Finally got some of these done!
Details to follow…
– Andrew
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Tag: Twitter
In doing my morning reading, I got a twit from François Kidd (@giefkai), saying that he had featured my Flickr “Cloud Hunting” images in his Monday Leisure section!
Needless to say, I am honored that some one in Belgium would take interest in some Storm Clouds in Chester County!
But then again, that is the power of the internet!
Thanks again François Kidd!
– Andrew
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Today I got an Invite from an old friend of mine to join Google+.
Everything that I had been reading, suggested that Invites were still hard to get and Google was reducing the amount of Invites being sent out.
So I was very happy to get an offer from my friend Steve.
It was easy to sign up my account via my Gmail address, and I spent a few minutes checking out the details that had been imported into my profile.
After making a few corrections, I went up to Facebook, and posted that I had a new Google+ account!
Almost immediately, a few my friends started to request Invites, which I still need to send, but haven’t figured out how to yet…
But then one of my local photography contacts, Mike, suggested that I check out a Washington Post article that talked about Google’s Terms of Service (TOS) and how it related to posting of photographic images.
Initially I was very shocked, and proceeded to read the cited blog posting by Scott Bourne on photofocus.com.
Which further made me reconsider moving all my images to another environment, and was nothing I was looking forward to, after having just joined JPGmag within the past week.
I posted the two links above, onto several of my Facebook pages, looking to get some input from my connections.
After some dinner and television, it was off to bed for the kids.
As the house began to quiet down, I was able to put on my shows, and begin my nightly surfing of the Internet.
Still very intrigued by the Scott Bourne posting, and decided to do a little bit more research.
Being a creature of habit, I fired up my Firefox, and went to Google to start my search, using the search term “Google+ +Photo +TOS”, and began to read the results.
About three-quarters of the way down the page, I noticed an article that included the term “social media” in the Title, which I thought was rather odd considering my search criteria, so I clicked.
As I started the skim Colby Brown’s blog post, I noticed he was the teacher, and he thought it was important to stay ahead of the game in regards to social media when teaching his students – I very much agree.
Mr. Brown also writes about the older photography business models, and suggested some new marketing opportunities based on common practices used when posting to social networking sites such as Facebook, Flickr and Twitter.
I agree with Mr. Brown full wholeheartedly in the fact that photographers can not give away things for free, but at the same time, in the older business model, it was quite common for photographers to spend money on Mailings of prints or slides of their work.
Those Mailings, have now been replaced by the 72dpi images that he is suggesting, and in the name of the game in the photography business, is to get your work in front of as many eyeballs as possible.
His article just made sense, and I commend him for his observations and thoughts.
Thank you!
Thankfully, I did not delete my jpeg files that I had generated for JPGmag, so now I just need the time to start some more posting!
– Andrew
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Additional References
Categories
Backupify.com – First Look
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:
- Flickr
- Delicious
- Zoho
- Google Docs
- Photobucket
- WordPress
and is in Beta for:
- Basecamp
- Gmail
- FriendFeed
- Blogger
- Hotmail
with the following “soon to come“:
- Youtube
- Xmarks
- RssFeed
- Tumblr
Now until February 15th, Backupify is offering a “Free Account Giveaway”.
Setup
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.
Restore
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.
Conclusion
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.
– Andrew
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Categories
Google Wave
Off the top of my head, I do not remember how I found this, but after watching the Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O 2009 video, I signed up for an account, and now I am hooked!
If you have not watched the video, and are still wondering what Google Wave is about, well, imagine being able to “mash” together eMail, IM and Blogging all together in one location/interface!
If Google can pull this off, than folks like eRoom, Lotus Notes, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace are going to have to start to rethink their apps.
I have already started to use it for a Business Project and have seen the benefits of an Open-Real-Time collaboration environment!
One of the main objectives of Wave is to be an Open Source environment that anyone can setup and use.
Bottom line… Keep and eye on this!
Reference
Update – 10-May-17
I have NOT been on Wave in months…
– Andrew
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