November 18, 2007

• SmugMugging for the Camera

  
  As previously mentioned, and as evident from my lack of updates, I’ve been super busy this week with work and getting ready for my vacation.  I had dinner with Dar & Lisa & Joel & the boys last night.  Nana picked up Tressa too and a good time was had by all!

  

  
  
  
  
  
  Note the gum under the table, LOL Yuck
  
  
  
  
  
  

  I bought my aunt one of those digital frames for her birthday, and I asked my Dad to scan some old pictures of my aunt and uncle from the 40′s:
  
  

  
  That’s Dad in the plaid shirt on the left
  
  
  
  
  Wasn’t my Uncle quite the stud?
  

  
  

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  One of my goals this weekend was to get all of my photos and music backed up onto both my external hard drive and my new laptop.  It’s something I’ve been putting off for a while, but it went surprisingly well.  I copied 7087 songs and 14,476 photos.  I used my internal network and it was pretty quick.  The iTunes transfer gave me no problems at all and was really quick.  I still have some issues with the Exif data on my pictures, so Picasa is a bit screwed up datewise (any ideas??). 
  
  

  
  

  
  Speaking of photos, I’m not as enamored with Flickr as I thought I would be.  When Yahoo forced me to make the change, Picasa Web wasn’t an option, so I chose Flickr.  I ran across Smugmug recently though, and it looks pretty cool.  The more I learned about it, the more it seemed like my kind of company.  To wit:
  

  Most Internet companies dream of selling to bigger ones, and getting rich.
  We don’t.
  We dream of an independent company devoted to nothing but your priceless photos.
  A company that backs up your photos to three data centers across the U.S.
  A profitable, debt-free company.
  That earns your fanatical loyalty.
  We’re living that dream.
  24 employees. 350,000 paying customers. 205,000,000 photos.
  We’ll always be smaller than the photo-sharing divisions of giant companies.
  Which is a very good thing.
  Our story.

  Carey Anthony

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  SmugMug Question
  3 messages

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  From: Carey Anthony	Thu, Nov 15, 2007 at 12:39 AM
  To: Smugmug Help
  I stumbled across your site after reading a blog.  I must say that I’m extremely impressed.  The opportunities that seem to exist for using your site to embed my own slideshows and photos into my blog, seem quite promising.  I also appreciate your customer service philosophy which seems quite fresh.  Two questions: 1) Do you outsource any of your jobs to foreign countries? 2) If I were to make the switch, do you offer a way to grab all of my photos from Flickr, Kodak Gallery and Picasa? Thanks Carey

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  From: Robin MacAskill [SmugMug]	Thu, Nov 15, 2007 at 3:02 AM
  To: Carey Anthony
  Hi Carey, Thanks for writing. 1)  We don’t outsource jobs to foreign countries.  However, we’re a family-owned company, and we do work with individuals in other countries.  You could possibly receive a reply to an inquiry from someone in a country other than the U.S.  It would be an individual working directly with us and in constant contact with us during working hours. 2)  Here’s a way to grab your photos from flickr. http://smugglr.smugmug.com/     Here’s a way to upload directly from Picasa. http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=71187     Here’s a list of all our various applications.  I”m not sure how adventurous you are, so I thought I’d let you take a look. http://smugmug.jot.com/WikiHome/SmugMugHacksAndApps I hope this helps! If you have other questions or concerns, please do holler back at us. All the best, -Robin

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  From: Carey Anthony	Thu, Nov 15, 2007 at 8:45 AM
  To: “Robin MacAskill [SmugMug]“
  Excellent!!!! I’m sold. I’ll be giving your trial a “try”. Thanks for the speedy response and the awesome tools. (and even a 50% off offer!) If this works out, I will definitely promote your service.  I find myself writing about poor customer service far too often.  It will be a nice change of pace. Thank you, Carey

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  If they do what they claim, then it will be worth the $39.95 a year.  I still have a few questions though (like the ability for friends & family to download full size or comparable photos, like in Picasa Web.

  I also need to learn a bit more about their widgets (which look excellent), but so far it seems like a great site.  Does anyone have any feedback on SmugMug?  Also, if you’re interested, here’s a 50% off coupon from their website for all “Flickr refugees“.
  
  I also found yet another music networking site called SeeqPod.  Since imeem seems to be caving to the DMCA (just like Xanga is by the way…beware if you have copyrighted music or video uploaded to Xanga…they’re cracking down, and will shut your site down with just two violations!).  Seeqpod has an interesting business model though.  I’ll have to see how this pans out.  Here’s a classic from The Killers:
  

   

  
  

  • 7:16 am
  • 7 Comments