A high proportion of posts to Google+ I encounter seem related to issues with Google Photos. I have not invested a great deal of time in figuring out Photos beyond uploading several thousand picks. I do think the Google documentation needs to be improved.
Aside from concerns related to partial uploads, it seems to me many of the questions could be described as uncertainty regarding whether Google is providing customers a backup or synch service. Customers are concerned that they want a backup and are worried Google may be providing synch. In other words, customers are concerned that if they delete photos on the local device, the photos will then be deleted in their Google account leaving them with no copy anywhere.
Google provides a help comment on synch vs. backup, but this distinction appears to only apply with mobile devices. I would guess most folks with really large photo collections are trying to figure out what applies to their desktop machines.
So Google, if you encounter this post, you might cut down on the frustration and confusion if you would clarify the differences between your mobile and desktop services.
I have made a huge time investment in my blogs. I started blogging in 2002 and have added a couple specialized blogs since that time. This work means a lot to me and like any digital work we generate it is worth developing a backup plan.
Backing up a blog is quite different from backing up most forms of content you might generate. Blog content is stored in a database with the exception of media files which are stored separately. In addition, most of us now use a remote server to host our work so a backup involves more than making a copy of a local folder and copying that folder to a second storage device.
Here is what I recommend and how I use the recommended tool. I have three WordPress blogs hosted on leased server space (not WordPress.Com). I use the plugin BackUpWordPress. What I consider the key feature of this plugin is that it both creates a copy of the database data associated with the site and saves a copy of all blog files. Other backup systems I have used only generate the database backup file. You can often generate your own copy of the other folders and files, but the general issue with backups is that most of use never seem to get this done. Automatic is good.
The plugin stores backups as part of the WordPress folder on the server (not really a backup), but sends me an email each time a backup is generated. From the email, I can download the backup and put it where I want. I store my backups in a Box account.
The plugin is quite flexible with settings for the content to be backed up, the frequency of backups, the number of backups to be retained on the server, and an email address for the purpose of verifying the backup has been performed. A paid version of this product offers methods for storing the backups with multiple services, but as I have described you can download and store the backups yourself.
I work against limits imposed by the company I lease space from so I back up once a month and store only two backups on the server. This is for each of three blogs. So, once a month I download three zipped files and store them elsewhere.
Restoring a blog backup takes a little experience. I have done it a couple of times when I ran blog software on a personal server. This, by the way, is why some of my earliest blog posts (from 2002-2003) have text, but not images. You do learn things from your struggles.
I listen to a lot of music and thought some capabilities of the new Apple service sounded interesting. However, I soon discovered that streamed songs did not scrobble. This is bad.
Since 2006 I have been using a music service called Last.Fm. What I find interesting about LastFM is scrobbling. I have no idea where this term comes from. Scrobbling means that whenever I listen to a song on a device I own LastFM keeps track. The summary data are interesting. Since 2006, I have listened to 230,965 songs. The song I have played most frequently is Bullet and a Target by Citizen Cope – 147 times. My favorite artist has been Miles Davis – 3748 plays. I find the data on my tastes and how my interests change over time fascinating. Big data offers some other interesting social features. I am able to compare my interests to those of other LastFM users and the service tells me how compatible our interests seem to be. The idea is that I can follow what others with similar interests listen to and find new songs and artists to try out.
I probably spent two hours last night trying to figure out if there was anything that could be done. Many searches turned up complaints, but no solutions. Finally, someone recommended BowTie. I remembered this product and knew that the developer had stopped working on it, but I found a source that still had it available (FileHorse). I would not normally download files from an unknown source, but I looked for complaints first and then gave it a true. Sure enough I can scrobble from the new Apple streaming service.
This post will likely make little sense to many. But, if you are a scrobbler and cannot give it up, BowTie will keep you going until something else emerges.
My brother has become a quadcopter hobbyist. Once you learn the ropes (on smaller, less expensive machines), the major application is probably aerial photography. We have a lake home in Wisconsin and here is a tour around our lake. The video ends with the quadcopter coming into our beach.
I must admit that I would be intimidated flying anything as expensive as a quadcopter and camera over water, but I guess you get to the point that is what you do. The GoPro will record video in 1080p. I downsized to 720 to reduce the file size. Still, the quality of the video is pretty impressive.
Summary: In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.
Blogs have even worse participation inequality than is evident in the 90-9-1 rule that characterizes most online communities. With blogs, the rule is more like 95-5-0.1.
I remember when a major complaint about iPads was that the devices encouraged consumption rather than production. For those of us promoting “doing”, “making”, or “participation“, this was a concern because we liked the seeming utility of the mobile devices. This report from Jakob Nielsen and colleagues indicates this consumption mentality may be just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Posted inUncategorized|Taggedblog|Comments Off on I am part of the .1%
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