Martello

Google have finally launched their Google Maps Street View service in Ireland. For those of you unfamiliar with this, it is the ability to zoom/pan down to ground level on a Google Map. I have used it once or twice but only really for US-based cities. However, it’s a wholly different (and addictive) experience using it to look at my own town, county and country.

The only down-side is that the simply isn’t obvious enough how to jump from a map view to the street view. To do this, you need to navigate to your location on the map view and then click and drag the small, yellow person icon (located above the zoom controls to the left of the map area) to the location on the map that you want to view the street view of.

Enjoy!

While researching my recent purchase of a Canon Powershot SX200 IS, I considered each of the following websites (listed alphabetically):

• Amazon UK
• CameraBox UK
• Dabs Ireland
• Expansys Ireland
• Komplett Ireland
• Pixmania Ireland
• Play.com
• Simply Electronics
• Sun Digital UK

There was actually €64 of a difference between cheapest (Simply Electronics) and the dearest (Expansys Ireland), for the camera only. However, Pixmania offered the best value for the package I wanted (i.e. spare battery, high-speed 8GB SDHC card and case) so I went with them in the end.

It was my first time shopping with Pixmania and I have say they provide a pretty good service. They provide an excellent tracking service (linked to DHL) and my package arrived safe and sound, and on time. The inclusion of a free Pixmania camera strap was a nice touch and my daughter was suitably impressed (as are her dolls who are now sporting said attire).

After seven years of faithful service, my trusty Canon IXUS V digital camera has finally been decommissioned. I originally won it on a radio phone-in competition back in 2002 and even though there’s actually nothing wrong with it functionally, I just found myself wanting more zoom on a number of occasions recently and so finally got around to upgrading. For it’s time, the IXUS V was a truly terrific camera – ultra compact, seriously rugged, 2 Megapixels, 2X optical zoom, video capture and superb picture quality.

On foot of the desire for more (optical) zoom, and with a preference to stick with Canon, I set about finding a replacement. Since High Definition movies and television are also the flavour of the month, I decided to go for something with HD movie capture too. Enter the Canon Powershot SX200 IS, with 12 Megapixels, 12X optical zoom, a 28mm wide angle lens, full 1080p HD video capture and a massive 3″ LCD screen, there isn’t much more I could have asked for.

If I were to have anything slightly negative to say about this camera it would be just that the pop-up flash takes a little getting used to. It would be great if it only emerged when actually needed. I also miss having a manual viewfinder. On the old model, I used to switch off the LCD display when running low on battery and use the manual viewfinder instead, yielding another 30 minutes of battery life instead. That said, I won’t be changing back any time soon and am looking forward to another 7 years of happy snapping.

I recently created an account on the Flickr photography website for a friend and uploaded a couple of their pictures (3 to be precise) to get them started. I tagged each picture appropriately but found that they were not coming through on the RSS feed for that tag (something which I use Flickr for quite extensively).

After some searching, I found out (via a Flickr Forum Article) that:

1. All new Flickr accounts must be reviewed before being accessible via the Flickr RSS feeds
2. In order for a new account to be reviewed, you must have uploaded at least 5 public photos.

Since I had only uploaded 3 photos initially, this looks like the chief suspect for the behaviour that I’m seeing. I’ve uploaded some more now so will post back if/when the issue is resolved.

Two of my favourite photographs from the last year or so were both taken by Joe Cashin, an extremely popular contributor on Flickr and also an old friend of the family. Interestingly, both shots were taken in Co. Kerry and clearly demonstrate the truth in the statement that is omnipresent in Irish minds around this time of the year:

If only we had the weather

An Old Killarney Home (Muckross National Park, Kerry)

Evening on the Lakes (Killarney Lakes)