Author Archives: Julian Ranger

About Julian Ranger

Please see http://www.jranger.com/

Embrace the data factory in you

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I'd like my data factory to be like this super cool bond-villan-esque one

In Jay Deragon’s post “You Are a Data Factory” on The Relationship Economy blog, he makes a number of points including:

  1. the amount of data we each are creating is exploding – we are creating more and more every year
  2. Doc Searls writes “We need our own tools for controlling the way our data and other personal information is used”
  3. Privacy on the web is an issue especially when transferring personal data – “More and more of us are going to be creeped out”

and Jay summarises to say:

“We are all indeed a data factory. The question is no longer how can you avoid the capture of your data rather  does data about you reflect social currency you have to offer others for consumption?”

I agree with all these points and these are some of the ideas that drove the development of DAD:

  1. DAD responds directly to points a) and b) above.  The data we create and accumulate (photos, contacts, music, videos, documents, etc) is exploding and we need a way to manage that data in an easy way that is open and not locked away in application prisons – that is precisely what DAD does creating an open index of your data,
  2. Privacy is key to DAD.  Only you have your index and when you decide to share, it does so directly, user-to-user (U2U).  Why allow others access to your data when there is no benefit to you in doing so? – use the web for what its good for (global data) and use the internet in U2U mode when you’re sharing only with specific people.

So you can manage your data and you CAN “avoid the capture of your data” by others – DAD provides the means.

Facebook changes – a step in the right direction?

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Yesterday Facebook announced some changes to their site, notably a revised groups capability and also the ability to download your data from the site.

Regarding the download functionality there is a larger comment on the SocialSafe blog, but it is worthwhile congratulating Facebook for finally recognising that data portability is important and that walled gardens where your data is trapped inside are a poor option for users. DAD is all about open data, with our indexing function freeing your data from its application prisons, so we applaud all initiatives to allow you access to and the ability to reuse data you have created. As we move forward with DAD you will see the power of having your data in one place in a single open format – organisation can be reused elsewhere, enhancements made in one place can be added to by another and otherwise hidden relationships can come to the fore. Getting your hands simply round all your digital data in an open reusable manner is a core principle behind DAD – it’s good to welcome Facebook to the party.

The changes to Facebook Groups do respond to a common user complaint that status updates are not always applicable to all our friends but often to only a subset – I am, for example, different to my family, to those I play sport with, those I know in my local community, those I party with, etc. Groups is intended to be the way in which we can have multiple different circles of friends and communicate separately and differently to each. This should be a good thing; however, Facebook’s implementation is not secure nor private to any group of friends that you control. Already this morning, for those who have had the new feature activated, there are examples of people being added to groups by others without their permission! – this is because any user of a group can add another member. You have no assurance of who is in a group or not, or who will be added later and able to see what you post. We tested this in house, you will eventually find out you’re a member of a group and can then unsubscribe but not before you’re becoming a member has been posted to your wall.

As with data portability, the principle of 100% privacy is a core feature of DAD. We believe that you should be in total control of who sees your status updates, your photos and anything else you share. With DAD no one else can be invited to see your data – you decide who to send stuff to and only they get to see it, direct from you without any ability for it to be intercepted, hacked or inadvertently leaked onto the wider Internet.

In summary a step forward by Facebook yesterday; however, 100% privacy control and data portability principles are not inherent in the Facebook DNA and hence their solutions are at best a sticking plaster on the wounds of those for whose these principles are important.

Too many photos, too little time

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There was an article on wired.co.uk yesterday “GeekDad has too many photos” where the author noted that whilst modern digital cameras are fabulous because they enable us take as many shots as needed to get the right ones, they come with a severe drawback – they generate a digital overload!

We download all these photos but there are too many to keep and show because so many are so similar (or wrong which is why we retook again and again and again). It falls to us to review and cull those we no longer need. This culling process is time consuming as I know all too well – any occasion I take my camera out, I can easily spend a couple of hours reviewing and culling when I get home.

Once culled, those that remain need tweaking to be just right. A little touch up here and there, adjust the light on those, fix the contrast on these .. it goes on. More time but worth it as I have the best collection of photos I could hope to produce.

Now I know I’m pretty organised but even I suffer at the final step of processing my photos. I have a ‘Processed Photos’ folder on my laptop where the good ones get stored and here’s what should happen next: they get distributed to my wife, the kids and my parents. Do I do this? NO! My hand picked, polished collection of photos remains on my laptop along with all the other albums that came before.

I believe we’re actually worse off when it comes to family photo albums now than when we had to rely on the local chemist to print our snaps.

Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of ways to share online, but when faced with these I’ loose the will to share. I’m not about to run around the house armed with USB sticks, nor can I spend the time trying to squeeze these photos into emails that will disappear off into the ether only to return some time later to my wife’s computer. What about Facebook and co? I’ve talked many times about my issues with their privacy policies and aside from their photo resolution massacring it’s still a complete faff trying to upload and organise.

This is one of the reasons I started DAD and today sees its public launch. I’m over the moon because DAD makes the final sharing stage so incredibly simple. By setting up a few simple rules, I can put my photos into the processed photos directory knowing they will be distributed exactly as I like. Automatically, the index of photos goes to my wife and children, so they can pull the photos they want; all the photos go to the PC under the TV; those I tag appropriately automatically get sent to my parents and my brother.

Efficient, time saving – but more importantly I now have a family photo album that people get to see and enjoy.

Priceless!

And you can enjoy this super simple sharing and organisation by downloading DAD today. It’s our first release and we want your feedback. Together we’re going to create the ultimate fix-it for digital overload and we will rid the world of digital disorganisation!

Here’s a very short set of slides I’ve used to visually explain how DAD helps us photographers.

Book Review: Digital Asset Management for Photographers

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Digital Asset Management for Photographers - Peter KroghOne of the best books for any aspiring photographer is “The DAM Book – Digital Asset Management for Photographers” by Peter Krogh.  In this book, Peter highlights the Prime Directive and Other Goals for photographers as follows:

The Prime Directive:

  • Don’t lose the images

Other Goals:

  • Find images when you need them
  • Save time
  • Make the images look right
  • Software independence
  • Ensure forward compatibility

These are really rules which any photographer of any standard should try and follow.  The good news is that DAD can help you do all of these, except for “making the images look right” for which you will need specialist editing software.

Taking each in turn:

Don’t lose the images. DAD incorporates an easy to use Backup, Archive and Synchronisation process.  Using DAD, you can copy your photographs, wherever they are, however organised or disorganised they may be on your computer disks, to other safe locations.  This DAD process can be manual or automatic and is very easy to set up.

Find images when you need them. So, you’ve got images on one or more of your computers.  How do you find them?  The answer is ‘easily’, using the DAD Index, which allows you to find any image quickly.  You can search not only by filename, but by any title you’ve given an image, any tag or any other attribute of the photograph, e.g. date, camera type, location, etc.  And, if your image is on a backup/archive disk, then no problem.  Unlike most other back/archive products, DAD will keep an index of what you have backed up and to where.  You no longer have to remember and trawl thorough lots of CDs or remote disks – just query the DAD Index and you’ll have the answer instantly.

Save Time DAD has lots of time saving features for any level of photographer.  This includes the ability to organise your photographs rapidly into albums and to share your photographs quickly and easily.  (Plus, you can do this automatically, based on easy to set rules – saving you time over and over again).  With DAD, you can also backup and sync those photographs automatically, quickly find and display any photograph(s) – and more.

Software Independence One of the greatest strengths of DAD is how it frees your data and ensures this data is not locked within one particular software program.  Many people would like to annotate their photographs with tags, e.g. who is in the photo, where the photo was taken, what the event was etc.  They spend hours and hours in a in a particular software program doing this tagging.  They also like to organise their photographs into albums and use software programs to do this.  However, when they want to share their photographs, disaster  They can’t share the tags they spent so long entering as these can only be viewed in the program in which they were created.  Or, they may want to use a newer and better software program to organise their photographs but, disaster again.  All their prior organisation is lost and all that effort tagging is lost too.

Surely this must be unacceptable? – well we think it is.  That is why DAD provides the one index that can be used by any program so that you never need to retag or reorganise your photographs ever again.  AND, any tags you have created will be shared too when you share a photograph through DAD.

Get true software independence with DAD.

Ensure forward compatibility The Software Independence feature of DAD means your tags, other information (known as Metadata) and your organisation is held in our central index.  So, with DAD, you are not locked into one particular data format either.  Our index format, which is based on international standards as far as possible, will remain open forever, allowing you to tag and organise once and use forever.

DAD Vision – The Semantic Desktop

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It is the beginning of July and we are just about to launch DAD – so what is it and what is our vision?

As you have access to ever more technology, you probably create and consume increasing volumes of digital ‘stuff’ – photos, music, words, contact details, that sort of thing.  You use programs and web applications to enhance and share this stuff, but this causes even more disorganisation as your data is everywhere and enhancements made in one place cannot be used in another.  DAD creates a central index of all your digital stuff, bringing organisation from chaos, allowing you to view all your files.  You can then reuse enhancements and links you’ve made between your stuff in any program that is DAD aware.

All programs and web applications today create their own databases to hold your digital data and require a high degree of expertise, or tedious copy and paste type actions, to take this data from one program to another.  In our vision, all applications and web apps will either use the DAD index directly or will provide bridges to a your DAD index, so that you always have a central index of your data and any enhancements made to that data wherever the enhancements may have been created.

Once you have everything indexed and linked the uses to which it can be put are numerous.  Out of the box DAD gives you private and secure sharing capabilities – manually or automatically via its built in rules engine. You can for example have your music available on multiple computers, send photos to friends just by tagging them, synchronise photos taken on holiday in 2010 with your family to create the perfect holiday photo album or set up the perfect backup solution by sending your precious digital memories to multiple computers and devices. In fact the list of things you can get DAD to do is limited only by your imagination. We will be working with 3rd party developers, who have full access to the DAD API, to ensure there’s always something new and helpful waiting for you.

As an example: I have a photo on my computer.  I want to share that directly with some users via DAD, but also share on Facebook.  On Facebook, friends tag that photo with other friends who are in the photo and add comments.  To get all the data on that photo today I have to look at email and Facebook separately – all aspects of that photo are not linked.  With DAD and a 3rd party application linking Facebook to DAD, I can have all aspects of that photo available to me in my DAD Index to view, reuse, share as I wish.

The Semantic Web is a major initiative which will give many benefits to users across the web.  DAD is the Semantic Desktop and it is here now.