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On Flickr’s Service Overhaul

Flickr just rolled out their new service structure which basically gives 1 Terabyte of space to the free accounts, and will sunset the Pro account option soon after – in favor of an ad-sponsored system.

And despite being a Pro subscriber for years I think this is a very good move – as it gives enough incentive to bring regular users (back) to the service. Because let’s be honest, to this day Flickr is a superior photo service. The only problem it had was that the free accounts were severely limited; last time I checked 1 And I may be off, since it was years ago since I last was on a free account free users were allowed 200 photos displayed; you didn’t actually have any limits on how many photos you could upload – but it would only display the most recent 200. That, and you were only allowed a certain number of sets.

Even non-professional photographers can find these limitations debilitating to the overall user experience. Enough to compel us to upgrade to their Pro service which cost about $20 a year – which I did and which I never regretted doing. Read More

Notes

Notes
⇡1 And I may be off, since it was years ago since I last was on a free account
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Re-visiting Pinatubo

An extremely late post. I had actually forgotten that this was in the drafts… a lot has changed (in my life) since then, but I think I should retain the article as is because it would take too much effort to edit stuff just for the sake of making the post more “current/general.” So everything below was written the 28th of April, 2012

Click to visit the photo gallery

We just got back from our second trip to Pinatubo. I thought I already had known all there is to know about doing a trip like that one – but interestingly enough this time was a tad different – as it was our first time to try one of those discount deal sites (in this case, it was CashCashPinoy)

Just goes to show that you can always learn something new everyday.

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Universal Proxy

If you would notice this site’s front page, I’ve now replaced a bunch of parts of the side-bar (right side of the homepage) with some social feeds of networks I’m active on. This was an unintended effect of creating a caching proxy for work.

A proxy is a script that pulls data from another domain and outputs the data as is. It may seem silly; to require something to simply mirror the data of another site, when you can simply pull the data from the source itself. Logically, this is true, but in the intertubes, nothing is really simple.

You have to wrestle with domain implementation policies, wherein certain stuff simply doesn’t work because the application, browser, server won’t allow it as a matter of security.

Flash as an example, can be annoyingly strict about pulling data from a different domain. If you build and test your app locally there’s no problem, but once you upload that and run it, the same exact algorithm may or may not work depending on the policies of both the plugin and sometimes even the server itself.

A proxy placed in your localhost solves this by ensuring that the data your “application” is accessing comes from the same domain.

Now a caching proxy is something more; just like with the concept of caching in general it allows a feed to be pulled from the source via the proxy, but then it’s written to a file locally, and have an expiration on it. As long as it’s not “expired”, then the proxy will simply re-use the file it had generated instead of pulling the feed from the source for a set period of time.

This is extremely useful (and in my case, the reason why I made it) when dealing with rate-limited stuff. All social networks have their own rate limitations; if a user/application is polling their APIs too often, they will block access temporarily to prevent their servers from being overloaded with requests (similar to, if not tantamount to a DoS attack) Read More

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Customer Service

Long story short, my Drobo Pro started acting up, and ultimately required an out of warranty RMA. But this post is to share what I’ve learned from this gruelling experience.

There are 3 companies involved here, and from the story you’re about to read, they are listed from worst to best.

  1. Switch – which is either formerly, or a subsidiary of Axis Global Inc. (or was it Axis Global Technologies, I forget)
  2. Drobo
  3. JT Photoworld

I believe this is a story worth sharing because the differences in how they handle their customers is very telling of the type of companies they are. Perhaps it can also serve as a cautionary tale to those planning to buy stuff from any of them. Read More

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Pacsafe Lidsafe Anti-Theft Helmet Bag

It’s been a while since I did a product review, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on a product which I feel would be a worthwhile investment for any motorcycle rider.

As you know, I’m a Pacsafe whore. Whenever I need to purchase a bag (or storage apparatus) for a particular need, my first instinct is to check if Pacsafe has got a bag that addresses that specific need. When I started riding, I was pleased to find out that they too had made a very practical “bag” for my use – the Lidsafe Anti-Theft Helmet Bag. Read More