These are photos I took to help me figure out part of a puzzle for an idea I’ve wanted to see for a while now. I want to do visuals for a show that include photos taken by anyone who happens to be at the event, as the photos are taken, without having to pop memory cards out of cameras or anything of the sort.

I was laboring under the delusion that I had found an ok way to do the first part of this: emailing photos to Flickr and having new Flickr photos private by default, using Photo Grabbr on Mac OS X to grab the photos “not in a set” and downloading those to a folder on my computer. From then on into Max/MSP to actually do something with the photos.

Rube Goldberg ain’t got nothing on me! After writing up a 500 word post, I found a better way to do this first part (200 less words!). DropBox is a great way to sync files between multiple computers, and to access those files on things like Androids and iPhones. What they don’t provide is a way to email a photo to their service. It’s unrealistic to think that I would have everyone at an event set up a DropBox account, become a contact, yadda, yadda, yadda . . . so email is really the best way to do this. So set up a DropBox account and install the program on the machine you want to run this scenario on.

In comes Tgethr. Get an account with Tgethr. Set it up with the email for the upcoming event, remember that you’re going to want to change it to the next email address right after the event, so nothing you’re going to want forever. Add your DropBox account (kinda hidden), and make sure to put a name (the name of your event?) in the third field “dropbox root folder”. This will put things into a subfolder with that name. You should be able to close the tgether.com window for now.

Now, email your newly created @tgethr.com email address an attached photo, as if you were at an event. You should get an image in your dropbox folder inside of a folder for your event. Success!

Next: actually doing something with these photos.

This just in, Breona’s sister Cedra does catering on Orcas Island and makes some mean cake. She makes a great vegan, gluten free cheesecake that could take over the world! Back to the topic, she made a cake to donate to the auction on June 6th. Go to the event, and bid on some amazing cake.

Take a gander at the images.

My girlfriend Breona applied and was accepted for one of the OLPC Africa grants that is happening this summer (very soon!).

The broad information is that OLPC Africa gave grants of 100 laptops and $10,000 to 30 teams of students and non government organizations (NGOs). The teams will have a very short amount of time to prepare, as some people are leaving around June 4th to go to a training in Rwanda.

The NGO that Breona is associated with is called the East African Center. They are having a fundraiser June 6th downtown. Breona and I will be there with a few XO laptops for people to play with and will be talking about the laptops and the project.

The village of Takaungu makes some great clothing, bags, and other assorted textiles that will also be available for sale. You could ostensibly finish your Christmas shopping very early and help out a worthwhile cause!

Thanks, and hope to see some of you there, Ian

Information about the EAC fundraiser in Seattle on June 6 and a link for tickets:

http://www.eastafricancenter.org/auction/09

http://brownpapertickets.com/event/64113

Blog post announcing the grant to the EAC:

http://eastafricancenter.blogspot.com/2009/05/one-laptop-per-child-olpc-awarded-for.html

(great pictures and information about the village and school from here)

MacFuse + Jeff Han Multitouch = Minority Report