This weekend I spent some extra time in front of the computer. I was itching to get some kind of geotagging support into F-Spot. It was a fun ride, I got to relearn C# and use Monodevelop. Both of which are swell, it is a real plush experience. And Stetic is neat.

Anyway, this extension allows you to take a GPS track file, and correlate it with photos using the EXIF timestamp. The result is a collection of automatically geotagged photos. You could see my start of a geotag collection here.
You could get this work in progress with SVN:

svn co /geotag/geotag%3C/pre%3E

To do:  
– Tag multiple versions, now only the default version gets tagged (maybe  
that is enough?).  
– Deal with RAW. I didn’t even test this, or for that matter anything  
non-jpeg.  
– Allow timestamp adjustments in the dialog. My Canon digital rebel does  
not provide a way to synchronize the clock very well, so the timestamp  
will never be very accurate (I heard you could do that in Nikon, but  
don’t get me started!).  
Far future:  
– Include a map widget. Unless you are a dork like me walking around  
with a GPS logger, this extension is useless. A map widget will allow  
people to review the coordinate info, and easily adjust it. I could  
personally live without the map now, because I upload pics to flickr,  
and it does the pretty map bit for me.

As Will pointed out, the latest issue of Linux Journal is focusing on the desktop, with not one, but two articles devoted to desktop accessibility! If I read the contract that I signed hastily right, I keep the copyright for the article, so I could post it here.

A long awaited feature has finally landed in Orca’s beta. We now support grade 2 braille.
If you never heard of contracted braille, or grade 2 braille, just think of the sort of shorthand tricks that teenagers use today when they text message each other, “you are great” turns into “u r gr8”. In contracted braille it would be “y >e grt”.
Unlike text messaging, grade 2 braille did not come about because of text input laziness, it came to be generations ago for reducing space and increasing reading speeds. Of course today, in the age of refreshable braille displays, the space concern is less important. Nonetheless, horizontal scrolling is reduced when using a 40 cell braille display, making the Orca experience that much smoother.
Translating a written language in to grade 2 braille correctly is a challenging problem. There are many rules that go into the process of translating a language in to it’s contracted form. Luckily we had a shared library from John Boyer called liblouis. John has been extremely helpful in helping us roll this release out using his library. And has been accommodating to are nutty release schedule.
A special thanks also to Mike for dealing with my braille ignorance, and to Will, who patiently reviewed my shoddy patch (I promise to do more pylint runs in the future).
And to all you users, abusers, and testers out there. We need your input on this stuff. Thanks in advance for that. If there are a non-English braille readers out there I would especially like to get in touch so we could iron out any localization kinks.

I was the fortunate winner of two special things in the last local JVP benefit auction: Knitting lessons from Wendy, and monthly music mixes from Mike. Although I am an eager learner, I thought crafty Terah might enjoy knitting lessons a lot. So Wendy is teaching Terah to knit. I am closely watching the progress as the stitches are straightening out.

Mike has put his whole heart in to making personal monthly music mixes for me. The first one, January: Short Days and Long Nights, arrived in the mail a week ago. It has been a joy to listen to, I have it mostly on constant loop. Mike put together a diverse collection of music with subtle hints of the disc’s theme. I put together an internet radio station that plays the mix in a loop for all you out there to enjoy.
You could start listening here.