Saturday, June 11, 2011

My photostream...

If you are a computer affectionate (A.K.A geek, nerd or computerholic) or love photography, taking pictures of very attractive-artistic-astonishing rubbish, probably you have bumped into the inevitable I-am-running out-of-disk-space problem... or the very well known my-mom-does-not-know-how-to-check-my-facebook-photos-and-it-will-be-better-if-I-just-send-the-link-on-an-email.

In those case you need an image storage service to upload some of your pictures to share it with your mates and maybe (it depends on how attached to your photos you are) store it on these services and have it available anywhere at all times.

There are tons and tons of those services, for instance:

Google has Picasa Web which connects to Picasa (on desktop computers or Picasa plug-in for IPhoto on Macs), I use this service to host the images used on my blogs, why? Is so easy to click on blogger, upload my images drag it where I want it to be and that’s it. There is another reason; if you just want to store a bulk of images Picasa will be a cheap option for small storage. Right now Picasa Web allows you to upload up to 1GB (Giga byte or 1000 Mega bytes) for free; $5 per year if you want to upgrade to 20GB and if you need more space than add 5 bucks for every 20GB you want to expand... Obviously, when you need lots of space, for instance 1TB (= 1000GB) you will be paying $256 per year.


Microsoft has Live Photos (I don't know if it was re-branded to skydrive, but it exists for two years now...) which works great with Live Photo Gallery and you get awesomely 25GB of storage for free... But I have not used it... ever... so I can’t give you a nice comment related to it with the exception of the great free space.

And Flickr (I don’t plan to post in there the entire list of services available) is a very nice photo sharing site where you could easily upload your images, include comments and post them online. The one thing that made me use Flickr to post my photography experience is the nice experience of beautiful user interface (do you imagine gorgeous photos in an awful web page layout?). The second reason related to my selection is based on scalability; when I get to the point where maintaining the pictures in my computer is not possible and the amount of pictures I can upload surpass the monthly allowance imposed by Flickr, then they will charge me $25 per year for unlimited storage... Right now my data storage is pretty low and I don’t think that any time soon I am going to exceed 300MB per month, but something more important is that Flickr has a better photography-related community in comparison to Picasa’s.



So I present thee (drums please)... my photostream!


I am still uploading images now and then; currently (at the time that I am writing this post) my most active stream is related to Vivid Sydney 2011, but fell free to take a look of my inspirational moments. Comments, observations and constructive critics are highly appreciated.

If you are looking for this Queen... you won't find it inhere!
For those of you who does not live or have knowledge of the Queen’s birthday, every second of June the members of the Commonwealth celebrate the birthday of the Monarch.

But what does it means and why am I writing a post about it?

The meaning

It means that the current Queen, Elizabeth II will be celebrating another year of experience in the crown.

And here... The monarch of the Commonwealth... Elizabeth II


Why is celebrated in June? Isn't the real date on April 21?

Apparently this holiday was first established in 1788 (in Australia), honouring King George III (Monarch at the time) who’s birthday was the 4th of June 1738, but every other king or queen born after those dates was celebrated on their own birthday...

So... Who decided to celebrate anything in June? King George V in 1936 decided to celebrate any Queen or King Birthday on June and later on the Commonwealth fixed the date to the second Monday of June.

... Not that interesting really... I was expecting a drunken aunty dancing around naked in the Buckingham palace to which consequence and in an attempt to distract public attention decided to celebrate the queen birthday that day... Anyway... now you know we are not that crazy =P on celebrating Queen’s birthday on her non-real-birth-day.



Why am I writing about this?

Because is long weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!

The queen’s birthday is a public holiday in Australia (with the exception of the people of Perth, that decided to celebrate it on the first Monday of October... why? No idea!) in which friends take advantage of the long weekend to visit between each other, or many just crack a beer between mates. In any case is a wonderful opportunity to rest and enjoy the cold but lovely weather.

In Sydney you will enjoy some fireworks at Darling Harbour, the end of Vivid Sydney (which reminds me, I have to share with you the pictures that I have been taking from this event), The Darling Harbour Jazz and Blues festival, different events in North Sydney and so on.

So, if you are in Australia, enjoy this awesome and well deserved long weekend.

Edited: added the reason of why is celebrated in June instead of April, thanks xerxesb for your observation.

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