Nina Paley has been working on Seder-Masochism, the follow-up to her wonderful Sita Sings The Blues, for a while now. Here’s a snippet, visuals courtesy Nina, song courtesy The Pointer Sisters. Fabulous (in all meanings of the word)!
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RIP Ursula
Damn. Ursula Le Guin has died. One of the greats who you would wish to go on forever. That task has now passed to her work. So that settles it, she will be read, and re-read for a very long time to come. She will be missed, but her memory, ideas, characters and philosophies will live on.
Now, if you will excuse me, I will put aside my re-reading of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, and pick up, once more, Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, before continuing with the other thirty-one books of hers in my library…
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Microsoft Photos – Still a Disaster After All These Years
Our local village community organisation – Heelwegs Belang – is holding its annual New Year’s Reception today. I thought that I would make a slide presentation to run continuously during the reception and be displayed on a screen in the village hall.
I thought about what tool I would use to make the presentation; would it be PowerPoint, or something else? Initially, I thought I would try using Microsoft’s new presentation tool Sway. It seemed promising, but I quickly discovered that it requires a permanent connection to the internet to work. Since there is no WiFi in the village hall at the moment, that ruled out Sway from consideration.
Then I realised that the much-maligned (by me and others) Microsoft Photos app now has a so-called “video creation” mode, which can be used to assemble slide presentations, and even put music to them. So I fired up Photos and set about assembling my presentation.
Dear lord, but what a painful experience that proved to be. The Photos app is slow as molasses in this mode, and crashes frequently. The workflow involved in assembling a presentation is primitive – for example, you must apply effects one at a time to each slide; you can’t select a group of slides and apply an effect or effects to the group. So if you want to change the default display time of 3 seconds to, say, 5 seconds – you have to plod through the presentation and change each slide timing individually. Given that “plodding” is the order of the day with the Photos app, I felt I was fighting the app every damn step of the way. Add to that the frequent crashes, and losing the last few minutes of work each time, I was ready to put my fist through the screen at several points.
Frankly, next time, it will be back to PowerPoint. It may be old-school, but at least it works, and does what it says on the tin.
3 responses to “Microsoft Photos – Still a Disaster After All These Years”
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Yep, you only have to look at the feedback hub for the photos “app” to see you’re not alone in your despair. When the old free MS Photo Gallery was so good (absolutely fantasic in comparison in fact), you have to wonder what’s gone wrong at MS in this area. I think they’re too busy adding large blank fuzzy transparent areas to apps rather than getting on with the job of making useful things that work.
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I always wonder why the programmers don’t actually try a real task after they create their code. Instead of a 30-second video on how great it is while using 4 carefully sized images, if they actually tried to put together 100 full-sized images in a real-world show they would see the limitations on what they have created.
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[…] is a step backwards from the old ‘Smart Files’ feature in Windows. I’ve also complained numerous times that the Microsoft Photos app is severely lacking in comparison with the Windows Photo […]
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Facepalm Time Again
I see that Microsoft has at last introduced a much-requested feature into their Photos app for Windows 10. Unfortunately, this being Microsoft, the feature is half-baked and not useful. Let me explain.
With the Fall Creators Update, the Photos app started to be able to recognise faces in photos. There was no way to add names to the faces, or to group photos of the same face together under one name, as we could do in Microsoft’s Windows Photo Gallery 2012, but at least it appeared as though Microsoft was starting down the road to make the Photos app more useful by adding People Tags.
There’s now at last a build (2017.39101.16720.0) of the Photos app released to Windows Insiders that allows you to assign names to faces. However, the names are local to the PC on which they are done, so they reside in the local database of the Photos app, rather than being written back to the file as metadata. That means that the information does not travel with the file. If the file is held in OneDrive, and accessed from another device, the People Tags are not available to that device. The experience is broken. If you want the People Tags to be available on the new device, you have to go through the manual process of adding names to faces again (and again and again on each new device that the files are copied to).
What is truly depressing is that Microsoft helped define a metadata standard for tagging faces in the Metadata Working Group – and that standard has been available since 2010. It’s been implemented in products such as Adobe Lightroom, Photo Supreme and Google’s Picasa, so People tags created in any one of these products travel with the file, and can be read in any of the others.
Here we are in 2018, and Microsoft still hasn’t learned how to build a seamless experience for People Tagging.
And to add insult to injury, the Search facility for descriptive tags is also still broken.
11 responses to “Facepalm Time Again”
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Thanks for your insights. Are People tags created in Windows Photo Gallery compatible with Adobe Lightroom and other programs?
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The People tags in WPG use a Microsoft-defined XMP schema. Adobe’s Lightroom does not use this, and so People tags defined in WPG won’t be seen in Lightroom. Photo Supreme is able to import the Microsoft People tags, and will convert them to the Metadata Working Group standard for interoperability. I believe that Picasa can do the same.
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Thanks, Geoff. I use Windows Photo Gallery, a program that Microsoft no longer supports. So it’s nice to know that someday I’ll be able to convert my People tags for use with another program.
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It always amazes me how Microsoft epitomizes the “left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing” philosophy. I suspect the people working on the People Tags have no mandate to follow the standard or even knew there was one. It is apparent in every level of Microsoft, either as a cultural thing or a inefficiency thing.
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I agree, and there was even a time when the NIH (not invented here) philosophy was very apparent in many areas of Microsoft.
Back in 2006, there were keen amateur photographers in the Microsoft team working on their photo software. They held fast to the maxim “the truth is in the file”, and even blogged about it. The results of their labours was Windows Photo Gallery, which, despite a few shortcomings, was very good, and far in advance of that miserable excuse for an app that Microsoft now foist on us.
Of course, the team’s blog on the MSDN site has long since disappeared into the great bit-bucket in the sky, Windows Photo Gallery is now longer supported by Microsoft and the original members of the team have long since moved on.
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[…] ← Facepalm Time Again […]
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Geoff, did you create a feedback hub item for these issues? If so, can you give us a title or something we can use to find it and vote it up?
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I created a feedback item for the People tagging issue, look for the title: “people tagging local to each PC is not useful”.
I haven’t created a new issue for the crashes and slowness, because there are already so many complaints. I just upvoted all the items that were reporting this.
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Cheers – voted it up for all the good it’ll do.
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Thanks. You never know – perhaps the message will get through…
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[…] feature is a step backwards from the old ‘Smart Files’ feature in Windows. I’ve also complained numerous times that the Microsoft Photos app is severely lacking in comparison with the Windows […]
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Cockups on all fronts…
God knows, I need to stop thinking about how much of a disaster Donald J. Trump is, so I suppose this will do nicely… Doesn’t make me feel any better, mind you.
2 responses to “Cockups on all fronts…”
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Wow, sounds pretty bad – and pretty inevitable. It reminds me of the old saying “it could be the purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others”
However, it did make me forget about Trump, at least for a couple of minutes – so there is a silver lining in everything!
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Why so much excitement about Trump, he’s a bit of an idiot that’s true, but as a “British American” living in the US the last 30 years or so, I’m still thankful it wasn’t Hilary (she already served her permitted terms under Bill).
We seem to get idiots’ fools or worse in politics everywhere, lets face it, who wants to live under the scrutiny of the press.Sadly, couldn’t come back to “blighty” to live, too many adverse changes and couldn’t afford to live anywhere in the West country where I might like to….
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The Great Work Begins…
The last time I blogged about our Broadband saga was back in September – time for an update.
Back then I wrote that there was good news – the company (the Communications Infrastructure Fund – CIF) financing the rollout of fibre optic cables had announced the green light to financing a further 5,000 FttH (Fibre to the Home) connections this year, which encompass all of the countryside addresses in our municipality (Oude IJsselstreek), plus parts of a further three (Montferland, Doetinchem and Bronckhorst).
However, there’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip – Bronckhorst decided that they weren’t going to play ball with CIF, and instead go ahead with their own plan to lay empty ducts, hoping that they can do a deal with KPN (the largest Dutch telecom provider) to put network cables in them. As a result, CIF has rejigged their plan, and now intend to implement 5,670 FttH connections to all countryside addresses in Oude IJsselstreek, Montferland, Doetinchem, and a further small municipality: Doesburg. They’re calling this area “Achterhoek Zuid” (South Achterhoek).
CIF work together with a cable infrastructure company, COGAS, under the name “Glasvezel buitenaf” and last week, they organised a meeting for local volunteers (“ambassadors”) to give out information about the campaign.
The campaign starts in earnest in the last week of November, when all 5,670 households will receive information about the project, and invitations to public meetings.
The Great Work Begins…
2 responses to “The Great Work Begins…”
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[…] been following the saga of trying to get broadband internet here, you’ll know that last November a campaign started to persuade householders in our area to sign up for a new fibre optic network. We needed a minimum […]
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[…] the campaign to get a fibre-optic network in our region of the Netherlands got properly underway in November 2017. Work started on the network in March 2018, and the expectation was that we would be connected by […]
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Aibo – Mark II
I see that Sony have just announced a new version of Aibo, the robot dog.
I must admit I was rather taken with the first version of Aibo and half-seriously thought about getting one until Sony pulled the plug in January 2006.
This new version looks like a major advance, in that it will be connected to AI services in the cloud to power its learning capabilities. Of course, that probably also introduces all sorts of cybersecurity risks as well, so I hope Sony are prepared for the day when all the Aibos in the world rise up against their owners.
However, I think that if I were to get a second generation Aibo, Watson would not be best pleased, as shown in this test of a first generation Aibo in a Sony laboratory.
I suspect that Watson would make equally short work of an Aibo.
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Temptation
Yesterday I went to Arnhem to listen to a pair of the Kii Three speakers. They were being demonstrated in WiFi Media. They are a new product from a young company, and have had very good reviews in the audiophile press.
I have to admit that the speakers sounded very good. I’ve lived with a pair of Quad ESL57s for forty years (refurbished last year), and the Kii speakers were the first I’ve heard to make me think about a divorce.
I think if the Kiis were Roon Ready, I’d be signing papers. I asked about this, but Thomas Jansen, the Kii product manager, wouldn’t be drawn other than to say it would require a new model of the Kii Control to deliver this (and I’ve since heard that there is a rumour than a new control unit with expanded capabilities is under development).
I should probably sleep on the idea of selling all my Quad kit just at the moment, but I am rather tempted to ask for a home trial…
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Le Roi Est Mort – enfin
So Microsoft has finally admitted that the Windows Phone (or more precisely, the Windows Mobile operating system) is frozen. And as befitting the times where formal policy statements are apparently no longer issued via press announcements, the news was delivered via a series of tweets from Joe Belfiore. This may not be quite the same as saying that it’s dead – but that is how the news has been greeted by the technical press and the market. It may not be dead, but it’s certainly on life support, and Microsoft will finally switch it off in the not too distant future. There will be no new Windows Phone hardware, and Microsoft stopped manufacture of its last phones (the Lumia 950 and the Lumia 950XL) back in mid-2016.
The sad and sorry saga of Windows Phone and all the attempts at trying to craft the software and hardware are well covered by Peter Bright in his Ars Technica article.
I’ve been using a Windows Phone since December 2011, and I continue to love it. The user interface is still a joy in comparison with iOS or Android. However, it is undeniable that the market does not love Windows Mobile, and frankly, many of us continue to harbour the suspicion that neither did Microsoft. As Peter points out in his article, there have been fumbles and missteps made.
Up until now I’ve not been bothered by the limited number of apps available for the phone – I’ve always found an app to do what I want.
However, this month my bank has dropped its banking app from Windows 10 Mobile, and I now have to use the web browser to access the internet banking service. I personally find that this is not as good an experience as with the old app. I also am not impressed by the way the bank casually rubs salt into the wound by displaying the “update” button. If you click it, it doesn’t actually deliver an update. Basically, it’s more of a “tough shit” button.I’ve also noticed a trend that for many new networked devices, they are increasingly reliant on being set up via a smartphone app, rather than via a web browser. And naturally, the app is only available for iOS and Android. Similarly for new services delivered via the internet – if there’s an app, there won’t be a version for Windows 10 Mobile.
So I fully expect that at some point in the (near?) future, there will be a device or service that I need that will force me to acquire an iPhone or Android phone to use it.
I really don’t look forward to that day. My current phone is a Lumia 950, and despite it being no longer manufactured, it still has advantages (to me) over the current range of Apple and Android phones. The camera, in particular, is still outstanding. And I have a spare battery waiting in the drawer for when my current battery runs out of puff. Replaceable batteries in smartphones are a rarity in these days of throwaway consumer goods.
As Peter Bright says in his article:
For now, all we can do is mourn: the best mobile platform isn’t under active development any more, and the prospects of new hardware to run it on are slim to non-existent.
As for me, I switched to an iPhone more than a year ago. Every day, I’m struck at how the main user interface is basically that of Windows 3.1’s Program Manager, and iOS 11 has been fantastically unstable for me. I don’t enjoy iOS in the way I enjoyed Windows Phone. But it’s actively developed, and third-party developers love it, and, ultimately, those factors both win out over Windows Mobile’s good looks and comfortable developer platform.
I get the distinct impression that Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, is much more focused on the business world and cloud services than on consumer devices. Windows Phone has just joined Zune, Microsoft Band, the KIN phone, Windows RT, the Surface Mini, and Windows Home Server on the scrapheap.
Addendum: Peter Bright has followed up with an article titled: With the end of Windows on phones, how does Microsoft avoid being the next IBM?
It’s a damn good question. IBM is totally irrelevant these days as far as consumers are concerned. Microsoft seems hell-bent on heading the same way. In ten years time, will people be asking: Windows? What is Windows?
2 responses to “Le Roi Est Mort – enfin”
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>In ten years time, will people be asking: Windows? What is Windows?
As a developer who’s spent most of their career developing software for Windows, I’m also wondering the same – this abandonment of the phone calls into question MS’s UWP strategy, but bearing in mind how ropey many of the less trivial UWP apps in Win10 are, perhaps it’ll be good if they do ditch them 🙂 -
[…] provider, and refuse to use Gmail). Nonetheless, my smartphone runs Android – thanks to Microsoft not having the guts to persevere with Windows Phone, so Google probably know more about me and my habits than I do […]
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A Stranger in a Strange Land
Joris Luyendijk is a Dutchman who has been living in Britain for the last six years, writing articles for the Guardian. He is a writer, journalist and anthropologist, specialising in Arab and Islamic countries.
He’s recently written an article in the Prospect magazine, provocatively titled: “How I learnt to loathe England”. It’s a good article (i.e. I mostly agree with his analysis). One thing that at first surprised me was that he supports Brexit (I don’t), but as he says:
…by the time the referendum came, I had become very much in favour of the UK leaving the EU. The worrying conditions that gave rise to the result—the class divide and the class fixation, as well as an unhinged press, combine to produce a national psychology that makes Britain a country you simply don’t want in your club.
And that was a novel perspective; the reaction that the EU might well be better off without Britain: good riddance, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out… There may well be something to be said for that stance.
As I head on into my twilight years, the possibility that I will end up living here alone in the depths of the Dutch countryside becomes real, if I outlive Martin. In such circumstances, I may well end up as a “stranger in a strange land”, but quite honestly, I think I would prefer that to a return to what England seems to be becoming.
One response to “A Stranger in a Strange Land”
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Much of that article also rings true for what I see happening here in the USA. Where, just as in the UK, a few billionaires have used disinformation to rake up working class anger and aim it at the wrong targets.
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Amsterdam Weeps
Here’s one of the tributes to van der Laan, performed in one of the nightly talkshows on Dutch TV, “The World Keeps on Turning”. I’ve done a (shaky) translation of the text that’s on the page:
The original song is from 1964, written by Kees Manders and sung by Rika Jansen. It was rewritten for us by F. Starik and is sung by Glennis Grace, born in the Jordaan (a district in the centre of Amsterdam), together with a mixed choir consisting of The Swans Choir, The Army of Salvation Amsterdam Staff Songsters, and The Choir of the National Opera.
Text: Amsterdam cries text F. Starik.
As a father you stood for the city of Amsterdam
for whomever was rich or poor, every woman, every man
from the Bijlmermeer to me at the corner.As a father, you stood up for us all
for the homeless guy, come but outside
then we get up – I have fire in my headAs a mayor with a heart for the city,
for everyone a clap on the shoulder, a hand on the heart
and sometimes there was a late hour
when you turned the tables on a jokerAmsterdam weeps where once it laughed
Amsterdam weeps, now it feels the pain
Amsterdam weeps where once it laughed
Amsterdam weeps, because the fun has goneas a father you stood for the city of Amsterdam
for Nouri, Ajax, for kutmarokkanen and Surinamese and
the angry white man –As the friend that you were, Eberhard van der Laan,
for city council, for the junks and the whores
and that it will all go wellthanks man, for everything, though you go too early
and awkward as it sounds from many pubs, you were there for us
you carried us, you were like a father,
how we will miss you, you who bore usAmsterdam weeps where once it laughed
Amsterdam weeps, now it feels the pain
Amsterdam weeps where once it laughed
Amsterdam weeps, because the fun is gone.Leave a comment
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Paying Tribute to a Public Servant
Eberhard van der Laan, the mayor of Amsterdam, died yesterday. Everyone has been paying tribute to him. This news story says that flags throughout the city were flown at half-mast today. Actually, flags were flown at half-mast throughout the whole country.
He will be missed.
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Public Service
Some officials know what public service means and fulfil their duties to the best of their abilities, serving the public good. And the people react accordingly.
Eberhard van der Laan, you’ve set an example to us all.
One response to “Public Service”
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that is quite amazing and wonderful
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The Saga of Broadband Internet – Part III
I last blogged about the poor state of broadband internet here back in February. At that time things were not looking very good. The company (the Communications Infrastructure Fund – CIF) financing the rollout of fibre optic cables had made a start in two Local Authority areas, and had promised to make a start after the summer in two others. However, it was not yet able to commit to further projects with the remaining seven Local Authority areas (including ours), and this had led to tensions between it and those municipalities.
As a result, the municipalities came up with their own plan to lay empty ducts and hire these out to other parties to put their own network cables in. Personally, I viewed this plan as a long shot for a number of reasons, not least the fact that it would need an investment from our Local Authority of €3.6 million – money which they do not have lying around.
Still, back in February, CIF had said it would be able to announce news on further plans in September. Well, here we are, and there does seem to be some good news for a change.
CIF has now made a start on a further two areas, as promised, for a total of 3,500 Ftth (Fibre to the Home) connections in the Aalten and Oost-Gelre municipalities. Households and companies in the countryside there have until the 23rd October to sign up for a connection. If 50% of them do so, then CIF will go ahead and lay the network. If the 50% isn’t reached, there will be no network laid. It really is now or never…
CIF has also announced that their investors have given the green light to financing a further 5,000 Ftth (Fibre to the Home) connections this year, which encompass all of the countryside addresses in our municipality (Oude IJsselstreek), plus parts of a further three (Montferland, Doetinchem and Bronckhorst). Once again, at least 50% of the households and companies in the countryside areas have to sign up for a FttH connection before CIF will go ahead and lay the network. Signing-up will be possible during a six week period which will (I hear) start in November.
We’ve been lobbying for FttH connections here in the outlying areas of Oude IJsselstreek for almost three years now, and at last things seem to be on the point of moving forward. During that time, we’ve built up a group of “ambassadors” who can explain to their neighbours why signing up for FttH makes sense. The cost case is usually the most important aspect to the Dutch(!), and it’s actually straightforward: the monthly cost of an “all-in-one” (internet, telephone and TV) subscription, plus the monthly standing charge for the FttH connection is the same as what they are currently paying for their (slow) internet and telephone connection via ADSL, together with their satellite television subscription (satellite TV is the norm here in the countryside). In our presentations to groups, the English language version of this would be:
Of course, now the real work begins, leading up to November, when we have to get at least 2,500 subscribers (the 50%). Given that here in Oude IJsselstreek there are only 2,441 potential subscribers (according to data we have from the municipality), we are going to have to ramp up efforts beyond our borders and drum up subscribers in the other municipalities. It’s going to be all hands to the pump over the next few months…
2 responses to “The Saga of Broadband Internet – Part III”
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[…] last time I blogged about our Broadband saga was back in September – time for an […]
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[…] you’ve been following the saga of trying to get broadband internet here, you’ll know that last November a campaign started to […]
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Falling Short
I watched the live stream of the Microsoft keynote at IFA 2017 today, or at least I tried to. It was supposed to start at 14:00 CET, but for the first 18 minutes, there was no live stream, only music playing, and then, suddenly, we were thrown into the keynote, midway through the presentation by Microsoft’s Terry Myerson.
I know that Mr. Myerson is an important person at Microsoft (being the Executive Vice President Windows and Devices Group Engineering, Microsoft Corporation), but really, someone should tell him that he is not at all good at presenting. It was something of an embarrassment.
Even what he had to say struck me as falling short. He was extolling the virtues of the forthcoming “Windows 10 Fall Creators Update”, but it does irritate me that the claims made so clearly fall short from the reality. For example:
We have reimagined our Photos Application to deliver remixed experiences for telling your stories with photos, videos, music, 3D, and even inking.
Yes, but you can’t organise and search your photos as you could with Microsoft’s earlier photo applications (now dropped by Microsoft in Windows 10). And then there was:
You can save all of your creations in OneDrive Files On-Demand, accessing your cloud files like any of your other files on your PC, without using up your local storage space.
Yes, but you can’t search them, like any of your other files on your PC…
There followed another couple of presentations that did not exactly set the keynote on fire, and the session closed with a pitch from Nick Parker (Corporate Vice President Consumer Device Sales, Microsoft Corporation) which was at least delivered with some conviction and passion. But even he ended with a video (apparently produced by the BBC, despite the Microsoft logo tacked on at the end) that was not related in any way with the mainstream businesses of Microsoft. It had clearly been chosen to tug at the heartstrings (and was effective enough at that), but had no connection at all with the rest of the keynote’s focus and content.
Very disappointing.
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Search in Microsoft’s Photos App – Simply Not Good Enough
Another day, another rant at Microsoft. And once again, my despair is directed towards the team developing the Photos app in Windows 10.
Ever since the Photos app had its debut in Windows 8, back in October 2013, it has been unable to search metadata in photos. This, despite the fact that its predecessors, Windows Photo Gallery (first introduced in Windows Vista back in 2007), Windows Live Photo Gallery (first introduced back in 2009) and Windows Photo Gallery 2012 were all able to do this. Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, has now withdrawn all of these products from the market leaving only the miserably limited Photos app in place.
Over the past four years there have been features added to the Photos app, but for the most part they have been akin to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Fundamental features present in the withdrawn Windows Photo Gallery 2012 are still not there.
So it was with some interest that I read the other day that Search would at last be introduced to the Photos app. Since I’m a Windows Insider, it meant that I should get a preview of the app with the Search function in it. Well, it’s now arrived (version 2017.350631.13610.0 of the app) on one of my test laptops, and it turns out to be a huge disappointment.
The reason that I’m disappointed is that the Photos app still does not search photo metadata, instead it uses a Microsoft-built A.I. system that attempts to assign tags to your photos. I say “attempts” because currently it gets things more wrong than right. For example, here are my most recent photos that the Microsoft A.I. system thinks are photos of an umbrella:
Note that “umbrella” is not a word that I have chosen, the term has been assigned by the A.I. system, and popped up as a suggested search term.
I can’t search using my own terms. For example, if I try searching for photos of our dog, Watson, there are zero results:
The OneDrive search engine is certainly indexing my photo metadata, because if I search for “Watson” on OneDrive, it finds all the photos to which I have assigned the tag “Watson”:
At least the A.I. system knows about dogs, because I can search using “dog”. However, while that does return at least some of my pictures of Watson, it also thinks a lamb is a dog:
The A.I. system does recognise the search term “cat”. Unfortunately, it’s even worse at recognising cats than dogs. It returned 45 photos that it claimed were of cats. It only correctly identified three photos of cats – the rest were of dogs (usually Watson), and one was a picture of a hand. Actually, I have 56 photos of cats in my collection.
There is currently no way to correct misidentified photos, so searching, it seems to me, is little better than a hit-and-miss affair at the moment. First, you’ve got to hit on a search term that the A.I. system uses, and then you’ve got to hope that it won’t return any misses in the results.
The A.I. system also indexes the faces of people in your photos. Once again, there is no way to either assign a name to a face, or merge what the system thinks are different people into the one person. Both of these features were available in Windows Photo Gallery 2012, which I remind you was available five years ago, but which Microsoft has now withdrawn.
I really wish that the Photos team would proceed in a more logical manner and provide features that put the Photos app on a par with what we had with Windows Photo Gallery before they introduce half-baked new features that do not advance the usability one jot.
10 responses to “Search in Microsoft’s Photos App – Simply Not Good Enough”
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I have not had the time to try the latest insider releases, so my comment is based on your post.. After some time invested in adding tags, geographical information and people tags to my photos I do hope the final release of the Photos app would finally index that information or at least maintain some parity with at least OneDrive. AI is not perfect, and that’ is why human input is essential to correct any miss-identified photos and make it better in the long run.
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You would think that the folks at Microsoft would realize that allowing users to make correction to AI identification is a superb source for improving the “app”. Sadly it seems that all the adults have left Microsoft. Oh, I continue to use and recommend Photo Gallery, it will still be better than Photos five years from now.
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I came back to your blog today to see if you had a solution to our nearly unusable photo tags after having read and commented on some of your posts discussing where MS was headed with its photo tags a couple years ago. I too used Windows Photo Gallery tagging features and am as miffed as you that there is no apparent solution or work-around. AI is not going to do what we used to be able to do: search Joseph, Wedding, Massachusetts. I loved that system and spent many hours tagging. Hope you keep documenting your search! Thanks for all you do.
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[…] ← Search in Microsoft’s Photos App – Simply Not Good Enough […]
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AI often means “artificial stupidity.”
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Does anyone know of any changes with Photos on Windows 10 and metadata after the Fall Creators Update? If not, what’s the current best solution for metadata and photos on Windows that’s less expensive than Lightroom? Thanks!
ps Geoff – sorry if you see two of these; there seemed to be a problem with my WordPress login so I’m not sure if my first attempt at commenting got through.
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Thomas, no, there have been no changes with Photos as a result of the Fall Creators Update. And there have been no improvements to Photos in the recent Insiders Builds either. It’s still the same old broken experience.
I’m still using IDimager’s Photo Supreme – it’s still the best tool I’ve found for managing my photos and their metadata – better than Lightroom, and cheaper too!
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[…] And to add insult to injury, the Search facility for descriptive tags is also still broken. […]
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[…] I realised that the much-maligned (by me and others) Microsoft Photos app now has a so-called “video creation” mode, which can be […]
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[…] a step backwards from the old ‘Smart Files’ feature in Windows. I’ve also complained numerous times that the Microsoft Photos app is severely lacking in comparison with the Windows Photo Gallery, […]
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Microsoft: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back – Again
Once upon a time, back in 2013, Windows had a feature called “Smart Files”. I found it very useful – I was able to use Windows Explorer to search all of the files stored in my OneDrive, even though the majority of the files were only stored in OneDrive, and not copied to my local computer. It was a step forward.
Then, in November 2014, Microsoft pulled the feature, claiming that some users found it difficult to use. Two steps back.
This resulted in an outcry from people who used (and loved) the Smart Files feature, with the result that Microsoft backtracked and promised that Smart Files would be re-engineered and returned to Windows at some point in the future.
That now looks to be later this year – three years since Smart Files was removed – with the announcement today that the “OneDrive Files On-Demand” feature is rolling out to Windows Insiders.
Despite the clumsy new name, this did sound like Microsoft was at last taking a step forward again, so, being a Windows Insider, I installed it on my PC. And, of course, the reality is deeply disappointing.
The problem is that, unlike the original Smart Files feature, metadata from the files stored in OneDrive is not retrieved and stored in the placeholder files, so using the “Search” function in Windows Explorer won’t work on these files. Only files that have been fully downloaded and stored on the PC will have the metadata present. Here’s an example:
In this folder of 71 photos held on OneDrive, only one (the photo shown selected in the screenshot) has been fully downloaded to the PC, the other 70 photos are still in the OneDrive cloud. They are listed as being present, with thumbnails, filenames and size, however, you can see that no other metadata from these files is present. The downloaded file naturally has all the metadata present: the photo tags, date taken, copyright information, camera used and so forth.
This means that, as the OneDrive Files On-Demand feature currently stands, it is useless to me. I can’t search my online files directly from my PC.
Two steps back again. Thanks, Microsoft. Another fail.
11 responses to “Microsoft: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back – Again”
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It’s a pale imitation on what was there before. All you can do is to send your feedback into the feedback hub black hole and hope for the best.
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Indeed, DaveL – I’ve sent in my feedback a week ago (“Files on demand no local metadata?”), but so far it’s only been upvoted 4 times – so I fully expect Microsoft to ignore it totally…
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I’ve added my vote too – a grand total of 5 votes now, fat chance of it being noticed 🙂
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Yep, talent they might have, vision or common sense, however, is nowhere in evidence. I just got rid of the “Mail App” in Windows 10 (back to Outlook, alas), like most of their current offering, “not even suitable for children being punished”.
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[…] but you can’t search them, like any of your other files on your […]
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I have more folders in my OneDrive Pictures folder than fit on my hard drive; Files On-Demand works for that. But when I try to use Windows Photo Gallery, my OneDrive Files On-Demand constantly try to download. Since, all those photos wouldn’t fit on my hard drive, it’s a nightmare. And since Photo Gallery isn’t supported, there’s nothing much I can do. It seems like the cloud-only thumbnails do show up in Photo Gallery but not the metadata. (I hear that one reason MS pulled the feature for a couple years was that metadata from lots of files on a small HD would fill some HDs.)
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Yes, I think the moral of the story is that you can’t turn Windows Photo Gallery loose on folders that are part of the OneDrive Files on Demand hierarchy. WPG will try and read the content, and that triggers the download behaviour.
The irony is that all the metadata is present in the OneDrive cloud, and in the online search index. However, Microsoft still hasn’t got around to coupling the search engine in the Windows PC to this online service, if indeed they ever intend to implement this.
A further irony is that the OneDrive app does in fact couple to the online search engine, so you can use it to search your photo metadata for photos in OneDrive. However, yet again, Microsoft falls at the hurdle – the app will only return up to 50 hits of any tag. So, for example, I have 1,500+ photos of our dog Watson in OneDrive, but searching for the tag “Watson” in the app only returns 50 results…
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Thanks for your reply and leadership on this subject. I was just sifting through your posts to see if you had come up with a way to use all the tags we’ve added.
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I’m afraid the answer is – not using anything built by Microsoft… The Photo app is useless, and the OneDrive app has limitations as I’ve said.
I’m still using Photo Supreme as my photo management system. It’s still got the best metadata management of the photo applications that I’ve used. It’s better than Lightroom in that respect. And now that Adobe are moving Lightroom across to the subscription model, I’ll be sticking with Lightroom 6 only for its photo editing functions.
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Thanks again. Today’s task was to get all my photos of a particular person from People Tags. I could find what may have been all of them on OneDrive online — more than 50 — but couldn’t seem to select those to share. I got Photo Gallery installed and let it index a while. It doesn’t see the files on an SD card, and I already mentioned that it messed up my HD when I pointed it at my Files On-demand. I’ll stay tuned to your blog, hope some metadata standards solution comes along, and look at Photo Supreme.
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[…] I’ve already ranted about the fact that the OneDrive ‘Files on Demand’ feature is a step backwards from the old ‘Smart Files’ feature in Windows. I’ve also complained numerous times that the Microsoft Photos app is severely lacking in comparison with the Windows Photo Gallery, which Microsoft has withdrawn from the market, and no longer supports. […]
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RIP Kai
We had the older of our two Labradors put to sleep this morning. He was 14 years and two months old, which for a Labrador, is a long life. I think we can say that he had a good life as well.
Kai came into our lives shortly after we moved to the farmhouse, 11 years ago. He was then three years old. His first owners had moved from a house into a flat, and it was clear to them that Kai was not happy with the downsizing, so with heavy hearts they asked the breeder to try and find new owners for him. We were the lucky ones.
After Kai had settled in here, he had a visit from his previous owners. We were all curious to see how he would react. When they left, he followed them down to the entrance of the driveway, and then lay down, as if to say: “you can go, I’m OK here…”.
He had plenty of room to roam around in, both in the garden, and in our field at the back of the property.
Like all Labradors, he loved water. Fortunately, he learned not to go into our two ornamental ponds, but loved swimming in the nearby river.
He could look very regal, or let his hair down…
Watson arrived in September 2009, and Kai learned to tolerate a boisterous newcomer.
They actually got on well together.
In March 2016, Kai turned 13. He was getting very slow and spent most of his time snoozing gently. Often he seemed to be dreaming of running, because he’d run in his sleep. Chasing dream rabbits, probably. He’d pad around the garden to inspect his estate a couple of times during the day, but I could no longer take him out with Watson, because he couldn’t walk as far or as fast as us. Martin would take him out for a short walk whilst Watson and I headed off to the woods. At the time, the vet said that Kai’s heart and lungs were still functioning well, and his quality of life was good, but she was clearly signalling that the home stretch was in sight.
A week ago, he spent most of the day resting on his cushion, and had difficulty walking. The following days, he was up and about again, but this morning he had extreme difficulty staying on his feet. We called the vet, and her diagnosis was that he had reached his final destination.
This crossed-paw pose was very characteristic of Kai, he did it a lot. We’ll miss it, and him…
8 responses to “RIP Kai”
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My heart breaks for u and martin. I lost a pup 3 weeks ago. She was the love of my life: 6 pounds of a smart, adorable, uniqueness in a rare black, female maltipoo. I still dream about her and will miss her always and all ways. As upset as u and martin r, as much as it hurts u both, know in ur heart u did the right thing for kai, and that he now waits 4 u over the rainbow bridge.
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Having lost a few myself, I feel your pain and sadness. They are great companions
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Geoff, I’m so sorry for you all. Kai most certainly had a wonderful life, that’s been evident to us, the readers, over the years.
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It sounds like he had a perfect life with you guys. Chasing heavenly rabbits now xx
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It’s hard saying farewell to our furry companions; my wife and I lost a beloved 21-year-old cat last December. A few months later we adopted our current cat, we hope this one will also have a long and happy life with us.
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I’m so sorry for your loss. Maybe Watson needs a new puppy friend, and you can name him Crick. Every creature needs a friend to play with, and to help carry the heavy loads that life brings you.
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What a beautiful tribute to a wonderful dog, and the good life he led.
The letting go is never easy. May his presence live on in your heart forever 💛 -
[…] been almost a year since we had to have our Labrador, Kai, put to sleep. We miss him a lot, although our other Labrador, Watson, seems much more sanguine about it. In the […]
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The End of the Nightmare?
A rather good piece by Graham Bobby: The End of the Nightmare.
The only bit I would argue with is his penultimate sentence, asking us to pray for Trump. I rather think that, if prayers did any good whatsoever, they would be better spent on the rest of us.
That big red button is still there and must be getting more tempting by the day to Trump.
One response to “The End of the Nightmare?”
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There was a lot of dissatisfaction about the inability of government to do anything but bicker, so lot of people hoped an outsider would be the shot in the arm that fixed some of that. I think that we are instead seeing the results of someone who has not had years to think about consequences of actions and who looks through “profit at the expense of everything” glasses.
I hope people outside the USA realize that people are not the same as the government and not to lump us in with them!
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The Garden of Cosmic Speculation
As well as visiting the Crawick Multiverse last week, I also visited another of Charles Jencks gardens: the Garden of Cosmic Speculation. Whilst both gardens share common themes, and the use of sculpted landforms, there were also marked contrasts between the two. Perhaps the biggest was the fact that at the Multiverse, there were just two other visitors aside from my brother and me. At the Garden of Cosmic Speculation, I was one of over 2,500 visitors… This was no doubt caused by the fact that the GoCS is open to the public for just one day each year, whereas the Multiverse is open every day. The Multiverse is also relatively new – it was opened in June 2015 – whilst the GoCS was established in 2003.
At the visitors’ entrance is the Garden of Worthies – a row of plaques – leading to the Buttocks, complete with a notice on this day:
Along the way, I passed Charles Jencks himself:
The garden contains Jencks’ signature landforms, and the Snail Mound was extremely popular with visitors:
Another stunning garden.
2 responses to “The Garden of Cosmic Speculation”
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Geoff,
I really enjoy reading your blog! The pictures are incredible, and bring me back to the time I spent in your neck of the woods. Please keep up the good work.
Dragnoak -
[…] 10 years later, I visited two landscapes designed by him: the Crawick Multiverse and the Garden of Cosmic Speculation itself. Neither […]
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