Live Photo Blogging

What a world we live in. Here is an example of the technological capabilities we now have.

I have set up a system to make simple things even easier, in fact, does them for you. When I take a photo with my camera, the photo is automatically downloaded to my computer. From there, a program called WatchDirectory... well... watches the directory that the photos get saved to. When it sees a new photo there, it e-mails it to my Flickr photo account, and then Flickr can post it to any blog I have set up.

So, we will have a camera floating around during the broadcasts, and all of the photos from it will be instantly uploaded to an online photoblog. We will be uploading the photos to the Ryakuga Flickr account, and the location of the blog will be published when we decide which one we're using. You'll be able to see who's there, and what's going on, as it happens!

One of the keys to this process is WatchDirectory. I spent quite a bit of time figuring out how to automate the uploading of new photos. I looked at several different monitoring and uploading programs, and WatchDirectoryis definitely the best. Many of the others required complex scripting, had difficult interfaces, or simply couldn't do what I wanted. WatchDirectory does everything I want, plus more, in an easy to use, powerful interface. I can configure it to e-mail each photo to as many e-mail addresses as I want, and then perform whatever actions I want (copy, move, delete, whatever). If you are interested in any sort of file monitoring or automation, I suggest you check out WatchDirectory. Also, as a special treat for readers and listeners of the Equity and Technology Community Radio Broadcasts, if you use the coupon code "etrb" you will receive 25% off your purchase. Thanks Gert for all your support of the project and help implementing this!