[Desert Dog]

I just received an e-mail from PhotoPoint today, informing me that starting mid-May they are transitioning to a pay site. They are offering to let you pay in advance for a year for a one-time charge of $19.95. As a "valued member" I can pay just $9.95 and forgo the free prints they offered with the $19.95 deal.

Their deal doesn't sound like an unreasonable one, but no mention if they are dropping the banner ad at the top of the photos, now that they are expecting people to pay for their services. The offer ends April 30th. Comments?

DD

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Desert Dog on 2001-04-07 14:26 ]</font>

 

[MPower]

Must fingd a new place! Kidding. It does not sound unreasonable but I am sure everyone will desert for greener (read:free) pastures.

 

[Guest]

Dirty trick - getting everyone used to using their site and them all of the sudden making them pay.

I am sure there are other free sites, I will just have to find another one.

 

[Desert Dog]

I don't really fault them for transitioning their business. I am sure this was part of their original business model. Think how much disk space they are using to house all those images. I had figured it was only a matter of time anyway. Most everyone is trying to figure out how to make free sites into pay sites. It will be interesting to see how this works out for them.

DD

 

[Jorah Lavin]

Don't forget that a lot of ISP accounts come with a couple megs of web space. It isn't that hard to learn to use an FTP client to upload images to your own site, and you aren't at the mercy of other people's choices.

-Jorah

 

[Desert Dog]

Really good point Jorah. I started a PhotoPoint album because I was going to change ISPs and didn't want to fool with it. I do have free space available for me to use now. Think I will start working on putting images there. I would love to get rid of the PhotoPoint banner at the top of my images.

I talked (on-line) about this last year and a lot of people seemed to have concern about somehow making themselves more vulnerable by doing this. I dunno, there might be a few issues for some, but in general it shouldn't be a big problem. Zone Alarm (or something similar) should address most security concerns.

Anyone else (Jorah too) have any other tips, ideas, or further thought on the subject they would care to offer to the group?

DD

 

[Jorah Lavin]

DD said:

I talked (on-line) about this last year and a lot of people seemed to have concern about somehow making themselves more vulnerable by doing this. I dunno, there might be a few issues for some, but in general it shouldn't be a big problem. Zone Alarm (or something similar) should address most security concerns.

Ermmm. Huh? How could having images on an ISP's server affect security on your home machine? Mind you, I'm not suggesting serving image off your own harddrive... setting up a server is a whole 'nother kettle of trout. What I'm talking of (as you know, DD) is hosting images on server space owned by your ISP but which you are (probably) already paying for as part of your online service. I've been buying space on a Web Presence Provider for enough years that I honestly don't know what my current ISP provides, but back when I first got online, most ISPs had a package deal of some kind... 1-5 email addresses, 2-5 megs of web space, unlimited (or some number of hours) of online time per month, all for the low, low price of (whatever).

I understand that now, most ISPs who offer online space as part of the package even provide some sort of "web console" for managing simple web sites and file (image) upload.

If people are curious, they should go to their ISP's site and find out what they are paying for, and look for instructions on uploading, deleting, and linking to images and web pages.

BTW, if you are surfing with a Windows based PC, you really ought to have Zone Alarm... probably the best value in free software (at least on the PC!) since Internet Explorer. You just wouldn't believe how often your computer is being attacked on a daily basis.

-Jorah

 

[gyp_c2]

Yeah...It's a totally separate server. Everyone gets about 3-10 megs to build a web-page or whatever...Just check with your ISP and find out how to access it... I kinda' like the photo site Excite has...I'm sure evenually it'll cost too...But for what it costs now(0) it's pretty cool and they have some software that acts like a simple FTP to upload whatever you want. It says for photos, but digital is digital...you can label it whatever you want and store anything you want there...:wink:

 

[Jorah Lavin]

gyp_c2, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Yahoo has something like that, too. They've been absorbing a lot of email lists and such, and I think they have some fairly hard-to-use message boards, so people don't have web space from their ISP (some folks only go online from work, f'instance) then Yahoo might be an option.

-Jorah

 

[Guest]

It's easy. You'll need an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) for which I recommend http://www.cuteftp.com. It's free (for a while, cheap to purchase the full version) and pretty powerful.

Here's what I do for the photos on my own personal site:

#1) Manipulate the pic for color, contrast, sometimes a label, usually for size and compression. Keep 'em under about 80 to 100K file size, 50K makes for a fast download even on a modem system.

#2) Save it to an easy-to-find file. Call it, for the sake of the argument, "martysgunpic.jpg"

#3) Start the FTP. You'll need to talk with your ISP's help desk on setting the FTP to conform to their system. It's easy, most of it is auto-detecting.

#4) Once the FTP is up and running, it's a simple drag-and-drop like using Windows Explorer. Browse to find the file you saved the photo to, click-and-drag from the 'local' window to the 'remote' window and it'll do the rest.

#5) When you want to show it off, you'll enter the address for your "website". Say you are using http://www.kewlISP.com, and your E-mail address is [email protected]. The address to your site would be (very generally speaking, ask your provider) http://www.kewlISP.com/~marty/index.html

And so the address to the picture would be www.kewlISP/~marty/martysgunpic.jpg

And it'll pop up on the forum just like they do using PhotoPoint.

You can also download a cheap HTML editor and make your own website. But that gets complicated. :grin:

 

[gyp_c2]

Yeah...Iuse a couple FTP clients too...My point was you don't need to do any of that except sign up at some of these sites, download the client and start your new photos pages...You get lots of space and it's fast...It's already set-up for 2-click and go stuff, the piucs can be easily manipulated, so you don't need yet another graphics proggie like Photowhatever and it's all free and no little advertiser goodies like some of the other "cute" ad serverbots...

:roll: