Cyanogenmod, S3 mini and Dropbox

The Dropbox camera upload is something truly convenient, but only if it works...

After installing the Cyanogenmod on my Samsung Galaxy S3 mini everything went well until I figured out that the file names from the automatic Dropbox upload were.... different. 

The names were actually like this:
1969-12-31 16.00.00-487
1969-12-31 16.00.00-488
1969-12-31 19.00.00
1969-12-31 19.00.00-1
1969-12-31 19.00.00-2
1969-12-31 19.00.00-3
1970-01-01 01.00.00
1970-01-01 01.00.00-1

Yeah, definitely not the current date. So I was hoping to find a fix as I found several other people in different forums having the same problem, but it didn't seem like there was any solution. It was even mentioned that there's no solution expected. Obviously there's an issue with the camera driver.

The thing also is that Dropbox changes the file name after the upload to the date taken from the EXIF information. And this EXIF data is wrong for some reason. Even if there's the correct date set within the file.

That's why some people had the idea to find a solution removing the Dropbox feature to change the file name for the upload, but that doesn't even seem possible.

My personal workaround solution

But despite the issue you have to live with it or find a way to make it simple. Of course you can sent everything via Bluetooth or connect the USB cable to copy the picture to your PC or cloud folder.

You can also use a script to change the names of the uploaded pictures in Dropbox afterwards. Or even find another cloud to upload your photos.

I kept it simple: MANUALLY! I made an extra Dropbox folder and I'm sending the photos manually from time to time to the Dropbox.

And if my phone gets lost, I still have the wrong named photos in my camera uploads. So, could be worse!

5 reasons why Google Picasa will be missed

The announcement was expected, but also a shock: Google will end its support of Picasa this March in order to focus on Google Photos. Today we will look back at five reason why will miss Picasa.

1: Geotags

Current cameras, but mostly smartphones showed very early the possibility to tag photos with their current GPS location. Once tagged, the coordinates are found in the Exif metadata of pictures. And of course you are also able to manually add the GPS data.

By with having all your pictures in the database you can see all the places in the world where you've taken geotagged photos. It looks similar to the map in Facebook, but I'm sure you won't post everything online only to have a proper view of these locations.

I don't know any better way to do just that.

2: Face recognition and tagging

At the beginning there's a bit of work to do: You have to give the faces names, but with more and more data Picasa helps you recognizing persons to connect them with their name profile.

These name tag are also added in the Exif metadata of the picture file, but as far as I know only Picasa can use them properly in a database.

And even if the face recognition doesn't work, you can also add faces manually.

3: Database

The database itself has a lot to offer: You can chose a folder or drive to be scanned and Picasa shows you all pictures and videos from it - the subfolders are even sorted by changing date.

The database is stored in the following location:
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Picasa2
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Picasa2Albums

By copying these folders you can transfer your Picasa profile to another computer.

4: Automatic scan of specified folder

You can select to have an automatic folder scan after starting the application.

All new photos and even videos will be added to the database in that procedure and the face recognition might has already done its job.

With a little trick you are also able to scan the entire hard drive...

5: Offline

As mentioned before: Despite there was an option for an online connection, you can use it completely offline.

Obviously for that reason Google decided to drop the tool, because they don't seem to have much interest to invest in offline applications any further. They say the Picasa users can switch to the online service Google Photos but there are all the important features missing....

That's also the reason why the end of its support is not really the end: You can still use it as long as it's installed. You better save the Setup file - just in case.