[split] TinyPics Demise

[Kellemora]

The website hosts who offer unlimited website space seem to be strict about not having folders of storage not linked back to your index.html page in some way.
I actually thought about adding my photo folders one at a time, and providing a link to the folder on a sub-page from the index page, and hoping I could get by with it.
Trouble is, I think I would have to have an URL for every single image, not just to the folder and open the whole folder.
I may be wrong about that, been a few years since I did anything HTML5.
I have scrolled images one after the other from a folder before, when I used XHTML so I'm sure it is possible.
But the thing is, if I go to all that trouble, will they say I'm using my webpage space for storage and give me guff or charge me more?

[yogi]

Store all the photos you want in as many folders as you want. Then label each folder as an archive with a relevant date. You can create a simple web page template with limited formatting to display what is in each archive folder, or you can just link to the directory and list the contents. That would look a bit like an FTP site but you can make them read-only to satisfy any arguments your host might have. Then, somewhere on your main page place a link to the so called "archive" folders. The net result is you are storing data that seldom, if ever, will be looked at but each photo will still have a unique URL linking back to your main web site. This is pretty much what you describe; I just called it an archive.

I never asked if I can do that here. I just stored a few things for a few years and nobody ever flagged it.

[Kellemora]

I put images I'm using in the GFX folder, since it is part of the html program.

I'm going to have to create an HTML5 page for something I need to add to my website in the near future.
I should have done it already, but have not had the time. Slowly trying to catch-up with all the things I moved to the back burner.

[Jen]

So. Has anyone found an easy to use replacement for TinyPics?

[yogi]

TinyPic themselves recommends using Photobucket. Of course they would recommend that site. Photobucket owns TinyPic. Unfortunately, Photobucket is a disaster in my humble opinion and can never replace the ease of use and simplicity of TinyPic. My solution is to use the server that hosts this website, but that's not available to the public. I will be looking for a good and free photo hosting site, but I don't hold out much hope of finding one. It's a pretty expensive proposition once you become successful. That's what happened to TinyPic. They became very successful but nobody was supporting them.

[Jen]

Okey dokey. I'll keep looking at this thread to see if you find something. Thank you!

[Kellemora]

Welcome to the group!

Unless things changed drastically, almost all ISPs used to give every customer a free website. I know the one I used for many years, Comcast, they finally turned off the switch and took away our websites. So I had to scramble to get my websites moved to a new host.
But before they cut everybody off, we used to use a folder on our own website as a link for images we used other places, such as on social media.

So, you may want to check to see if your ISP gives you a small place for storage.
If not, there are other free places out there, like Yogi mentioned.
I started using my Drop Box for a couple of images I linked to before I got my own websites again, and since it works, I just leave those images there. Easier to use than uploading to a hosted website. Except I think I can only use those images on accounts I have elsewhere with the same credentials. It's been years since I changed anything and I forget things easily now that I'm an antique, hi hi.

Have a super great day!

[yogi]

It's my understanding that hotlinking to anything you store on Dropbox will not work. Those files and folders need to be shared with specific people.

[Kellemora]

I thought as much, since the only links that work are ones to my own image folders.

When Comcast pulled the plug on me, several of the websites where I had my log-in picture disappeared.
A lot of website you can upload your log-in picture, so you have your image displayed as an icon.
But all other pictures you had to only link to with an URL for them to appear on the site.

Nearly every website where can display images has a different size that works best.
Back when I was using some images at different websites, I had to remake them in the sizes best for that website.
Mainly because some websites cropped instead of shrinking the picture to fit their size boxes.
And most of them never let you know what the ideal size is either.
Heck, look at Twitter, one persons image may be taller than another image and the whole things shows.
Then the next time you see it, they cropped it so part of the image is missing.
One of the writers groups I've followed for years on Twitter puts their text up in an image.
All of them were the same size and easily readable. Now more than half of them are chopped off, even though they are all the same size as they have always been. But then that's Twitter twiddling with their controls all the time.

[yogi]

Like any other computer based system, those web sites which allow images to be posted are working against space and time factors. Things have to load quickly to keep the attention of Tweeters, for example. Server space is at a premium when you are talking millions of users. Thus, all kinds of tricks are used to maximize throughput, and some sites are better at it than others. The only images on Brainformation servers are the smilies and Avatars. Everything else is hot linked from somewhere. Hot linking uses up bandwidth which is why most places don't like it or allow it. Places like Dropbox are not intended to be data or image servers. They are basically set up for sharing and collaboration by many people. It's a lot like Google Docs, only it's not Google Docs.

[Kellemora]

I hear ya!
One of the reasons my websites have so many formerly linked now turned off links was because of the space I was allocated at my early websites.
Inlink only gave me like 5 megabytes for my website, which was only like 1 or 2 megs back then.
When my BBS started hosting websites, they only gave me like 5 megs also, so as my website grew, if I wanted to add a new page, I had to remove an older page. I would save all the pages I removed, trouble is, I did so in different places.
I always kept a copy of what was on-line so I could upload it again should my account get wiped.
When I got my first NAS, as I ran across those scattered pages I removed, I put them on it, figuring they were safe, and didn't bother to back up the NAS. Well, I planned to do so after I found all the stuff I wanted to put on there, and normally I don't delete files, I just save them to an Already Moved to NAS folder, hi hi.
When I finally went with Comcast Cable, I never put my website on them, because the would not let me use my domain name on a personal website. But then when the BBS closed, I had to scramble to get new e-mail addresses, and I set up my personal web pages. I used the Comcast.net extension instead of my own domain name.
I had to rewrite my pages in order to use Comcast as a web host. But even they only gave me around 10 megs total for everything. I felt this was plenty and created two websites, one personal and one for business. And since I knew I would be putting all of my pages back, I kept all the links I had turned off and made them visible again.
This is when we took that lightning strike that took out the NAS and several computers and their external hard drives too.
So this is how I lost all the data that belongs on my websites. And I've never had time to try to remember what was on each page. Nor have I had time to go back in and hide the Links so they don't appear to viewers.
It's just a shame I didn't have off-site storage anymore, meaning at my brothers in St. Loo, when we took the lightning strike and/or got slammed with a ransomware attack through my frau's Windoze computer.

Now that I'm at a New Host with Unlimited Web Space, I really would like to get everything back up again. But somehow, with all my irons in the fire, and only so many years left in my time here on earth, most of it is mute now. I have too many important things to get done before I kick the bucket.

[yogi]

Off site storage isn't that hard to come by free. Every Microsoft account gets some cloud space free. Google gives away something like 16 GB of free cloud storage. Then there are the likes of Dropbox and 4Shared.com. A couple gigs here and a couple gigs there add up to quite a bit. The downside is that it's on somebody else's cloud. True enough, but at the moment you have nothing. If you lose the cloud space you would be no worse off than you are now.

I don't have a family tree, a journal, nor business needs so that off site backups are not that critical for me. Most, if not all, my one of a kind data is on the NAS and also backed up to USB removable memory. It's the next best thing to cloud storage.

[Kellemora]

I think my problem is that I keep everything. Great when it is organized, and crazy when it is not.
I still have over 7,000 photographs which are not filed away, all from my wife's niece.
None of us know the names of most of the folks in those group pictures, and the ones we do know it seems we already have duplicates or similar pictures from the same events. So, I've not been too gung ho about working with them.

As far as my extensive image file goes, I have many that my parents knew when they were young, so have their names, and often where and why the photo was taken. A lot of my dad's friends were alive when I was growing up, so I knew most of them by sight, and even played with their kids.
So, I have all of these in my files under their names. But I doubt my son will have much interest in any of them. Maybe not until he gets older and even then it is questionable.

I've tried to put the best picture of a person on Ancestry which is accessible by anyone at any time, just so they don't get lost forever. Some day someone will be glad they are there. But I've never found out what Ancestry's limit on space is per user. Someone once said the amount of space they allocate has to do with how many individuals in linked families is in your file. This might be why some people use it like a game to see how big a file they can create, although it is totally erroneous.
I have hit some files on Ancestry where they have about 20 or more photos under each name I looked at, and their files were not all that big though. Many get stopped at their great-grandparents, because that is all they found.
Like my sons wife, we cannot get back past her grandparents, and I've spent countless hours trying.

OH, trying to find my old files is one reason I'm going through my old IDE drives one at a time. Unfortunately, they are all duplicated one from another, so if I'm lucky, I only find one or two files I didn't save elsewhere, mainly because they were unimportant and should have been deleted. But then every once in a while, I find one or two photo's that were the ones we lost in the ransomware attack. Can't get the ones from the frau's old computer that was not backed up though, those are gone forever.

[yogi]

Family ties are the foundation of one's roots. Few people I've met are as deeply rooted as you seem to be. Obviously a lot of work and time was used to collect all that information about your ancestors. It's hard to say if anybody else would derive the same satisfaction as you do from your collections. Hopefully others can appreciate what you have done, but the point of it all seems to be the comfort it brings you personally. The losses to floods and cyber attacks are regrettable, but your memories are forever.

[Kellemora]

In my family, we have always had a family genealogist. It was my Aunt Mary who passed the job on to me. Mainly because no one else would do it. There was one, but she was greedy and basically hoarded any information she got and never shared it with family.
While I on the other hand published booklets to pass out to everyone, which not only contained genealogies, but also the address and phone number for nearly every living relative, unless they didn't want it published.
When my wife's side of the family saw what I did for my family, they had me do one for their family.
But then once all the older generation died off, the kids are not much interested in who their cousins are anymore. Sorta sad really.

[yogi]

You are right to point out it's sad that interest in one's family roots seems to be dwindling. As it stands today, if they aren't on Facebook, then it doesn't matter if they are family or not.

It's not just a modern phenomena for the younger generation to dismiss family history. My mom's side of the family always was close and kept in contact with each other. A few of the cousins from that side still keep in touch, and none of them are on Facebook. LOL My dad's side was always distant. We got together at Christmas, which was one hella celebration considering there were eleven brothers and sisters with all their kids. But, that was all I saw of the cousins except for the one that lived next door to me. Once I married and moved out of the old neighborhood, that was the end of contact with any of the family on dad's side. I tried contacting a few at one time with no response. The remarkable thing here is how different the attitudes are among families. Some are closer than others. Neither my mom nor my dad's family had a genealogist. My wife's family, on the other hand, had a tree comparable to what you tell about and an annual family reunion.

[forumadmin]

Gary - I split this off from the main query from Jen just to keep the topic drift confined to one place. LOL
Nothing was lost as far as I can tell.