Not sure how, but I managed to rack up 252 visits today on my Flickr Account!
Must be something to do with all the contests that I have been entering…
Post 1 / Award 5, etc…
Rather time consuming…
Gotta find a quicker way to view and award!
Back in September of 2009, I joined Flickr.com, and started to upload some of my photographic work.
At first, visits to my “Photostream” were slow as I began to figure things out, but with some encouragement of Friends, I began to add more images.
Then, today, after having spent the afternoon with Family down at the Downingtown Good Neighbor Day, I decided to take my Flickr account to the next level.
So here begins the next adventure of my digital life!
One of my readers pointed this out to me last week. (Thanks Steve!)
Backupify, which uses Amazon “cloud” as the backup medium, so everything is done online, and quickly!
What makes this service unique, as compared to services like iBackup, is that Backupify only backs up your online life.
As of this blog entry, Backupify supports the following services:
and is in Beta for:
with the following “soon to come“:
Now until February 15th, Backupify is offering a “Free Account Giveaway”.
Sign up is quick, and does not require much more then a Name, eMail address and a Password, and your in, but you will need to Verify your email address.
From there, you are presented with a “Dashboard” of services to configure.
Setting up a Flickr was a simple as using the wizard to connect, basically UserName and Password (going through your Yahoo account). Done.
With WordPress, I had to download a zipped (.zip) plug-in, and up-zipped it.
There is no “Read Me” file, or simple what to do next.
I opened the enclosed “wp-backupify.php” file, and in reading, it appears at first glance that this type of backup is if you host your own WordPress environment.
It would have been nice if Backupify had said something along these lines. (Will investigate later… maybe…)
Gmail is another enter UserName and Password, with a “Please read this before setting up your Gmail account”, that when followed, only states that “Gmail Backup Temporarily Disabled” which was posted December 23, 2009. (Merry Christmas!)
When I checked my email later, I did get notification that: “Gmail backup has been throttled back to once every 3 days until we finish implementing new changes to support the high volume of Gmail backups“
Facebook is the standard “Connect to your Facebook account”, asks for permissions, and then allows you to choose what you want to backup: Photos, Friends, Statuses, Links, Notes and Events. You also have the ability to add another Facebook account.
Since I do not have any other accounts offered, I went down to “Backup Settings”, which is very primitive.
You only get a frequency: Weekly vs. Daily, and a Notification email settings: Every time, Daily, Weekly or Do Not, then you click “Save”. My settings are the Default: Daily & Daily.
From the main Dashboard, you can select the “Archive” tab and which service to look at.
I found that my Flickr images have already been backed up!
When I check Facebook, it only appears that my images have been backed up, even though, I had selected the Default settings of everything (see above), upon further review, there are other files, namely XML files.
The Dashboard “History” tab says everything was successful.
On the surface, it looks like that information is available, but trying to Restore your online life is going to take some time.
Images are readily available from Flickr and Facebook backups, but your content from Facebook is saved as a XML file (.xml), but as of this writing, I am not sure how one would integrate this back into a Facebook account.
The Backupify does do what it says. It backs up your files. Period.
The question that I have, and you should also, how does one do a Restore?
The Testimonials only talk about Backing up, but that is only half of the issue.
Having been a Enterprise Backup Administrator for several years, I would like to see some more controls, and some more documentation.
To be fair, I have not spent allot of time trying to find this info at the Backupify site, but at the same time, the info is not right in front of you, and trust me, when you are facing potential data lose, you do NOT want to be running around trying to figure out what to do.
Another thing that is not easily apparent, is the cost of the Service.
I did find one link that suggested I could find Costs, but it made me sign up, and I still can not easily find an answer.
In searching the FAQ, the word “Cost” only appears once, and if you carefully read the FAQ, it does hint at some of my concerns with a Restoration.
To me, there is also a feeling of scare tactics, but this might be the way that I personally handle my data.
My Facebook data is disposable. I have a backup of my images in my local environment, and if there is something important, I deal with it locally.
In regards to the backup from Images services (Flickr, etc.), at least in my work-flow, I have everything Local, then I post, so I already have a backup so to speak.
I maybe missing something here, but at this point, I am not sure how long I will keep my Free Backupify account.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Built in 1860, Bartram Covered Bridge is located just off of Goshen Road about 2½ miles West of Route 252 in Newtown Square, Chester County PA.
It is not recommended to park on the side of Goshen Road itself, because many people drive to fast in this section of the road, but there is some road side parking available on Boot Road.
I had been driving past this bridge for years and never stopped to doing anything about it, until today.
The beautiful late “Indian Summer” weather, combined with the cold nights have cause a very vibrant and colorful Fall foliage surrounding the bridge.
The bridge crosses over Crum Creek, and there is a small area for kids to run around, or a blanket picnic, as well as a few benches and rocks to sit on.
When you approach the bridge from the park area, you will notice the free-standing main bridge information plaque. As you get closer to the bridge, the next sign that you will see attached to the bridge, is National Register of Historic Places plaque.
One can not walk into the middle of the bridge, because there are metal security bars covering both entrance ways from top to bottom, but as you look more closely through the bars, you can see some holiday string lights attached to the long side walls.
This picture was taken on the opposite side of Crum Creek from where you can park, and to reach it, you have to walk around the bridge, and into the woods, then down by the water.
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All images were taken with a Canon XTi on a Bogen (Model 3020) tripod with a Canon Remote Switch RS-60E3, using the native 16-bit Camera Raw (cr2) format. The ISO Speed was set to 100.
Images were then transferred to a Microsoft Windows XP (SP-3) based computer and converted into Adobe DNG format, with additional processing done with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.
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These Inverted Icicles, also referred to as Ice Spikes, were amazing!
We have been watching them grow over the past several days, and when we heard the temperatures were going to be too warm for them to survive, I had to grab my camera to record what we saw.
As you can see, these Inverted Icicles/Ice Spikes, were grown on the under-side of a 100-gallon horse troth, that we use in the summer, as a deck pond.
The troth had been up-side down for well over a month, and ‘Mother Nature’ dropping leaves, water and what ever else into the various sections of the horse troth under-side.
During the past couple of days, the highs were in the twenties, and the area was struck with direct sun for 4-5 hours.
At night, the temperatures would easily drop into teens.
There is no roof or over-hang, and the tree branches are too far way to be this consistent.
From the Overview images, the tall ones are easily over 2 inches “tall”, but there is obvious variations in shape:
I can understand, to a degree, the vertical oriented icicle/spikes, but these?
I am very baffled in how the angled icicles/spikes are able to grow, and in such perfect form, especially, when one would suspect that they would droop over…
And what about the secondary “buds”?
Since I originally captured these images, I have been searching for an explanation to this phenomenon.
From my cited references below, icicles/spikes are generally “grown” in controlled conditions, using “Distilled Water”; a flash freeze process; in ice-cube trays, and seems to be easily repeatable.
On the other hand, and less well reported, are the Natural icicles/spikes that do occur, in bird baths or other small bowl-shaped objects. Some examples can be found on “Got Spikes on Your Ice Cubes?”.
When looking at the captures on this page, note the clarity and translucency of the ice, which would seemingly demonstrate the cold temperatures involved.
Refrigerator grown icicles/spikes, it seems, tend to be very thin and around 2 inches in length, and the images provided, easily show that these icicles/spikes are over that mark. [Note to self – Need to work out actual sizes]
As for the impurities issue, using Distilled Water versus Not, images on this page do not seem to show any impurities as the focus of structure formation.
If I were to guesstimate an ‘age’ for these ice shapes, 3-5 days, based on looking the air bubble paths.
If one looks carefully, there does appear to be a larger repeating bubble ‘chamber’ along the path of the escaping air.
I suggest that the ‘chamber’ is a result of an extreme cold state, corresponding to a chilling/warming cycle, and would normally seem to occur during the day time hours, or when exposed to warming temperatures.
It seems in a majority of cases, a plastic compound seems to be the main sub-straight.
I have to wonder if there is an influence of some sort of electrical discharge, in the colder, drier environments that effect that shape.
As for the shaping of the check-mark shapes, consider the idea, that the ‘buds’ are a back-follow condition of the primary side.
What are your thoughts?
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