Where is good place to post pictures

This may have come up before.

Where is a good place to post pictures, so that anyone can see them without the need for an account with a userid and password?

Facebook is out for sure. Not sure about Yahoo or Picasa or anywhere else.

I have family that would like to see pictures of some of our camping trips, but are not very computer literate.

I could go try a bunch of them, but being lazy I thought I would tap into the data bank of TMO first.

If I can't find such a place perhaps I will just fire up my web server at home again. But dealing with a dynamic IP address is just another problem to solve.

[ShrimpBurrito]

I use Phanfare.com. You will not find a service that provides a more polished presentation of your pictures, and I have looked.

Their key advantages:

• Upload your photos, and it automatically produces beautiful slideshows that pan and zoom. You can use their music, or upload your own.
• They retain you high-res files, and you can download them at will. That means the service doubles as a backup.
• They also will host video (including HD), and videos are included in the slideshows.
• They have an easy web interface, but also have both PC and Mac application interfaces that are a breeze to use, even for computer-newbies.
• You can customize the look of your albums, from layout to colors
• Visitor reports - you can tell how many visits your albums are getting.
• Viewing and management apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch
• Unlimted storage.
• Zero advertisements anywhere
• They have speedy email support; they also used to have phone support.....not sure if they still do.

The downside is that they are not free. But it's not expensive. $99/year gets you everything above. They just came out with a cheaper plan a few months ago -- $29/year gets you everything above EXCEPT the retention of high-res files.

This sample album is on their website:
http://picturesque.phanfare.com/3942466

The layout is clean, classy, and easy to navigate. Check out the slideshows.....I can't tell you how many compliments we've gotten on ours.

Dave

[Bill]

My advice is to be real careful of using one of these sites as a backup. Be sure you have another copy of your valuable pics, etc, stashed somewhere else. Some years ago, I discovered to my horror and embarassment that one of these on-line storage sites had died in the night, and everything I stashed there was permanently gone.

The fact that you pay a bit for Phanfare is probably some assurance that they will be around for a while. The free ones run on a different business model.

Bill

As a systems administrator (SYSPROG) for mainframe systems since 1974, I understand backups pretty well.

I also know that keeping two copies of pictures on two different hard drives is not adequate.

I know this because I was keeping two copies. Then I found a duplicate file finder application and it found numerous mismatches. I then used d'peg to do a side by side comparison and sure enough, they really were a mismatch. Sometimes it was obvious, where the bottom have lf the picture was either a weir color or right shifted a bit.

This is commonly called bit-rot.

It almost never happens on mainframe systems because they have a lo of CRC (error detection and correction stuff), but it takes up space and consumers don't like spending extra money for reliability. They only want capacity.

I wonder if 3 copies on 3 different hard drives would be adequate. Maybe I switch to RAID and enable striping.

Thanks for pointing out the backup issue. I understand it well, but some other readers may not be familiar with the issue.

After crashing a mainframe operating system, with inadequate backups around 1976, I learned that there is no such thing as too many backups.

[ShrimpBurrito]

Originally Posted by PopBeavers

I wonder if 3 copies on 3 different hard drives would be adequate. Maybe I switch to RAID and enable striping.

You could have 100 copies on 100 different hard drives, but if your house burns down, is flooded, or collapses in an earthquake, you likely won't be able to use any of them. Same thing if they get stolen -- to avoid the later calamity, you can install a network drive in an attic or basement.

I use a Synology network drive - they make models that can accommodate lots of drives. My brother has the same model, and we have configured them to automatically talk with each other. Each unit holds two 1 TB drives. One of those drives is a local backup. The other drive hosts an off-site backup my brother, and his does the same for me - a few times a week they talk to each other to backup the latest files. That gives each of us 1 local backup and 1 remote backup. All automatic, and no subscription fees.

This isn't hard to setup, but it isn't for a novice, either.

Dave

I like the free www.photobucket.com so far. They have added a slideshow feature.

"Free accounts include:
•Unlimited* storage for photos.
•Up to 500 videos permitted with up to 10 minutes in length per video.
•Maximum display size of photos is 2048x1536 pixels each.
•Maximum file size permitted is 5MB per photo and 300MB per video.
"
The address to your folder or single file is a little long to tell someone on the telephone, but in an email this should be good.
Sample: http://s849.photobucket.com/albums/a...ntry%20handle/


Keep copies of your photos because inactive accounts get shutdown after 6? months. (I'm still looking for the current rules on this point).



Also check www.flickr.com - I haven't tried this one yet.
"When you have a free Flickr account, you can upload 2 videos and 300MB worth of photos each calendar month.
While the 300MB bandwidth limit for photos is firm, we do allow a little leeway..."

.

[ShrimpBurrito]

I share Bill's concern, and so I have a third backup on an automated external network drive. But I am a photography buff, and even earn a few bucks doing it.

Phanfare backs up content on Amazon's S3 service, so there's alot of security there. And their primary data center also has generator back-up power. But of course, that doesn't help if Phanfare went out of business before they gave customers a chance to retrieve lost images. But they have been around for 7 years already, so I don't think they're going to disappear overnight.

Dave

[MariaG]

Leaving out the question of backup just for sharing, I have used Shutterfly for years and like it quite a bit. Once uploaded, you can invite people to see your pics by email, or get a link to post. You can also order prints and have them mailed to you, or purchase a host of items with the pics on them - books, greeting cards, mugs, T-shirts, etc.