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In lugnet.general, Tim David wrote:
> Just been to Brickshelf and it reports
>
> Brickshelf has discontinued operation. We apologize for any inconvenience.
>
> Maj still seems to be up
>
> Tim
Good job giving everyone time to back there stuff up, Kevin
Everyone else, get on Flickr. Brickshelf has sucked since the 90's.
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In lugnet.general, Jon Palmer wrote:
> In lugnet.general, Tim David wrote:
> > Just been to Brickshelf and it reports
> >
> > Brickshelf has discontinued operation. We apologize for any inconvenience.
> >
> > Maj still seems to be up
> >
> > Tim
>
> Good job giving everyone time to back there stuff up, Kevin
> Everyone else, get on Flickr. Brickshelf has sucked since the 90's.
Kevin's known for taking a good idea, starting something we want, and then
abandoning all administration of it. Oh, without passing the torch gracefully.
I estimate I probably lost 3/4 of my MOC photos.
Aaron
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You and 3/4 of the people on Lugnet.
---
Rick
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In lugnet.general, Jon Palmer wrote:
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Everyone else, get on Flickr.
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No, Flickr is a load of garbage. It’s way, way slower to load than just about
any other image-hosting site I’ve ever used, it has crap size restrictions on
the actual image presentations for no reason other than it wants to maintain a
“site look”, which, frankly, is totally unnecessary for an image-hosting site,
and it tempts users to add pointless fluff that tends to hinder rather than help
examination of images.
People should try Maj, or Yesalbum, or Photobucket, or google for “image
hosting” if they don’t like those, but for the love of all that is sane in this
world DON’T use Flickr.
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Hello!
In lugnet.general, Jon Palmer wrote:
> Good job giving everyone time to back there stuff up, Kevin
> Everyone else, get on Flickr. Brickshelf has sucked since the 90's.
I admit it would have been good to get a warning before BrickShelf was shut
down. However, I have been using it excessively, all my Lego pictures were
stored there for free, and I was thankful that a Lego picture service like this
existed. BrickShelf had its disadvantages, but I don't think it "sucked". It was
free, plain and easy. That's more than one can expect from a picture service.
Flickr is free (isn't it), but looking at pictures there it lasts forever until
you get the pics displayed the way you want to look at them. And you have to
make the adjustments for every single picture in a gallery. And it's not a
Lego-only service, so you probably won't find all the good stuff. Up to now we
only had to comb through a bunch of Bionicle pictures to finally get some
(sorry, Bionicle-lovers) real Lego pis. On Flickr we have to comb through
Wedding pics, Car show pics, holiday and vacation pics, nature pics...
(Yes, I know there is a search there.)
Bye
Jojo
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In lugnet.general, Paul Baulch wrote:
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In lugnet.general, Jon Palmer wrote:
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Everyone else, get on Flickr.
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No, Flickr is a load of garbage. It’s way, way slower to load than just about
any other image-hosting site I’ve ever used, it has crap size restrictions on
the actual image presentations for no reason other than it wants to maintain
a “site look”, which, frankly, is totally unnecessary for an image-hosting
site, and it tempts users to add pointless fluff that tends to hinder rather
than help examination of images.
People should try Maj, or Yesalbum, or Photobucket, or google for “image
hosting” if they don’t like those, but for the love of all that is sane in
this world DON’T use Flickr.
|
Yeah, so maybe our Flickr experiences are very different. I love the site.
I’ve loved it since it first came out. The interface is clean, the commenting
and annotation system is outstanding and etc etc etc. It has about a dozen good
features that probably could have been implemented on Brickshelf years ago.
Don’t use Maj. It has the same antiquated file system and structure that
Brickshelf had and unless Kevin gets on here and says otherwise, I anticipate it
will disappear too. And Photobucket? You gotta be kiddin me.
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In lugnet.general, Paul Baulch wrote:
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In lugnet.general, Jon Palmer wrote:
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Everyone else, get on Flickr.
|
No, Flickr is a load of garbage. It’s way, way slower to load than just about
any other image-hosting site I’ve ever used, it has crap size restrictions on
the actual image presentations for no reason other than it wants to maintain
a “site look”, which, frankly, is totally unnecessary for an image-hosting
site, and it tempts users to add pointless fluff that tends to hinder rather
than help examination of images.
People should try Maj, or Yesalbum, or Photobucket, or google for “image
hosting” if they don’t like those, but for the love of all that is sane in
this world DON’T use Flickr.
|
I’d have to take great exception to this point. I love Flickr. It’s an
absolutely fantastic.
There have been slower periods, certainly, but honestly I’ve only noticed them
pre-Yahoo! acquisition when they were growing in leaps and bounds and were still
a private entity. (I remember a number of times over the years Brickshelf having
the same issues) I have been actively using Flickr for a while now and have more
than 2,000 photos posted.
Maybe I don’t understand the point you mean but it absolutely does not have
“crap size restrictions”. I’ve uploaded 3000pixel wide images regularly without
problems and Flickr automatically resizes and posts multiple sizes, each with a
unique permalink. For $25/year, I have unlimited uploads of unlimited bandwidth
of unlimited storage. Not bad. Not bad at all.
As far as the “site look” being “totally unnecessary”... again, couldn’t
disagree more. Flickr isn’t meant to be simply “image hosting”. It’s meant to
allow people to not only post, but to share, discuss, engage with photos.
Brickshelf was 99% image hosting sites like MOCpages had to popup in order to
add a layer of context to the photos. Flickr does both of these things. It’s not
a bad workflow, it’s just different.
You’re absolutely right to point out that if you want a duplicate the experience
and functionality of Brickshelf that you should look at Yesalbum or Photobucket.
My question, however, is - in 2007, why would you want to duplicate Brickshelf
functionality? (This isn’t intended to be run or downplay the contribution that
Brickshelf added over the years, just an honest question about what we want for
the future)
One last note about Flickr - as a company (both pre- and post- Yahoo!), they
have always had a fantastic “community focus”. They listen, they react, they
care. As someone who studies the company+community relationship for a living, I
have been continually amazed and impressed with how they react to and treat
their community. That should be important to a group of fans like ours.
Jake
---
Jake McKee
Private Citizen
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In lugnet.general, Jake McKee wrote:
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In lugnet.general, Paul Baulch wrote:
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In lugnet.general, Jon Palmer wrote:
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Everyone else, get on Flickr.
|
No, Flickr is a load of garbage. It’s way, way slower to load than just
about any other image-hosting site I’ve ever used, it has crap size
restrictions on the actual image presentations for no reason other than it
wants to maintain a “site look”, which, frankly, is totally unnecessary for
an image-hosting site, and it tempts users to add pointless fluff that tends
to hinder rather than help examination of images.
People should try Maj, or Yesalbum, or Photobucket, or google for “image
hosting” if they don’t like those, but for the love of all that is sane in
this world DON’T use Flickr.
|
I’d have to take great exception to this point. I love Flickr. It’s an
absolutely fantastic.
|
Sorry to follow-up to my own post (I wish I could simply edit the existing post
instead). Forgot to mention that Flickr also has an incredible robust API that
allows other sites to tap into the functionality of Flickr with relative ease.
Three of my favorite uses of the API:
- Picnik (www.picnik.com) - incredibly robust image editing and manipulation capabilities. Freemium account scheme (although everything is free during their initial launch), all web-based, and absolutely incredible.
- Moo Cards (www.moo.com) - For $20, you can create a box of “Moo Cards”, small business cards with your text info on one side and photos of your selection from your Flickr account on the other. It’s fast and very very easy.
- Post/Blog via email - I can take a photo on my cell phone and using the standard Flickr functionality, send it to a special Flickr email address. One address posts the photo straight to the site, one address posts for “friends and family” access only, one sends the photo straight to my blog.
There are many, many more cool Flickr functions out there, but these are three
that I use regularly that many people don’t know about.
Jake
---
Jake McKee
Private Citizen
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In lugnet.general, Johannes Koehler wrote:
> Flickr is free (isn't it),
There are two levels: Free, which gives you xxxx, and paid, which removes any
and all restrictions for $25/year.
> but looking at pictures there it lasts forever until
> you get the pics displayed the way you want to look at them. And you have to
> make the adjustments for every single picture in a gallery. And it's not a
> Lego-only service, so you probably won't find all the good stuff. Up to now we
> only had to comb through a bunch of Bionicle pictures to finally get some
> (sorry, Bionicle-lovers) real Lego pis.
> On Flickr we have to comb through
> Wedding pics, Car show pics, holiday and vacation pics, nature pics...
There is a fairly easy solution to this: simply set some guidelines for you
"tag" your photos. Other Flickr users can also add tags to your photos as they
go. Certainly in our community, this is something we shouldn't have trouble
doing. At Brickfest PDX 2007, for instance, the organizers mentioned the tag
for the event was "brickfest2007". Here's the 3,000+ photos that search returns:
http://flickr.com/photos/tags/brickfest2007/
There's also another solution, albeit a bit more complicated: Use the Flickr API
to create a tool or tools that help "LEGOize" the experience. There is a metric
ton of potential in this, both for display as well as posting (and searching and
manipulation and...).
(For a list of some of the API tools, check this out: http://www.flickrbits.com)
> (Yes, I know there is a search there.)
And a darn good one at that.
Jake
---
Jake McKee
Private Citizen
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In lugnet.general, Jake McKee wrote:
> In lugnet.general, Johannes Koehler wrote:
>
> > Flickr is free (isn't it),
>
> There are two levels: Free, which gives you xxxx, and paid, which removes any
> and all restrictions for $25/year.
Aarg! Must be early... or I must be tired, anyway. I mean to replace the xxxx
with the actual details and forgot before hitting submit. Anyway, for the free
accounts, you get according to Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/help/limits/):
"When you have a free Flickr account, you can upload 100MB worth of photos each
calendar month. This is a bandwidth limit, and not an amount of space that you
have on Flickr servers."
Jake
---
Jake McKee
Private Citizen
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Hi Jake!
Thanks for the information and clarification.
In lugnet.general, Jake McKee wrote:
> "When you have a free Flickr account, you can upload 100MB worth of photos each
> calendar month. This is a bandwidth limit, and not an amount of space that you
> have on Flickr servers."
Hm, having 94MB worth of MOC pictures on my HD that sounds manageable.
Bye
Jojo
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In lugnet.general, Johannes Koehler wrote:
> Hi Jake!
>
>
> Thanks for the information and clarification.
>
>
> In lugnet.general, Jake McKee wrote:
> > "When you have a free Flickr account, you can upload 100MB worth of photos each
> > calendar month. This is a bandwidth limit, and not an amount of space that you
> > have on Flickr servers."
>
> Hm, having 94MB worth of MOC pictures on my HD that sounds manageable.
I'll tell you, I have absolutely zero problems paying $25/year for the Flickr
services. I use it daily now, uploading tons of RAW photos at full quality. Plus
you get some additional features that are pretty handy. I've been posting the
baby pics there and now have a score of my family members signed up as Pro
members too.
Jake
---
Jake McKee
Private Citizen
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I am with you all the way, Jake. I think Flickr is an incredible deal, and one
that will probably be around for a long time thanks to it being integrated with
Yahoo and with the revenue streams from printing, etc.
For $25 a year I can archive my pictures, and yet allow download of them at
reduced resolution to the public. I have not explored all its features, but it
took me only 60 seconds to send them my money after I read about it. I think I
have a couple of gig of archived stuff up there now and feel pretty good about
it being there when I need it. I thought it to be one of the coolest sites I had
ever come across and incredibly easy to use and easy to organize pictures. In
fact, I think that Flickr would make a great LEGO community site as you can set
up groups, tag pictures, comment on pics,etc. etc. They do have a maximum
picture size of 10 meg per picture and some of mine sometimes run way over that,
but those are archived on DVD's and I then simply reduce them to 9.9 meg.
I have no idea what is in store with LEGO Universe, but the ability to upload
custom MOC's would be a nice feature for cultivating the community. It would of
course have to be moderated. But could be integrated into the Factory concept.
Link from LEGO Universe to the factory so that could actually be within LU and
post to the factory. I can really imagine LU as being an incredible fun place
and also a place to move a lot of product. One could go into a "class room" and
learn to use LDD or how to make a NXT sensor do something, etc. Got off topic a
bit--but to reiterate, I have found Flickr one of the best deals I have ever had
on the Internet.
Tommy Armstrong
The BrickEngraver
In lugnet.general, Jake McKee wrote:
> In lugnet.general, Johannes Koehler wrote:
> > Hi Jake!
> >
> >
> > Thanks for the information and clarification.
> >
> >
> > In lugnet.general, Jake McKee wrote:
> > > "When you have a free Flickr account, you can upload 100MB worth of photos each
> > > calendar month. This is a bandwidth limit, and not an amount of space that you
> > > have on Flickr servers."
> >
> > Hm, having 94MB worth of MOC pictures on my HD that sounds manageable.
>
> I'll tell you, I have absolutely zero problems paying $25/year for the Flickr
> services. I use it daily now, uploading tons of RAW photos at full quality. Plus
> you get some additional features that are pretty handy. I've been posting the
> baby pics there and now have a score of my family members signed up as Pro
> members too.
>
> Jake
> ---
> Jake McKee
> Private Citizen
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In lugnet.general, Tommy Armstrong wrote:
> I am with you all the way, Jake. I think Flickr is an incredible deal, and one
> that will probably be around for a long time thanks to it being integrated with
> Yahoo and with the revenue streams from printing, etc.
Another thing about Flickr - you can get the Flickr Uploadr program (for Mac or
Windows) to do drag-n-drop uploading of images. It's sooooo much easier than
creating a zip file or uploading one file at a time on Brickshelf.
Also by getting a pro account you can organize photos into sets and collections
of sets, as well as applying tags to photos, to organize them any way your heart
desires.
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In lugnet.general, Rick Hallman wrote:
> You and 3/4 of the people on Lugnet.
>
>
> ---
> Rick
Hum.. you mean you never backed up any of the stuff you uploaded to brickshelf?
shame, shame, shame...
I backup and make a backup of the backup just in case.
Learned my lesson a while back when I lost 90% of my data to
1) Back up WEEKLY!
2) Make a backup of the backup and have it OFF SITE
3) Promised I would never again trust my data to just 1 source!
-AHui
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In lugnet.general, William R. Ward wrote:
> In lugnet.general, Tommy Armstrong wrote:
> > I am with you all the way, Jake. I think Flickr is an incredible deal, and one
> > that will probably be around for a long time thanks to it being integrated with
> > Yahoo and with the revenue streams from printing, etc.
>
> Another thing about Flickr - you can get the Flickr Uploadr program (for Mac or
> Windows) to do drag-n-drop uploading of images. It's sooooo much easier than
> creating a zip file or uploading one file at a time on Brickshelf.
>
> Also by getting a pro account you can organize photos into sets and collections
> of sets, as well as applying tags to photos, to organize them any way your heart
> desires.
Hey! This is great info! For a while I was planning to just move all my stuff
to maj.com but Flickr pro w/ Flickr Uploadr sounds much easier. Thanks.
Adr.
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In lugnet.general, Jake McKee wrote:
> In lugnet.general, Johannes Koehler wrote:
>
> > Flickr is free (isn't it),
>
> There are two levels: Free, which gives you xxxx, and paid, which removes any
> and all restrictions for $25/year.
What about "hot linking" to a photo in Flickr? I can't find an easy way to do
that, and that was one of the things I liked best about Brickshelf.
jt
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In lugnet.general, Adrian Egli wrote:
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Hey! This is great info! For a while I was planning to just move all my stuff
to maj.com but Flickr pro w/ Flickr Uploadr sounds much easier. Thanks.
|
That’s the dilemma. Easier for the uploader, but harder for the surfer to find.
I am too familiar with the Brickshelf/maj model and will stick with it for the
time-being.
JOHN
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In lugnet.general, John Neal wrote:
> In lugnet.general, Adrian Egli wrote:
>
> > Hey! This is great info! For a while I was planning to just move all my
> > stuff to maj.com but Flickr pro w/ Flickr Uploadr sounds much easier.
> > Thanks.
>
> That's the dilemma. Easier for the uploader, but harder for the surfer to
> find. I am too familiar with the Brickshelf/maj model and will stick with it
> for the time-being.
This is where I think there's a lot of opportunity to create a "Flickr Viewer"
app using the Flickr API. You can have the same user experience of fast,
LEGO-only surfing and still use Flickr.
I'm also not convinced that Brickshelf is/was easier to find anything. Other
than the latest uploads, random browsing, or links from other sites, I found it
very, very difficult to locate content I was specifically looking for,
especially once a bit of time had passed. (This isn't railing on the site or
Kevin, just sharing my personal experience)
Jake
---
Jake McKee
Private Citizen
"Keeping hope alive"
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In lugnet.general, James Trobaugh wrote:
> In lugnet.general, Jake McKee wrote:
> > In lugnet.general, Johannes Koehler wrote:
> >
> > > Flickr is free (isn't it),
> >
> > There are two levels: Free, which gives you xxxx, and paid, which removes any
> > and all restrictions for $25/year.
>
> What about "hot linking" to a photo in Flickr? I can't find an easy way to do
> that, and that was one of the things I liked best about Brickshelf.
Ok, I found where you can get the direct URL to the image on Flickr, but the
rules say you must include a link back to Flickr if you post the URL to another
web page.
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In lugnet.general, Jake McKee wrote:
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In lugnet.general, John Neal wrote:
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In lugnet.general, Adrian Egli wrote:
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Hey! This is great info! For a while I was planning to just move all my
stuff to maj.com but Flickr pro w/ Flickr Uploadr sounds much easier.
Thanks.
|
That’s the dilemma. Easier for the uploader, but harder for the surfer to
find. I am too familiar with the Brickshelf/maj model and will stick with it
for the time-being.
|
This is where I think there’s a lot of opportunity to create a “Flickr Viewer”
app using the Flickr API. You can have the same user experience of fast,
LEGO-only surfing and still use Flickr.
|
But you are a wiz-kid, Jake, and I am but a simple, old-timer:-)
| |
I’m also not convinced that Brickshelf is/was easier to find anything. Other
than the latest uploads, random browsing, or links from other sites, I found
it very, very difficult to locate content I was specifically looking for,
especially once a bit of time had passed. (This isn’t railing on the site or
Kevin, just sharing my personal experience)
|
Yeah, that I’ll admit, but I never really looked for things past just browsing
the recent pages. What I liked was the one-site shopping, and that it was an
AFOL site, too. Flickr is bigbox. I like the corner drugstore guy;-)
JOHN
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In lugnet.general, John Neal wrote:
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Yeah, that I’ll admit, but I never really looked for things past just
browsing the recent pages. What I liked was the one-site shopping, and that
it was an AFOL site, too. Flickr is bigbox. I like the corner drugstore
guy;-)
|
A bit off-topic here, but I’d hardly call Flickr a “bigbox”. From their earliest
days they have been a community oriented company in a way that nearly every
other company around can learn from. They built a fantastic tool always keeping
in mind community needs and actively community feedback.
They did so good at it, in fact, that they were acquired by Yahoo!. This has
been a big help for them in dealing with precisely the same scaling/bandwidth
issues that I assume are causing Kevin to turn off Brickshelf.
I understand and agree that supporting an AFOL-created site is a great thing to
do. But the problem with that option is that once a community grows beyond a
certain mass, you’re left with precisely the sort of situation we have here now.
I keep harping on the Flickr API and the specialized “Flickr Viewer” application
(not something I could probably create personally) is that the likelihood of
Yahoo! going away is drastically less than anything any one of the AFOLs could
create specifically for the AFOL community. If we can find a smart solution(s)
that helps give a Brickshelf-like user experience, while also creating something
that we can reliably and safely assume will exist into the foreseeable future,
it’s a win-win.
Even if Brickshelf were to return at the top of the hour, it’s always going to
be at an ongoing risk for closure. Brickshelf (and really, any photo sharing
site) is a victim of its own success. The more usage it gets, the
business/financial risk grows exponentially. On top of that, any entirely free
site should be considered a limited time activity. I’ve yet to think of a
project on the Web that has been (mostly) ad/sponsor-free, subscription free,
and major contributor-free, and still been around much longer than a few months.
Kevin has done an amazing thing for many, many years. But perhaps it’s time to
really work on a solution that will comfortably last us all another 8 years (or
more) and let Kevin retire with grace.
Jake
---
Jake McKee
Private Citizen
“Keeping hope alive”
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Brickshelf is back up, with a warning date of the end of the month.
Now’s your chance, GO!
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In lugnet.general, James Trobaugh wrote:
> In lugnet.general, James Trobaugh wrote:
> > In lugnet.general, Jake McKee wrote:
> > > In lugnet.general, Johannes Koehler wrote:
> > >
> > > > Flickr is free (isn't it),
> > >
> > > There are two levels: Free, which gives you xxxx, and paid, which removes any
> > > and all restrictions for $25/year.
> >
> > What about "hot linking" to a photo in Flickr? I can't find an easy way to do
> > that, and that was one of the things I liked best about Brickshelf.
>
>
> Ok, I found where you can get the direct URL to the image on Flickr, but the
> rules say you must include a link back to Flickr if you post the URL to another
> web page.
Yes, but wouldn't you probably do that anyway?
See the way I use Flickr on my blog, brickpile.com, for an example of how it can
work well for LEGO images.
Flickr is also used widely at classic-space.com.
Another nice thing about Flickr is groups. You can join a group around some
topic or other, and share photos with members of that group.
And everything is RSS-subscribable.
People who are complaining about Flickr being hard to use just need to get up to
speed on the power of tagging and RSS, and you'll laugh at the mere idea of
Brickshelf once you do.
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