Botophucket

Posted by BG! @ 1:33 pm on Thursday 7th February, 2013.

At first I was with Zooomr. In 2006 I was lured in by a free pro account and all was well for a while until young Mr. Tate decided that he was overlord of all, keeping copies of our pics on his servers even after we'd deleted them from our accounts. Then he lost many thousands of photos during a botched transfer of service to the Orient during the MkIII upgrade. I needed to close my account but the site had no facility for that. Closure requests via email and via the Zooomr forum were ignored, arguments developed, and folk who couldn't leave tried the only other option - they behaved badly in attempts to get banned. That didn't work either. I never did get closure but thankfully the service is now closed. There are rumours of a revival sometime soon but I don't give a shit, I ain't going back.

I managed to get back nearly all of my pics from Zooomr (I'd downloaded a full backup set just before the server-crash) and I spent yonks uploading them to Zoto which was a fine service way back in 2007. Unfortunately Zoto didn't stay the course, it started going downhill in 2008 and by 2009 it reached rock-bottom just after I'd downloaded all of my pics.

From there I went to SmugMug and went through the upload process again. So far SmugMug has been great. Ok, it's not perfect and things there do go a tad awry now and again but they have good support-staff and fixes usually don't take long. If you're looking for a photo-host at a reasonable price then I'd recommend SmugMug. Use my referral code (OxAdLRvWYNwpI) or join via this link to get a $5 discount.

Anyway, during most of this time I've had an account with Photobucket. I use it for hosting pics that I use online at places where I prefer to be anonymous. It's been dependable for many years but during the last month or so they've been "improving" it to the point where it's now lacking in the basic yet trustworthy functionality that it had before. It's now virtually useless, changed for the worse, not for the better. If you have a Photobucket account you'll know what I mean, if not then have a look-see here. Be warned that the link target contains not only strong language but also some of the worst spelling, punctuation and grammar that I've ever seen.

Suffice to say that I've scrubbed my pics from Photobucket and I've closed my account. I suspect that my incognito days are over.

Here, have some background music. I'd recommend turning up the volume, number 11 should be about right...

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

[Comments (1)] [link] [TrackBack]

The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://beardedgit.com/wp-trackback.php?p=9250

One Response to “Botophucket”

AlaanR says:

Friday 8th February, 2013 at 9:17 pm

If it's not broken don't meddle with it. I think PB should heed it's members.
I've used Smugmug for a long time now and would not change it for anything else.
Reply to this comment? Quote this comment?

THE SMALL(ish) PRINT... (updated 23/01/2011)

By submitting a comment to this blog you grant me permission to reproduce its content and to reproduce the submitted name/URL in attribution. I will leave your content in its intended place and in its unedited form unless one or more of the following apply:

If you ask me to modify, move or delete your content, I’ll consider making the requested change(s) so long as there’s no significant alteration of the context of the content or of any debate associated with it;

If you change your email address or URL, I’ll update these details in older comments so that I'm not displaying dead links;

If I decide to change the theme or layout of this blog, thus affecting the placement and/or visibility of comments, I’ll make whatever changes I see fit for the smooth running of this blog;

If any comment contains insulting profanity or other content which I deem to be causing or likely to cause trouble, I’ll edit or delete as I see fit for the smooth running of this blog. I’ll try to remember to display the reason(s) for whatever editing I do, so that folk aren’t left hanging wondering what happened and why. If you can at least try to "disguise" your swearing, it would be much appreciated.

Other things to consider:

Comments must contain at least 15 characters;
You can use some code in comments, feel free to give it a shot and see what works;
If adding pics, the recommended maximum dimension is 600px.;
Comments containing many links will be held for moderation;
I reserve the right to amend this policy in line with proven applicable current legislation;
Free Speech: you may well have the right to it, but you've no right to compel me to a) listen to it, or b) publish it!