Working remotely on Windows using a Mac

Working on Windows Machines using a Mac (Remote Desktop) can be annoying when being a power user/developer because the keyboard isn’t 100% compatible.

There are two main “issues”:
1. Your Mac keyboard has a “command” key, which is used for copy and pasting text for example, Windows on the other hand does that with the CTRL key.
2. Your mac keyboard layout might not be available on Windows, so special key usage can be frustrating.

The good thing is that there is always a solution for everything:

For the issue 1 I suggest using “Karabiner” to map some special command keys to ctrl keys. For example CTRL-C, CTRL-V and others.
I’ve developed my own “complex modification” configuration, feel free to use it. You can find it here. Instructions are in the comments.

For the issue 2 I developed my own Windows keyboard layout with a software from Microsoft itself called MS Keyboard Layout Creator. All keys are mapped exactly as they are present on the German Swiss layout I am using. Feel free to create your own, it’s really simple. You can find the layout and some instructions here.

If you use an external (windows like) keyboard, I have some more karabiner configurations ready to use. Feel free to contact me if you need them.

Android 11 and it’s new file access restrictions

Due to new rules regarding file access, especially write access, under Android 11, an important Photo Map update will be rolled out.

When trying to modify or delete photos in a certain folder, you need to grant write access to one of it’s parent folders before being able to do any modifications.

Please follow these instructions to grant write access:

Combining photo recognition and Spotify

I asked myself, couldn’t I develop something where we take a photo and start playing music related to what’s in the scene. The result is: Playlist for Spotify

The new App uses photo recognition (By Amazon “rekognition” oder Google “Vision AI”) to detect labels and the Spotify API to look for playlist suggestions. They are displayed in the app and can be played with one single click.

Enjoy!

I’ve developed a backup script (py selenium) that downloads your media and stores the location and handles your albums

Hi guys, since Google doesn’t gives us a proper backup mechanism, I developed it by myself.

I’ve written a py script that does the following:

  • Download the item
  • Extract the albums in order to copy it into a specific folder(s)
  • Extract the location information in order to update the exif information
  • Checks if the item is a favorite in order to update the exif information (rating: 5 stars vs. 0)

You can get it here: https://github.com/DennyWeinberg/manager-for-google-photos

PhotoPrism is coming soon!

PhotoPrism is a server-based application for browsing, organizing and sharing your personal photo collection. It makes use of the latest technologies to automatically tag and find pictures without getting in your way.

Say goodbye to solutions that force you to upload your visual memories to the cloud!

Very soon, Photo Map will connect to PhotoPrism to provide a Mobile Photo Map feature for your own Server!