Cheese! Snap, edit and post in an instant.

It sometimes amazes the tools I have at my fingers tips for doing things that a few years ago just were not possible. This photo of my two-month-old niece was taken last night. Her aunties were having a great time dressing her up. I quickly grabbed my Nikon and fired off a few shots. Babies aren't the most co-operative subjects so this is the best photo of the few I shot. The aunties ( and uncles ) loved the photograph so I was obliged to share.

A few years ago, sharing would have meant, waiting until I got home to import the photo to my computer, doing some selective editing, launching the email app and sending off an attachment. But now, now I can do that entire process in just a few minutes.

The process was quick and simple. I attached the iPad Camera Connection Kit to my iPad and imported the photo to the Photos apps. I then edited the photo in Snapseed, cropping and adding some selective blurring. I saved the processed image back to the Photos apps and added it to an existing Photo Stream -- one I had created a few weeks after my niece was born. The Photo Stream is shared with all the immediate family1. If the family member has an iPhone or iPad ( there is at least one in each household ) with iCloud enabled they get a notification. If that family member has Mac with iPhoto2 they can sync a copy of the photo to their library. Even better, if they have an Apple TV they can watch the photos via their big flatscreen HDTV. Family members who haven't become wise to Apple products can still view the photos via a ... browser.

I could have taken the photo with my iPhone 5 and shared directly with them but I wanted to use the more powerful features of my DSLR. The iPad, iCloud and the iPad Camera Connection Kit enabled me to make my DSLR photography as instant as I want it to be.


  1. I could just have easily shared the photo to Facebook but Photo Stream allows the full resolution image to be downloaded. I also don't have to be concerned about privacy. 
  2. OS X Mountain Lion, iPhoto '11, and a free iCloud account are required. 

The 5 Most Popular Posts of 2012

The 5 Most Popular Posts of 2012

I'm about to wrap up another year of writing on Island in the Net and start the 12th year.

To end the year I wanted to look back1 on what you, the readers, found most interesting this year with my top 5 most popular posts published in 2012:

The article about my photography and the Raspberry Pi generate more commentary and interest than any article I've ever written on this blog. It seems that readers are more interested in the sort of things not covered by most other blogs. That tells me that I need to get back to my maker roots. I look forward to writing more articles of this type in 2013.


  1. The idea for this post came from a Google employee Adam Singer. 

Back to the beginning; Khurt.com/blog will disappear in 2013

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I started blogging back in 2001 as Island in the Net. The blog was named for one of my favorite cyberpunk novels1, and described how I felt about my writing at the time. My blog was/is like a small island in the vast ocean of the Internet where I shared my thoughts about anything and everything.

I started writing more technical articles around 2003/2004 and Island in the Net was morphing into more of a technical how-to focused blog and less of a personal blog. I was also occasionally posting about my photography and my opinions on tech news and I felt it was not a great match for what the blog was becoming. I started to segment my interests and my develop a bit of hubris about my efforts.

Around 2007, I started two new blogs, Khürt/photos and Khürt/blog. One blog would be focused on my photography while another would be more of a Daring Fireball style link blog. Each blog would be focused on a particular aspect of ... me. The Khürt/blog lived briefly on Tumblr as Inchoate, a reference to the fact that my thoughts on many things were a jumble of partially baked ideas2. My top blog post on Khürt/blog in 2012 was about how people hated Apple. It had over 10,000 page views.

I retrospect, I think this was a mistake. I am not three separate people, nor am I a celebrity blogger. I am but one person with many interests. I like photography, and my Apple tech, and software and … . I want to put that all in one place. I’ve decided that Island in the Net will be my one and only personal blog. It will be focused on what Island in the Net originally was.

I will keep the khurt.com domain but will repurpose it3. All the content from the photography and personal blog will be imported4 into Island in the Net. I’ll still post my weekly photos and my tech reviews and my opinions on … well everything but they’ll be under one “brand”.


  1. Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling. 
  2. in·cho·ate /in?k?-it/
    
    Adjective
    Just begun and so not fully formed or developed; rudimentary: "a still inchoate democracy".
     
    Synonyms
    inchoative - rudimentary
    

  3. Something new launch in 2013 but I’m keeping it under wraps until I’m ready. 
  4. I love how easy this can be with WordPress but I’m crossing my fingers.