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Fotopic

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ralphchadkirk

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Well firstly you're acting as if the chances of a reliable and trustworthy hosting company going down forever is likely. It isn't. Fotopic was a largely free service with additional features which you pay for. Pick a hosting company and you are much better protected against someone running off with your money (and data). You're probably more likely to lose your data in a server stored at home than one which you pay a hosting company for (especially one which does constant automatic backups).

Secondly, I'd imagine you're much more likely to carry out your own backups on a website than Fotopic because:
1. The backup tool isn't hidden away at the rear end of some website somewhere
2. The backup tool doesn't produce the backup in an Dickensian structure which won't ever be of any use ever again unless you're willing to spend hours (or days) re-inputting everything it's saved
Perhaps I am. I'm naturally pessimistic. I don't trust people with my own data. Hence why I have paid webhosting that I have a cron job programmed for which backs everything up so I can log in and download it. For critical data, I use my own data server which is in my house, which I can log into securely from anywhere (as long as I can remember the address...). That is also backed up onto an external harddrive.
Fotopic may be free - and all the more reason to back it up yourself - but people shouldn't be lulled into the false sense of security that it won't happen to me.

Just have a look at this: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=77014

That was considered a very rare event, yet it happened, and the person lost all their work because they didn't back up.

Regarding your points:
1) Depends which (if any) control panel software you use. cPanel is good - Plesk less so.
2) True, but it's still a time-consuming process if you've got a lot of stuff. And time is the thing that puts people off backing up.
 
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Mojo

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I am not saying that it won't happen to me. But uploading your gallery to webspace provided by a commercial hosting company and then backing it up to your computer at home is much more realistic to your average Fotopic user than buying a server and hosting it at home down to cost, knowledge, reliability, safety of backups and security.

What if a house had a fire and your server and your backups were both destroyed? Well I'd say get around that by backing up to a FTP space (such as this one) but you might as well pay for hosting in that case. I used to back up my non-confidential files to an iPod but that's not really suitable if you have a lot, don't own one, or for storing confidential data.
 

ralphchadkirk

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I am not saying that it won't happen to me. But uploading your gallery to webspace provided by a commercial hosting company and then backing it up to your computer at home is much more realistic to your average Fotopic user than buying a server and hosting it at home down to cost, knowledge, reliability, safety of backups and security.

No need to buy a server - just adapt an old PC. When you've it it clean installed with all the stuff, it runs like a dream. Mine's a Dell Dimension 3100 from about 5-6 years ago.

What if a house had a fire and your server and your backups were both destroyed? Well I'd say get around that by backing up to a FTP space (such as this one) but you might as well pay for hosting in that case. I used to back up my non-confidential files to an iPod but that's not really suitable if you have a lot, don't own one, or for storing confidential data.
You might as well say what if the data centre they use burned down? The only way is to print it al out and bury it in the garden. I'm happy with my backup procedures that I can never loose more than a week's web work, and a day's critical data.
 

Geezertronic

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To be pedantic, there's very little chance of a decent (or even half decent) data centre burning down due to the very expansive fire protection systems that they have in place. The most serious issue I was involved in was when the electric transformers caught fire at a data centre in Birmingham which knocked the whole of the electricity suppy to the building out and caused the data centre as a whole to fail. The fire didn't spread but the building was run on generator power for about 4 weeks until the electricity supplies were fixed :D

And I've not tried it for a while but last time I tried to host a web server on my VirginMedia broadband connection it didn't work. Plus I assume the upload speed out of my broadband connection would be crap (compared to my download speed anyway)
 

ralphchadkirk

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And I've not tried it for a while but last time I tried to host a web server on my VirginMedia broadband connection it didn't work. Plus I assume the upload speed out of my broadband connection would be crap (compared to my download speed anyway)

My connection is Virgin Media, but it works for me! I've also never noticed a problem with upload speeds either - it's not like I'm streaming video!
 

matt

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Worth noting that if you have a popular site then you may fall foul of your isps accetable use policy.
 

ralphchadkirk

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Worth noting that if you have a popular site then you may fall foul of your isps accetable use policy.

If you're going to run a site at home, then check it. But all I'm doing is serving my files on request. I bet Virgin don't notice it!
 

anthony263

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Aparantly according the fotopic users group someone has finally managed to make contact with 1 of the directors of snappy designs who own fotopic.

Fotopic could be back up and running although i think the damage has been done.

If it does come back up i think if you have photos uploaded there and you dont have any other back up copies is to just download and save them.
 

mumrar

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If it does come back up i think if you have photos uploaded there and you dont have any other back up copies is to just download and save them.
Ah cheers mate. Don't suppose you've got any spare time to come and teach my Gran how to suck eggs have you ;-P
 

anthony263

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There is a notice that has just been posted on the fotopic users group that snappy design's have ben put into administration
 

rail-britain

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I too have lost two Fotopic galleries, but not an issue as I still have the original photos

I have been looking at simply adding a gallery to my own website but in the same way as YouTube has become associated with videos, Fotopic became associated with photos

I have always been of the opinion "it is on the internet so should be free or inexpensive"
I used to ignore all the marketing emails from Fotopic (don't seem to receive any from YouTube) but looking back I see that 1GB of storage would cost about £40 (sold in units of 250MB) per year
Is this correct?
If anyone has a price list, I would appreciate this

Equally, did anyone take advantage of all the other options, such as prints, mugs, etc ?

I have been in discussion with our provider and it would be easy enough to provide the required bandwidth at a reasonable cost, although we would need to look at how to provide "free accounts"
We could then team up with an external provider for the optional items (as listed above)

fotopic.net itself became associated with railway photography, so perhaps a Domain Name more aligned to that could also be achieved, which would then look good in the accounts of members, eg yourname.website.name

Obviously this would take time to put together and test, but could be in place by June / July
 

Dai.

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I too have lost two Fotopic galleries, but not an issue as I still have the original photos

I have been looking at simply adding a gallery to my own website but in the same way as YouTube has become associated with videos, Fotopic became associated with photos

I have always been of the opinion "it is on the internet so should be free or inexpensive"
I used to ignore all the marketing emails from Fotopic (don't seem to receive any from YouTube) but looking back I see that 1GB of storage would cost about £40 (sold in units of 250MB) per year
Is this correct?
If anyone has a price list, I would appreciate this

Equally, did anyone take advantage of all the other options, such as prints, mugs, etc ?

I have been in discussion with our provider and it would be easy enough to provide the required bandwidth at a reasonable cost, although we would need to look at how to provide "free accounts"
We could then team up with an external provider for the optional items (as listed above)

fotopic.net itself became associated with railway photography, so perhaps a Domain Name more aligned to that could also be achieved, which would then look good in the accounts of members, eg yourname.website.name

Obviously this would take time to put together and test, but could be in place by June / July

If you are serious about this I might be able to give you a hand with development I know a few things and I have a few ideas.
 

rail-britain

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If you are serious about this I might be able to give you a hand with development I know a few things and I have a few ideas.
Yes, I am serious about this, was looking into possibilities earlier in the week, but have now started the ball rolling

I am currently awaiting full server specification from my provider (Blue Square)
There have been some recent issues with downtime, so need to see if these have been overcome, or whether to go back to the previous provider (Node 4)

One criticism has always been downtime, followed by slow response

The development side will primarily use open source, with allowance for commercial use

I will also need to arrange a meeting with my solicitor to draw up a legal contract, more relevant to image hosting
That should be ready by the end of April (allowing for holidays, as there are quite a lot of them)
 

Dai.

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Sounds good, yeah the best idea is open source it is easily changed. I like the sound of it and would like to join in at some point. If you don't mind of course!
 

rail-britain

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I would be quite happy to keep people here abreast of development, progress, and eventual launch

However, it may be prudent to discuss the details further, either via PM or Windows Live
 

Dai.

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I would be quite happy to keep people here abreast of development, progress, and eventual launch

However, it may be prudent to discuss the details further, either via PM or Windows Live

Drop me a PM I don't use Windows Live. This sounds like a good idea and people always need things like this.
 

ralphchadkirk

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Sounds interesting, rail-britian. I wouldn't mind being involved (PHP, HTML, CSS, SQL dev).
 

Bevan Price

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I am not saying that it won't happen to me. But uploading your gallery to webspace provided by a commercial hosting company and then backing it up to your computer at home is much more realistic to your average Fotopic user than buying a server and hosting it at home down to cost, knowledge, reliability, safety of backups and security.

What if a house had a fire and your server and your backups were both destroyed? Well I'd say get around that by backing up to a FTP space (such as this one) but you might as well pay for hosting in that case. I used to back up my non-confidential files to an iPod but that's not really suitable if you have a lot, don't own one, or for storing confidential data.


No method of data storage is 100% safe. Apart from possible problems with home computers, you can equally have problems with FTP storage. If you lose your job, you may be unable to keep paying annual fees for external FTP space, so the company will probably (after due notification) not retain your data. An FTP company might go bankrupt and your data could be lost / deleted as a side-effect if the servers are sold to another company. An FTP server might get corrupted by some kind of virus, etc., etc.

The best bet (if you can afford...) is to store several backups in different locations.

Bevan
 

Mojo

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No method of data storage is 100% safe. Apart from possible problems with home computers, you can equally have problems with FTP storage. If you lose your job, you may be unable to keep paying annual fees for external FTP space, so the company will probably (after due notification) not retain your data. An FTP company might go bankrupt and your data could be lost / deleted as a side-effect if the servers are sold to another company. An FTP server might get corrupted by some kind of virus, etc., etc.
Come on; let's be realistic for a moment! Paying for web hosting is by far safer and less likely to go wrong than hosting your data on a server at home.

That's even before you start to assume that the average person even has the technical skills and know-how to know how to start hosting a website from home using their internet connection, which also needs to be paid for so is also not immune from any budget pressures you may have in your personal life! In addition, most low-end hosting packages will probably have an up-front annual fee (for example our providers only allow payments on a monthly basis for the more expensive packages).
 

Yew

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Quote from fotopic

Dear Fotopic Users

Fotopic and its parent company Snappy Designs Ltd are no longer trading.
Discussions are in progress with a new team to rescue part of its service and the images.

The important points to note:

The images that have been uploaded to the Fotopic servers are safe.
Our aim is to find a migration path to a new service with similar or better functionality
than Fotopic and a method for users to export their existing images.
We cannot give you a date for this just yet – please subscribe to our newsletter to be updated.
Please understand that we cannot answer specific queries at this time, but will be able to
give more information once we are live with a new service.

Thank you for your understanding.
 

anthony263

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No problem with it for me. I do hope that they get fotopic back up but i doubt i will be updating my gallery on there very often as i am going to look some of the alternatives like pikfu etc.
 
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