A few weeks ago I briefly mentioned hipstamatic and said I'd come back to it. Well, here I am and I have to say I love this application. It makes iPhone photography so much fun. The interface is lovely, especially changing the lens (see this video for an idea, but do turn the sound down - the song is frightful) and the upload to flickr feature (new to version 150) works really nicely, even doing some basic tagging for me.

My original concerns were, as I posted last time:

Up until now I've liked taking the photos on a "normal" camera application and applying filters afterwards - this is a change as I'll have to get it right first time.

Getting it right first time is no bad thing to get used to, and it goes along with my recent thoughts about creativity through limitations. I am trying to get into the habit of visualising the resulting image first, and then taking the photo, and given the time that the app needs to develop the image this is a good habit to get in to. I'm still definitely practicing this technique, but I'm hopeful that the improvements will be visible across any medium I photograph in - whether I'm using an iPhone, a DSLR, Mum's old Balda Baldiexette or any of the other film cameras which I own.

I do still use the normal iPhone camera sometimes, and if I'm indoors, or its dark, then I'll use night camera almost exclusively and combine it with one of the editing packages I mentioned last time (still exclusively on the iPhone though). I've enjoyed getting familiar with the different lens and film options (and I've bought all the hipstapaks), but definitely have a preference (at least at the moment) for the John S lens which I love for its vibrant colours and mottled age effect.

The photo above is my most interesting hipstamatic photo (according to the flickr interesting algorithm) but feel free to take a look at the rest of my hipstamatic photos on flickr.

Some additional sample photos:

Alex tweeted about the Eat That Frog movie yesterday. I read the book at some point last year, and found this video to be a good reminder of some of the key points.

As a result I also reviewed the notes I made when I was reading the book and picked up a few things that I've let drift over the last few months, namely:

Apply the 80/20 rule to everything - Resist the temptation to clear up small items first and before starting a task always ask "Is this task in the top 20% of my activities or in the bottom 80%?

Obey the law of forced efficiency -
Question 1: What are my highest value activities?
Question 2: What can I and only I do that, if done well, will make a real difference?
Question 3: What is the most valuable use of my time right now?

Put the pressure on yourself - Imagine every day that you have just received an emergency message and that you will have to leave town tomorrow for a month. What would you absolutely have to get done? Whatever it is, go to work on that task right now.

I have made a note to re-watch this and re-read my notes every 6 months to review how I'm doing.

Interesting TED Talk from Blaise Aguera y Arcas about the new Bing maps.

Of particular interest to me is the use of integrated geo-tagged imagery from flickr to extend the imagery they've produced themselves, and the inclusion of WorldWide Telescope is pretty cute too.

Spotted via iPhoneography over the weekend.

This slide set, from the PMA 2010 keynote, gives an insight into just how impressive the imagery from an iPhone can be in the right hands. New York based iPhoneographer Sion Fullana is definitely one set of these right hands. His flickr stream provides more inspiration should you need it, and it is also very well labelled with what applications have been used to process the photos to help with application choice.

In recent weeks, I have found myself using my iPhone more and more to take photographs, admittedly this is partially to do with the fact that I still have about 800 unprocessed photos from my recent holiday and the backlog is draining, but none the less, I'm still absolutely loving the creativity offered by hipstamatic.

In February I uploaded 247 photos.

This photo was taken at Paddington Reservoir, Paddington, Sydney. It was taken on my Nikon d80, and processed using Lightroom where I converted it to black and white.

The reason I've chosen this as my favourite photo of the month is because I love the sense of depth. The pattern of the fence in the foreground crosses with the pattern of the steps in the background. The graffiti on the wall gives another set of patterns.

Jono took us to Paddington, originally because we wanted to go to the Blender gallery. On this day the gallery was shut as it was still the Christmas period - we did later go and visit. Instead we strolled around Paddington, and I found the old reservoir to be an excellent location for photography. Well recommended if you have some spare time, and your camera.

Promotion: Name Your Price!

For a limited time we are running experiment - Name Your Price for new CodeIt.Right license(s) and if it is reasonable we will sell you the license(s) at your price. There is no definition of "reasonable" at this point - it all depends on the rationale details you submit with your inquiry below.

Don't wait, Name Your Price now!

About 18 months ago, one of the tools I analysed for static code analysis was submain's CodeIt.Right. It was a good tool and the only thing holding me back from using it more was price and time (there was a 30 day review period). Our suggestion at the time was to use FXCop. I've kept an eye on CodeIt.Right though as the team are always improving it, and investing in it. Last week, I was made aware of the Name Your Price! promotion, and so have put in my bid to see if I can get a copy for myself to work with. It would enable me to put it to the test in a more real world scenario. If you're not currently using a static code analysis tool, then you could do worse than put in a bid and see if you're lucky.