Wyszdom

In August, I shipped off a box of negatives from our family photo collection to ScanCafe, a photo scanning service. I was a little nervous shipping irreplaceable memories to people I didn’t know, but a couple of my colleagues had successfully used the service and I really wanted to get the photos digitized.

For those of you unfamiliar with the service, here’s the basic process:

1. Place an order with ScanCafe.
2. Ship box of photos to ScanCafe.
3. ScanCafe scans your photos and ships the originals and files back to you.

There are plenty of reviews of the service already (mostly positive), and here I’ll talk about my experience.

Ordering and Packing

Estimating the number of negatives is tough. We had many envelopes stuffed with negatives from many rolls, so I couldn’t just multiply a number by 24 or other standard number of exposures. Fortunately, you don’t really need an exact count at all; you’re just supposed to enter in some number so that ScanCafe can provide an estimated cost, which you pay 50% of before shipping. I estimated about 3,000 photos and ScanCafe ended up scanning 4,400.

Because I was nervous about putting everything in one box which was eventually going to be shipped internationally, I randomly divided our photos in half and only sent one half in with the first order. With everything packed, I printed off the shipping label. The label had a weight mentioned on it (I guess determined by the number of photos), so I hoped that the package wasn’t too heavy, and fortunately UPS didn’t complain.

Scanning/Timeline

ScanCafe does a pretty good job of giving updates on the status of the order, which I expect and appreciate. You don’t get to see the scans come in live or anything, but you know when your package has arrived in at the facility, when scanning has started, etc.

Based on the status updates collected in my email archives, here’s the timeline of events for scanning 4,400 photos:

August 10th – ScanCafe received package in Burlingame, CA.
August 24th – Originals received at imaging center. Images expected to be available for review by September 19th.
August 31st – Scanning commences.
September 22nd – Scans available for review.
September 27th – Order completed.
October 13th – Received tracking number.
October 20th – Originals and DVDs delivered.

Image Review and Checkout

Until this point, everything with ScanCafe was as good as I expected it to be based on the reviews, except for it taking a little longer than I thought it would. To be fair, though, they did scan thousands of photos, and I’d much rather wait longer than see a compromise in quality.

One of the nice things about ScanCafe is that you can actually choose to not buy up to half of your scans (you’ll still get the originals back), so they let you preview them all online before placing your order. I wonder if anyone takes advantage of this feature, because the site is excruciatingly slow when loading images. Even loading thumbnails and album lists felt like being on dialup. I’m guessing that the servers are located in India, so it would be nice if they moved to U.S. hosting. The “express checkout” option looked very tempting from the start.

The lack of speed wasn’t what bothered me the most. The site is confusing at this point. There is an option to organize the photos, but I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do. I’m also not sure about the free restoration that’s offered. I didn’t see it as an option, and wondered if it would be something that I chose after selecting which photos I wanted. I had no idea if this process was applied to my photos, as some images definitely looked unrestored in the gallery. Maybe it happens automatically after you choose your photos?

Even though it’s not required to organize your photos before you send them in, they will name the folders based on an labels or containers, which is helpful. I had a few labeled APS cartridges, but everything else was loose, so most of my folder names are things like “Bag 10.” They do label the physical bags/boxes if you didn’t. One funny thing I noticed is that whoever wrote my folder names wasn’t very familiar with the English language. For example, Christmas was written as Charstmas, Chartmas, Charestmas, and Chnstmer.

Delivery

After checkout, things didn’t move as quickly as I thought they would. It took two weeks before I received a tracking number for the return package. I guess they batch up the shipments between India and the U.S., which could explain the delay. The photos arrived in good condition along with the DVDs in full-size DVD cases. The 4,400 photos came in the form of over 50 GB of JPEGs spread across 13 DVDs. I’m in the process of uploading them all to Picasa Web Albums, which fortunately just lowered its storage costs! It would be great if there was a way to directly transfer them from ScanCafe to PWA, though. That’s my feature request.

Unresolved confusion

In the final receipt, there was a line for the optional “pro resolution” service that I selected during the initial order. However, I’m not sure how to interpret this:

Actual  Deleted  Selected
4419    0        2962

I was charged for the “Selected” amount. Does this mean that some of my scans weren’t delivered at pro resolution? I sent an email to ScanCafe asking about this on November 27th, which was forwarded to the imaging center on December 1st, when I was promised an answer within 48 hours. I have not heard back.

Update on December 6th: ScanCafe wrote back and said that this is a glitch in the displayed image count. All of my photos were scanned a pro resolution. Phew.

Update on December 7th: They emailed me again to inform me that the bug has been fixed.

Overall impression

I obviously had some issues with the website, but overall I’m happy with the convenience of the service and the quality of the scans. A second order is on its way.

One more thing

It snowed today in Pennsylvania. I wasn’t there to experience it, but thanks to ScanCafe, I can still show you what I look like in a snowsuit:

The good news: It’s snowing at home while my family is decorating the Christmas tree.
The bad news: I’m in California.

The bad news: Comment spammers are trying to get links on my blog.
The good news: One of them leaves spam containing corny jokes.

The problem

I see a lot of confusion about the use of microphones at live events. A common scenario:

A speaker begins talking, but his or her voice is clearly not playing through the speakers. The speaker immediately looks down at the mic and starts flicking switches. He or she looks at the tech, who gives a thumbs-up that the mic should be on. Still no audio, because by now the speaker has turned off the mic completely. The tech, who knows that everyone thinks it’s his fault, ends up having to join the speaker on stage to fix the equipment.

What has usually happened is that for whatever reason, the tech was unable to enable the speaker’s mic in time to catch their first words. The mic’s audio was probably muted before because the speaker was talking offstage or rubbing the microphone against their clothing. Neither the tech nor the speaker are at fault. Not every speaker should be expected to be proficient in audio equipment, and the tech can only operate the equipment so quickly.

The solution

If I were designing a microphone (let’s imagine we’re dealing with a wireless handheld), there are two main features I would implement. They both address the fact that many reasonable people, when handed a microphone, do not account for the presence of a mixing board. In their minds, if the microphone has power, the sound comes through the speakers. If there is no sound coming through the speakers, the microphone is off. Here’s what I’d do:

1: Concealed switches
If users can’t find a switch, they can’t turn off the mic. Hide any switches in the battery (or separate) compartment. This eliminates the need for the tech to put unsightly (and easily bypassed) tape over the switch.

2: Power light
If the microphone is powered on, it should have a steady green light. Someone who has read the manual can understand that the light comes on for a second when powered on, then turns off, and only comes on again if the battery is low. A regular user thinks that light on = microphone on.

How you can help

If you’re ever handed a microphone, here are a few tips to help out the audio tech:

• If you’re about to speak for the first time in the session, bring the mic into position to signal that you’re ready, and then pause for a second or two to give the tech a chance to turn on the mic.
• Hold the microphone close to, but not directly in front of, your mouth. If you hold it too far away, or even hold it in your lap (I have seen people do this), the tech will have no choice but to turn up your gain risk feedback. If you hold it “in the line of fire,” you’ll pop your P’s.
• Keep the microphone at a consistent distance from your mouth. This avoids unexpected changes in volume. One trick you can use is to lock the elbow of your microphone-holding arm to your side. With your upper-arm firmly planted, you’re less likely to move that arm around as you speak.
• Project, but don’t yell. If you speak just loud enough that you can hear your voice come back to you through the speakers, but so that if you spoke just a little quieter you wouldn’t, you’re good.
• If the microphone doesn’t work, don’t tap it or blow into it. None of the cool people do this. Test it by speaking or snapping, and look to the tech for instructions before flicking any switches.
• Turn off your cellphone completely or put it in airplane mode. Not all systems will be sufficiently shielded.

And finally, if you’re ever at one of those music award ceremonies, and as you stand at the podium and the microphone is not at the level of your chin, you do not need to lean down and speak into the mic. Technicians who work on live national broadcasts are smart enough to prepare for tall people.

Here’s a recap of my Thanksgiving vacation:

Twitter
I refrained from posting any travel-related or anti-California tweets.

GA
I spent a day at my alma mater, Germantown Academy, talking about Google. It was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed learning about how their technology program has grown since I graduated. Here’s what they wrote about my visit. I still need to go back, though, as my schedule was so busy that I didn’t even have time to “make my rounds” and talk to my teachers!

Beah, Dan, and Jake
I got to see their new house! It was awesome (especially as I think about it now sitting in my apartment where I am always hearing my neighbors) and makes me want to move back to Pennsylvania even more. But don’t worry, Californians, the long & expensive commute to Google’s New York office is keeping me here. During my visit we walked through Lansdowne a bit (it’s pretty cool and friendly), and even went to Wawa! Jake is really happy with the move. He didn’t have time to show me the woods that he likes to run around in, so I’ll have to check that out some other time.

Christmas lights
My dad and I hung our usual Christmas lights on the house. It was pretty warm this year (often our hands are freezing as we struggle to clip them on), so my dad says it’s like we cheated. We hang those icicle lights that suddenly became popular several years ago. Even though we use the same strings every year, and they’re packed away in bags labeled for their location on the house, the hooks never seem to line up just right and require some adjustment. I understand that the bushes we put lights on will grow, but I really thought that gutters would stay the same length. I guess I’m no good at science.

We also put the candles in the windows, which as I mentioned last year are all on a single timer. However, there’s still a lot of maintenance that goes on with these candles. The filament in the tiny bulbs easily comes loose during the unpacking process, plus it just burns out over time, so we’re constantly replacing the bulbs. This year, I’d love us to start going LED. If anyone has recommendations for LED versions of traditional C7 bulbs that have the light output a of 5-7 watt incandescent, let me know. I’d also like to move our tree lights to LEDs as well.

Family
Of course being with my family is always awesome. Thanksgiving dinner was delicious (as were the leftovers that lasted until I left), I went out to dinner with my grandparents, which I don’t think we’ve ever done before as just the three of us, and we got to celebrate a couple of recent engagements at my aunt and uncle’s house. And the cats are doing well too.

Ted
I got to hang out with Ted at his house, and finally met his dog Minnie, who I think is already like three or four years old. With him going away for college (he had very little time at home due to the demands of being a famous basketball player) and me moving to California, it’s been over seven years since we’ve both lived in the same state.

4G/WiMAX
On the way to the airport, I heard three ads for broadband mobile Internet access, from three different providers: CLEAR, Sprint, and Comcast. I moved out here to be close to the Internet, yet none of these services are available (for general use) in Silicon Valley. Weird.

Phone booths
At the gate in Philadelphia, there were three phone booths. Two of the seats were being used by iPhone users, and the middle one by someone on a MacBook Pro.

Shooting star
On the flight back to San Francisco, while we were flying over Colorado, I looked out the window and saw a shooting star. It was a very bright white light that lasted for about five seconds (which is probably the longest I’ve seen), and at the end of it I could see so clearly that I saw a trail of white burning particles behind it. I’m not sure how close it really was to the Earth, but from my perspective it looked like I was seeing it at eye level.

Recently, Google announced a couple of new features related to captions and subtitles on YouTube: automatic captions and automatic timing. A couple of days ago, they released a video of the announcement which was made in Washington, D.C. Of course, since I’m a geek, I watched the entire hour-long video, even though as Googler who manages a YouTube channel with over 100 captioned videos, I totally already knew about anything they would announce.

Or so I thought.

At 20:32 in the video, Ken mentions a search feature that I’ll admit I was unaware of. Since captions have timing data, it’s possible to not only find the video that contains a specific caption, but to also point the user directly to the part of the video they were looking for, which is especially useful for longer videos. Here’s how to do it:

Google Video

1. Search for the text of the quote you’re looking for.
2. Enable the “Closed captioned” filter in the left sidebar. (You can also start out your search with this filter on the Advanced Video Search page.)
3. Make sure you’re in “List view,” and then click on “Start playing at search term” in the result you want to view.

YouTube

1. Search for the text of the quote you’re looking for.
2. Use the “Closed captions” option from the “Type” drop-down.
3. Click on “Start playing at search term” in the result you want to view.

And once you’ve found that specific point in the video that you want to share with everyone, you can link directly to it by adding this to the end of the URL, using 20 minutes and 32 seconds as an example: #t=20m32s

Note that a similar feature exists in the Google Voice app for Android, which allows you to jump to a specific part of a voicemail just by tapping on a word in the transcript.

Finally, I wanted to highlight one more announcement that was made recently about captions and subtitles. Google Translator Toolkit, a free service that assists with translation tasks, now supports editing subtitles in the .srt or .sub format. Just upload your subtitle or caption file with the correct extension (don’t save it as .txt), and you’re on your way to faster translations and a wider audience.

Disclaimer

Do you have an Android phone? Then stop what you’re doing, install the new Google Maps application which features Navigation (available in the Android Market), and head to your car.

You can read more about it on the official blog post, but here are my favorite attributes of the product, which runs just fine on my G1.

• Since it’s on your phone, it’s always with you.
• Map data is always up-to-date, and updates are free.
• You can search using your voice.

That last bit is pretty important, and I hope you try it out. As you may have already seen, our voice search quality  is getting amazingly good. In the car especially, you often don’t want to spend a lot of time typing. Before I started using Google Maps Navigation, I would often first look up a business using GOOG-411, have it text me the address, and then enter that into my Garmin GPS. Now, I can skip a few steps and say the destination directly to my phone, with no typing necessary. And remember that you don’t just have to search for a business name. If you’re entering a street address, just go ahead and say it. I’ve found that if you speak [number] + [street] + [city] + [state], it can work pretty well in many cases.

I haven’t dumped my standalone GPS yet since I still travel to places like Colorado where I drive in areas without a data connection, but for my day-to-day navigation, Google Maps Navigation has proven to be extremely useful.

Keep your eyes on the road, and have fun!

We are temporarily unable to process your purchase, so we’d like to offer you access to Gogo free of charge for the duration of your flight. Lucky You. Enjoy!

This made my day, and is an excellent lesson in customer service. Something was wrong with Gogo’s service, and they had the choice between frustrating me or making me happy. One of the easiest ways to annoy me is to mess with my Internet access, so it’s quite possible that if I wasn’t able to get online I’d refuse to pay for Gogo in the future. (Remember I’m the guy who refuses to sign up for Netflix because they buy popup ads.) But since Gogo decided to throw me an hour of free Wi-Fi instead (short flight), I’m now using my time to blog about how great they are.

You know how your pets walk around in circles in the kitchen when they’re about to be fed? You should see me waiting for a pizza to heat up. Same thing.

I have two creative projects that I need to complete this week:

1. A funny presentation at work
2. A Halloween costume

I’m having a tough time coming up with useable ideas for both. I have never been good at this. Even back in high school when I made funny videos, I was rarely responsible for coming up with the initial idea. I loved to help develop other ideas and do anything else for a project, but I never really cared if it was my idea.

This is my third year of having to deal with the recent burden of coming up with a Halloween costume. Until I joined Google, I had not dressed up since sixth grade. I had 10 years off, but at Google, Halloween is a pretty big deal so I’d feel bad if I didn’t participate.

I thought that I would have a good Halloween costume this year. I was going to be Zeke the Plumber from Salute Your Shorts, because referencing minor characters from Nickelodeon shows is cool. For months, I thought I was all set. I even had a document with screenshots from the show, things I could say, and a list of items to buy. This past weekend, when I was about to start picking up items for my costume, I realized that it was stupid. Not only did nobody remember Zeke, but I would have to wear a mask. Wearing a mask is fine if one is going trick-or-treating. I did that many times when I was a kid. But this year, the only times I’ll be wearing my costume are at parties where I’ll want to be able to eat and drink. So now I need to come up with an idea that doesn’t require a mask. Here are some ideas I’ve had:

• Someone wearing a suit
• Hatman, the guy who wears a hat
• Mustache guy, who wears a fake mustache
• A Halloween costume, which would be something simple like a ghost, but with a hanger and price tag attached. Maybe the entire thing covered in plastic wrap and some sort of label if I want to go all-out. (This was my alternate idea when I came up with the Play on Words costume.)
• Anything from that old SNL sketch where Dan Aykroyd plays the salesman pitching children’s costumes

The funny thing is, my first year at Google, Matt was basically a combination of Someone wearing a suit and Mustache guy.

If you have any suggestions for what I should be for Halloween this year, please leave them in the comments. If it involves chef pants and/or a hard hat, that’s cool, because I already have them.

Lately I’ve refrained from constantly making fun of California, even as Nelson has recently become quite the little jokester when it comes to talking about the East Coast. He has the great bit about how the East Coast would react to sunshine.

But today something happened that I felt like sharing. Note that the exchange below is paraphrased and did not actually include a hyperlink.

Nelson: You added a question to the Moderator page for today’s presentation, right?
Me: Well, I had, but I deleted it since it’s no longer relevant. I posted it a few weeks ago before the meeting was postponed. Remember they rescheduled it?
Erin: Oh, yeah, on the day of the storm.

“The Storm?” I wondered to myself as I tried to think back to that day and figure out what she meant. Was it a sporting event that I was unaware of? The name of a Google event I forgot to attend?

Then, I remembered something about that day.

Me: You mean the time that it rained?

We had a good laugh as she confirmed my assumption. I then had one more question:

Me: But we didn’t cancel the meeting because of the rain, right?

Wrong.

If you’ve watched Conan recently, you may have seen him make fun of how Californians react to the rain. It’s not far from the truth:

To those of you who are trying to watch the clips outside of the US or after they expire, I apologize for using Hulu.

P.S. I like California.