Take your pic... Bluetooth remote shutter

One of the other websites I maintain is a blog on style. It's not so much a fashion blog because I don't bother to follow the trends, more a compilation of random thoughts interspersed through tips, tricks and photos of cool shoes. But despite the lack of fashionista, I do take photos of my outfits — over 400 of them across various social media channels — and very few are mirror-selfies or have been taken by other people.

The Style File

So how do I manage to get these increasingly arty shots without a photographer? It's this handy little Bluetooth gadget that helps me out these days.

In the past, I used a couple of apps and used my iPod Touch as a remote for my iPhone. This worked fairly well but since an iPod Touch is fairly large it's quite obvious when my hand isn't tucked behind me. So when I spotted this when looking for studio lights in the photography section of TradeMe, I thought it was worth a try for a mere $18NZD.

Being designed for use with either iOS or Android Bluetooth capable devices, I was quite excited at the thought that I would be able to use the remote shutter with my HTC One because the camera on the HTC is so crisp and the colours always look great. However, although it worked (using the iOS button, not the Android one) it was rather sporadic and had a tendency to drop. I'd end up taking maybe a couple of shots before I had to reconnect the devices. This was the case regardless of using the native camera app or the Camera360 one that's suggested by the manufacturer of the remote. Frustrating.

I decided that I would try it with my iPhone 5s before setting it aside. Now that was a game changer. Using the native iOS camera, this works very well. The Bluetooth auto-connects easily and the camera's auto-focus works so the majority of photos are quite clear. The lack of auto-focus function had been a real challenge with both Remote Shutter Pro and Camera Plus with Airsnap: a number of each set of shots would always come out blurry.

That's not to say it works perfectly. Occasionally it triggers a rapid shoot and I'll get 20 versions of the same pose but the majority of the time it works really well and is now my primary method of #ootd capture.

You can find these types of remotes from a variety of resellers including through eBay, TradeMe and DealExtreme.

Remember the niceties

A wee while ago, I wrote a post about the social contract of social media and how important it is that we can trust our wider social network, particularly when it is in a professional context.

One of my 'extracurricular' activities is to host an invite-only Facebook group of ICT professionals, most of whom work or have worked on application and web projects. It's a fairly relaxed atmosphere where we share resources, stories, ask for help and generally keep in touch. It's a place designed for trust because you only get in if you're invited by one of the members and as a rule of thumb invitees are people we've worked with and are deemed 'worthy'. It's actually not as snobby as it sounds because really most of us know each other in the real world and are keeping in touch, dispersed around the globe, after working on some pretty gnarly projects together.

To get the most value out of our particular wee group, we occasionally have to speak quite frankly about issues we are encountering to get the best advice and assistance, therefore knowledge of who is listening as well as who is responding and participating on a particular topic is fairly important.

I may be a little old fashioned but I like to think we can be as mannerly in our digital world as we are in the real one and I find it disconcerting that we can lower our expectations just because we're online. Not only is it more difficult for someone joining into a digital activity when they don't know who the others are, it also decreases the trustworthiness of the social circle when there are unknowns that enter quietly and stand in the back.

Whilst most online group interactions are self-assigning and more analogous to attending a community meeting or a running club that meets at the park, there is a subset, usually for work purposes, where membership is for collaborative purposes and knowing each other is quite important, from Moodle student projects groups, Basecamp document sharing, to Government hosted collaboration tools. It is this subset I'm particularly concerned with.

One of the rules I have imposed is that new members get an introduction by whomever has invited them: just a short post about them, why they've been added to the group and a prod to other members to say hey. Usually the newbie at least likes the post or comments to say thanks and hello. Some even write a post themselves outlining what they want to get out of their participation.

Introductions: remember those? That thing you do when two strangers bump into each other and you're the mutual party; or when there's a gathering and everyone else knows each other it's done to ensure your new entrant to the social circle is known to the old hands. Whether it's a Facebook group or an online collaboration tool don't leave it to the surprise post or puzzling comment before people notice there's someone lurking in the room they didn't know was there.

Midweek Q&A

Just a couple of basics this week but sometimes it's the simple stuff that trips us up.

Q: I've downloaded photos from my email and I want to put them on a flash drive but they're a zip file. What do I do? I'm on a laptop running Windows 7.

Gadget Girl: Does the icon for the zip file look like folder with a zipper running through it?
Erin: Yes.

Since you're using a Windows machine and the icon for the zip file is a yellow folder with a zipper running through it, it's actually pretty easy and you don't need a special application. Just double-click the file and it will open like a normal folder. Simply copy the files you want and then paste into a different folder or drive.

Q: I've setup a hotspot on my Android smart phone so I can use it to connect my laptop to the internet but I can't see the wireless network to connect to it. What could be wrong?

Ensure the phone is broadcasting its Service Set Identifier (SSID). That's the name you've given to the wireless network.

On my HTC One, it's on by default and in the advanced options is the ability to hide the SSID. Your phone may be different but just look for the setting where it talks about turning on or off the SSID broadcast, or hide or show SSID.

If the SSID isn't hidden, it may be that the wireless is off on your laptop: ensure that the wireless is enabled and check that there isn't an external hardware switch as well as within your operating system.