why i stopped using flickr

I was an early adopter of the photo sharing site Flickr. At the time, it offered so many things; the ability to upload many images per month without fear of running out of space, an open platform for sharing your images with a stable URL, and the ability to post images to your blog. All fantastic stuff. And it also gave me the extra bonus of making me part of a community. Many communities in fact, as we got to start and join lots and lots of groups. And the ability to comment on people’s images and also see how many people had viewed your images and made them favourites. It was pretty good and for a while it was pretty perfect too. I paid to become a member and loved it. For me the highlight of the day was logging into Flickr to see who had “faved” your image or how many hits you had gotten overnight. But then after a year or two I began to realise that this yearning to see who had said what about my pictures had become somewhat of an obsession. It became the first thing that I opened in the morning, even before I read my email or the news. And that obsession carried on throughout the day, with me checking back again and again to see if I had more fans. I seemed to be more interested in what people thought of my pictures than I thought myself.

The next problem occurred for me when I realised that there is a “Flickr style”, a type of photo that gets “faved” again and again. You probably know the sort of photo that I am taking about – heavily saturated,  high res, or “Lomo” and cross processed. I found that I was unconsciously trying to make my photos conform to a certain style, just so I could get hits and faves. The moment I realised this I was horrified, but found by then that I was too addicted to stop. I really wanted to experiment with my photography, and whilst getting feedback is always a good thing, sometimes the rule of the mob isn’t what you need when you are trying things out that might not be so popular with everyone else. I had to stop this spiral, or I would forever go on making images to make other people, my peer group of online “friends”, happy, instead of making images and exploring avenues that were of interest to me.

The other two nails in the coffin. I realised that someone was stealing my photos and re-uploading them on Flickr and claiming them as their own. I soon put a stop to that but it left a nasty taste. The the cruncher. One morning I opened my mail inbox and there was a comment from somebody I had added as a friend a week or so before. It simply said “You are the worst photographer in the world”. That’s it. Nothing else. No reason why they thought that. Had I upset them? I checked back through my comments to them – nothing. I realised that it was someone’s idea of a joke, but I didn’t find it very funny.

The only way that I could see of breaking out of this was to stop using Flickr altogether. It was a tough decision, as I had lots of contacts from all over the world, and it seemed like I was losing all of that. But I had to stop. It was helped by the fact that I ran into financial problems and it was a frivolous extra  – still is. But stop I did. In fact, for a while I stopped taking photos altogether.

Now, on the other side, I am just starting to take photos again, and this time I am being much more careful. I am taking less photos. I am thinking about what images I want to make.  The images here are amongst the last few photos that I uploaded to Flickr before I stopped. Anything after this point will be very different.

timo wallets

Timo Wallets by Tim Yu (Via Coolhunting.com)

by Jonathan Lawhorne

“Sustainability has always been integral to our philosophy,” says designer Timo Weiland of his new line TIMO!. The eye-popping, graphic wallets (think pixelated scans and wild graphic illustrations) use eco-friendly materials such as recyclable paper, soy ink and post-consumer vinyl in their super-slim design.

“We wanted to create basic bi-fold and tri-fold wallets that allowed users to streamline their life with slim construction and small sizes,” says Weiland. “Though they maintain simple construction, the composition of the patterns—graphic artwork, abstract photography, metallics, and other mixed-media prints—distinguish each piece as a unique work of art.” It’s a perfect fit for the no-fuss guy who still has an eye for the sleek and uncommon. Starting at $35, find a retailer near you at Timo. Another great find by our friends at Refinery, read more here.

my online strategy for 2008

Well, it’s actually going to be my overall strategy for 2008, but anyway, here goes. 2007 has been an odd year for me, with the defining factor being that I haven’t had enough money to get by. That means all kinds of things I wanted to do I couldn’t, or had to cut back on. Like photography. I haven’t had a 35mm film developed since April. And the SX-70 has not been out of the cupboard all year. That is a crying shame. I had to drop my Flickr pro account. And this blog nearly went out the window, until I shuffled some stuff to keep it online. It is still costing me too much but it is such a central part of what I do know it would be almost impossible to give it up. So its stays. But even though the financial situation hasn’t improved, I am determined that it is not going to alter my ability to plan for the year ahead. With the above in mind, my strategies for next year will be:

1. More art. I let my creative side dry up a bit last year, mostly because of lack of cash for materials and lack of time to do stuff in. Not in 2008. I am going to find the money from somewhere. Art is part of how I define myself, its part of me. I find it hard to stop being creative and if I don’t make something, anything for a while I start to lose it a bit. So I am going to spend more time taking photos, drawing, making sculptures, looking at sunsets, daydreaming and generally doing all the things I haven’t been doing. I am now Chair of the South(bank) Bristol Arts, so I suppose I ought to be producing some art. I have started working on a sculpture. And I ought to do some more work on that book I started drawing for.
2. I want to develop this blog so that it is more personal. I think it need more of me and my life here, it seems a little impersonal sometimes. So it will get a makeover sometime soon, with a new focus, me, possibly a new name and a new identity. I want to blog more so expect more of a story here about what goes on in my life.
3. Social networking. 2007 saw me using Twitter and Jaiku and Pownce and Facebook and Ning, and, well, you get the message. Seemed to be a tidal wave of social networks. Some have fallen out of use somewhat, but Twitter and Facebook seem to be very important. So I will continue to use social network tools, although I feel that I ought to cut back a bit. And I need to concentrate again on Ning. Going to further develop my microbrand!
4. Technology. Going to continue working on SharePoint 2007 at work, and I expect that is going to grow even more in the next year to take up even more of my time. I don’t want the technology to take over so much next year, so I am going to play down the tech side in my life, although will still blog about it here to get it out of my system.

So that’s it. More talking, more art, more focus. Seems easy, but as a wise man once said "no plan survives contact with the enemy" so it might get watered down somewhat as the year progresses. Happy 2008 to you.

cross browser html editing in sharepoint 2007

 

Some people have pointed out that SharePoint 2007 doesn’t support cross-browser editing of HTML pages. This is true, when you use the built-in editor in SharePoint to edit HTML pages, the editing controls don’t work with some browsers. I have already realised this, and the plan is at some point to drop in the Telerik RADEditor .



This editor will give us cross-browser compatibility for HTML editing, as well as ensuring standards compliance

RadEditor v5.0 introduces a number of new features, which help the user paste formatted content from Microsoft Word and other applications, and apply different types of format stripping:

1. Strip Word-formatting on paste

2. Strip Word-formatting on paste (cleaning fonts and sizes)

3. Forced format stripping on Paste

4. Word Content in Clipboard Interception

5. Strip Word-formatting after paste

6. Paste plain text

7. Paste as HTML



The image manager of RadEditor v5.0 has been enhanced to allow image re-sampling (thumbnail generation) of files, which are already located on the web-server. the past versions allowed image re-sampling only during upload. Thumbnails can also be generated from the Image Properties dialog (Image context menu).



I don’t have any timescales for this at present, but it is on my to-do list.

learning ruby

I have wanted to play with Ruby on Rails for a while, but always shied away because of my lack of Ruby skills. I am determined to set this right, so I am going to spend some time learning Ruby. I have given myself until the 1st of January 2008 to get up to speed and feel comfortable with hacking around in it. I don’t intend to be an expert, just learn enough so that when I look at RoR I wont be totally lost. I have some basic programming skills. I created two versions UWE’s PC build system, mostly using VBScript and VB. I have also some Python experience and some basic PHP. I wouldn’t, however, describe myself as a programming diva. It’s all basic hacking and sticking code together. I have seen several online tutorials that look good, http://rubylearning.com/ by Satish Talim is one that I am looking at right now. There is also the Pragmatic Programmers Guide. And my Twitter friend Peter Cooper says that he has a book that he can recommend

will it ever stop raining?

 

Went to take some photos of the Tobacco Factory, which has a large Union Flag on it’s side. Well, it’s sort of like a Union Flag (It’s not called a Union Jack unless it’s flown at sea) it is slightly wrong but it’s close enough. I got absolutely soaked. Is it just me, or has this been one of the wettest years here ever?

windows live writer – again

I have re-installed Windows Live Writer. I have been around practically all of the blogging software out there and whilst I have a few favourites, there always seems to be some little function that isn’t there or some thing that doesn’t work.

I really like Flock, and the blogging functions are quite good. The bit that lets it down is the support for images. I tried ScribeFire for Firefox, and that too is very good, as long as I don’t try to post stuff to http://sbaweb.co.uk, the admin there shouts at me as it produces messy code. The image management in ScribeFire is better than in Flock. I tried Word 2007, but it sometimes forgets how to connect to my blog. It actually works very well for when you are blogging to SharePoint, but as I’m on WordPress here that doesn’t help. I even tried Google Docs, which allows you to write a document and then publish it to your blog as an article. That works really well, and even manages any images for you. The problem for me is the really stupid way it handles line wrapping, like, it can’t. And then there is the problem of it messing around with styles. You can’t paste text into it from another blog to quote with messing up the styles. Big problem when you want to blog about something. So although I really like the idea of having a centrally managed blog software, it’s not to be (yet).

Now, I tried Windows Live Writer before, and was impressed (eventually, after getting it installed), but it was always let down by its general beta state. It had rough edges. Well, I’ve been around all the houses and here I am back at Windows Live Writer again to see how it has developed now it is in final release. The installer seemed to be a bit insistent that I install all kinds of Windows Live branded stuff. If I was a novice I would probably have let it install all kinds of crap and set my start pages to Windows Live etc. Its really annoying that when I asked for the download for Windows Live Writer, it bundled in all those other packages too. Microsoft, please don’t do that.

After the install woes, however, it seems to be a much improved interface, and it connected to my blog with little problem. The interface is clean and very well laid out, like a mini word processor (the company DOES have some experience in these matters). Getting images into the page seems to be very easy, although this is the first post that I have tried so far. And the editing window reflects what you will see on the finished page.

I haven’t tried the plug-ins yet, but the list of available ones seems to be fairly comprehensive. I have also yet to see the code that this puppy puts out, to see if I can use it to post to http://sbaweb.co.uk without getting yelled at by Lawrence (sorry Loz) but I’m going to look at what is produced and will report back on long term findings – as usual if I can be bothered.

that’s my house

 

The light blue house in this picture, that’s mine!

Somewhere in deepest, darkest south Bristol…

Testing from Windows Live Writer.

Technorati Tags: house blog

freitag bags

A few months ago I wrote a small article about Swiss company Freitag and their marvellous bags. Since then that has been the second most requested article on this site. If you don’t know about Freitag, they make bags and other cool stuff out of old truck tarpaulins, you know, the brightly coloured curtains you see on the sides of lorries, as well as used car seat belts and bicycle inner tubes. It’s recycling in a very creative way, and because the materials they are recycling are tough, so are the products that they make. Each piece is made from an original tarpaulin, so every single product has an individual design. If Freitag didn’t use these materials, they would probably end up in landfill.

The company was started by Markus and Daniel Freitag, both brothers and graphic designers. They both rode bikes, and being designers carried their designs around with them. They needed something to keep the designs dry whilst on the bike. So, inspired by the designs on the sides of the trucks they saw around them, they took an old truck tarpaulin, a car seat belt and an old bicycle inner tube and sewed them together to make a waterproof messenger bag. They had stumbled on a hit, and now Freitag bags are sold (and copied) all over the world.

Now produced in a factory in downtown Zurich with jobs for 60 people, Freitag take the tarpaulins, wash them and then cut them into the required shapes using a
clear stencil, so the cutter can get the best design. You can even design your own bag online, so you can decide how the finished bag will appear. Once the pieces have been cut, they go off to be assembled and sewn. Each bag is then individually photographed and then finally sold.

These days Freitag have broadened their range, to iPod cases, wallets, Mac sleeves and many different types of bags. Their latest range includes the F17 Joe and F18 Rex (pictured above and below). Both are high capacity messenger bags and have been thoroughly tested by bike messengers to make sure the design is right. They can be bought from the Freitag online shop. Or use the store finder to find a shop near you.

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social networking – learning from shopkeepers

I took the day off today, but part of that deal is that I walk my son Connor to school. It’s a nice little stroll, so that’s OK. We take an amble down the little high street here on the way. On the way back I often pop into the bakers and buy some bread or if I’m feeling flush into the deli for something nice there. These are small, locally owned businesses, with nice people behind the counter who will chat with you about what they sell. They will tell you about new stuff they are selling, or things that are coming. Sometimes it’s just chit chat, nothing much of any depth, but it gives you a good feeling when you come out of the shop. It’s the same at the butchers, where unless it’s Saturday you can spend too long chatting. The queues on Saturday mean they don’t have time.

What these small businesses are all doing is something that comes naturally to small shopkeepers. We used to call it “passing the time of day” or even just being polite. But now of course we would call it social networking. Actually for a small shopkeeper it’s a crucial part of their business. The butcher has more time to talk in the week, fewer people come in, but he takes the time to chat even though I am sure he has a 101 things he could be doing. I wonder if that is why he is so busy on a Saturday? Everyone comes in on Saturday. You have to queue outside and up the street, even with three people serving. What this butcher knows, along with anyone who has run a shop, is that you might not sell a lot on that particular time to that person who comes in and then ends up chatting, but they will more than likely be back when they have got more money to spend.

It’s a different story down the road in the Aldi. Don’t get me wrong, they have a place in the retail market and thats OK. But their sales are mostly based on the low cost of the items they sell, and not the experience people have when they go into the store. If they based it on that they would be empty! It is a grim place really, and the staff are – well, busy. A security guard follows you around. It’s hard to believe we are at the end of the same road that I mentioned above. What Aldi have is a low cost business and that is reflected in the service. There is no conversation. Cheap food, yes.

Now I am not advocating that Aldi closes it’s stores and open corner shops, but what if..IF.. they had some way of having some kind of conversation with their customers. Obviously the people on the checkout can’t chat to everyone, the queues would be terrible. But what if they could use social networking software to have that conversation? How would that change Aldi’s business? How would it affect the way that I think about them? Would it make me want to go in there more often? If there was a name, a face, a person who could listen to people, talk, explain their point of view, would that improve the experience? How about your business?