Snap Images of Your Life for Later Reference

As much as geeks like me would like to think it, the world is not only filled with information, but THINGS too.  While a serial number, username, or passage in a book are easily stored within technical hardware, physical objects and the context of how they relate to you may be slipping away for lack of a storage solution.  Let’s fix that!

The smartphone is rapidly becoming one of the most ubiquitous geek toys.  Why not?  Almost everyone has a cell phone nowadays and carrying other separate devices can be a hassle.  But I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir.  In any event, one of the most overlooked items on a smartphone is the camera.  Sure, you might use your camera to take pictures of your friends or of a massive crowd at a concert, but new technologies have given that camera a much more important role.

Let’s say you discover a specific food or beverage that you really enjoyed and hope to buy again in the future.  If you stare really hard at it, you might remember it later, but it would be a shame if you didn’t.

Instead, take a picture of the label.  I like to do this with wine labels for two reasons.  First, wines often have names that are difficult to remember or spell.  Second, buying a bottle of wine you’ve never tasted is a gamble and not always a good one.  If you’re at a party and like the wine, ask the host or hostess to let you snap a shot of the bottle for future reference.  They might think you’re a bit silly, but it might also make them proud you thought so highly of their wine.

Above is an image of a wine my parents bought a while ago and I really enjoyed it.  It’s a good example for this article.  Notice how fuzzy the picture is?  One of the things to remember is that most camera phones still don’t have a very high resolution camera or a macro setting for close-up objects.  This may not matter if you just keep your pictures in a folder, but if you want to use image-recognition software like that offered by Evernote, you’ll need around 3MP for a sharp image.

Once you’ve taken an image, don’t forget tags.  Labeling your images in Flickr or another image host will let you take more images and be able to recall the ones you want faster.

Can you think of any other uses for photo-tagging images?  Let us know in the comments!

[Camera Phone image from Digital Photography School]

Tagged as: camera, flickr, photos