Photobucket

[MattyB]

Is anyone else experiencing problems with Photobucket? They said my account was full but it would "reset" at the beginning of the month. Now it's 9-1 and it's still full. Did they lower the storage capacity? What do I do? (besides pay)

[paulgila]

they sent me an email last week saying my storage capabilities were nearing full capacity,then suddenly yesterday it was full,even tho i didnt upload any more pix! ithey are just trying to get us to upgrade for the $$$. what other choices are there to re-size pix?i hate those thumbnails.

[Kim]

Mine suddenly says it's full too, and I haven't uploaded anything new for weeks. I agree, it's a drive to increase revenues $$$. Just wait it out. If they cause people to go elsewhere to store photos, it won't help their business, so I wouldn't expect this to last too long. Sheesh, they do enough advertising, don't they? It's more and more in your face all the time.

[bgl]

I do it the old fashioned way - I store all my photos on my own computer! That way I know exactly where they are. Nobody can take them away. Nobody can charge me more. And I also have them backed up on a second computer in case of a harddrive crash (which I happened to experience last week!)

[Walter John]

If this means that more folk use the "easy to navigate" and "purpose designed" IPS board thumbnail system, then that can only be a good thing for us all. Scrolling thru threads with large photo sizes when my internet allowance is on low is dreadful.

Like Bo, I store at home with back ups, no big brother for me signoir.

amen, go the broncos.

[MattyB]

Bo & Manly Wal,

I store all my photos on my computer and do regular back-ups to an external hard drive. I use photobucket to quickly post lot's of photos in large pictorials on the forum. You can upload an entire folder of photos onto photobucket, in one bulk move, and then copy and paste them into the forum without having to wait for each photo to upload. It's a much easier and faster way.

[Kim]

I also store all my photos on my computer (with backup), but in my life outside PalmTalk, sometimes the Photobucket options are very useful. (Maybe it doesn't look like I have a life outside PalmTalk, but, honest, it's true; I do.)

[MattyB]

I sent an email to Photobucket saying that since they've lowered the storage limit for free accounts, I'd no longer be using photobucket.

This email response was immediately kicked back.

We have recently changed the storage space limit to 500 MB for free

Photobucket accounts. Your account has reached the limit and you can either

delete images from your account or you may want to upgrade to a Pro account

which comes with 25GB of storage space as well as High Resolution Image

Uploading & Downloading. Pro accounts have also been updated with new, lower

pricing at $24.95/year.

There is also a monthly option for $2.99/mo as well. For more info go here:

http://photobucket.com/upgrade

We also offer a way for you to receive a one year, free Pro Upgrade with

TrialPay, when you take advantage of one of their offers. To learn more

details about the Trial Pay offer, go to

http://www.trialpay.com/checkout/?c=nxew78&tid=A7Dnf22

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Your Photobucket Support Team

[PALM MOD]

As mentioned many times, using a hosting service for photos has it's pros and cons.

It is bad for those in the world with slower internet, and who have bandwidth limits, like those in Australia, and beginning to be initiated elsewhere. It eats up tons of bandwidth to load every full size photo on a page, especially if you only want to look at one again. Plus, as you are now experiencing, things don't stay the same forever.

What did you guys expect? Did you think that these services were created for charitable reasons so you can use them forever, for free? Now, if you close your account, every photo you posted on PalmTalk will disappear. Same with any photos you delete. Old threads will begin to have many missing photos if the hosting services all begin to adopt the same business model. You have no choice but to play their game.

[MattyB]

Did a quick internet search of what people are talking about on other forums and some people suggest using Flickr instead. Some suggested just setting up another photobucket account witha different user name. So that's what I did. As long as you put in another email address it works. Dosen't even have to be valid I don't think. So problem solved for now.

[PALM MOD]

Did a quick internet search of what people are talking about on other forums and some people suggest using Flickr instead. Some suggested just setting up another photobucket account witha different user name. So that's what I did. As long as you put in another email address it works. Dosen't even have to be valid I don't think. So problem solved for now.

Maybe - Until they decide to ban all users who registered under different names from the same IP.

[MattyB]

As mentioned many times, using a hosting service for photos has it's pros and cons.

It is bad for those in the world with slower internet, and who have bandwidth limits, like those in Australia, and beginning to be initiated elsewhere. It eats up tons of bandwidth to load every full size photo on a page, especially if you only want to look at one again. Plus, as you are now experiencing, things don't stay the same forever.

What did you guys expect? Did you think that these services were created for charitable reasons so you can use them forever, for free? Now, if you close your account, every photo you posted on PalmTalk will disappear. Or if they demand you either remove some or start paying - same thing.

I've weighed the pros and cons and still choose to use the server method for the forum. I'm not uploading photos to the forum for the purpose of saving them and recording them forever, it's just for sharing. I've always assumed that they'd expire and go away when that company went out of business or the forum crashes, or whatever. It's my prefered method of sharing photos in a forum setting so I want to continue doing that if possible.

[PALM MOD]

As mentioned many times, using a hosting service for photos has it's pros and cons.

It is bad for those in the world with slower internet, and who have bandwidth limits, like those in Australia, and beginning to be initiated elsewhere. It eats up tons of bandwidth to load every full size photo on a page, especially if you only want to look at one again. Plus, as you are now experiencing, things don't stay the same forever.

What did you guys expect? Did you think that these services were created for charitable reasons so you can use them forever, for free? Now, if you close your account, every photo you posted on PalmTalk will disappear. Or if they demand you either remove some or start paying - same thing.

I've weighed the pros and cons and still choose to use the server method for the forum. I'm not uploading photos to the forum for the purpose of saving them and recording them forever, it's just for sharing. I've always assumed that they'd expire and go away when that company went out of business or the forum crashes, or whatever. It's my prefered method of sharing photos in a forum setting so I want to continue doing that if possible.

So Matty,

The eventual result of that strategy will be to have hundreds if not thousands of useless threads scattered all over the forum. And not just threads you started, but threads in which you (or others) added photos in the middle. Many new members will go to older threads only to find more and more missing photos in threads they start reading that will render them worthless. Especially the epic photo intensive mega threads about Tahina, Madagascar, and Dransfield on the Big Island. Discussions about missing photos is not real exciting.

It may be a little more convenient for the poster to use a hosting service (and I emphasize 'a little'), but it will eventually be a problem for everyone.

[bgl]

To me it comes down to one very simple question - do I want to be in control of my life, or do I want to be at the mercy of others, including unknown individuals at big corporations? And "Being in control of my life" certainly includes all the photos I have posted here on PalmTalk (and on our own website). Forget convenience. I'll take 'control' over 'convenience' any day of the week...

[PALM MOD]

If you want to go back and review a classic thread like "Dransfield Visits the Big Island," and start enjoying a discussion of one of the Dypsis Mysteries highlighted in that thread, only to find this --- then keep using PhotoBucket, or other hosting services.

[DoomsDave]

I store all on the puter, and post individually.

I learned my lesson from AOL years ago . . . . .

[MattyB]

To me it comes down to one very simple question - do I want to be in control of my life, or do I want to be at the mercy of others, including unknown individuals at big corporations? And "Being in control of my life" certainly includes all the photos I have posted here on PalmTalk (and on our own website). Forget convenience. I'll take 'control' over 'convenience' any day of the week...

I do not want to be in control of my own life and my life's results can attest to that.

I will, at this photobucket juncture, try to upload all of my photos directly to the forum and see if I can get into a system that works for me. Only for you guys though, not because I want to control my life. I've gotta go do some cartwheels now, I'll be back.

[joe_OC]

I suggest you look at picasa. I use it to organize all my pics in my computer it also allows me to store pics that I want to create slide shows to share online. There is a capacity of 1 gig of storage for the free membership.

[Walter John]

I put it this way to myself, (starts playing "Have a little talk with myself" by Ray Stevens) Am I posting photos on the board just for myself or for others ? actually it is for both of course, I can get quite proud at my own photgraphy sometimes, of my palm growing journey, although, when posting pics, I really want others to see and hopefully be encouraged to palm on (starts playing ram on by Paul McCartney). I know Kris doesn't like thumbnails, too much effort to click on the pic, I say to all you large photo uploaders, you photobucketeers, you cartwheelers of burnt earth, you thumbnail non-clicketers, harden the %#$@ up....

this message was brought to you by Mrs Phyllis Quarth, president of the party to party all night party.

[MattyB]

Wally Manpacker ,

Buck up and get a faster internet connection before all of the world looses you to the jungle ways.

[Jeff Searle]

To me it comes down to one very simple question - do I want to be in control of my life, or do I want to be at the mercy of others, including unknown individuals at big corporations? And "Being in control of my life" certainly includes all the photos I have posted here on PalmTalk (and on our own website). Forget convenience. I'll take 'control' over 'convenience' any day of the week...

BO,

I couldn't agree with you more!

And the day I start reading more and more topics with deleted pictures, well it just won't be fun anymore.....

Jeff

[Jeff in St Pete]

If you want to go back and review a classic thread like "Dransfield Visits the Big Island," and start enjoying a discussion of one of the Dypsis Mysteries highlighted in that thread, only to find this --- then keep using PhotoBucket, or other hosting services.

This is exactly the reason I started uploading photos directly on the forum. It took me a long time to finally see the light. I'm not a fan of thumbnails, but it's really disappointing to read an old thread where everyone is making a fuss over a particular photo of a great looking palm, yet all I can see is the dreaded box that says "this photo has been moved or deleted". Sometimes people delete photos rather quickly (within a month or two). At least with the thumbnails, they are permanent for the life of this forum.

I don't like change, but I felt in this case it was worth the extra effort to resize them and upload them here.

[freakypalmguy]

It is really a slow process on this board, but I agree, it is a bummer to find pictures missing.

I still think a photo intensive board, like this one, should have it's own picture area, where each member downloads pics to. Then they can link to them to avoid thumbnails, which I don't like. I have seen many other web boards with this feature and it is great. If you just want picture overload, you go to that section of the forum and go into a coma. I know it costs more, but would be a HUGE enhancement. This board is integral in the spread of this disease and furthering the IPS membership, so anything that makes it better is worth it.

Here is a link to a gallery from another website so you can see an example

Members Photo Gallery

[PALM MOD]

It is really a slow process on this board, but I agree, it is a bummer to find pictures missing.

I still think a photo intensive board, like this one, should have it's own picture area, where each member downloads pics to. Then they can link to them to avoid thumbnails, which I don't like. I have seen many other web boards with this feature and it is great. If you just want picture overload, you go to that section of the forum and go into a coma. I know it costs more, but would be a HUGE enhancement. This board is integral in the spread of this disease and furthering the IPS membership, so anything that makes it better is worth it.

Here is a link to a gallery from another website so you can see an example

Members Photo Gallery

If you knew how much time and effort goes into getting people squared away just to resize and upload photos, or even loading an avatar, you would dread thinking about instructing them on setting up and utilizing their own gallery area and integrating it with their posts.

While it may be useful for the fraction of the membership that are tech oriented, for many it may confuse things more than they already are. This board has been very successful by avoiding all the whistles and bells of many others, and keeping things mean and lean. If it ain't broke.................

Although we are always open to suggestions and feedback.

[Walter John]

Wally Manpacker ,

Buck up and get a faster internet connection before all of the world looses you to the jungle ways.

Too late matty matey, and as I've always said, if you can't wait for a palm spear, make your own....

plus 10 yard spelling penalty - for "looses"

[Kris]

Nice thread

Even iam using the photobucket account.its very easy to use and to resize my photos,though i back up all my data & jpeg into dvd-r.

I think one fine morning if they shut down the service due to rescession then some of my threads are going to look pretty ugly !

As our mod has pointed out their is no free lunch,and photobucket is a paysite.may be they wanted us to get addicted to their service and then do the hard bargaining.

If this happens to me,then i will have to slow down my uploads or even shift to the thumbnail option which i actually hate.

Here is a teaser "Big is beautiful",And hope at least the IPS members get this big size stills option directly in our site ?

Lots of love,

Kris

[Palmə häl′ik]

Try conserving some bandwith and take your pictures at a lower resolution.

Who needs high res pics on a forum anyway?

This isn't GlamorShots.

[Walter John]

Hey Dean, having to sell the thumbnail process is bad enough, but having 3 well known major posters actually hate thumbnails is quite disturbing. I tried abuse, snarkasm, and belittling (thumbnailing) and still nothing seems to work. Is it a pride thing ? or too many picture books as kids ? or maybe they believe , you know, if you have a big photo then you must also have a big, ahem, thingamajig.

That's my last gasp in snarking, it's over to you palm mod for the usual sensible approach. What is that again ?

[John in Andalucia]

Try conserving some bandwith and take your pictures at a lower resolution.

Who needs high res pics on a forum anyway?

This isn't GlamorShots.

If you want to keep the image dimensions the same (since lower camera resolution often means dimensionally smaller photos), you can still save bandwidth by using a simple image tool like IrfanView and save your photo at say, 70% of the original using the quality setting. Makes no conceivable difference to the photo. Here is Kris' photo again, and it's 208kb as opposed to 451kb. Less than HALF the size. I'm posting it full size so you can compare the quality.

It takes only a few seconds to do this. I'll even do a short "how-to" video if I knew people would bother trying to conserve bandwidth and server capacity.

[Palmə häl′ik]

Right.

Now imagine taking the picture 640x480 and shrink that.

Now your conserving!

Think about others...

Not everyone's got HIGH SPEED internet all the time.

I use a company provided air card for my laptop, and 9 times outta 10, It'll take FOREVER to D/L the full sizers from many pictorials... I'm left not being able to look at them at work, and have to wait to get home... If the thread's fulla thumbnails that I can enlarge per photo, I'm alright...

[Kathryn]

I really prefer the thumbnails for many reasons, but I wish more people knew how to use them without shrinking the picture so much.

Here is a photo I recently took on my honeymoon in Bermuda. All I did was open it in IrfanView, resized it to 1600x1200, and saved it at 95%. Several members recommended this software and it took me a few tries to learn, but it only takes about 10 seconds per picture now.

[Kathryn]

The original picture above was over 3 mb, the resized one was 1.5 mb and the 95% one is 715 kb, so several could be put in one post.

Here is the same picture saved at 85%, which resulted in 400 kb.

And again at 75% and 294 kb

[Palmə häl′ik]

Believe it or not, that 294k file looks the best to me. Somewhat clearer.

[PALM MOD]

I've been through this before - but here's the short version.

Put all photos you want to upload in one folder. Use a batch resizer and resize all with one click to what ever size and resolution setting you have previously saved for PalmTalk Uploads.

Then: 1,2,3

"browse,""click,""upload"

"browse,""click,""upload"

"browse,""click,""upload"

"browse,""click,""upload"

Four per post as you move down the list of your folder contents.

That's it.

[John in Andalucia]

A good demonstration, Kathryn! I really like IrfanView. It's been around for many years and remains free to download and use. They never tried to make it look flashy or gimmicky, and it's so easy to use as a result.

[Mark_NoVA]

FYI, I was looking around for photo hosting stuff recently, and found that a lot of people like smugmug.com. They charge, but not a lot, store a lot of pics and have beautiful slideshow software.

I also hate the small thumbnails!

Dean, how do things look for doing larger thumbnails, 640x480? That would be a great incentive for people to join the IPS, by the way--IPS members could see larger thumbnails or full size photos if they wished.

[Kris]

Dear Mark

thanks for that lovely link ! simply stunning stills all hi res and hd content.I think it will take me at lest 2 months to see some of their collections..And iam surprised that most if not all those fentastic stills were all shot using canon Eos series of cameras_WOW !!!

Lots of love to you,

Kris

[freakypalmguy]

It is really a slow process on this board, but I agree, it is a bummer to find pictures missing.

I still think a photo intensive board, like this one, should have it's own picture area, where each member downloads pics to. Then they can link to them to avoid thumbnails, which I don't like. I have seen many other web boards with this feature and it is great. If you just want picture overload, you go to that section of the forum and go into a coma. I know it costs more, but would be a HUGE enhancement. This board is integral in the spread of this disease and furthering the IPS membership, so anything that makes it better is worth it.

Here is a link to a gallery from another website so you can see an example

Members Photo Gallery

If you knew how much time and effort goes into getting people squared away just to resize and upload photos, or even loading an avatar, you would dread thinking about instructing them on setting up and utilizing their own gallery area and integrating it with their posts.

While it may be useful for the fraction of the membership that are tech oriented, for many it may confuse things more than they already are. This board has been very successful by avoiding all the whistles and bells of many others, and keeping things mean and lean. If it ain't broke.................

Although we are always open to suggestions and feedback.

Dean,

In this type of setup, the thumbnail option is still available for those that are tech challenged or just refuse to or are afraid to try somethging new. The gallery section would be available for those that would like to use it. As far as the percent that are tech oriented on this board, going forward that fraction will become a majority in very short order (if it already is not a majority), it's just that you only hear from those that are not. I know that there are plenty here that would volunteer to help with anyone that would need help, I am one.

Just a suggestion,

Matt

[PALM MOD]

FYI, I was looking around for photo hosting stuff recently, and found that a lot of people like smugmug.com. They charge, but not a lot, store a lot of pics and have beautiful slideshow software.

I also hate the small thumbnails!

Dean, how do things look for doing larger thumbnails, 640x480? That would be a great incentive for people to join the IPS, by the way--IPS members could see larger thumbnails or full size photos if they wished.

Mark,

I believe I can do larger thumbnails, provided the conversion worked as advertised. However, the purpose of thumbnails is to keep things small. I could make "full size" thumbnails, but then they really wouldn't be thumbnails anymore. And the advantage the thumbnails have as far as reducing bandwidth and faster loading would be lost.

I will admit that it is nice to have the full size photos when reading a thread for the first time, and not having to open each photo. But if you are trying to skim through a long thread, or are revisiting a thread to look at one particular photo again, it sure is a lot nicer not to have to reload over a hundred full size photos in order to find and look at one again.

[PALM MOD]

It is really a slow process on this board, but I agree, it is a bummer to find pictures missing.

I still think a photo intensive board, like this one, should have it's own picture area, where each member downloads pics to. Then they can link to them to avoid thumbnails, which I don't like. I have seen many other web boards with this feature and it is great. If you just want picture overload, you go to that section of the forum and go into a coma. I know it costs more, but would be a HUGE enhancement. This board is integral in the spread of this disease and furthering the IPS membership, so anything that makes it better is worth it.

Here is a link to a gallery from another website so you can see an example

Members Photo Gallery

If you knew how much time and effort goes into getting people squared away just to resize and upload photos, or even loading an avatar, you would dread thinking about instructing them on setting up and utilizing their own gallery area and integrating it with their posts.

While it may be useful for the fraction of the membership that are tech oriented, for many it may confuse things more than they already are. This board has been very successful by avoiding all the whistles and bells of many others, and keeping things mean and lean. If it ain't broke.................

Although we are always open to suggestions and feedback.

Dean,

In this type of setup, the thumbnail option is still available for those that are tech challenged or just refuse to or are afraid to try somethging new. The gallery section would be available for those that would like to use it. As far as the percent that are tech oriented on this board, going forward that fraction will become a majority in very short order (if it already is not a majority), it's just that you only hear from those that are not. I know that there are plenty here that would volunteer to help with anyone that would need help, I am one.

Just a suggestion,

Matt

Matt,

As I am sure you realize, setting up a gallery as you have proposed isn't like installing a new program on your PC. Any gallery software would have to be researched and deemed compatible with the version and configuration of the forum software we are running. Then someone intimately familiar with both platforms would need access to our server and be able to configure it and the data base in order to integrate both together. Doing so from the beginning would have been one thing, but to try and introduce "third party" add-ons in mid-stream would carry some risks. While possible, the technical aspects of insuring success may be elusive, and not something I would be willing to take responsibility for. If during the conversion, something happened to the database of all existing photos, that would create a tremendous mess, and lose.

But, let's assume we could cope with those problems - do we really want to become our own Photobucket for members? If members started uploading hundreds of their own photos to their own gallery, is that a good thing? I am sure we would eventually need to impose limits to personal galleries. Who would review all the uploads to assure there is no inappropriate subject matter? How often would you visit the galleries of other members in order to look through a thousand misc. photos? Not everyone would take the time to organize and label, or make new additions easily located. Personally, I don't know how often I would click through the gallery of a member just to thumb through hundreds of photos, in no particular order, with or without captions. Would most people even keep their galleries well maintained? Would they be of palms, or travels, or their nursery, or their kids?

I've dwelt on some of the negatives, or doubts. What are the advantages?