Cheese!

Ok, I read this article on Camacho.tv and had a LOT to say. I've kinda felt like I had too much to say and am hogging their space with my ramblings as I try out different photo services, so I'm going to put all those lovely comments here on my blog (I'll leave what I have so far on their blog though).

1. Hey, I just checked out the homepage for PhotoBucket, and didn’t see any Google Ads. They still say they are free. I’m now curius to know just how they pay their bills Seriousely, I don’t know about other people, but I have no desire to purchase my own photos from a web site to print on paper. I’d rather just store the photos online and send people a link. When I have my own place and have people over who want to see my pics, I can just go to my own site on my notebook and share the “slide-show” experience with them that way. If I have something really nice I’d like on the wall, I can just go to my local Staples - the one in town here is really cheap, they’re friendly, they only make me pay for what I’m taking home, and if I bring my notebook and a jump-drive, it makes last minute corrections with my own software a snap. So, again, I wonder just how these people feed themselves, heh. (I know, I know, wouldn’t I like to know?)

2. Ahah hahahaha… FOUND IT. They now have a “Premium Service” available. Hmm… Now I wonder what their free service is going to “cost” me. Heh.

   I am noticing one thing - they ask for email, passwords, full name, and zip… WITHOUT ANY ENCRYPTION. Grr.

   I’m still willing to join, because I have figured a few things out over time…

   1) Use my lycos.com email account - it’s a landfill for SPAM anyway, so who cares? I can change this in my account later on if I need/want to.

   2) Just use my initials for my first and last name. It works EVERY time excepting once about 10 years ago.

   3) It doesn’t matter if these people know my birthdate, gender, or zip code. Really, it just doesn’t. My personal life has NEVER been clearly influenced in any way at all by the powers that be knowing that yet another female from the 99362 area code who’s birthdate is 4/8/75 has joined some web site (or filled out a form for a Safeway or Albertsons card, etc...).

   So, I’ll just have to continue with the sign-up process and see what happens next.

   Oh, what’s this? Mulitple uploads? Cool. Why only 19 and not 20? Hmm… A contest is now available to me - I could win $2,500.00. Heh. I could USE that right now Darn - I can’t enter it this week. No MySpace account, and no interest in having one at the moment (though I do think the profile questions are kinda cool).

   Cool, cool - they have sub-albums. I like that. I do wonder if they’ll “stretch” my precious photos the way MSN did :p

   Heh - I’m so used to the non-Googly-ads at the top of my account (after signing up) that they didn’t catch my eye. But yes, this IS Ad supported, at least on my end of things. I suppose people looking at my pics will probably see ads as well. Drats.

   Oh lands. All I need today is another annoyance POPPING UP in my face like that. As if life isn’t weird enough already? Do I REALLY have to put up with full page pop-ups every time I click on the “Browse” button for the multiple image uploading??? Help. Seriousely, God, just help me. That’s all I’m asking, and I’m not just making a joke here.

   Ok, I’ve just started uploading 19 pics. I didn’t give them descriptions, since I couldn’t see thumbnails of what they look like first. I’m hoping I’ll have the chance to do that later. They do apparently offer some client-side software for the uploading process. I’m availing myself of that now. Thankfully, it’s only a 1.7 MB download. I’m on a modem. I’m expecting to be busily uploading pics for several hours as it is. Yeah, I know, DSL/Wireless are the way to go, but don’t preach at me yet - unless you have a job lined up for me

   Ok, I’m now checking out the homepages of the other photo sites… I have to say this much for Zoto - I LOVE the layout for their homepage! I’m kinda shopping around for cool layout ideas right now. Anywho, Picasa’s the one that has Google Ads right now. Um, Hey, you over there, you, Pix! Get a life man! For real. Their free at the “Get a life” store next door. You could use one.

   I’ve now installed the software, which was very painless (I’m gonna run AdAware in a few minutes), and find it to be easy as everything to connect to the server. One minor problem though - they don’t give me a place to pick my sub-album. I created one on the site called “Spiritual Wedding Pics” and that’s not showing up here. Nor is the option to create other sub-albums, edit, or delete them. The only redeeming quality here would be if I can easily reorganie my photos, moving them between albums and sub-albums, after I’ve uploaded them to the server (probably by going directly to the site and doing this). I’m kinda thinking I’ll just use the site directly in the future.

   Yup. This uploading business really IS taking forever. Ah well…

3. Wow. Um. That was SO not worth it! The results are that if one pic is of the “wrong file format” (I must have gotten a .psd file in there somewhere), then it and all other pics after it in the que are automatically NOT uploaded. I waited over an hour for 3 pics to upload! And what did I get after that? This giant tacky page with those three photos thumbnailed at the bottom, with URL info posted under them. There’s a “generate code” button for them, and that’s sort of cool, but the problem is that it ONLY gives URL info for the actual pics themselves, encapsulated in their appropriate “<” or “[” tags for placing on blogs, message boards, and MySpace type stuff. Not that this is a terrible feature to have, but apparently, that’s ALL this site has to offer.

   This is NOT my idea of a photo storage solution. No, the photos aren’t distorted like they were on MSN, but there’s really no good user-interface that gives direct access to the files themselves for easy transfering between your computer and the server and back again. This isn’t exactly what I’d call a “backup” solution. Not that they intended it to be one. I’m just saying that that’s an important feature to have. Also, photo-page thumbnail templates would be a HUGE plus. Kinda like “Blogger” meets any standard FTP server out there (my personal fav is the CS lab at WWC).

   Heh. I wish I knew enough tech stuff to put THAT one on the market :p Kinda looks like I’d actually make some mula at it. *Grabs her PHP/MySQL tutorials and tries yet ONCE AGAIN to get that stuff down*

4. All that said, heh, guess what? Yahoo Photo’s starting to look way cool to me. We’ll have to see how that goes.
5. Uh, ok, complaint #1: I had to install something for FireFox (though I AM glad that Yahoo recognizes FireFox for the wonderful invention that it is ;D). Complaint #2: Yahoo Photos only allows the .jpg format. So much for file-sharing nice, printable pics. That's what I've LOVED so much about .png (especially when produced by PhotoShop in a CMYK environment) - you could use those pics for ANYTHING. Period. No hassles. Just anything. Web, printing, whatever you could think of. Not so with .jpg. The .jpg file format is HIDIOUS for printing! Ugh! Ok folks, I'll do it - I'll be the FIRST on the internet (lol, maybe not) to say the all hailed phrase of the '80s "Gag me with a spoon." I HATE .jpg!!!!!!!!!!
6. Now that I've got the FireFox plug-in installed, and have started converting my .png files to .jpg (Booo!) files, I have to admit that so far, the process is going VERY smoothly! No dorky html web interfaces here! I can even preview the files and reconsider which ones I do and don't want to upload (all at the same time, with one click!) before finally uploading them to my account. Pretty snazzy, and also, the upload time seems to be going quite smoothly (though I'll admit, that IS due to the way .jpg just squishes those photos into almost nothingness... *groans*). Ah well, I'm only doing this as a test run at the moment, but in all honesty, I really do think that I would much prefer Yahoo to Photo Bucket. We'll have to see if I change my mind later ;)
7. Ok, the photos are done being uploaded. I like how Yahoo Photos keeps my user interface handy after this process, but also gives me the option of emailing people a link to my photo album. The only thing I DON'T like is how the link to that album for public viewing is not given either in the preview of the email that gets sent, nor is it given as a URL in the email that's sent out. Also, the email took longer than normal to arrive in my inbox. The URL IS given within the album itself when I'm editing it as a user, but I'm unable to preview the album as a non-user, the way MSN has their preview feature set up. After I signed out of Yahoo, I WAS able to see what you all would see if I sent you a link to that album. (I'll make a different, better album later, this one was just a test album on an old Yahoo account that I never really use anymore.) I also had to make sure that it's viewing feature was set to "Public" rather than "by email only." That's a tad irritating in some respects, but it's not too bad, all things considered. I really do believe you all are the only ones who'll be interested in viewing my Spiritual Wedding pics and other photos ;)
8. One other note is that I LOVE how you can, as a public viewer of my album, order things like stamps, mugs, and prints... And it's a VERY simple process. Just checkmark the thumbnails of the pics you like, and go! Heh - who knew that a photo saving process could be so simple.
9. Speaking of which, I have NO idea if I can download my photos as easily as I uploaded them. I think I'll check that out next...
10. Ok, essentially, the file uploading is much smoother than the file downloading. Yahoo Photos, you need the same interface for your users to download their own pics from their accounts! Ever heard of WinSCP3? FireFox? DreamWeaver? FrontPage? IE's ftp capabilities? Something? Anything? Come on, man, show me some lluuuvvvv!!! Ah well. It's better than nothing decent at all *glares at Photo Bucket* Basically, if you want to get your photos back, say your PC crashed or something, well, take my advice, either get this newfangled raided dual harddrive thingamajig, or used discs to back up your precious photos. Yes, you CAN get them back, one by one from Yahoo Photo, but in half their already distorted .jpg file-size, and did I mention, only one by one, as you view each photo separately???
11. Compared to Photo Bucket, I do like Yahoo Photo better, though each has it's drawbacks and it's positives. I do wish Yahoo Photo would include some code that shows each photo album in all it's glory on my blog or whatever. That would be way cool. And as I said, Yahoo, I just need some love, k honeybunch? Just a little ;) That's all I'm askin' for.
12. Now to go create some home-made archives, finish archiving photos here on this blog, and create my gallery at Yahoo Photos. This should take awhile. Heh.