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Michael Fidler

These are all done in Pencil.

March 18 - Comment - Like - Share

ElijahBailey-Zu of FF <0,, HealingBrush, veo and 257 other people liked this

Impressive - M F

63 more comments

Great work! - Nia

I reshare this to Ideas & Inspiration room :) These are so realistic! - Kristian Salonen

I'm sorry but this is unbelievable:) I'll give credit to the artist upon more convincing proof! The photogenic look of the tiger and lion really helps the artist's case though:) - Roney Smith

I'm with Roney... I find this hard to believe... or maybe I'm just jealous that I can't even get stick people right! - Jasmin Smith

I don't believe it. Too amazing. - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

I'm with Rah - Shey, Jamaican of FF

Only the lion looks like its drawn - embee

The bear and rhino look drawn, too. - Chris, Taskerrific Guy

very very talented. Wow they look like B&W pics you know photography. - Gabriella Sannino

These are amazing, were they done by you? - Angelo Rodrigues

Nice photographs - Rafael Robayna

@michael, if they weren't drawn by you, at least tell us who the artist is and the link - LouCypher

Link please? - Jason Wehmhoener

wow - Carolyn Chan

being slightly skeptical, i'm going to say these were done with pencil by a printer of some sorts... #justsayin - Enrique Gutierrez

they're beautiful, but skeptical as well - Jennifer Van Grove

Would need to see higher quality images to see if they are pencil or not - too many jpg artifacts to tell. - Luke Addison from twhirl

Stupefied. - Parth Awasthi

want proof - Jérôme Flipo

Wow!! Yeah it's pretty amazing what they can draw with a pencil nowadays, deviantART has lots of great pencil art. - Kol Tregaskes

Michael, who is the artist? - Kol Tregaskes

wow, cool! - Sarah Perez

you cannot win on the interwebs. draw some crap it doesn't get noticed. draw something amazing in pencil and people say it's not real. - Joe Breen

I'm really happy everyone liked these. They're my most liked entry to date, Thanks! There also seems to be some question about whether these are actually Pencil Drawings.I can assure you that they are.When I get home, I should have the links. I have more drawings, too. - Michael Fidler from fftogo

O_O WOW...Stunning - Anna Haro

Wow, these are stunning!! - Susan Beebe

Yes, especially the tiger. Reminds me of that "Tiger, tiger burning bright." - Melanie Reed

Alright, Mike - I believe you. These are awesome. Good job! - Enrique Gutierrez

HOLY CRAP. - Chieze Okoye

no way! - Mister Groonk

Thanks Enrique, I'll post some more soon. They are a little more obvious than these ones. As Luke points out; without being able to look closely it's impossible to tell. He's right; but up close it's more obvious. I'll upload the originals to Picasa later, and then you'll be able to zoom in with any photo viewer and see for yourselves. I can't believe how many people liked these. A few people have reposted them already. Thanks! - Michael Fidler

Absolutely awesome, Michael. You are extremely talented. Everyone should repost these pix and help to make you famous. You should be doing this full time - you obviously have some passion for this. Bravo. - Chris Loft

These are really beautiful, Michael. Do you sell them? - Shannon Jiménez

Chris, I would love to say they're mine, but it's not true. I've had them for a while, but I'll find the artists names. It will just require a little backtracking. Besides, they deserve the credit; all I did was find them:-) - Michael Fidler

Cut the bullshit! :) Photos are very good. - Burçak Çubukçu

I draw alot in pencil, but they are amazing, the best for me is the girl, that is the most photo-like one. :o) - Rob Sellen :o)

I agree Rob, the girl is amazing. My favorite by far! Wait until you see it close up! It's really had to tell, even up close! - Michael Fidler

Burçak Çubukçu If these were photographs, they would be very good. As Pencil Drawings,(which they are), they're amazing. - Michael Fidler

Wow, amazingly realistic - Threepwood

@Michael Fidler did you draw them? How can you so sure? - Burçak Çubukçu

That is my pencil drawing :) http://picasaweb.google.com/Burcak... - Burçak Çubukçu

dont look like it - Prakash

@ Michael Fidler don't push so hard :) - Burçak Çubukçu

@Burçak Çubukçu I can't tell if your serious now or just kidding around. I hope your just having fun! If you are serious, I've never given you a reason to question my integrity, nor do I ever intend to. However, the second set is up now, so judge them for yourself, but don't judge me! http://ff.im/1BJh5 BTW, I messed up and reposted the shot of the women again. Oh well. Hope you like them:-) - Michael Fidler

@Michael: try deviantART, not Picasa, to submit your artworks - LouCypher

WOW "I can't believe it's in pencil" - sofarsoShawn

LouCypher, I know it well, but I don't see why I would want to do that. I hope everyone knows by now that they're not mine? I'm sorry, but I can't say it any clearer than that. - Michael Fidler

nah, i don't believe it is done in pencil. i am sure it is photoshopped :) - hasin hayder

These would be great even for photos. - tomit

i'm not able to comprehend - Varun Shenoy

More comments here: http://www.bannination.com/comment... - donato

I'm finding this both interesting and humorous at the same time. There's a separate message board where this post is being discussed and it has another forty comments on it already. I think its great how this has created some lively discussion, considering that when I posted this I was doubtful if anyone would even like it. When I went to sleep last night there was only had 3 or 4 likes... more... - Michael Fidler

Very interesting. I would like to see them up close and in person...just to make sure. Bill said it's real and possible. Your 2nd set of picts look like pencil. Nice work in finding these! - LaFern Cusack

Kol, I can't thank you enough! Kol found another post which helps to prove that these are done in pencil. I had my doubts about a few of them because I collected them from several different sites over time, but the site Kol found has done a great job pulling together an impressive collection of these drawings and more. Take a look - http://www.flickzzz.com/2009... - Michael Fidler

Actually there are more than what this site shows. There's an entire set with the cats(little cats), which I have, and there's a new portrait set. - Michael Fidler

Found your post here, Michael. :-) I tried my best to find the artists. - Kol Tregaskes

Amazing and very very very good.... Very impressive ... - Linda Zeek-Bobinski

fake. http://lenscratch.blogspot.com/2009... Even if your not claiming to be the artist, these are photographs, well except the woman, thats pencil - james foor

Yeah we know, thanks though, James. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Excellent pictures - how long did it take you to scan the photographs into Photoshop and then edit them? The only pencil that has come into contact with these "drawings" is the Photoshop pencil. A tip - stop trying to fool people into thinking you are a "real" artist, because all you are doing is cheapening proper artist's works whom have spent hours creating real pictures as opposed to a few minutes on a graphics editing package. - The Wimp

A bell does ring here. And I am remembering why I was so attracted to the tiger...and the lion for that matter. These are exact replicas of prints I had in our bedroom when I lived in Dallas. I had bought the prints (in color) at a department store, - Melanie Reed

Actually, I have learned quite a bit about these drawing since I made this post. Not only have I discovered all of the artists, but I've learned more about how they are created. They are always copied from a photograph or painting, but usually a photograph. It is extremely time consuming and detail orientated work. There are many other artists besides the ones featured here who practice... more... - Michael Fidler

Most of them have portfolio's on deviantart.com and their work is truly amazing even if they are copies of other artists work. I suppose with this level of detail, they have to start with something. Nevertheless, I'm still in awe of their talent. Melanie, the animal prints you refer to are from a very well renowned photographer. The originals are B&W I'll look it up later but I do have... more... - Michael Fidler

wow; they're unbelieavably beautiful. - liladreams

Kol Tregaskes

Eco-Friendly Van Meets All-in-One Mobile Home | dornob #shareit - http://dornob.com/eco-fri...

March 23 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

maja (lord settings), FIR ☂, Cloud and 144 other people liked this

"The Volkswagen Microbus is a classic - even to those of us born after its time. Arguably unlike the newly remade Beetle, this remake of a VW classic is remarkably true to the original on the outside - but on the inside it is a bio-diesel hybrid stuffed full of high tech gadgetry and eco-friendly innovations." - Kol Tregaskes from Bookmarklet

47 more comments

*swoon* - Ňicķ

sounds awesome. live the hippie dream, only it probably costs about $50,000 or something. - Thomas Hawk

It's kinda cute. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Not a fan. Then again, didn't like the original ;) - Mo Kargas

Afraid not Thomas, $129,000 - Steven Cains

Super cool VW Bus making a comeback... - Walt Ruppar

First of all, I'll cop to wanting one of these. That being said, Jason is right. This is for rich hippies (who probably aren't hippies at all). The VW microbus became the darling of the Flower Power crowd because it was cheap, easy to repair, and big. You could camp in it. Is there a car today that fits this bill? - Chris Baskind

wow, you can buy an awful lot of pot with $129,000. - Thomas Hawk

I don't know a self-respecting hippie that would prefer this over a really nice indoor greenhouse. ;-) - Chris Baskind

@Chris, Most cars today aren't as simple, but with the wealth of knowledge online, it just takes more time. The minivan/SUV can become a camper van with a few mods. They'll never take the place of the VW, but they're an updated version of the 70s panelvan conversions (hopefully without shag carpeting & a disco-ball). - Steven Cains

Nope: there will never be anything that simple again. That's not all bad: I can't imagine a 1960s VW Minibus would satisfy *any* federal safety standard these days. You're right. A used minivan might be the closest thing. - Chris Baskind

Very Cool. You can't drive your house but, you can sleep in your Van !!! - Eric Logan

Want. - Ken Sheppardson

Want!! - Sarah Perez

Very intriguing. How much steel is in that thing? Chris, that would be my next question after fuel consumption: how safe is this thing? And I agree, when we can go back to making transportation that costs less than a small home, we may have achieved something amazing. ;) - Melanie Reed

However, I have heard (and I'm not remembering where at the moment) that there has been a movement growing of people seeking alternative housing and substituting things like this as the new "mobile" home. - Melanie Reed

AWESOME! - tomit

@drewdomkus ... you need this for your move! - tomit

So wanting one! Cute ^__^ - Nia

Hehe, it's dinky, isn't it? :-) - Kol Tregaskes

lovelovelove! - esther ♥ ♫

-) - Kol Tregaskes

It looks like it could almost fly in the first pic. ;-) Well, maybe not. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

Looks a bit different than the 76 Kombi @imbutafool and I owned several years ago - ThePicMan

Oh, shit, it's so beautifull! - Igor Kuzmin

Everyone is loving this! We should have an FF one and use it to travel to all the FFers around the World (like Pea seems to be doing ;-)). Hehe. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

cool idea, kol. the ff-stream of this tour would be alltheawe. just imagine the photos. - esther ♥ ♫

Look it is my retirement home. - John Flynn

Oh no, don't say that, John. That puts me right off it. ;-) - Kol Tregaskes

I want one! - TranceMist

I've owned 5 VWs, two of which were split window vans. I'd love to have another, this is awesome! - Rick Bucich from twhirl

I have had more VWs than other cars...starting with a 71 Superbeetle, and a Split Window Microbus. I would LOVE to have something like this. - Kreg Steppe

Good for grandparents to visit grandchildren and children through the European continent (or another one as well)...nomadism-revival! - Isabelle Ayel

wow i posted this a while back and now can't seem to find it for some reason. friendfeed's search function really sucks! - Cee Bee

Want. Cannot afford. - Jules

So after reading this article yesterday, I found myself this evening in front of a local place that specializes in reconditioning old VWs. It was closed, but there's an awesome red and white microbus out front with a For Sale sign on it. Ugly, underpowered -- and probably dangerous, by modern standards. Want. ;-) - Chris Baskind

Cee, really? I find FF search is pretty good. - Kol Tregaskes

I love this Mobile...owned a few Vdubs, lived in a VW camper, but this is off the hook..I would become a true nomad with this... - bcultral

It's just so cute, LOL! - Kol Tregaskes

love it - chance

Perfect for the recession :-) - Richard A.

I'd like to have something like this, something small. What do you really need? A bed, perhaps a TV and room for your computer. Then you can live anywhere you like, in theory. - Kol Tregaskes

so cute ;) - sakura

Richard, agree. No council tax bill, no utility bills, just petrol I guess? - Kol Tregaskes

I Love this - Nima

Who is this Canadian designer Alexandre Verdier? Seems like he is on Facebook, Linked In but I can't seem to find anything else about him. - Brian Sullivan

We had a wesvalia built Micro when I was a kid. I loved that thing. It was a little flimsily built; but boy it was perfect for my family of campers and road-tripping warriors. Too bad this one is so pricey - Bill Rawlinson

Bumping some old good posts. :-) - Kol Tregaskes

briangreene

loving this wordpress theme suffusion http://www.aquoid.com/news...

November 11 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

TranceMist liked this

Me too. Best theme I've seen so far. - TranceMist

Derek van Vliet to Derek's feed, Get Set Games, RWW: The Future of Tech, Android, iPhone, 3G iPhone

xkcd - iPhone or Droid - http://xkcd.com/662/

November 12 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Mike Reynolds, TranceMist, Christoph Studer and 12 other people liked this

#iphone #android #mobile - See-ming Lee 李思明 SML

Benjamin Golub

Announcing FF To Go (a mobile FriendFeed) http://www.fftogo.com/ Read more from @louisgray here: http://www.louisgray.com/live...

May 22, 2008 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Marcos Marado, Atul Arora, Bruce Lewis and 16 other people liked this

Works like a charm on IE/WM5. Well done! - Thomas Brox Røst

11 more comments

You did it it again! You are on fire! - Phil G

Many. many thanks. I am glad to be able to update my mobile FF rant. Now there IS a better way :) - Colin Walker

Bump for the good times - Jesse Stay

Digging deep, Krynsky. Nice - Josh Haley

Krynsky? - Jesse Stay

I'm here. - Mark Krynsky

Of note, this was well before Ben joined FF. - Louis Gray

Josh...that's what she said.... - Mark Krynsky

I was just about to write "wow this is *old*" but really it wasn't that long ago. A lot has happened in the last 1.5 years - Benjamin Golub

You can say that again. 1 month on the web = 7 months IRL - Jorge Escobar

Love it! - Kevin Fox

Oh snap, that was Jesse. Ooops! Thanks Jesse! And all props to B-GLOB! - Josh Haley

Loic Le Meur

At the Google France event, listening to media leaders who seem totally under terror as their audience plummets

October 13 from identi.ca - Comment - Like - Share

TranceMist liked this

Traditional media? Like TV and local newspapers? Ha! It's about time... - TranceMist

Paul Buchheit

Don't get screened for prostate cancer - AmyTuteurMD - Open Salon - http://open.salon.com/blog...

March 20 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Christian Burns , Michal Cierniak, Murray Barton and 25 other people liked this

"Most men will develop prostate cancer if they live long enough. However, most prostate cancers are very slow growing and usually do not kill the patient. A man with prostate cancer generally dies of some other cause long before the prostate cancer becomes life threatening. Therefore, the PSA test diagnoses many cases of prostate cancer that do not need to be treated as well as a few cases of prostate cancer that are very aggressive. Not only is there no benefit to diagnosing the slow growing prostate cancers, but there seems to be very little benefit to diagnosing the aggressive cancers early, since some do not respond to treatment even when administered in the early stages. The second study, Screening and Prostate-Cancer Mortality in a Randomized European Study, showed a very small decrease in deaths associated with PSA screening. That decrease came at a very high price: To prevent one prostate-cancerdeath, 1410 men (or 1068 men who actually underwent screening)would have to be screened, and an additi" - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

21 more comments

Cheerful! [And informative.] - Akiva Moskovitz

How do you know if they benefited Chris? The point of such studies it to see what would have happened if they were never screened, the the evidence in this article suggests that they would have most likely been better off (no unnecessary surgery), though it's probably worth doing a little more reading before assuming that this article presents the best available evidence. - Paul Buchheit

This is very important piece of research, great share. Is it going to change policy? - WorldofHiglet

People should be aware that a similar study conducted in Europe about the same time as this one showed a 20% reduction in mortality for people who received PSA screenings. (Sorry, no link—I heard it on NPR last night.) - Mistletoe Glen

IMHO there's a pretty serious logical disconnect between "Don't get screened for prostate cancer" and "To prevent one prostate-cance rdeath, 1410 men would have to be screened". How much does a test cost, by the way? - Ken Sheppardson

@glenc: if their numbers is close to the ones in this study, it means the reduction of mortality at at tune of about .5% of those treated. Too bad this article doesn't quote any numbers for serious side-effects - Лосось норвежской выделки

@cristoblanco: that's basically what they say (w/o the numbers, though) the chance of associated troubles is much more significant than that of life-saving - Лосось норвежской выделки

@kshep: it's probably more about side-effects than cost - Лосось норвежской выделки

@chris: if loss of sexual function is the only side effect, that might be true. Besides, the study is not 'anti-treatment', but 'anti-screening'. They don't object to treating those who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer 'normally' - Лосось норвежской выделки

This is a public policy argument, not a guide to individual action. You can see this here: "there seems to be very little benefit to diagnosing the aggressive cancers early, since some do not respond to treatment even when administered in the early stages.". That may well be true overall, but I'd much be tested, and if necessary treated, to take a chance on a full recovery, even where 'some' do not respond. - Stan Scott

I seem to recall discussing a similar issue with Paul some years ago regarding mammography. - Gabe

The side-effects for screening are minimal. The PSA is a blood test that can be done along with other screenings (like cholesterol). I do these anyway and plan to keep on getting PSA tests. - Leo Laporte

A very poor and ill informed article. Too many men are still diagnosed too late in stage IV disease and last 12-18 months. It is a fallacy to think it is slow growing in all patients. - Sally Church

It is scientific fact that those diagnosed early with any cancer are more likely to receive surgery and be cured. The watchful waiting approach favoured by many PCPs is not always the best approach. My own father was diagnosed in stage III and in 18 months he was dead. Ignorant doctors are one of my biggest pet peeves. They should re-train every 10 years to keep current. - Sally Church

Hmmmmm interesting <note to self> get screened real soon -] - Chris Loft

Sally, I think the point is that being cured doesn't necessarily prevent you from dying. A large number of people who are cured of cancer wouldn't have died from it anyway. - Gabe

Isn't the lesson here, don't get treated for prostate cancer? It seems a misnomer to focus on screening. Why not just get screened once a year and then operate if it seems like it is becoming a problem? - Kevin Fischer

Kevin, the lesson is don't get treated if the cancer isn't likely to kill you. - Gabe

Those stats are focusing on general screening. Obviously, a doc should factor in risk and symptoms. I will say it is a little harder to hear this if you have a loved one who died of prostate cancer.Now, I am waiting for the up and coming salivary diagnostic tests - much easier and less expensive, making the cost differential less of a factor. Just grab a gob of spit and test for everything! - Patricia F. Anderson

The supposed problem is that the expense of the screening, but the side-effects of treatment, which can apparently be worse than a slow-growing tumor and useless against a fast growing one. What is needed is better treatment. - Paul Buchheit

Gabe, that's a very simplistic view. Many do die from prostate cancer so taking the no treatment approach doesn't help everyone. - Sally Church

the conclusion of the research article seems to be that PSA screening is ineffective - a meaningful improvement wasn't found - Mike Chelen

Thomas Hawk

Shooting For the Skeleton’s Curves - http://thomashawk.com/2009...

September 16 from Thomas Hawk Digital Connection - Comment - Like - Share

TranceMist, javidrocker, Meral Alabaz and fatima liked this

Thomas Hawk

Remember Shepherd Johnson, That Guy Who Had His Flickr Account Nuked After Posting Comments Critical of President Obama? - http://thomashawk.com/2009...

September 8 from Thomas Hawk Digital Connection - Comment - Like - Share

Arijit Das, Russell G, Robert DeBord and 22 other people liked this

Unsatisfied at having his first thread locked, user Johnson opens a second thread objecting again and complaining that he’s already tried to contact Flickr privately but that they won’t respond to his private correspondence: “Yeah, Zack, I tried getting in touch with flickr staff via the method you suggested. And nobody will talk to me. Heather never called me back. Like I’ve said before, this issue is not going to go away until we can come to an understanding. Why don’t you contact me or have another flickr staff member contact me, this is getting ridiculous. -Shepherd “ So what does Flickr do next? They lock his 2nd thread complaining that nobody at Flickr will communicate with him and then indefinitely boot him from the help forum. Using typical condescending Flickr parent/child language, they call banning him from the Help Forum a “time out.” What a crappy way to treat your customers. Especially a customer that lost a bunch of their photographs. - Thomas Hawk

25 more comments

Unfortunately JiLLL that's where the photo community largely resides today and so we have to put up with it I suppose. Still, having a monopoly ought not exempt you from good customer service. Deleting a users account, ignoring him, then locking his threads and banning him from the help forum are not the way Flickr should be treating their users. I'm not sure what it will take to change that there. Maybe they really just don't care. - Thomas Hawk

I am using Smugmug. I don't see any reason to put up with this. - stephenkaus

I use Smugmug as well. For that exact reason. I'm not putting up with this. If the community Is having trouble with one site, i have two words to say: MOVE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Roberto Bonini

This is getting really, really stupid. I don't get flickR. I do like it, though. But I think I've stopped liking *them.* - Anthony Citrano

The site flickr is actually great. I think the problem is with the people administering it mostly. Maybe what it needs is some sort of change in control/change in staff. I'm not sure. I'd think that Yahoo would want to do more with it than abuse customers. I think SmugMug's a great place for hosting photos, but it lacks the community platform that Flickr has. - Thomas Hawk

I really wonder if Flickrs problem is Yahoo doesn't know what to do with it. Yahoo's main business is selling advertising but they haven't been able to do that on Flickr. Fee based services are not a Yahoo priority and as such I wonder if Flickr doesn't get the financial attention they need to get quality employees. - ChiliMac

I don't think Flickr makes much money for Yahoo at all. It was only recently that they reported finally being profitable. But all the more reason not to delete accounts willy nilly. Why pay money for a staff to delete accounts at all? If you don't like someone or something they produce then simply ignore them and block them. Why pay people to go through the volumes of content and censor... more... - Thomas Hawk

Thanks for bringing us these stories, Thomas. - Spencer

I wish I didn't feel the need to write them Spencer. That would be best of all. - Thomas Hawk

The tenor of the help forum there is really shocking. The true Flickr believers are really cruel. I'm not sure why people would take time out of their day just to hurl insults at Shepherd and TH. It's like a never-ending flame war. The moderators seem just as bad. I wish everyone would remember that there is still a person on the other end of those posts. - Luke Ibis

Luke, they are called the Flickr Cabal. They are actually an organized group of sycophants whose only aim in life would appear to be to defend Flickr at all costs. Flickr staff celebrates them there. They have their own little private group on Flickr. It's actually pretty pathetic. People come to the forum looking for help and they end up insulting them and blaming them for any flickr... more... - Thomas Hawk

Flickr is getting sickr. - MiniMage TKDteacher of FF

So who's going to write the “Is FlickR A Cult” article? I don't think I have the courage. ;) - Anthony Citrano

I like the Flickr community. I am just not down with the current administration. Can we have new ones? :-) - Mathew A. Koeneker

@Mathew: relax, dude, we just had an election. ;) - Anthony Citrano

I am glad that you caught my dry wit. ;-P - Mathew A. Koeneker

@Luke The negative tone thrown towards Shepherd in the forum is just amazing. They completely ignored the point he was making: Flickr had ignored his private attempts at communication, so he was once again resorting to a public forum. And then Zack just tells him to continue with private communication (which will be subsequently ignored), and we all return full circle. As was stated so often, from a customer service view this is just abysmal. - Nils Sandin

@Nils and TH - That is what is so fascinating and troubling to me. The general tone of the help forum appears to be "it's their site, so whatever they choose to do is completely right and fully justified, and anyone who thinks otherwise shouldn't be part of this community." I know it's only a photo website, but that attitude has gotten a lot of people into a lot of bad situations... more... - Luke Ibis

Ah, voting and democracy, what a concept ;-) - Nils Sandin

@Luke: I share your perspective here; best way to "vote them out" is by directing our dollars elsewhere. - Anthony Citrano

So, say I don't renew my membership next March. What are some viable options? - Mathew A. Koeneker

Update: http://friendfeed.com/thomash... Now Yahoo apparently are threatening to call the cops on Johnson. - Thomas Hawk

One might think that Yahoo has had enough problems in recent years that they would not want to go down this road. - pitlord

I would like to also know the viable options to Flickr. - Jannifer @wordsforliving

I'm giving SmugMug a try - I really like it so far. - Jannifer @wordsforliving

SmugMug is great and again I use it lots but it has advantages and disadvantages when put against flickr, lack of community being one. One big advantage is that a pro account pretty much lets you customize your site as much as you want to create a distinctive look, although the one annoying aspect for me on SmugMug is you can't have a photo in multiples galleries without duplicating the... more... - Russell G

Robert Scoble

Wanna know where speed traps and traffic cops are? Yes there is an app for that:

September 10 from email - Comment - Like - Share

yusuf ozer, Daan, gib and 47 other people liked this

Here is Trapster founder Pete Tenerillo showing off his app that shows you speed traps and traffic cameras, among other things. http://trapster.com for more info http://twitter.com/trapster - Robert Scoble from email

30 more comments

I hope they work better than the old radar detectors, but I have a feeling they do. - Michael Fidler

中国用户也需要这个东西，探头和交警在哪里？看看你的手机就知道，LOL. Chinese motorists would love this app! - Goofy2

Trapster is a cool app; here's my recent mini review: http://www.whybuyusedcars.com/2009... - Eric Miltsch

Plus Trapster works in Virginia and DC. . . legally. - Dave Roth

I'm loading it right now. The map for my local area is very accurate. I can't wait to see what it can do on the road. Thanks for the tip Robert:) - Michael Fidler

It does work in China! It's Global! Check the map: http://trapster.com/rl... - Justin McCarthy

Trapster is a great idea, but I found it to be highly inaccurate. - Otto from iPhone

My Trapster was going off over Labor Day Weekend - and the alert can be startling, at first! (It's a siren). I've found the freshly reported alerts the most accurate. - Kurt Starnes

Or just slow down... - Hayes Haugen

Cool. Nice to know there's a webOS version coming - Rodfather

love the idea, been thinking of similar thing like alerting the phone owners off the police parties/speed traps ahead, its an application i was thinking of a messaging system. whenever a motorist approaches the speed trap or traffic cops could be alerted via a flash message, and i wanted it to work on all GSM phones, a user could report the traffic cops to a number which would then alert the motorists going in that direction, it would require the use of a lot of hardware but it was just an idea - testbeta

Thanks Pete for the service and thanks Scoble for letting us know - testbeta

Or you could just, you know, drive at the speed limit? - Bryce Roney from IM

I wonder how the info is provided. If it comes from the police, I am not sure they would divulge the true locations. - Brent - Loving Life

Have to say, agree with @Bryce You could always do the safe and responsible thing and drive safely in the first place. From someone who got 'done' 3 times as a kid, I now stick closely to the limits. Less stressful as a whole. - ImJustCreative from twhirl

Why as adults are you condoning the use of information that makes us act recklessly? Not the best bit of social media influence and advice I have seen. - ImJustCreative from twhirl

@imjustcreative @bryce Yep agree would be really nice to hear about the guy that killed someone while checking his anti-radar iphone app <sarcasm - roger byrne

Pha, old hat. This stuff has been available to Sat Nav users forever. I have this on TomTom on my Palm LifeDrive, it's a simple database of camera locations with GPS coordinates. Move along, nothing to see here. - Gilbert Harding

gilbert: it is now at a wide level, and Roger: this application speaks so no need to look at the screen - testbeta

@gilbert Oh thats sooo much better now, now its only some ppl getting killed because of ppl playing the system <real big sarcasm - roger byrne

Here's' a thought for you Roger. There have been some serious accidents in the UK because of people suddenly slowing down when they see a speed camera up ahead. Causing the vehicle behind to ram into them. Now you could blame both, or just the guy behind for not paying attention or going a bit too quick. But if both of them had some advance warning of the camera, I leave you to... more... - Gilbert Harding

Gilbert your trying to justify something that promotes illegal activities either way you cut it. If the people weren't speeding they wouldn't have to slow down for speed cameras...so in the end its the speed thats killing not cameras or radars! - roger byrne

Roger: it is just to avoid those traffic checkpoints, nobody wants to be handed a ticket for whatever reason it is, these things help it makes people extra cautious and i would praise the guy(pete) behind it - testbeta

That's innovative but horrible. - Ahmet Alp Balkan

Roger The official line on the purpose of the cameras is to slow traffic to the posted speed limit. Therefore they do the job and would continue to do so if every driver knew their locations. All that would change is the revenue stream from the cameras. - Gilbert Harding

I'm doing right now a live PR combo between brightkite, livestream.com at http://www.livestream.com/ewing20..., other web.2.o tools, to promote my new video -)*"The 9/11 Gay Club"*(- [Dj 'greencard now' 9/11 Anniversary MIxxx ; ] at http://www.youtube.com/watch... ; everyone who wanna join the party stream, please join ; btw, we live in public will run for OSCARS ; - ewing2001akaNicomedy2010

I am FOR this, 100%. Nothing really matters. Anyone can see. Nothing really matters...to me. Ergo, if it's shiny, I'm for it. More fun that way. Y'all can drive 600 miles an hour and burn for all I care. Or not. Point is, all of you law-abiding do-gooders are only protecting an extortion-based government revenue stream system. - Will Conley

where can I get in the beta for the Palm Pre version of Trapster? - Matt Kurio

@will good point. More folks would drive the speed limit if cops pulled you over to give you a fistful of cash. - barce from iPhone

He took time to hang them as you wanted, my God! - Phil Jeudy

Haha bring this to London lol - Sabeur Thabti

Thomas Hawk

Who is Edward Przydzial and Did He Issue a DMCA Takedown Notice over the Joker/Obama Image to Flickr? - http://thomashawk.com/2009...

August 27 from Thomas Hawk Digital Connection - Comment - Like - Share

Iván Abrego, Grant Bierman, Kol Tregaskes and 15 other people liked this

sheesh, this story is getting crazier and crazier. - Thomas Hawk

15 more comments

indeed - sean percival

Wow. This is taking more or a soap opera turn lately. - ChiliMac

Here's an easy little test. Create a LiveJournal post today. Tomorrow edit the post from today by adding another image to the bottom of the post. Wow I have just rewritten history! - Travis Koger from iPhone

yeah, the fact that he posted it to live journal in October is kind of meaningless given that you can edit an entry after the fact. - Thomas Hawk

Very interesting! Nice detective work Thomas. - Jeff P. Henderson

So looking through Edward's photo stream on Flickr, I see photos that were more than likely not shot by him. For instance http://www.flickr.com/photos... or http://www.flickr.com/photos... The second even says it's an AP photo in the description. All are listed with all rights reserved Copyright. Doesn't this violate Flickr's TOS? - Jeff P. Henderson

Here is his Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Jeff P. Henderson

such an interesting developing event......love the detective work! - dafire

Not sure why, but I find the idea of a Heavy Metal Republican a bit funny. :) - Travis Koger

hardly topical anymore... - sofarsoShawn

interesting.. traces back to Photobucket page http://bit.ly/DACQh for user detroit_01 AND here is the EXIF data showing the image was created December 25th 2008 Jeffrey's Exif viewer http://bit.ly/3tG2pP - David Sanger

Just posted this update to my blog: Update: I received a reply back this morning from Przydzial to my Facebook message asking him if he filed the DMCA takedown notice against Firas and if he is claiming ownership to the Obama image. Here is his reply back to me: "i do not own the image. time magazine photographer does... i am the "creator" of said image not firas whatever. i posted them... more... - Mrsth

2nd update. I think I'm done with this one for a while. Update #2: I just received back a second reply facebook mail to my reasking Edward the question as to whether or not he filed this DMCA takedown notice and this is what he replied:"i'm finding you have already posted a blog about me, made your assumptions and printed all type of trash that has been deemed harassment. the links to... more... - Mrsth

Your first comment on this post TH is definitely ringing true. BTW did you know you were posting as your better half ;) - Travis Koger

opps, I always forget to log her out and log myself back in when I'm working from home. - Thomas Hawk

Well, so either Edward or Firas is lying. Based on all of the information I have read, it is not clear who is the actual author of the image. I wonder if we will ever find out? - Jeff P. Henderson

Thomas Hawk

Flickr Shuts Down Forum Discussion On Obama-Joker Image - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009...

August 21 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Jeff P. Henderson, Nispell, Alex Scoble and 11 other people liked this

"Oh, this just gets better and better. Or perhaps sadder and sadder. In a post earlier this morning we discussed Flickr’s questionable decision to remove a photoshopped image of President Obama that makes him look like the Heath Ledger (Joker) character from The Dark Knight. In that post we quoted Flickr’s director of community Heather Champ who said “We very much value freedom of speech and creativity” in an explanation about why the image was removed from Flickr. We called B.S. Now Flickr has shut off further comments on that forum post, which was most definitely not headed in a pro-Flickr direction. In his message shutting off the discussion, Zack Sheppard reiterates how important political discussion is to Flickr: Political discussions and expression are definitely allowed here on Flickr. We don’t want to squelch political discussion, but if something is in violation of the Community Guidelines or copyright law and it’s reported, it will be taken down whether it’s a kitten, a... more... - Thomas Hawk from Bookmarklet

3 more comments

Deleting photos is bad enough, but shutting down a *conversation* is outright censorship. - TranceMist

you can check "virtuality check" from francois fortier. and see what's going on http://books.google.com.tr/books... - Tolga Akmazoglu

The policy of removing something upon receipt of a notice is a really scary trend. There needs to be a higher standard of proof for infringement complaints. - Patrick

I keep reading the horror stories of censorship and account deletions at flickr. It definitely makes me concerned for the 33,000 photos in my stream, not that I have copyrighted material in it. - Robert Owens

Robert Scoble

Gizmodo: Five Pirate Bay BitTorrent Alternatives http://gizmodo.com/5342776 #bittorrent #thepiratebay - http://twitter.com/Gizmodo...

August 21 from Twitter / Favorites from... - Comment - Like - Share

Alex Kapranoff, TranceMist, Jim Connolly and Stephen Tomasello liked this

Thomas Hawk

Heading up to Pandora's offices to take some photos for a photoset and blog post. Pandora's one of my favorite music sites on the web. They rock.

March 5 - Comment - Like - Share

Mark, Don Sanborn, mjc and 21 other people liked this

Nice to meetcha, Thomas. :) Lucia - Pandora Radio

5 more comments

Nice meeting you as well Lucia, and thanks to you Tom, Tim, Chris and the rest of your team. You guys have a great office and a great service. - Thomas Hawk

A great service indeed!! I don't know what I would do without it!! - Tamon Yanagimoto

Oh to live in the US - John Cooper

John, tell me what sort of station you want and I'll sing the Pandora tracks to you via Skype. - Rob from iPhone

In Europe we have Spotify. Great selection of streamed music.They're trying to get their app in the iPhone app store. - Paul Nash

Wife and I just took a driving trip from Portland to San Fran. Used the Pandora app on her Pre all the way. Awesome. - Fleagle

Robert Scoble

One of Europe’s brightest startups: SoundCloud - http://scobleizer.com/2009...

July 13 from Scobleizer - Comment - Like - Share

kosmar, philos, Parthasarathi and 6 other people liked this

16-minutes with cofounder of SoundCloud, which won two TechCrunch Europa awards right after this meeting. (Best design and best entertainment service). - Robert Scoble

3 more comments

Robert: I'm really sorry for being off-topic, but I am curious what camcorder you used to capture that video. Thanks! I'm watching it as I type this, as a matter of fact. - Darren Landrum

Finally they get the love they should have got long time ago! Great webapp indeed! http://blog.go2web20.net/2008... - Orli Yakuel

Darren: I'm using a Canon 5D MKII with a 24mm F2.8 lens. I love it. - Robert Scoble

The godfather anoints a new favorite. He's had his flops (EG FF) but I doubt Soundcloud is one. - Lucas Gonze

Louis Gray

Google Getting in on Real Estate - http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009...

July 7 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Andrew F, TranceMist and Evgeni Leshtanski liked this

Robert Scoble

CNN: you should be ashamed. Horrid news judgment today. Absolutely horrid.

June 13 - Comment - Like - Share

TranceMist, Paul Jacobson, Dr. Seun Jun-O and 163 other people liked this

Totally agree. If it wasn't for the internet, I would have no idea what was going on in Iran. - Derek Coward

96 more comments

about what? Iran? I've been at a car wash for my daughter all day - andywergedal

Do elaborate - Bryce Roney

I can't believe how bad CNN is. - Robert Scoble

Yeah, ridiculous indeed. - Soso Sazesh

People actually watch CNN? - Jim Hague

I read conflicting reports that Mousavi has been arrested? Is this true or not? - Carlton Prest

From what I've heard on the news updates- he has been taken into custody. This is not good. - Jim Hague

CNN has been terrible forever. I follow them on twitter simply to see how much less informed I feel with every post. - Katie Metzelaar

Is there a link to the article or video? - Ron Hixson

I gave up on CNN years ago. - Steve Lowe

Huff Post has some pretty good coverage http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009... - Soso Sazesh

Yes, no coverage of Iran. Larry King is on with stupid motorcycle show. - Robert Scoble

What are we talking about here. Reference plz? - Mitchell Schneider

the most amazing thing was filtering Twitter hashtag and watching the updates come in sometimes hundreds within 10-15 minutes periods. an incredible way to immerse into the real-time interest cloud. - Thom Kennon

Robert, I came to the same conclusion of CNN years ago. - Taylor Marek

I love this tweet from the CNN tweetbot: Tehran on fire"... "Palin vs. Letterman Who's Right?" with panel discussion {priorities: fail;} - BryanSchuetz

We are talking about Iran's election outrage - Soso Sazesh

There is a letter from Mousavi in both Farsi & English circulated for hours. He is under house arrest. There are reports of Ministries on Fire. Twitter has been lit up for hours. - Donald Wilson

One of Australia's sunday morning TV shows wasn't any better, it's lead story was that a bank was introducing muslim-friendly loans - Bryce Roney

The real-time coverage from Tehran today was on Twitter http://twitter.com/jimsciu... - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

Let's agree that most TV news networks decided long ago that they would control the news. Remember swine flu? People blame the fuss about that on Twitter, yet it died everywhere as soon as the MSM stopped making it a big deal. - Carlton Prest

Blogs have been active, but TV networks have been dead. Including CBC in Canada. Unbelievable! - Donald Wilson

Pavan - they did nothing and they should have - Soso Sazesh

A brilliant guy at my gym, a BU professor, refuses to work out to CNN, insists we change the channel. - Halley Suitt

So hard to believe we have to go to Twitter to stay on top of such important news as the protests in Iran. - AirDye®

That gym prof has the right idea. - Katie Metzelaar

What the hell's going on with the US media. The unrest resulting from the Iranian election IS IMPORTANT! - Don Whittaker

How great to actually see some WOMEN in the streets! - Halley Suitt

@don they are too busy working out who would win in a fight between Sarah Palin and David letterman - BryanSchuetz

It's the weekend. There is no one in the newsroom on the weekend. When I worked there, we had to absolutely drag someone in for the Princess Diana accident...the community was going nuts and there we were, with no broadcast news, no confirmation, no nothing. - Karoli

Were the elections free and fair? - David Lloyd

Front page on Foxnews.com http://www.foxnews.com/story... - Kirk Harnack

Not according to the letter from Mousavi, and from reports coming from Iran. - Donald Wilson

@Mark They were corrupt beyond farcical http://twitter.com/jimsciu... - Ed Shahzade /NextInstinct

Livestation.com. You can watch France 24, Al Jazeera English, Euronews and Press TV, the Iranian propaganda channel. Coverage on all of those - Andrew Leyden

RT @IranRiggedElect More photos from Iran http://bit.ly/M8K1j #iranelection - Donald Wilson

I have to say the Nambu search ( searches twitter, friendfeed, one riot, yahoo news) has been great for keeping on top of this, and it's essentially real-time: http://img.skitch.com/2009061... - BryanSchuetz

to be fair its not only CNN dropping the ball on this one. All of MSM here in America is ignoring Iran today. - BCK

So....are you all (we) making MSM obsolete? - Cynthia Chrysler

RT @mistabaka Follow this blog http://is.gd/113ss for amazing pics/vid of #IranElection Pls RT. 5 hours ago - Donald Wilson

so far I think the best coverage is here: http://shooresh1917.blogspot.com/ - and he has more on his facebook page - glfceo

wut's going on folks? - Eric Nakagawa

CNN is a mock news feed. It's a misinformation provider. - troglodyte

Iran's Mirhossein Mousavi = Lech Wałęsa - johnny2009

It isn't just CNN. If you look at online newspapers and other outlets before going to bed tonight you'd walk away with a different story and all sorts of analysis about how we will continue to deal with the old regime. That still may be the case, but you can tell this was a - Warner Crocker

Go to Monitter.com (a great site, btw) and type the Twitter search terms in. You can watch them come in real time, no refreshing. - Obayoo

con't... we're out of here for the weekend story. - Warner Crocker

I've been following events on Twitter all day. @tehranelection is a student in Tehran. His last tweet, half an hour ago: "I have to shut down for a bit, the police are looking for satellites." Could CNN give us that, even if it wanted to? - Jill Elswick

CNN does have this on their site: http://www.cnn.com/2009... - invariant - farewell FF

We don't bother with broadcast TV, so I can't watch any of the stations, but http://www.bbc.co.uk/ currently has it listed as the top news story, as does http://www.cbc.ca/news/ both with firey photos. - David Sky

CNN has access to Twitter and more. So why can't they give the proper attention to this story? - Donald Wilson

It's actually all so called TV news outlets. Internet is a better source of news. To be fair though, sometimes, on duty journalists/editors do not have the last say in what's covered as 'news'. Simple politics and ratings. I usually tune in to UK TV channels than I do US for news, that too very rarely. Sad but true. - Moushumi Kabir

photos from the Tehran http://www.flickr.com/photos... - Johni Fisher

I see more news from my Iranian friends than news TV news outlets. - Moushumi Kabir

Cnn lost. - Stalyn☂

My last thought on this, no matter what happens, US definitely needs to stay out. It's Iran's internal matter just as 2004 re-election of Bush was our internal matter. As shocking as it was to the rest of the world (I still struggle with the fact ppl I know actually voted for him - twice!!), US did vote for Bush the second time. - Moushumi Kabir

For people interested in tracking what is happening regarding the irannian election on Twitter, here is a dashboard: http://www.twazzup.com/search... An amazing showcase of how new forms of communication make it much harder for dictatorships to control people! - Edwin Khodabakchian

ridiculous.. thank god for the internet. fourthing http://shooresh1917.blogspot.com/ - Harrison Powers

It's difficult to get a right news even for me who know Persian, Iranian Tv doesn't support anything about street riots at all, Face book and You tube are filtered over there! No SMS! No mobile, even FF is filtered for them ! :| - Shandiz

sucks to live in a country without freedom :( - David Lloyd

Agree w/ Moushumi Kabir!US MUST stay out of this. - Shandiz

"Horrid coverage" -- otherwise known as typical. Shame shame! - Andy Sternberg from fftogo

Good "on the ground" coverage over at allvoices http://www.allvoices.com/Iran - Joel Richman

What did CNN do-so horridly...is that a word. That's twice in 2 weeks. - Teriss

Download Livestation to see more coverage - Eric Haber from Nambu

re: Teriss - comparing cnn.com to twazzup.com at 10:08 PM Central, CNN has NO MENTION of Iran and twazzup has 3 of 10 Hot Topics about Iran ... looks like CNN is NOT the place to find 'Breaking News'. - Don Strickland

Really strange. - Jim Hague

I really like Don Lemon but he seems to think CNN isn't doing anything wrong, which bugs me. http://twitter.com/donlemoncnn - Shawn Farner

CNN finally pipes up and mentions Facebook pictures inciting violence in Iran - but no update. Oh, yeah, and the fact that access to internet has been cut off. Is that the only news?Now on to the Letterman/Palin fight! I am heading back to online updates. - Liza

I often find US cable TV insular when it comes to foreign affairs - coverage of Barack Obama's recent speech in Egypt was a case in point. But CNN ignoring the Iranian protests is shameful. - Peter Dowley

I am an Iranian, protest people are alone, they have no leader and don't what to do, wish somebody help us :(( - Zahra (raoros)

Track now in real-time http://iran.twazzup.com/ - Edwin Khodabakchian

I was always kinda of excited about the prospect of a 24 hour news network. Imagine how many more stories or how much more in-depth you could got on a single item. That really didn't happen. Covering stories, particularly any story happening outside NY or LA, is expensive. So we saw CNN put on a bunch of shows with pundits. They leaned to the left, so FOX could come along and lean to... more... - Matthew McCowan

Twitter is susceptible to manipulation by propagandists--for example the protests in Moldavia. In that case it was a legit election that the protesters just didn't like the result of. A flash mob does not a majority make. - Joe Knapp

Joe: good point, but many of us didn't fall for that crap and even then it cleaned itself out pretty quickly. - Robert Scoble

CNN died in 2001, when Tom Johnson retired. Quite a few of the top talent left around the same time, not wanting to be part of Jamie Kellner's efforts to be more like FOX. Cable "news" is a ghetto, and I never, ever, ever turn it on. Robert, you'll enjoy this: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_dai... - John Craft

Photos from Iran http://twitpic.com/photos... - Johni Fisher

Looks like CNN is finally picking up the coverage today. Christiane Amanpour is live in Teheran. - Nils Sandin

Just starring to catch up to last nights events. Amazing the lack of big media coverage on Iran. - Robert Wilkins

Been watching CNN International in China for two days and I can't agree with you. The reporting seems to be matching what I'm seeing on BBC and reading in NYTimes and Twitter. Saying they should be "ashamed" is a bit invective. - David Geller

"CNN International . . . seems to be matching what I'm seeing on BBC and reading in NYTimes and Twitter." - CNN-I is a totally separate production team, and has a totally different business model from CNN-"Domestic." - John Craft

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009... - John Craft

Crowds gather for Ahmadinejad victory rally http://news.bbc.co.uk/1... - David Lloyd

http://www.thenation.com/blogs... - "Iran's Ex-Foreign Minister Yazdi: It's A Coup" - John Craft

Robert Scoble: three bloggers have been on top of Iran developments: Andrew Sullivan, Juan Cole and Robert Dreyfuss. It seems safe to say now that we have just witnessed a coup in Iran. - Sean McBride

http://mynewsjunkie.com/2009... - John Craft

Other interesting reports http://sambrook.typepad.com/sacredf... - Johni Fisher

Amazing video from the BBC of the demonstrations. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2... - Joe Wood

What's new? - Kreg Steppe

Yep, "CNN- The Lamest International News Team on Television" - Dean Kakridas

CNN: Cable No News network. - Robert Scoble

interwebz wins again! - stefan

who makes the decisions over there at Cnn? - Denise

All these comments are so stupid and ill-informed. Not a single one of you has ever tried to take a camera crew into a totalitarian country. I have. You don't just walk around. Easy to twitter for one person. Very hard to get pictures! Go and try it, and until then. Shut up! - Prokofy Neva

@Sean, i agree we have witnessed a coup--the sustained fight lasting a week with people in the street every day, making police run away, NYT editorial by Reuel Marc Gerecth has a good analysis of what it means, and AlJazeera http://www.youtube.com/watch... has a good analysis. the action on the streets is having a huge effect, not just on Iran but on the Middle East. - Eleanor Wynn

Prokofy Neva, agreed that no new organizations can get in there, but any of the news channels could rebroadcast key videos, photographs and analysis of this very major geopolitical event--it is really disgusting to go through the TV channels and see the dreck that is on when something major is happening--our local news channels will cover a weather event non-stop, why doesn't a major channel cover this/ - Eleanor Wynn

the citizen journalism tells the story in a way noone else could. you are right there in the middle of the crowd with all the changes of pace and direction, the shaky camera itself tells a story and the sounds. it is like actually being there--that is why the twitter and youtube coverage is the real coverage--they don't have to process, package and add a local angle to it that waters down the effect - Eleanor Wynn

Nathan Chase

I've got two 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda HD's and a Drobo in my Newegg cart. Please someone talk me out of actually going through with this...

March 24 - Comment - Like - Share

Tapio Kulmala, Toni @ NavinoT, Seth and 40 other people liked this

I need reassurance or passionate alternatives.-EDIT: I'd like to thank everyone who gave their advice & suggestions. I ultimately decided to get the two 1.5TB drives and a D-Link DNS321 - total cost after rebate & free shipping: $351.16 at Amazon. The Drobo's nice, but it would have put me at close to $700 for only 500GB more total space. I think the D-Link and 1.5TB mirrored in RAID 1 should last me until an eSATA Drobo with ethernet built-in, or some other better, cheaper device comes out. - Nathan Chase

77 more comments

Hmmm...go for it - Josh Haley

@Josh - I want to, I really do... Just worried that I'm setting myself up for disappointment - Nathan Chase

maybe do more research then? I don't know about drobo - Josh Haley

oh I've been researching for the past 2 weeks... that's the problem. - Nathan Chase

Have you looked at the HP home media servers? - Alex Scoble

dooeeet! - ha3rvey (Ho)^3

You can spend you money on something else better. - Mathew™ one of a kind

@Alex - I did look at them, but they're quite pricey too. They're also only over gigabit ethernet, which doesn't tend to perform that well. I need to do more research on them. - Nathan Chase

@Mathew - any suggestions? or do you mean spending money in general? - Nathan Chase

I have a few friends with them that love them. One uses his to store all of his DVDs and serve them up through another Dell front end PC that's connected to his HD TV. - Alex Scoble

http://www.paraesthesia.com/categor... - Alex Scoble

If you're looking for some contrarian input: 1. I never buy the highest capacity drives available, preferring to wait for later gens (just starting to buy 1TB drives now); 2. The Drobo becomes your single point of failure. If it dies, the data is not readable by any other device since it looks like Drobo doesn't use industry-standard RAID schemes. - LogEx

I actually want one. Go for it! - Michael Fidler

@Logical Extremes - right, that's one of my big concerns of the Drobo - the 1.5TB drives are actually not very expensive ($129 each). I priced three 1TB drives, and they came out to costing more than two 1.5TB drives. Regardless of what I go with, it seems like the 1.5TB are still better for the buck, and take less drive bays for same amount of total storage. - Nathan Chase

@Leather ♥ Donut - Wow. I checked out the ReadyNAS. It told me "which model was right for me". Unfortunately it also costs $1,145, with no drives. A bit out of my price range. - Nathan Chase

If you are going over a network, the Drobo isn't a great solution though as you have to pay extra for the gig-e upgrade. - Alex Scoble

@Alex - my machine's on 24/7, so it will always be connected and shared through it. I don't particularly need the data to be accessible completely on its own over the network. - Nathan Chase

Also you can just get an eSATA chassis that holds 4 drives and connect that to your PC via a 4 port eSATA card. - Alex Scoble

The eSATA chassis should be a bit cheaper than a Drobo. Of course it won't be as easy to use as a Drobo. - Alex Scoble

i have a d link one with 2 one TB drives.. love it... - Terry O'Fee

I prefer to steer clear of cutting edge capacity (aka 1.5 tb) because they tend to be less reliable, note Seagates recent issues with the 1.5s. I think that is why the previous individual was probably recommending the 1TB. The Drobo's seem to be pretty popular. But i think if you got room just shove another tb in your chassis. Can't really beat that bang for your buck. - Geoff Schultz

@Geoff - the issues with the 1.5TB do scare me off a bit. And I do have plenty of room for internal drives, but I'm just worried about them all going belly up sometime soon. - Nathan Chase

Right now I have two 250GB identical drives mirrored with on-board RAID, a 250GB drive as my Windows XP install drive, and a 500GB drive - all internal. I use the mirrored RAID for all the really important, can't-lose-it stuff. But it's tapped out now, and I'm starting to worry about data on the 500GB being lost. - Nathan Chase

Yeah I hear that. I have honestly been looking for a storage solution myself as I recently got within 50gigs of filling my 1tb Hitachi, which i love btw. Truth is all the consumer level stuff kind of sucks. - Geoff Schultz

my plan was to drop the two 1.5TB, the 500GB, and one of the 250GB drives into the Drobo - leaving me with 2TB usable space - Nathan Chase

@Nathan I was just saying you may have something more important to spend the money on. Just make sure that this is something that you really do NEED. - Mathew™ one of a kind

BTW considering that an HP home media server comes with 750hard drive it's about the same price as a Drobo and with some better features...some...and some not as good. http://www.amazon.com/EX485-M... - Alex Scoble

Home Media Server doesn't do RAID for instance, but you can have it copy a folder across all drives in the system. - Alex Scoble

But either one would probably do you just fine - Alex Scoble

@Mathew, I definitely NEED some sort of solution, as I'm down to only 16GB of free hard drive space out of a total of 1TB capacity spread across my internal drives. I'm just seeking out the best price, and most reliable choice for storing mass amounts of data, keeping that data safe, and getting decent performance out of whatever's delivering the data. - Nathan Chase

BTW don't buy Hitachi drives. WD (the good models) or Seagate are best. - Alex Scoble

Get the Drobo. I would LOVE one... or a couple. And you know you'll need the data backed up. Imagine having all of your media accessible from the Drobo from computers all over the house.... Yes! - Michael

What about the DNS-323 with those 2 drives? It's a lot cheaper, using it myself. - Nick

No need to second guess, if you need it, just get it. I bought mine in January w/4x 1TB and it's been working like a champ so far. - ronin

@Nick, If I were to do that it would cost about $450 for the enclosure and 2 drives. I'd have 1.5TB total usable space (mirrored). OR I could get the 2 drives and a Drobo for $675 and have 2TB usable space, given that I have some extra SATA drives I could devote to the Drobo. - Nathan Chase

hmm - the D-Link DNS-321 is only $91 AR on Amazon. Total price with the two 1.5TB drives = $381 - for 1.5TB mirrored, not a bad price... - Nathan Chase

Buy it. - Louis Gray

@Nathan Well, how much data are you looking at storing? - Mathew™ one of a kind

@Mathew - I've got nearly 1TB of data now that I'd want to store, and I'd like room to grow for a while - Nathan Chase

Then I say get the drobo. But, you may be better off just getting the system and then buying separate HDDs, that may be cheaper. - Mathew™ one of a kind

Those are tempting. Especially since you can pop in different sized drives and it just works. - Rodfather

Yup, both the Drobo and the HP Home Media Server have that capability, Rodfather. - Alex Scoble

Why not just build a whitebox with as much drives you want and then put on Windows Media Server? The OS is $110. - Uncle CW™

What the hell, go with the recently released 2TB drives. (Good luck with the backups.) ;) - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

Do it. Do it. - Steve Isaacs

@Jack those 2TB drives are not cheap... not cheap at all. - Nathan Chase

It would be fun to build a miniature server rack for your desktop that held hard drives. I think I could go about 8 stacked vertically on this desk. Little glass door on the front. Little cooling setup and heat monitor. And a tiny, tiny little rack-mount monitor. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

I'd like to thank everyone who gave their advice & suggestions. I ultimately decided to get the two 1.5TB drives and a D-Link DNS321 - total cost after rebate & free shipping: $351.16 at Amazon. The Drobo's nice, but it would have put me at close to $700 for only 500GB more total space. I think the D-Link and 1.5TB mirrored in RAID 1 should last me until an eSATA Drobo with ethernet built-in, or some other better, cheaper device comes out. - Nathan Chase

I have a Drobo and it's superb. It's sat on my desk connected to my MacBook Pro via FireWire 800 and currently has 4x500GB drives. The ability to simply eject a drive and slot in a bigger one without having to format or worry about the RAID set-up is excellent. - Timothy Griffin

I think the question needs to be asked since this is pointed to the self employeed persons or people with higher income to use at home, How many times in the year or so will you change out your hd's? - Uncle CW™

I decided that the proliferation of people having issues with the Drobo and large capacity drives, combined with the high cost and their proprietary system locking me into essentially throwing away drives or getting a new Drobo if something goes wrong, were enough to convince me to go with a 1.5TB RAID1 NAS instead. I'll get nearly the same redundant space at half the cost. NAS isn't as good as eSATA for performance, but it will work for my needs for the meantime until something better comes along - Nathan Chase

Good call on the DNS321. I'm considering getting one myself. Drobo's are nice but the price and lock in isn't. - Benjamin Golub

I've had my FW800 Drobo for 6 months now. Last week one of my 1TB WD GP drives failed. I replaced it 3 days later, but the re-sync took over 40 hours! During this time I could not write to the Drobo and it wound up hanging a lot of my apps until it was done. While in the end my data was protected, I am disappointed with the performance. - TranceMist

@TranceMist - that's exactly why I think just a simpler mirrored configuration might be ideal - because then if one of the drives goes bad, you still have all the data on the mirrored drive - and you could continue to use it while you get a new drive replacement. - Nathan Chase

I think you've made a great choice Nathan. I've been researching NAS drives for a while as well and am going with the Dlink 323. The Drobo is pricey and I've heard their NAS add-on provides poor performance. For anyone looking to get a NAS, this is a must visit site http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/compone... - Mark Krynsky

@Nathan - I have mirrored drives in my MacPro for really important stuff that I also have rotated off-site backups for. The 4TB (raw) Drobo was for "other stuff" that isn't as important and doesn't otherwise get backed up. In short, I didn't trust the Drobo enough at first for really important stuff - *that* still gets mirrored. - TranceMist

@Mark - FYI This article from the site you mentioned convinced me NOT to bother paying for the 323 over the 321: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content... - Nathan Chase

@Nathan, I think the extra $33 is worth it for the USB port and print server option. Also, the benchmarks that were run on SmallNetworkBuilder show the 323 to have better network performance. Lastly there is a more recent firmware upgrade that appears to have more features. - Mark Krynsky

Also, for brave folks...there is a bios replacement for the 323. You can get info on it here: http://wiki.dns323.info/howto:f... - Mark Krynsky

Wait, $450 for the enclosure? It's only $150 CDN for the DNS323. what am I missing. - Nick

Don't Do It!!! - Patrick from twhirl

Everyone seems to like the Drobo - Bindu Reddy

WANT - sofarsoShawn

@NIck - the "?" at the end. - TranceMist

Get the drobo, but don't get a DroboShare. They're impossibly slow and it's unclear if future firmware upgrades will fix it. - Kevin Fox

I would also recommend the DNS-323. It is an awesome NAS that has 2 bay (each one can take upto 1.5 TB). It is also highly configurable. Take a look at http://wiki.dns323.info/. - Kenneth Chu

I'm looking for a small AOE array. Any ideas? These self-contained NAS things are not amenable to my, uh, experiments. - Andy Bakun

dobos are great. - Thomas Hawk

@Nathan, I just came across this $30 rebate for both the 321 & 323 on Newegg http://images10.newegg.com/uploadf... . It appears to be currently valid for Amazon.com purchases from 3/1 - 4/30. This effectively knocks the 321 price down to $64 (based on current price) which is a crazy amazing deal. - Mark Krynsky

@Mark - it's $94.24 after that $30 rebate as far as I can tell. http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-... - Nathan Chase

I wouldn't have talked you out of the Drobo... love mine. Also, if the Drobo fails, you can simply pop the drives into another Drobo and it will load them up no problem. I've found it much more stable and secure (not to mention easy to manage) than other NAS devices I have to work with in my professional life. But, looks like you didn't go Drobo anway, so sort of a moot point :) - Bob M. Montgomery from twhirl

@Nathan, Amazon offers an instant $30 rebate and the one I list is a supplemental $30 mail in rebate form. - Mark Krynsky

@Mark, no I wish it were true. The rebate forms are the same. Amazon's $30 is not instant. Newegg's: http://images10.newegg.com/uploadf... - Amazon's: http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images... - Nathan Chase

Not a fan of Seagate HDs. :\ I just got a WD TB drive on Newegg. - fn (fairnymph)

Just a quick update. I bought the Dlink 323 with 2 Western Digital 1TB Green drives. It was amazingly simple to setup and so far I love it. Very good performance and very quite. I will post a review on my blog soon. - Mark Krynsky

@Mark - I've been pretty happy with the Dlink 321 with two Seagate 1.5TB drives - it loses connectivity occasionally, but otherwise has been smooth sailing - Nathan Chase

WD Sharespace. Best thing out thing out there hands down. Its makes the drobo look like a brick. I am so glad i never bought a drobo. 4TB RAID-5 NAS + full blown DLNA that talks to my PS3 with no setting up required or computer intervention. - Carlos Ayala

Is this a new Drobo? My first one was quite noisy. Love the Seagate drives, though, that I got. - Robert Scoble

The Apple Room: Carlos Granier-Phelps

MacHeist Bundle: Get 14 Mac Apps for only $39 (LittleSnapper, Espresso, The Hit List, Acorn, and more...) - http://www.macheist.com/bundle

March 24 - Comment - Like - Share

Stylish Eve, Kfir Pravda, Luke and 16 other people liked this

Boinx TV alone is worth the price. - Bill Sodeman

10 more comments

I bought my bundle on Friday, and directed the charity donation to the International Humane Society. - Joey Gibson

So, is this thing going to hit $400K or what? - Carlos Granier-Phelps

Just went past $400K, activating BoinxTV. Get your bundle now... 2 days left. - Carlos Granier-Phelps

FTW! - Bill Sodeman

yeehah, i was just waiting for it to get past $400K. Will be buying this, agreed that BoinxTV alone is worth the price. - Eugene Huo

The whole bundle has been unlocked... in case you were waiting. - Carlos Granier-Phelps

Purchasing this mostly for Espresso. - Khürt Williams

Having a lot of problems placing the MacHeist order. After putting in payment information I get a processing order message and then .... 10 seconds layer, a "Heavy Traffic" message. I hope I do not get double billed. I don't know if my order completed. - Khürt Williams

Was great to have the whole bundle including the fabulous Espresso Plus unlocked this morning. Even greater to see how much raised for charity! - Kate Foy

Kate: I agree about the Charity it's great. I was personally waiting for Espresso also. - rob friedman from twhirl

I bought it mainly for Acorn and World of Goo. Kinemac looks interesting. - DGentry

j1m

There are 2 kinds of men in the world: those with guns, and those who dig.

March 30 - Comment - Like - Share

TranceMist liked this

Dig for... what? Information? - Louis Gray

3 more comments

I wouldn't have picked j1m as the author here, but, alas! Which type are you, j1m? - Rob Schonberger

So .... armed robbery by a professional landscaper is a logical impossibility? Interesting. (strongly recommended correctional facility rehab program: gardening) - Micah Wittman

Sounds like a quote from The good, the Bad and the Ugly... - Stephan Osmont

ah-ah-ah-ah-ah....WAH-WAH-WAH - j1m

Thomas Hawk

Thomas Hawk on Adobe.com - http://thomashawk.com/2009...

April 1 from Thomas Hawk Digital Connection - Comment - Like - Share

Jeff P. Henderson, Arnaud Fischer, Steve C and 49 other people liked this

Recently Adobe contacted me about the way that I use their products. I’ve been a long time user of Photoshop and Bridge and last year made the jump to Lightroom 2.0 as well. I’ve been super happy using Adobe products and feel that they are some of the best tools around for processing my photographs. I was pleased when they asked me if I’d like to be included as an Adobe Success Story on their website at adobe.com. I worked with Laura Thurman from Big Sky Communications to put together the story/bio. Adobe didn’t pay me any money or compensation for participating in this project. I just felt like doing it because I thought it would be good exposure for me and I am a real true to life satisfied Adobe customer and user and am happy to share that experience with the rest of the world. - Thomas Hawk

24 more comments

Congrats Thomas! That's really cool to be included as a success story on their site! - Jeremy Brooks

thanks Jeremy, yeah it was fun working on it. - Thomas Hawk

the direct link to story on the Adobe site is here: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion... - Thomas Hawk

Kudos! I own CS4 but do almost all of my post processing in Lightroom now. Great product. - Rick Bucich

was even able to get a FriendFeed mention in the article. - Thomas Hawk

Unless I missed something, you're now two-for-two. Let the FriendFeed pimping continue! - Keith McCammon

Your work deserves the recognition. Congrats - Phil Boiarski

Good on you! - Pete Delucchi

awesome news TH ... congrats and well deserved - johnpiercy

Very cool, indeed... I have been using Adobe products since they first came out... and have integrated Photoshop and Lightroom into my workflow, both at home and work... great products, though I wish they still had some competition (Macromedia), since I thought it kept them honest... - Paula W

Kudos Thomas :-) - Dobromir Hadzhiev

Wise folks getting such an outspoken and active member of the photography community. Congrats on the opportunity. I'm with you, I drink the Adobe koolaid completely and love it . - Jeremy Hall

Fantastic! Congratulations good Sir! :) - Parth Awasthi

Great stuff! - Tyson Key

Damn, that's cool!!! woo hooo! Congrats Thomas!!!!! - Susan Beebe

Congratulations. - TranceMist

Very nice! - Martha

Didn t see this before. Congrats Thomas! - Simon Wicks

That's great! - Micah Wittman

Congratulations, It's a brilliant achievement - Manuela

Congrats! - Anne Bouey

That's awesome, Thomas, congrats. - Derrick

Excellent! - WorldofHiglet

[OT] @Thomas This picture is too big and let the visualization of the FF page not optimal, specially from mobile devices, in wich the font is automatically resized too small. I suggest to reduce the picture to max 400px wide and/or add a link to the larger image (hosted by Tinypic) [/OT] - Roberto from fftogo

Roberto, I'm not sure about the size here on FF or how it's positioned. I think either FF or RSS Media Enclosure determines the size here I'm assuing. On my blog I posted the photo at 600px wide. - Thomas Hawk

Robert Scoble

Video of some of the biggest photos you'll ever see: http://blip.tv/file/1913723 Tour of SmugMug's headquarters and look at first SmugMug user group meeting last night.

March 24 - Comment - Like - Share

Daniel Brusilovsky, jcunwired, Kevin Fox and 21 other people liked this

This is my first video I did with my Canon 5D MKII. Sorry for the bad audio noises here and there. I need to work on my camera technique. It's very hard to focus while doing a video on that camera. - Robert Scoble

29 more comments

I shot this right before the user group meeting. You see Don MacAskill, CEO of SmugMug and his dad, Chris, talk about the large photos that Chris made. Multi gigapixel photos. - Robert Scoble

Canon 5D!! That's one of my dream cameras. How would you rate it?a - Alekkus

That pic is really impressive both because of the shoot but also because of the printing rendering. Would like one like this. - Pierre Beugnot

That would be a really cool company to work for. - Jesse Stay

Alekkus: 12 out of 10. Freaking awesome camera. First time I'm getting images off of the sensor that are close to what I want. - Robert Scoble

I would love to work at SmugMug, sucha cool service and cool people working there - Bill Pennington from twhirl

At the Huntington Hotel [http://www.huntingtonhotel.com/] (SF--across the street from Grace Cathedral) there is an amazing panoramic photo set of the Bay area from the late 1800's. No bridges, horses and carriages, sailing ships in the bay, no development in Marin Cty...amazing - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

Yeah, there's no doubt about it. I could see the details of the giant photos that you filmed. Awesome! - Alekkus

Bill: and even better you can walk to friendfeed's headquarters and have lunch with them, too! - Robert Scoble

Alekkus: I wish I could figure out how to upload this video to SmugMug. Says there's a 512MB limit there. Hmm, gotta talk to Don about that. - Robert Scoble

Robert: Deal, now get me a job @ SmugMug!!! :-) - Bill Pennington from twhirl

Bill: you have lots of competition. They just hired a rocket scientist who built Yahoo News, among other smart people. Don told me he's seeing talent on the street that he never imagined he'd be able to hire. - Robert Scoble

Nice to see what my SmugMug fees are being spent on. - Andy Roth

Robert, you should just upload it to Facebook, mark permissions for everybody, and you have full HD. SmugMug's another good alternative - I like Facebook because I can control permissions (like on Family videos and pictures, for instance). I use SmugMug as my archive, and Facebook as my viral sharing tool. - Jesse Stay

Andy: what I like is they print lots of their customers photos all over the offices too. They also use these images to test printers. Chris knows more about printing than most humans. He talked about how they chose the printers they decided on for their pro service (they had double-blind tests). He showed us some of the tests and that they studied how he can pick prints from some of the photo labs just by looking at them. If you want to know more about how to make your photos better, this is a good group. - Robert Scoble

Jesse: I shot this one at 640x480 so it's not HD. SmugMug actually lets you upload 1080p videos, but I don't get how they can do that if they only limit you to 512MB. The file sizes on 1080p get ridiculous. - Robert Scoble

Oops--I commented on the subject--not the tools. Ha! - Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)

Robert: Yeah I know, great companies attract great people and SmugMug is super smart about growth and keeping it small, which is exactly why I want to work for them! Not that I don't love my current job but combining photography with tech would be a dream job! - Bill Pennington from twhirl

Rob: I've seen that image, it's mondo cool. Did you know that Ansel Adams did panoramas for Kodak for advertising in Grand Central Station? He built a special tripod to do those. I bet he'd trip out if he saw what was possible now. - Robert Scoble

Don kinda reminds me of Conan O'Brien - Daniel Sims

Very cool! Thanks for this! - TranceMist

Didn't mean to come off sounding so negative. I'm actually a fan and customer of smugmug and think those photos look cool - Andy Roth

The 5d mark2 making these new videos much more watchable. - Zach Scott

Zach: imagine what it'll be like when I figure out how to use it! :-) - Robert Scoble

Ya the focusing is an issue. I love the quality though. I so wish i had 3grand laying around - Zach Scott

I love smugmug. :-) - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag

Man I love working for a photo company with huge walls! Nothing like filling them with 200dpi goodness at 150 inches tall. :-) - Chris MacAskill

Chris: love your photos. Inspiring me to do some of my own. I still wanna know how much these cost to print out. - Robert Scoble

Robert, Leo Laporte mentioned this a few months back in one of his podcasts - he may be a good source of info. - jcunwired

The description you got of photographing Duomo di Milano was fascinating. - jcunwired

Louis Gray

I just claimed the twins as dependents on my tax forms. Finally they are becoming contributing members to the household!

March 31 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

Shevonne, Daniel Brusilovsky, David Cook and 36 other people liked this

They'd better help out with all those diapers. - Hutch Carpenter

14 more comments

Aren't they already your social media mascots? :-) - Trish R

Next year, they have to fill out their own W-2's... - Mike Nayyar

Mascots yes, contributors, not so much. Of course, they're asleep now and can't defend themselves against such slander! - Louis Gray

http://www.asianjoke.com/picture... - Jesse Stay

Turn off your popups on that last link - Jesse Stay

And taxes are completed! 9:30 start, 11:25 completion. God bless the Interwebs. - Louis Gray

/me eagerly awaits Louis's new "how to get your taxes done quickly thanks to the Internet" post. My wife has been after me to do this years' taxes, so I could use some advice on the latest tools and tricks. - Daniel J. Pritchett

Daniel, here's my post on that from 2006 about 2005 taxes. Want me to write it again? :) http://www.louisgray.com/live... - Louis Gray

Surely something more awesome has arrived in the past three years? I dunno, I mostly just use the irs.gov site to find the tips I need. Are there any silver bullets for cheap tax prep? Edit: I finished reading your post. The year to year Turbotax memory does sound nice. I guess I'll try it out this year. - Daniel J. Pritchett

I used TurboTax again. It's great because it does year over year data and imports from eTrade and can grab your W-2 data by company number. - Louis Gray

They already more than carried their weight in cuteness contributions. Monetary contribution is good too, though. - Martha

I'm lucky, my father is an accountant and does my taxes. - Mike Fruchter

My little Zoe was born in early January 2008. I was SO hoping she could help us for last year's 2007 prep, but she wasn't done cooking. She's worth every penny, though :) - Josh Haley

dependents rule! audits drool. - Nathan Chase

Mike - me too. One of the many reasons I do not look forward to losing him. - Martha

Paul Buchheit

Happy birthday Gmail! Now that you're 5 years old, I think it's time to put away that old "beta tag" security blanket :)

April 1 - Comment - Like - Share

Mike Chelen, pastas9, Alex Gawley and 61 other people liked this

Search is Number Two Online Activity – Email is Number One; "Heck, Yeah," Say Google Founders - http://www.google.com/press... - Paul Buchheit

14 more comments

97 invites left if anyone's looking. - Andrew Smith

I think Paul just doesn't like having his resume in beta. :) - Louis Gray

I've got 177 invites. w00t! - Matt Cutts

490 :) - Paul Buchheit

You make the product, you get the most invites. :) - Matt Cutts

I think that I manually boosted it at some point long, long ago. - Paul Buchheit

100 left. I must have gotten a refill. - Louis Gray

Why did I get my invite on 4/5? What the hell took so long? - Gabe

+1 Louis - Tim Ostler

I can't think of any other services that has been in such a long beta test....(except Windows /snicker) - Dennis Bjørn Petersen from twhirl

94 left for me. - Mike Doeff

94 for me, too. Huh. - Laura Norvig

92 for me. - Andy Kruger

hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii - tera

Paul nice quote "that it's better, initially, to make a small number of users really love you than a large number kind of like you." - Aditya Vempaty

Loic Le Meur

How to manage your e-mail by Tim Ferriss - http://www.youtube.com/watch...

March 31 from YouTube - Comment - Like - Share

David Berrebi, TranceMist, Morgan and Timo Heuer liked this

Louis Gray

Tired of Answering Email? Put your Inbox on Autopilot - http://www.blackweb20.com/2009...

April 1 from Google Reader - Comment - Like - Share

Daniel Brusilovsky, Greg, TranceMist and 2 other people liked this

The Apple Room: Jonathan Kong

Happy 33rd birthday, Apple Inc! - http://www.macdailynews.com/index...

April 1 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

David Foucher, Darren Heydon, Zee. and 16 other people liked this

"TIME Magazine's 80th anniversary issue featured a look back over 80 years in a piece titled "80 Days That Changed the World," published on March 31, 2003. Lev Grossman wrote about one such day that changed the world, the founding of Apple Computer, Inc. on April 1, 1976:" - Jonathan Kong from Bookmarklet

Wow. - Juho Tunkelo

Mike Nayyar

Aw, man, this made me really sad. You see this, @Veronica?! If you're not a hot chick, no one wants to bother with you!

March 30 - Comment - Like - Share

Dobromir Hadzhiev, Jennifer Gates, sam and 46 other people liked this

LOL - vijay

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lol, so true! - Fee501st

So was he.. or a lesbian. - Jemm

If you had answered "female" the next question was going to be "are you hot ?" -- and if your answer was "No..." then same result. - Stephen Mack

They could have at LEAST asked me "a/s/l?" - Mike Nayyar

On The Internet, Nobody Knows You're A Dog. - TranceMist

"Hello", - "hello", - "are you fem or male ?", - "I'm 18 y/o blonde female, 90-60-90, and I like to talk to strangers", - Your conversational partner has disconnected. - Pavel Senko

@Pavel: Too perfect... and no typos. - Jemm

I'll NEVER get tired of this post. NEVER. - Derrick

"Beronica Velmont!" or "in transition" would make better answers I guess LOL - Richard pancakhaus Walker

What a riot!!!!!!! - Martha

That's funny - Rich

This site is going to be an endless source of entertainment, I can tell. - Shawna Benson

one guy asked me if i had a penis. when i said no, he said "oh too bad, i'm gay." and DC'd. you can't win! - Veronica

LOL - Josh Haley

Thomas Hawk

Should Yahoo/Flickr Be Advertising Paid Pro Memberships as “Ad-Free Browsing and Sharing” When They In Fact Plan on Advertsing at Them? - http://thomashawk.com/2009...

March 30 from Thomas Hawk Digital Connection - Comment - Like - Share

Stephen Edgar, Ladybug Heather, mMakino and 11 other people liked this

But if McDonald’s and Visa are not enough for you, maybe you ought to check out the Nikon Digital Learning Center. Or how about the Kiss and Be Kissed Group (sponsored by Nivea)? Or you can tell Kodak what your story is here. Or you can hang out in the uber cool “Life’s for Sharing” group sponsored by Deutsche Telekom (warning it’s in German). Or check this out. Ford Motor Company is now inviting a few very lucky select flickr members to be a guest editor on their “This is Now” blog through their “This is Now” group on Flickr (your bailout dollars hard at work I guess). All of these groups, by the way, are now prominently displayed on the main groups page for all free *and* paid Pro account Flickr members. Now. I’m as much for Yahoo/Flickr making money as the next Taurus driving Nikon shooting hamburger hawking clown. But the point is, why are they pumping all these adverts out at paid members when they promise you an ad free experience on Flickr if you pay and upgrade to Pro. Whatever happened to, in the - Thomas Hawk

14 more comments

Agreed. It's sloppy. Hiding them is a least an option. Some paid members may well like to participate or at least know about some of these "paid groups/advertorial/contests". I hid mine and I'm fine with that. Good on Yahoo for trying to monetize the site. If they are successful with it, then Flickr may stick around instead of being marginalized or forgotten by the non-using management team of Yahoo. - Robert Kenney

If Flickr is getting paid for this stuff, then they should offer a rebate or a extra value service for the paying members. Personally I'd like some cash back. - Grant Bierman

I'm totally *not* against flickr getting paid. They are a company and deserve to make a profit. I just think it's misleading to tell people that by upgrading to Pro that they can have an ad-free experience and then not delivering. If they need to charge more for Pro accounts so be it. But to mislead people is wrong in my opinion. - Thomas Hawk

Advertise to the free accounts all you want. And even advertise to the paid Pro accounts if you remove the "ad-free" claim in your advertising. Although personally I've always liked (and have paid) for the privilege of an ad free flickr experience. I worry that this is just the start of a new trend on Flickr and hope it can be nipped in the bud so to speak, and by bud, I don't mean Budweiser. - Thomas Hawk

Umm NO!! That is bad, really bad - Susan Beebe

Wait, the promise is "ad-free browsing and sharing." Thomas, aren't these sponsored sections separate from the browsing and sharing features? To me, Flickr is just saying that pros won't see any banner ads when they browse or share. But I don't use Flickr much so maybe I'm totally wrong. - Stephen Mack

Stephen: that's pretty much my take. To me, a sponsored group isn't an ad if the content is user-generated and "organic". I admit that's a pretty tricky line, though. - Roger Benningfield from BuddyFeed

Is what they are doing an "advertisement" or "product placement"? - TranceMist

Are they really planning to advertise on my pro account??? I thought they were making enough money advertising on all the photo pages that come up in yahoo search... - Paula W

Stephen, the sponsored sections aren't really separate. Ads for these groups appear on 100% of Pro members pages when they go to the main "groups" page on Flickr. You can choose to hide them there but of course many paid accounts will not and will be repeatedly advertised to until they choose to click on hide there. Even then though these paid sections will still appear in search results (and not distinguished as sponsored groups, like say a Google ad would be segregated from regular content). - Thomas Hawk

So if someone was say searching for Visa on Flickr, they would come across this group (on the first page search result by the way) even if they'd previously clicked on "hide" on the actual banner ad. Flickr is slowly integrating paid groups into your paid Pro viewing experience. The intrusions may seem small and no big deal at this point, but it crosses a line in my opinion and think it should at a minimum be disclosed. I also think paid groups ought to carry that disclaimer in search results. - Thomas Hawk

There is no way to opt out of seeing paid groups in your search results. The spirit of what Flickr is selling with their Pro accounts is an ad free experience and what they are doing is selling access to these paid members to corporate interests in a round about way. I worry that it's just the tip of the iceberg. Again I have no problem with flickr adverts. Facebook advertises at me and I could care less. It's more about the paid account their promise and disclosure. - Thomas Hawk

Can't we finish off being pissed at the people we were pissed off at last week before we go looking for more people to be pissed off at? I'm reaching my pissed off quota and it's only the first quarter - Matthew DeVries

There's a (Hide) link right next to the sponsored groups if you don't want to see them there. - Mistletoe Glen

Glen, even if you click "hide" they still show up in search results on Flickr (many people won't click hide of course and they still get at least that first shot at you on one of the most prominent pages on flickr). John, I absolutely agree that they have a right to try and sell you stuff. That's the bargain you make with them. I just think that if they want to do that to paid accounts then they shouldn't advertise them as ad-free browsing. - Thomas Hawk

Robert Scoble

Has anyone written about how crappy Vimeo's new terms of service are? I see Scott Bourne is pulling his videos off: http://scottbourne.com/post...

March 24 - Comment - Like - Share

Amber, Random Time Lord, Alp, Dan van Moll and 43 other people liked this

From what my friends are telling me Vimeo's new TOS says they have the right to do whatever they want with your videos. That's horrible for people who are trying to build content businesses. - Robert Scoble

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*sigh* And yet another service to delete my account on. - Jon, the Chilled Beartato

BTW: I'm using TubeMogul, but never posted to Vimeo because I like using HD and Vimeo has too restrictive a cap on HD videos. If you're doing video and not using TubeMogul to distribute your stuff you really are missing out. - Robert Scoble

Sheesh. And here I was, enjoying what they were doing. - Mike Nayyar

I agree, you really have to be everywhere. Gives different communities the chance to see your work. - deakaz

I have no idea what their TOS is like, but their new video is hilarious http://vimeo.com/3718294 - Richard Lawler

http://seanlockedigitalimagery... has some details on Vimeo. Yup, it is indeed as bad as Scott says. That's a horrid TOS. Compare, for instance, to SmugMug's TOS which says exactly the opposite. - Robert Scoble

Maybe that's what it takes to accomidate for creative commons licensing. Vimeo has been great for those of us not trying to build a business on content. - Christian Burns

Seems every site has to go through this "learning-curve" before they get it right. Vimeo's response has been excessively poor. Look's like self-hosting one's content is the only long-term solution. - Robert Kenney

The bottom line of anything is host it yourself or deal with TOS issues. Pretty sure most online video sites have the save clause in their TOSes. - El Freak

You'd think companies like this would learn from each others mistakes. Look at the flap Facebook got over changing their terms. Same with Google a while back. I'm sure that Vimeo will/should be pressured to do the same - Kevin Kuphal

El: SmugMug doesn't. - Robert Scoble

Scott Bourne runs the very influential "This Week in Photography" by the way. Has hundreds of thousands of listeners and is very popular. Pissing off someone like him is not a smart business plan, seems to me. - Robert Scoble

Like Robert Kenney said, the self-hosting looks better all the time. That said, you can use a service like Amazon S3 for the heavy storage lifting (granted, may not scale bandwidth cost-wise depending on consumption factors). SmugMug is great for (presently on pro account) 10 minute and under clips. - Micah Wittman

What I don't understand is, why does vimeo need to own the content uploaded to them? - Jon, the Chilled Beartato

El: why would you make an uninformed assertion that slows discourse when you can just quickly do the research, where you'd have seen that you're wrong and then not made that point at all? - Matthew DeVries

I like Blip, too. Nicest player I've seen out there. I'm also using Kyte a lot. Gotta go and compare the TOS's of those. SmugMug really rocks and uses Amazon S3 a lot anyway. - Robert Scoble

Flickr does video too now. - Matthew DeVries

Jonathan: at Microsoft when stuff like this happened it usually was just a lawyer trying to protect the company from all lawsuits. I doubt that Vimeo really wants to sell my videos to some other site, but the lawyers usually are in CYA mode, not thinking about what's appropriate for the business. I like SmugMug for that reason: they are a family run business and think about the impacts of this stuff first before setting lawyers loose. - Robert Scoble

You're gonna need to talk really fast to host video on Flickr and get a point across - Kevin Kuphal

Kevin: the industry is really settling on 10 minute videos for the free sites. I've found that lately I'm really trying to keep my interviews and such under the 10 minute mark so that they'll go everywhere. Plus, with HD, the file sizes get so nutty big that 10 minutes is about the limit anyway. - Robert Scoble

SmugMug allows 20 minutes, though. YouTube: 10. Facebook: 20. Blip: longer, not sure how long. Kyte: longer, if you have a pro account. - Robert Scoble

Robert: That's awesome that SmugMug does that. I suppose it will be a matter of time then before these companies notice that no one is hosting content through them because of their TOSs. Although, that may just be a naive assertion on my part. - Jon, the Chilled Beartato

Vimeos response has been horrific. They posted a pretty pathetic response on their own forums, then locked the thread... wonder how long until they delete the thread... I love the Vimeo service, but this response really is making me re-think vimeo. Check out the thread: http://www.vimeo.com/forums... - Juan Pons

Never used Vimeo - Patrick from twhirl

smugmug is my choice for posting videos - planetMitch

While I understand the message it sends to its users, these types of license agreements are of dubious enforceability. I'd love to see what would happen should someone sue Vimeo over it: my money is on the plaintiff. - Mark Trapp

Thanks Robert for bringing this to a broader audience! Vimeos response to the issue so far has been ridiculous. I'm hoping that - at some point in the future - companies will realise that these kind of TOS are bad for them. Looking into Smugmug for an upcoming project now... - Holger Eilhard

The companies response is ridiculous, reposting a boilerplate message and then closing the thread is hardly appropriate. Here's hoping the outcry is loud enough that they listen. I don't even use them at this point, but that kind of legal bs, pisses me off! - James Dasher

It's this kind of thing that proves to me that most companies are going to stay away from cloud services for a while longer. - Kenton

I have posted the Vimeo issue to GetSatisfaction in hopes of generating an actual response from their management. http://bit.ly/rmamf - Malevolent Robot

I find it interesting that companies in the user generated contant space keep rolling out these overally broad TOS clauses, smacks of a lazy legal team - Bill Pennington from twhirl

That's a disappointing change in position. I originally signed up for Vimeo years ago *specifically* because they did not claim ownership of my content. Now they're claiming "legal reasons and technical realities". Another company grows too complacent to serve its users... - Dan Byler

My friend Aaron Hockley did a talk at Ignite Portland 5 on the varying levels of egregious licence agreements among online services, like Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. Though the norm is pretty biased against the user, he said that Vimeo was a little better than usual. Too bad to see them change. You can watch Aaron's talk at http://www.igniteportland.com/watch or http://linuxaid.blip.tv. - Josh Bancroft

ha ha, they keep repeating the same message, over and over to each complaint on their forum. like drones. - TranceMist

Trance: Pretty sure that is people just requoting there response, it looks like repeating but if you look at it you will see it is quoted from the original - Bill Pennington from twhirl

censorship sucks. It's too bad that vimeo locked the thread where people were complaining about this. - Thomas Hawk

Threadlocking should be considered the legal equivalent of a signed confession that the company is wrong. - Matthew DeVries

how incredibly lame - Susan Beebe

hope vimeo is changing their tos as I recently heard. Smugsmug is great but completely different and takes a pricy pro-account to upload hd video.. and since I got all my pictures on photoshelter anyway, I don't need the picture-features of smugsmug.. so Vimeo used to be the perfect place for creative videos by now.. - Dan van Moll

Vimeo has locked their forum where this was being discussed. http://vimeo.com/forums... OTOH, they have stated that they're reviewing their ToS. The essence of Vimeo's response is "you can leave any time you like," which seems a really bad message to send. My commentary: http://www.techbreakfast.net/2009... - Mistletoe Glen

Say what you will about this being a legalese for them, but locking the thread is a huge mistake. I can understand why Vimeo doesn't want other customers to see the thread, but preventing them from commenting seems heavy handed and makes me doubt how willing they'll be to listen to consumers on this one. - Davis Freeberg

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