Here’s a little test.

Hatfield has been in the papers again this week.  It’s where I went to secondary school.  I used to cycle 6 miles each way, each day, including the climb up Bell Bar (near Potters Bar) which was about half way from Cuffley.

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I’ve also now found and installed the ‘official’ Tagaroo plugin from Calais.  Here’s a quick test to see how it works.

Unlike the others it automatically suggests tags and even photos that match, constantly updating as you type.  So already I’m seeing loads related to Calais, northern France.

But what if I type an obscure location, such as the tiny hamlet of Windmill, which is just near one of my favourite holiday locations at Trevone, near Padstow.  Well, it certainly seems to have recognised something as a location, as it has automatically suggested Cornwall, but frustratingly they are all converted into plain text tags, so I can’t see if it just thinks it is about a windmill, rather than if it has detected that Windmill is a location.

There’s even a drop-down that lets me restrict the types of tag, but the options are just ‘All’,  ‘Social’ and ‘Country’.  And Country only returns France.

So let’s give it something simpler – I grew up in the village of Cuffley and near there there is a tiny place called Brickendon, which I’m not aware of as meaning anything else!  But neither Auto Tagger nor Tagaroo have spotted that one.  Shame, I wonder what the data source is that they are using for geography, and how detailed it is?

Oddly the Calais Auto Tagger mentioned in a previous post seems to pull out things slightly differently, especially locations.  For example it has actually given me “Cuffley, United Kingdom”.

Oh, and one last thing.  If you have Tagaroo and Auto Tagger both installed, it looks like Auto Tagger overrides anything you add from Tagaroo

These are the two plugins:

• WP Calais Auto Tagger
• WP Calais Archive Tagger

The autotagger suggested the following for this post (before I entered this sentence of course):

World Wide Web

PHP programming language

Computing

Blog software

Content management systems

WordPress

Information

Geographic information systems

Web 2.0

Geotagging

Tag

London,Greater London,United Kingdom

London

automated tagging systems

Anyway, this is just a test to see how it works, and the WordPress widget to automatically post to Twitter (a bit crazy testing it with a domain the length of catchingtherain.com of course!).

Wait a little while and it should automatically go through the highlights, or just click on the thumbnails to the right (again, there must be something not quite right with a piece of software if you have to give people guidance on how to do the basics!)

I’d suggest opening full screen for maximum impact, or see the original on photosyth.net

If you don’t have Microsoft Silverlight you’ll have to install it, but it’s easy (just click on the button) and I think it’s worth it!

You can see the full version here, or better still click on the full-screen button to the right of the [-] & [+]

For the technically minded, this was stitched together from 3 rows of 18 portrait format images shot handheld (no tripod) at 70mm 1/320th f8 ISO200 on a Nikon D300. Stitching was done using Microsoft Image Composite Editor and uploaded, hosted and embedded (including highlights feature) on Microsoft Photosynth.

A test of the Android WordPress application and postings from my mobile. Neat!

Wow, it had changed incredibly since my last visit, back in the days when I was working on plant uses in the Centre for Economic Botany at Kew (my first job at Kew). With brand new galleries, a new aquarium, and the temporary travelling exhibition Myths and Monsters (from the Natural History Museum team) it proved to be a great day out.

Myths and Monsters

Even the old natural history galleries, where one is rather fittingly invited to ‘step back in time’, provided some engaging displays; for examples skeletons of apes and early man, together with moulds of brain sizes, give a stark reminder of how we have evolved. Somehow these rather erudite displays seem suitably complemented by the over-stuffed walrus
which takes pride of place in the middle of the gallery.

At the Horniman the theme of culture is a constant one, and we found ourselves watching videos of brass shields being made in Benin, looking at mummies from Egypt, and gazing at the most amazing displays packed full of musical instruments of all shapes and sizes (with a nice little side room where you can try some out, though not the expensive guitars, much to Oliver’s disappointment!).

I shouldn’t forget the gardens. It was hardly the best time of the year to visit a garden, nor was the weather on our side, but it’s good to see that they have just got nearly a million pounds of Lottery money to carry out an extensive refurbishment, including rebuilding the bandstand (from where you get amazing views looking north over central London).

He’d hate me for saying this, but whether it was the stepping back in time, the change in surroundings, or simply a rare chance for us to spend one-on-one time together, Oliver was transformed from ’12 year old going on 18′ into the studious scholar, to the point where half the time he was telling me what things were!

Just goes to show the power of museums of all shapes and sizes, and you don’t get much wider a range of exhibit than the Horniman – well worth a visit, with a wide appeal to everyone.

Check out their website and their Facebook page