At Home with Tech

October 18, 2015

Why Do PCs Display iPhone Photos Upside Down?

If this is how your PC displays a photo snapped with your iPhone, you know it’s time to determine the culprit. And you may be surprised what you find….

At work, I often snap an iPhone photo or two at video shoots. It takes two seconds, and then I quickly email them to an offsite colleague or client for immediate feedback on the set or background.
(I often forget that the smartphone is such an incredible work collaboration tool that didn’t exist so long ago.)

Unfortunately, a problem I often run into is my pictures inexplicably show up upside down on computer screens. More specifically… PCs.

They always display correctly on Macs… just not PCs running Windows.

Your World is Topsy-Turvy
So you’ve got to imagine the response I sometimes get when my pictures play their little dance.
(How easy would it be to evaluate an image if you had to stand on your head?!)

I’ve always taken the privileged position that the problem is somehow caused by the evil PC.
(It couldn’t possibly be the fault of the perfect iPhone!)

The reality is most folks are going to also assume that you’re somehow the culprit. That you’ve made a mistake and you don’t know how to use your own iPhone.

Guess what…
Up until now, I didn’t!

Which Way is Up?
What I didn’t know is there is actually a right side up to the iPhone when you hold it horizontally.
(I assume we all understand how to hold it vertically, since the ‘home’ button is always there on the bottom to orient you.)

Horizontally, I’ve always gripped my iPhone 6 Plus with the two side volume buttons facing up. That’s because I often like to press either of the two volume buttons to take the photo instead of the white circle on the screen.
(If I’m holding my iPhone with only one hand, it’s more effective to press down on a button.)

As it turns out, positioning your iPhone that way is upside down!

It seems counter intuitive to grasp your iPhone the other way when snapping a pic… and then ‘squeeze’ the button from underneath…. But that’s the correct orientation according to Apple’s engineers.

Clever Apple
But even if you’re accidentally documenting your life upside down, how do Macs know to correctly display your picture?

That’s because your iPhone includes an EXIF tag with each photo that says which way is up. According to iPhone Photography School, every Apple device that displays your photo is going to know how to read that metadata.

The problem is lots of software in PCs can’t.

That’s the huge rub.
It’s simply a compatibility problem.

Well, technically, it’s still your fault if you’re holding your iPhone incorrectly. Apple just fixes the problem for you, and many PCs won’t.

How to Correctly Hold Your iPhone
So what’s the fix?

Well, first off… this problem has actually been around since the iPhone 5.
(Wake up, Rip Van Lester!)

There are various PC methods to manually adjust the orientation of pictures, but do you seriously expect anyone to take additional steps to flip around your mistake after experiencing the annoyance of trying to view your inverted photo?

Own the problem!
When you want to snap and send a photo to a PC, just turn your iPhone so the buttons are on the bottom… and then proceed.

Yogi Barrett?
Yes, I could blame Apple for a design flaw.
(It’s more natural to push the button down like with any camera in the known universe!)

But the truth is, I didn’t know which way was up.
(An important lesson that Apple has been so considerate to remind me of.)

I am not the center of my known universe.

Maybe I’ve begun a journey to a higher plane…
…or the story of my gaff has no place other than perhaps a fortune cookie:

“Wise man holds iPhone with volume buttons down.”

No?

October 11, 2015

I Bequeath My CD Collection to My Five Year Old

But before I do, I need to buy a new portable CD boombox, so my son can continue to listen to all of those near-abandoned discs I have yet to rip to my computer. The question is… which boombox should I get?

When my five year old was just a baby and beginning to crawl, he wasn’t really moving more than a few inches. One day, he spotted our old Sony CD boombox on the other side of the family room. It was playing a nursery rhyme. He stared at the magical device, and it was love at first sight. Now, he had some real motivation to advance his locomotion.

He had to touch it. In that moment, he crawled an entire foot towards it.

Over the next week, I watched him repeatedly return his attention to the CD player, and observed his effort to crawl over and touch it. When he eventually made it to the singing device, his face lit up as his stretched hand made first contact.

It felt like my son taught himself to crawl at an accelerated rate, because of this need to get to his CD boombox.

Yes, his boombox.

Music to His Ears
Since then, his attachment to the wonderful music box has never waned. He’s learned that pressing buttons makes it sing, and that there are different songs.

Eventually, he mastered the entire interface, plus the CD track numbers. He also enjoyed popping different CDs in and out to create a seemingly endless supply of music.

Like a boy and his dog, it was my son and his music.
(A dog is a conversation for another day.)

End of Life Lurking
But now there’s trouble lurking in his magic kingdom…

Our boombox is over a decade old, and his sometimes rough handling of it over the years has taken its toll. It’s finally starting to malfunction.

And before the CD player totally breaks down, I’ve got a decision to make.

Should I replace the Sony or introduce my son to the more current world of iPods and MP3 players?

Hanging on to CDs
It should be an obvious answer, but part of the problem is I still haven’t ripped all of my old CDs to iTunes. There’s a whole bookcase of them waiting for rainy days that never come… thanks to busy parenthood with other priorities.

Plus, somehow he’s picked up his own personal CD collection over the past few years. (Gifts, mostly)

My conundrum is CD use is still alive and well throughout the Lester household. As much as I want to, I can’t pull the plug… not yet. So I decided it was time to get a new boombox for my boy.

You Get What You Pay For
What made the decision a bit easier was the expected low price point of this near dead tech.

Sure CDs are still selling at the same prices as a decade ago.
(Odd)
But who’s really buying CD boomboxes anymore?
(Besides me?)

And in fact, Amazon has a whole host of no name CD boomboxes to choose from in the $30-$50 range. But user reviews are absolutely terrible for the whole lot of them.

Whatever I buy is going to take its share of wear and tear from my son’s use.
It needs to take a little licking…

Hmmm…

A Sony CD Boombox on Steroids
So expanded my price point and took a look at what Sony had to offer…

Of course Sony is selling its current boombox model for a hefty 100 bucks.
(You pay more for the brand, right?)

But as it turns out, the black Sony ZS-RS60BT CD Boombox has a few updated tricks up its sleeve.

It has Bluetooth connectivity. So I can stream music to it from my iPhone.
(Much like my nifty Logitech UE speaker)
It can play music files from USB devices.
It can rip CD files to USB devices.
(As MP3s)

Not too shabby…

Sticking with Sony
Okay… so I’m spending twice as much as I need to… but I’m technically getting a superior unit with newer tech to future proof it somewhat.
(Plus, Daddy can use it too.)

Okay, let’s shop it…

Click.

No Magic Bullets
Most portable CD boomboxes on the market today have seemingly become glorified toys at ludicrously cheap price points. But if you want a good one, you’ve still got to spend some coin.

Does my son need a premium ‘Sony’ product? Well, I’d like it to last for a few years, and the Amazon reviews on this one are mostly solid.
(And don’t forget, my last Sony held up to normal toddler abuse like a champ.)

Equilibrium Restored
So my five year old is getting a new CD boombox.
(The holidays are just around the corner…)
No, he won’t be the coolest kid on the block, but thankfully, he doesn’t know that yet.

Soon, I will expose my son to newer musical tech. But for now, my boy will continue his reign as the CD king of our household.

He’s happy. I’m happy.

Yes, I blew some bucks on dead tech.
But I got a Bluetooth speaker along the way…

Rock on.

October 4, 2015

Did You Know NASA Has a Martian Prime Directive?

The walls of the Garni Crater on Mars have dark, narrow streaks that NASA says reveal liquid water. Terran scientists are jumping up and down with glee, but there’s a catch…

Remember the Prime Directive on “Star Trek?” You know, that pesky Federation law that Captain Kirk often had to ‘bend,’ which was supposed to prevent humans from altering the natural development of an alien civilization?

In case you missed it, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted ‘definitive evidence’ of liquid salty water on Mars… not from millions of years ago… but right now!

Reconnaissance snapped photos showing dark streaks ‘seeping’ down Martian slopes, and the streaks have been changing size depending on the surface temperature.

Well of course, you’d think we should now refocus all of our Martian exploration efforts where this water is. Right?

Wrong.

Unwanted Hitchhikers
Well, it turns out, NASA’s got it’s own Prime Directive, and it’s called the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty.

This pesky treaty mostly talks about the peaceful exploration of space, but Article IX briefly addresses the protection of other planets:

“States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination…”

So it’s like we’ve got to wash our hands, before first sitting down to dinner with any Martians we might find.

And the problem is… we haven’t thoroughly washed our hands.

Article IX is a Bummer
When NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover landed on Mars back in 2012, it wasn’t totally sterilized from all Earth microbes. Turns out, that’s extremely difficult and ‘expensive’ to do.

Most likely, there are some tough Terran microbial hitchhikers cruising with Curiosity on Mars today.

And if Curiosity did come across any form of Martian life, we wouldn’t want to contaminate it with our own micro bugs.
(Note the ending from H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.”)

So even if Curiosity could be redirected to check out this discovery,
(Which the rover can’t get to…the slopes are too steep.)
…Curiosity is banned from this new ‘forbidden zone,’ because of Article IX!

That’s right… We spent billions of dollars to send robots up there to look for life, and when we finally find a place that’s actually got some water, where there’s a stronger chance of finding life, we can’t… because we didn’t spend enough money to sterilize our gear to protect the Martians.

And guess what?
It looks like we’ve got the same problem with the next Mars rover mission in 2020.

Huh?

I think we 21st century humans needs a little dose of Captain Kirk’s 23rd century explorative ‘joie de vivre’ right about now…

Searching for Life… from Afar
I really don’t get it…
Isn’t there an inherent problem with the design of all this?

If we’re trying to find life on Mars, shouldn’t we be able to go to the places where there’s a greater chance of some actual life?

Yes, it’s lovely to see all of those nifty pictures from the surface of Mars, but come on!!

I don’t typically end my posts with more questions than answers, but I’m a little stumped.

Yes, I understand NASA doesn’t have the money or technology to send up a totally “clean” mission to Mars…but there’s got to be some way to figure this all out.

And haven’t we already contaminated the Red Planet with our Mars exploration to date?

What would the Prime Directive and Mr. Spock have to say about that…?

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