Big Bad-da-Boom!

A construction crew has been blasting the old foundation out next door all week. And I have been home, due to illess, so I was able to take a number of photos and videos of the process. The explosions are not what I would have expected from Hollywood or Mythbusters, but they are still quite fun to watch.

Flickr Friday: If you can't afford a body shop...

To be clear, this photo is NOT mine. Just a random find on Flickr.

Flickr Friday: Ever feel like the world is against you?

To be clear, this photo is NOT mine. Just a random find on the web.

Kiteboarders at Long Beach

I had no idea, but apparently there is a whole club in Stratford, CT that meets at Long Beach pretty much every week. I shot this on my iPhone 3GS.

My first iPhone 3GS video

Well, the first one worth showing off. The others were test videos in the dark or of random people. And who doesn't like a cute cat video. (Well, maybe Sean doesn't.

How Do You Back Up Your Photos?

I've gotten to a point where I've almost run out of room on my hard drive again. One of the culprits is my pictures folder. Some of the pictures, such as wedding pictures, I obviously want to make sure I never lose. How do Mod-Bloggers back up their critical photos? Right now, the solution I'm looking at is Flickr Pro plus 2 backup CDs / DVDs. One to be kept here and one to be kept in another location.

On another note, I was happy to find out that if you let your Flickr Pro account lapse, they still keep all of your photos, they just don't show them to you until you renew. My heart stopped and then raced for a few minutes while I worried about that. Glad to have the account renewed with all of the pictures and a free 3 months for renewing to boot.

Flickr Co-Founders are leaving Yahoo

I have never been in favor of the Microsoft buyout of Yahoo, primarily for the likely impact on my favorite photo site: Flickr. However, it appears that the slow disintegration of Yahoo in the face of the stockholder rebellion has impacted me anyway. The two people who founded Flickr have left Yahoo and in fact have done so without any job to jump to. They apparently simply wanted to get out while the getting was good.

This is a VERY bad sign. Here is hoping the once-giant of Web 1.0 can staunch the bleeding before they completely disintegrate.

Apparently, Flickr Video has launched

So says TechCrunch. Allegedly, it will put videos alongside your photos and allow common sorting and organization.

Flickr Video coming soon?

I am a big fan of Flickr and use it to house most of the images you see here on Mod-Blog or my other blog sites. Now, finally, it appears the people behind Flickr are turning their attention to video. They claim it will NOT be another YouTube clone, but something truly new to add to the Web. If they can bring the magic of Flickr to moving pictures, I am all for it. Although, I doubt I will be adding much content. I am still happy with still pictures for most of my visual expressionism.

http://www.news.com/8301-13953_3-9895044-80.html?tag=nefd.only

REMEMBER: If Microsoft buys Yahoo, they own Flickr, too

I am a huge fan and power user of Flickr, a photo site which is focussed on encouraging users to share and view each others photos. It is great because it allows posting of any of your own photos on any of your own websites, and has a huge array of partners to make better use of the photos. They also expose an API to allow other websites to share their data and produce interesting applications and mashups. Last year, they were acquired by Yahoo, who pretty much decided to not change anything about Flickr, other than integrating the usernames with Yahoo identities.

Now, Microsoft has made an offer to acquire Yahoo and by doing so they would end up owning Flickr as well. And while Flickr is famous for sharing and openness, Microsoft is famous for HATING sharing and openness. As such, a rebellion is forming among Flickr power users and many are threatening to take their business elsewhere. If you are a FLickr user, I STRONGLY recommend you consider using their QOOP service now to get backup disks, to ensure you do not lose control of your own photos.

To be fair, Microsoft would be CRAZY to change much about Flickr. It would invalidate the reason for the acquisition. The problem is, you can NEVER be sure Microsoft won't be crazy. Backup disks provide insurance. OR you may want to consider one of their competitors which allow automatic import of Flickr libraries.

Funny flickr pic