Shop RadioShack for Great GiftsI blogged on Wednesday about the photo archiving site Digital Railroad's abrupt shutdown, leaving thousands of professional photographer customers confused and worried. On Thursday, I got a statement saying that the site will extend the window time until Friday, October 31, 11:59 p.m. PST, for customers to migrate their photo archives.
(Credit:
Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)
The statement comes from both PhotoShelter and Diablo Management Group, the firm in charge of the shut down the defunct Digital Railroad, and reads:
As part of the process of terminating the business operations of Digital Railroad, Diablo Management Group has informed PhotoShelter of its intent to shut down the DRR site as early as 11:59 p.m PST on Friday October 31. After this point, it is very likely that all the images located on the Digital Railroad servers could be permanently inaccessible. Given the strong possibility of this event, PhotoShelter, on its own initiative, is strongly suggesting that customers migrate their files from Digital Railroad immediately. Digital Railroad, at the present time, has no plans or resources to accomplish this task.
Earlier this week, on Tuesday, upon announcing the termination of operations, DRR stated it would provide only 24 hours of server access, which actually lasted only about 10 hours. This tiny window of time was exceedingly insufficient both in terms of making the news known to concerned parties, as well as time to download their photos off DRR's server.
Although the extension through October 31 is still short, it will provide more time to help photographers find backup options and transition their online presence. Both DRR and PhotoShelter stress that the situation is highly fluid and the deadline could be altered with little or no notice.
Since Tuesday, PhotoShelter has offered DRR customers a special three-month free offer and FTP solution to help migrate their images.
If you are a customer of DRR or know somebody who is, it is time to take action before it is late.
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If you have a MySpace or Facebook account, you know how hard it is to ignore friend requests. And in no time, you end up with a long list of buddies that contains mostly people you've never met or even talked to before. The definition for "friend" has never been more blurred.
In reaction to this and to bring back the true meaning of buddy-ship, on Monday, Clubbyclub announced its new social network to provide a private and safe place for friend groups, like student clubs, schoolmates, and sport teams.
This means random surfers can't find out about members or groups on this Web site. Only members of a private group can visit their online place. Clubbyclub states that its Web site is built for fun and with the assurance that "your ex, boss, or mother-in-law will not be sneaking around your pictures and other materials".
At Clubbyclub, you are supposed to connect only to your real friends. The Web site owner goes even further, stating, "Your cousin, your classmate from 2nd grade, or your colleague are usually not your real friends." Basically, Clubbyclub is a lively place to communicate with your actual friends without using e-mail.
This also means, however, that if you don't mind using e-mail, it might not be necessary to join the club at all. Personally, I believe if you have something that you don't want people to sneak around and found out about, it's best not to put it on the Internet at all.
Facebook's EZcode.
(Credit: ScanLife)Scanbuy announced on Wednesday their free Scanlife barcode reader for iPhone called ScanLife. The software allows for scanning an EZcode using the iPhone's camera then instantaneously executing an individual action that the code is associated to, such as launching a Web site without you having to remember its URL and typing it on the phone's browser.
ScanLife saves you from having to remember and type in the URL for a web page.
(Credit: ScanLife)I tried ScanLife on my new iPhone 3G to launch a few Web sites, and it worked very well most of the time, even when the code is not on the center of the photo. A few times when the photo was blurry or underexposed, I had to take it again.
The software only works with EZcodes, which you can create your own for free after a quick registration. You can even create an EZcode for a specific Web page, for example, to send users directly to an iTunes page to preview and purchase a specific song or to watch a particular video on YouTube.
ScanLife is available for other smartphones, too. You can get it by texting the word "SCAN" to 43588 to receive the download instructions or go to www.getscanlife.com on your mobile browser. ScanLife supports hundreds of other camera cell phones running major mobile operating systems including BREW, Java, Symbian, Palm, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile.
This seems a fun and convenient way to access and process information from your phones, especially when the implementation of EZCodes becomes popular.
There's a catch, though: your memory will atrophy, and soon enough you won't be able to do anything without your phone. This has already happened to me.
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Eric Franklin's colleagues once had the following to say to him: "Eric, you've been doing this performance testing thing for over 10 years now. How about you try something different?" To which Eric responded, "How about you shut the #%$@! up?" This candid attitude
allows him to go toe-to-toe with the most extreme of personalities, including that of Dong Ngo. This bio was written by Eric Franklin.
Dong Ngo is a knowledgeable, opinionated individual who wants to convince the world that he's just a normal person; but he hasn't had much success. According to him, this is because the world itself is abnormal. Dong loves traveling and is well-versed in several languages. He, unfortunately, is not so well-versed in English. Still, it's best to ask him questions. From networking and how to optimize your system, to turning a strange place into home or what the meaning of life is…most of the time, he has the answers. The question is: Will he make himself understood? Subscribe and find out!
