Removed Flickr Badge

Another bygone web site service that I must lament is going away is Flickr. Technically not going away, but certainly becoming less than useful.

As of today, I'm removing the code for a Flickr photo badge from the footer of my blog, because it has not been working for a while. This was a rotating set of photos of Lucas, so it comes with some amount of extra grief. I'd even done something neat with some photo frames. Anyhow, I'll save the code here for my personal historical note, but I don't expect it to magically start working again.

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One Post a Day? For One Year?

Sammy's photo of leaves... October 2013

There are a number of projects and photobloggers that attempt to post one photo a day for a full year. I've been reflecting on my blogging this past year and have been thinking about finding ways to jumpstart my own creativity and ramp up how often I post. However, I need to make it clear that I am not a photoblogger. I am not a photographer, although I do dabble on occasion. What I'm really interested in is increasing the amount I publish blog posts. So perhaps I can accomplish something by setting a goal for myself that involves the rule for one-post-a-day. It's bold and certainly will involve some discipline, but I can do it. Let's see where this goes.

More Information

In case you were interested in some references regarding other 365 projects:

• The Original 365 Project
• Welcome to Project365!
• A Beginner's Guide to Project 365 - The Next Web

Downside of Flickr, a Roadblock

Another quick thing I wanted to mention was a speed bump I ran into while using Flickr that they don't tell you about and I didn't see coming. I've raved about the photo sharing site for a short while now and I've even gotten a few friends and family on the site. Flickr seemed cool to me for many reasons, including their interface and the fact that they don't limit the number of pictures you can upload, only the amount of pictures (in bandwidth) you can upload per month. Although with my new camera, I'd been running up against this limit a bit more often, all I had to do was wait until a new month began and I could start uploading again.

At the beginning of this month, I was uploading a new batch of photos. For practicality, I was trying to figure out mentally if I would ever actually keep up with the full barrage of new photos we are taking and just coming to grips with the fact that I'd have to limit myself to sharing only the gems and not so much junk when ...SCREEEEECH! Uh oh. It turns out that there is another limit to this free service that they don't tell you about. You can still continue uploading, but after 200 photos the oldest pictures do not show up in your photostream. This means that only 200 of my photos will be visible or available through the navigation. For the rest older than the newest 200, if someone has bookmarked or linked directly to the page with that image they can still view it, but otherwise it can't be found in the search or my list of photos --even by me.

Ugh. That sucks. I looked at this a little deeper and realized that I have a paid @sbcglobal.net account (through my DSL) and these can be used to get a PRO Flickr account. That email address is essentially a paid Yahoo account included with my DSL and Yahoo owns Flickr. But the problem with that appears to be that I can't flip a switch and easily migrate all 200+ photos in my current account. I have to manually change things, and this is a lot of work.

ArcoJedi's Photos (Again)

I got a new digital camera! I am really very excited about using Flickr for uploading and sharing photos. However, I've had quite a lot of difficulty with the description fields. Simply put, I find there is a little story behind almost every single photo and I could really go crazy typing them all out. But who has the time? The main issue is that each photo could really have it's own blog post.

I think I'm going to proceed with the basic plan that Flickr will get a short introduction and explanation about each photo and I'll blog about the important ones when I get around to it.

Today's Lunch

There are a variety of things written about on any random blog. Just spin the random blog wheel if you don't believe me. The topics vary from the very important to the mundane. I usually write about what's important to me, but that might not be that important to anyone else. The point is that I write for myself and all the clichés about whether anyone else cares apply.

But right now, I'm gonna spend a post talking about something completely mundane, even to me. I want to post pictures of what I had for lunch today at the Chinese buffet.

Photo from Popug.com User Jer86gn^*

Photo from Popug.com User Jer86gn^*

Aren't you impressed with my presentation? The first plate there inspired the need to photograph these morsels. Note the way that the chilled shrimp are arranged so nicely on my plate? Yeah, that was completely random. I grabbed the first shrimp and threw it on my plate and then after grabbing a second one, I noted how completely symmetrical they were right next to each other. It looked like a commercial. So I wondered (aloud, and in earshot of strangers) if I could get the third one to line up the same way and without another thought I put a third one on my plate. My coworker, Jeremy G., was impressed enough (and goofy enough) that he decided to snap a shot with his camera phone at my urging. Minutes later, he did the same thing with my bowl of ice cream. Little did I know that moments after he snapped the pictures that they would automatically be sent to a website and shared with unknown strangers across the internet. These folks could post comments and these would be sent back instantly to Jeremy's phone via text message. Apparently, someone watching the pictures even complained to Jeremy, I'd guess because they were getting hungry. It all happened so smoothly and quickly and seemed almost normal.

And I guess the interesting part of this uninteresting story is the technological angle, weak as it is. I mean, I do find it interesting how the communication on the web is so tightly woven in everyday life. Something so small and so revolutionary and yet stupid at the same time is happening every day. Cameras, phones, ice cream, web sites, online world wide communities and chinese food all consumed in one lunch hour.

Lisa's and my new cell phones that we got each other for Christmas do take digital pictures, but I've not really used it much. Perhaps it's time that I started. I do post the occasional photo on my Flickr page from my digital camera, and I could do that from my cell phone.

Note: I do want to apologize ahead of time because the Popug.com website mentioned above is rife with pop-up ads and other flashy annoyances. Thankfully, I just blocked them all one at a time in Firefox, and it's not a problem.