Flickr
- Free: 20 MB monthly upload limit / 3 photosets
- Pro account $25/year
- Networking through groups
- Most popular photo sharing site on net
- Powerful user interface
Tablo | Features
- Free Unlimited storage
- Unique themes with integration of text
- Can be used in combination with Flickr for photo display
My Photo Album | Features
- Unlimited Free Storage and Albums
- Voting & Comments
- Photo and Video Sharing
Fotki
- Social Networking
- Unlimited Free Storage
- Guestbook, Journal and Homepage
- View all comments on one page
- Photo Contests
- Video Storage
Smugmug | Features
- $39.95/year
- Unlimited storage
- Professional themes
- Password protected galleries
Others
The following are basic services aimed more at the sales of photo prints than online storage and display:
And under "Hard to Categorize"...
One True Media
- 200MB Upload per month
- 1GB Max storage
- Photo, Video and Music Storage
- Geared more to burning video and conversion
Any other suggestions? Please Share!.
Labels: net
One of my major pet peeves is bogus e-mail spam. They are the body of factually inaccurate e-mails in circulation which broadly fall into the categories of funny, sappy or alarmist.
There are few people that find these things as annoying as I do, except, perhaps, those poor souls accused of writing the stuff.
I want people to know that I take care with my writing, and try to keep my standards high. But most of this "humour" on the Internet is just plain stupid. [...] One of the more embarrassing items making the internet/e-mail rounds is a sappy load of shit called "The Paradox of Our Time." The main problem I have with it is that as true as some of the expressed sentiments may be, who really gives a shit? Certainly not me.
George Carlin
Spotting this stuff is in fact very easy. Unless there is a link to an authentic source, it is almost guaranteed the information you get is inaccurate.
Typical inaccuracies include:
- writing attributed to wrong author (Andy Rooney did NOT write In Praise of Older Women - in fact he said he doesn't even like older women; George Carlin did NOT write Hurricane Rules and would probably like a piece of the person who did)
- factual inaccuracies mixed in with truth (Kevin Carter did NOT write that suicide note - warning: horrible photo)
- just totally made up crap (no there is nobody placing needles infected with HIV in phone booths nor is there some serial killer slashing women's ankles at gas stations).
If it sounds unbelievable it is most likely bogus.
There's one other class of similar e-mail which involve some bizarre photo. Even photos can be faked so don't be so gullible. Nevertheless, even fake photos can be quite interesting. There are some great ones here.
If you ever get such an e-mail, please do not forward it to me before confirming its authenticity or you will get one of my faoming at the mouth e-mails back with the contents of this blog entry!
You can check at one of these two sites:
http://www.snopes.com/
http://www.truthorfiction.com/
Or simply Google for it.
Labels: advice, net, rants
This morning I realised that I have way more ear wax when I'm in Singapore than when I'm in Canada. Gross but true.
Not 5 minutes later, while surfing for something else altogether, I came across this:
Wet, sticky earwax is more common in hot, moist environments.
I find this weird cyber serendipity happening to me a lot lately. The force is with me. But why?
Being able to find stuff easily - or without even looking for it at all - is just good Net Karma - or Narma for short. I believe I've earned my good Narma through years of contributing interesting but useless factoids to the collective intelligence of the internet as well as using appropriate subject headings for my e-mails along with other form of good e-mail netiquette (even though nobody remembers what this means anymore).
Also, perhaps I have reached the tipping point of my involvement in cyberculture through my blogs, mefi, flickr and 43things amongst others. I have thus come to the attention of the cybergods who smile on me and throw scraps of data my way like prasad. Then of course there's my Wikipedia contributions although I'm very sure that writing Amazon Reviews are generally bad for Narma and will land you in digital purgatory.
Oh and one must not forget all the good Narma earned by appropriate use of technorati tags!
So what else can earn you Good Narma?
Tags: rant, narma, karma, net culture, amazon, netiquette
Labels: net, rants
Google is my doctor, but for anything of concern, I always get a second opinion because Google is a bit of a quack.
For instance I recently asked Dr. Google about a small mouth ulcer on the inside of my lip. It's been there 3 weeks and appears set to stay. I searched on lump, translucent, purplish, hard, clear, mouth, ulcer, blister, canker... Google's diagnosis? Mouth Cancer. It was pretty clear-cut. For other complaints I've tended to be given a range of diagnoses from terminal to embarrassing but benign. In this case there seemed to be no options. I’d have to have part of my face removed and reconstruction surgery with bits of my arm.
So I went off to my dentist as recommended. He spent less than 30 seconds examining my sore, and then charged me $50 for his diagnosis: blocked saliva gland.
It turns out that if the mouth sore tends to wax and wane in size (as mine does) it's unlikely to be cancer as that's a one-way growth story.
And the cure? It seams the treatment largely involves some form of self-mutilation (you can lance it and if it still doesn't clear up, a deeper incision may do the trick). Of course the dentist is willing to do the dirty work for another $100 or so but there's no guarantees it won't come back.
I've now attacked it with a variety of pins, razors and tweezers to no avail. My efforts tend to result in blood, a small infection, then a remission of about a day before it's back.
I think I need to google for a supplier of special implements for auto-surgery.
Anyway, that's my contribution to Google the quack on the subject of benign mouth conditions (along with suitably gross picture). The moral of the story is, don't panic before you get a second opinion as Google is a bit of an alarmist.
Labels: health, medicine, net, rants
