Friday, July 8, 2011

BillionGraves.com Follow-Up

Hi everyone, hope you all had a great July 4th weekend. I just wanted to post a quick follow-up to my May 26th posting for BillionGraves.com.

BillionGraves was originally released as an iPhone app. However they have recently released an app for the Android phones. You can find it in the Marketplace under Billion Graves Camera (Android app or iPhone app). I downloaded the Android app the day it was released and took it out for a short test drive. The app lets you take GPS marked pictures and upload them to the BillionGraves website. I will have to say that I am using an LG Ally phone. My experience may not be representative of all GPS enabled phones.

The app was very easy to use. In order to get the best photographs of the gravesites you need to make sure that there are no debris on the graves and that you are not causing a shadow. You also need to make sure your phone's GPS is turned on and working properly. A couple times as I was preparing to take a photo, the phone warned me that the GPS signal was weak. This usually happened while I was standing under a tree. I found this problem easy to resolve by moving the phone a little bit to improve the signal.

I especially like the ability to upload the images right after the pictures are taken. The app gives you the capability to auto upload and auto delete the images so they don't take up critical memory. I found that by the time I got home all the photos were on the website and ready for me to transcribe.

Does this mean I won't be using FindAGrave.com any more? Of course not. But I didn't have the photos since they were all deleted from the phone. So what did I do? I was able to open BillionGraves and FindAGrave in two windows and save the photos from BillionGraves to my computer and then upload them to FindAGrave in just a couple mouse clicks.

I think this app will revolutionize peoples' ability to index cemeteries. We are already planning on having a bunch of Boy Scouts index a nearby cemetery with their smart phones and tablets as an Eagle project.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and maybe you can test the app on your own.

2 comments:

Kristy Stewart said...

Thank you for using the app--I'm glad it's been working well for you. When your Boy Scouts have their project done, it would be great if you'd let us spotlight their efforts on the BillionGraves blog (one of the boys could do a write up or I'd put one together for you if that would be easier). We'd like to recognize them for what they accomplish. I'd also be happy to announce the project on the blog to try to recruit more volunteers in your area if you'd like. Keep me posted at kristy.stewart@billiongraves.com.

Taneya said...

excellent! i love the app too. though i've only had one chance to use it, I am going to try and get out again with it soon.