Just a heads up on Photobucket.

iana · Guru

This from Woodwork forums
To all Photobucket users.
Please be advised that Photobucket is holding its members to ransom and will/has stopped photos from being used on 3rd party sites. Because of this there could once again be a loss of pics on Woodwork Forums and Metalwork Forums.

This could mean the loss of around 14 years of photo's hosted on Photobucket. Like other losses of photos on the forums this out of our control and there is absolutely nothing we can do about the loss of any pics hosted on Photobucket and linked to from this site.

Quote from another forum. "I urge all Photobucket users to have a look at the below and maybe get your photos off that site and on to a memory stick or hard-drive for storage as this could spell the end of Photobucket, not to mention play merry hell with pics on these forums and almost all other forums, blogs etc, etc around the world.

Below is a couple of extract from news.com.au < Click link for more.
Photobucket, a US-based image and video-hosting website founded in 2003, quietly changed its policy late last month to prevent users from hosting their content on third-party websites unless they pay a $US400 ($526) annual fee.

Members who used the previously free service to store their content for use on auction sites, blogs and internet forums have discovered their images replaced with a message asking them to update your account.

The move means more than a decade worth of images hosted all over the internet have suddenly turned into broken links unless members sign up for one of Photobuckets competitive subscription plans."un-quote.

I haven't used it, but others may have.

Eaglemax · Guru

Yep, sick of the adverts on photobucket whereby you cant cancel them. I use google drive now. Much better.

Tony Bev · Guru

Thanks for the heads up for Photobucket, Ian
Thankfully I do not use it

SIW (System Information for Windows) has gone/going the same way

It was a good tool to find what type of motherboard/hard drive/ram, etc you had in your computer, without taking the case off

There are certain areas it now no longer shows, unless you wish to purchase it for $19.99

I think that a great man once said, if it is free then never rely on it

Aus-Kiwi · Guru

YES pita .. I have plenty of car project builds on forums . Pretty much useless now without pics . I have downloaded some pics .. They won't be around much longer ., ICloud, Facebook, YouTube etc Besides chips can store pics !!

-- Edited by Aus-Kiwi on Friday 14th of July 2017 12:45:04 AM

RustyD · Guru

Just finished my annual (financial year) backup of all my dynamic files (photos, music, documentaries, word, spread sheet, pdf, etc). Backup each month from my PC to a 4TB network drive then backup the network drive annually. Only need 1TB to backup important files then put it in a safe. Even print out some really important stuff. The 4TB also contains stuff that I get off the internet that will save time if I have to rebuild in a hurry.

In a past life I did a stint as an IT Security Auditor and had to check that hardware, firmware, software, documentation & data was all appropriately secured and backed up.

Didn't Malcolm Fraser say there is "no such think as a free lunch"?

Whilst I am writing this, just for a message that Pandora (music streaming) is closing. I was never sure how that paid for itself.

ABNER · Veteran Member

having lost a hard drive in my PC on a previous occasion luckily I was able to retrieve all i needed to, since then i am a great fan of external hard drives and have 3 of various sizes to store a life time of photos, I update them regularly and also have a back up for the computer stored on them.

Cheaper than getting someone in to save the computer files.

Bob

PeterD · Guru

Photobucket is not closing off access to the site so your pictures are still accessible by you (at least until their next revamp.) All that has changed is the linking of those photos to newsgroups and social media. All those web hosting sites are subject to changing their conditions or folding up so I suggest that you do not rely upon them as their sole repository of their data (documents and photos.) I strongly recommend that you also store your data on both your computer and an external drive. If your computer disk drive is too small to store all your critical data then use two external drives (Even though I have sufficient capacity on both my laptop and tower I carry a backup drive in the van and leave one at home. That way I have plenty of backups both at home and on the road.)

There are some people who think it is smart to link web hosted pictures to newsgroups. It saves having to double handle them and/or resize them when posting. We have now lost a lot of pictures on our forums from Photobucket. Which will be the next web host to play silly buggers? How many more photos and graphics are we going to loose? I suggest that to slow down this loss that all members learn to use the forums insertion of graphics and pictures. There is a button of most of the reply windows labelled "Attach File(s)" It is not available below the "Quick Reply" window, If you are typing a reply in there and you then decide to add a picture you can click on the "Advanced Editor" under the window and the window will will change to the one advanced editing window with all the useful links around it. You will not loose what you have typed.

macka17 · Guru

Pete.
If we all do that. with ALL our photo work etc.
Cindy MAY need more Air space to cover it?
I believe these things rent space by volume?.

Maybe have to pay her a bit to cover extra usage.
Can't expect an Individual, to cover our storage for us, can we.

Cindy?. Another PAID storage area Maybe?.

We both have a 2 terra External hard on comp's
with a 6gig chip holding OS.Security, etc from box. Separate.
Just Post any photo, video etc. to wherever, when needed.

But never hold base stock anywhere but in YOUR Storage

Just bought a 1 terra Samsung SSD, going to transfer storage to that instead.
leaving my 2 terra 720, as second Movie storage..
Original is nearly bloody full now.

JeffRae · Guru

There is already an option to help out with the running costs of this forum and the whole Grey Nomads website
Maybe a few more could contribute, it's not a big ask, considering the benefits this site brings

Here is the link

JeffRae