions. I aspire to do just what you are doing now. I would like to know how do you earn your expenses along your journey.

and my response

Hi James,

If there’s a secret to my travels it’s being careful with my money and being prepared to be very uncomfortable. I take it you’ve seen both my American and Japanese walking sites. For those adventures I had almost no accommodation costs by sleeping in a tent, in temples in the occasional abandoned tunnel. The last 6 weeks of OneManWalking was traveling in a different style. Having a girlfriend along changes things because I wouldn’t want to put her in the position of sleeping in public toilets (a big fancy disabled one with my tent’s ground sheet below). So expenses went up dramatically. When I’m back home I try not to spend too much on things I can do free. I eat in as much as possible and rarely see movies at the cinema. I was really lucky to get cheap rent about 4km from my job so I walked that every day. It was good exercise and it saved me money.

In neither case did I deliberately earn expenses along the way. Once in America I was given a free room for helping spread wood chips at an inn-keeper’s prayer park and in Japan the locals were incredibly generous. Some people stopped and gave me fruit, some bought food from convenience stores and handed it straight to me and some even handed me cash. I never asked for it but they felt like doing a good thing for someone taking the time to see their country in a different way. There’s a similar phenomenon on the PCT called “trail magic”, people leaving chilli-bins (coolers) in the forest full of drinks and snacks, or doing other good deeds just because they like to. You should never get to a point where you rely on these things, be self sufficient, but be open to the idea that things usually work out pretty well.

If you do go traveling and write about it, let me know, I’ll be needing some good travelblogs for next year.

~Craig

I’m settling back in pretty well. On the job/house hunting circuits. I haven’t yet dug back into my code, I haven’t even gotten the latest version of Google Earth. But I will, and I’ll post updates to both projects when I can.

On the move

craig — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:41:56 +0000

Hello to everyone looking for tech support on GeoTagger or iPhotoToGoogleEarth. I’m in Japan at the moment and don’t have access to my source code or even a decent computer. It’ll be a few months before I set myself up again so if there are any problems during that time I won’t be able to fix them. I’ve heard that Google Earth 4.3 is having trouble rendering the KMZ files produced by iPhotoToGoogleEarth that worked fine with 4.2, but I can’t test it until I’m at a desk again. Watch this space for announcements and hold tight until then.
Thanks for your patience.

Still walking

craig — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:40:35 +0000

I thought I had made a post about this but there’s nothing here so I guess it slipped my mind. As of April 2008 I’m in Japan walking from the southern tip (Cape Sata) to the northern tip (Cape Soya). Originally I’d hoped for a mountain route and upto 6 months of walking, but I got impatient and missed my girlfriend. Now the plan is to finish on my birthday (and hers as it happens) which will mean a 98 day trek and as far as I know that’s the fastest yet. It’s all documented on OneManWalking.com. While on the move I’m sending home photos and videos which my dad is geotagging and uploading. The videos have been nominated for a prize on Seero.com, so please pop along and vote for me (free registration required) because I need a break from walking 25 miles per day

iPhotoToGoogleEarth 2.0

admin — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:13:16 +0000

I have updated iPhotoToGoogleEarth to work with Leopard and iPhoto ‘08. To get it released quickly I decided to remove the NMEA file integration but that sort of editing is pretty simple to do in Google Earth itself.

I have also taken an evening to get this blog running on WordPress so I’ll be able to keep it updated more often. Not that I’ll be saying much here because most of what I’m doing now revolves around moving to Japan. I’m starting by walking the length of the country to learn more about the people, culture and language. Then I’ll find somewhere cool to settle down and try teaching English for a while. The site will look a little strange as I can only work on it a few hours a night, but eventually I’ll have it looking smart again.

Back in the saddle

craig — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 08:18:11 +0000

I’m back from the trek and adjusting to being indoors again. Somethings are coming naturally but I’m having trouble starting any of the projects I thought up while I was away. Tomorrow is a big test, the return to work. 9 to 5 under fluorescent lights and in a chair at a desk. It’s going to be a bit of a shock I’m sure but as I’ve been telling people all the way along I’m lucky to have a job waiting for me, many other hikers had to quit their jobs and would now be facing interviews. My brain is still in warm-up mode and I’m in no condition to impress a panel of judges.

Soon I’ll be restarting work on my software projects. iPhotoToGoogleEarth will have one more release before I make a new version for iPhoto 7 (part of iLife ‘08). I’ve some improvements for GeoTagger but it should be forwards compatible already. let me know if that isn’t the case.

If you’re wondering what I’ve been up to check out this little video clip, it shows 5 months of hiking on the PCT

I’ve gone for a walk

craig — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 05:08:48 +0000

and I may be some time. I am now in America, walking north from the Mexican border to the Canadian border via the Pacific Crest Trail. I’ll be back in October, you can follow the adventure here.

Masses of goings on

craig — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:33:19 +0000

Things have genuinely been busy, but I must take some time out to write about them. The new year is here and I only have 3 months left before I fly off to America and start The Pacific Crest Trail. I got two pieces of news today that help me considerably. The first was that my employer will keep my job for me until I return, this is handy because I know I’ll have an income when I return and can afford to spend a little more while on the trail (though I won’t quite be shouting everyone lobster dinners). The second piece was the very generous offer of accommodation by a couple in San Diego so I have somewhere to stay while I create my resupply packages for the first few months on the trail.
In other news I’ve been training hard, gaining weight and doing a little bit of planning. Last week I walked the Northern Circuit with my dad and sister, then did a couple of extra days on the Round The Mountain track. It was really good to get some proper practice in, using my new tent and cooking tools. I’ll write about it properly over on PCT2007.org with a good selection of photos just as soon as I can. For now though you can check out my new hiker trash look.

Bird’s Nest

craig — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 05:32:08 +0000

The weirdest thing I saw today was a can in the Thai mini-market in Northcote. It was called Birds’s nest and had the strange subtext of “Flavoured Artificial White Fungus” which made up 4% of the ingredients. There’s also some text that says “boisson au parfum du nid d’oiseau” and you hardly need a translater to work out what that means. I bought it and drank it. It wasn’t foul as such, but I wouldn’t buy another one.