Cancelling SmugMug subscription, will loose pictures...

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi folks,

I have been wrestling with this dilemma for a while. Let me explain:

My galleries are hosted on SmugMug.com for a year now. Not much to complain about their service so far, except for the fact that the web browsing performance is not very good (i.e. pictures load slowly). I have got the power account that costs me USD 60 a year. I also bought the nifty utility Star*Explorer created by Nik Sklobovsky to upload my pictures. Star*Explorer works great BTW, certainly recommended to all SmugMug users.

Now OTOH, I also have a high-end web hosting subscription for my domains, which includes a fully customizable LAMP server. I already pay for this hosting dearly and will continue to do so. ATM, all it does is simple web serving, mail serving and forwarding. It is grossly under-used. I can put Gallery2 or something similar on my own web site and host my photos there. Firstly, that would save me the yearly USD 60 I have to pay to SmugMug. Also this scheme would be much more flexible, I'd have better control over the layout and structure of my galleries.

The most important issue, however, is the fact that the longer I use SmugMug, the more dependent I become on them. Consider this: I have so far posted some 80 pictures here on OPF (and many more on some other forums). Those pictures' links are hard coded to the SmugMug URL addresses. The moment I cancel my subscription, none of my pictures will be visible to the readers any longer. If I had used my own domain URL addresses to link to the photos, I'd never have this problem. I could then easily move my web site around to any hosting provider or use my own servers. There would be no consequences.

So the logic and the economics both dictate that I move my photos to my own web (hosting) servers now. That way, I can limit the damages yet to be incurred.

You see why I had to get this off my chest. Soon, all my pictures here at OPF will suddenly disappear into thin air. I doubt whether Asher or Nicolas can help me with this, but there is way too much search and replace involved and it will be a big hassle I'm sure. Even if they'd be willing to help me, I personally don't have the time to map all individual images from their new locations into old URLs, not in the short term anyway.


Sorry about this :-(.

Regards,

[Ray West]

Hi Cem,

Good move, dumping smugmug. If you can run it in // with your own site, for a week or so, maybe I can trawl back through and change some links over.

Best wishes,

Ray

[Greg Rogers]

Quite frankly, this is one of the reasons I've been reluctant to post / link many images here (and elsewhere). It bothers me being so dependent (in my case) upon Photobucket. Being a bit OCD, I'm certain my account there will not last forever and I'd prefer not to leave a trail of dead links behind one day.

Feeling your pain, Cem.
-Greg

[Asher Kelman]

Cem,

You've raised a great point! The threat to OPF of server dysfunction and or switching of gallery hosting. I'll talk to Sean to see if we can make a program to remap your pictures.

In the meanwhile, hold on please!

Asher

[Cem_Usakligil]

Originally Posted by Asher Kelman

Cem,

You've raised a great point! The threat to OPF of server dysfunction and or switching of gallery hosting. I'll talk to Sean to see if we can make a program to remap your pictures.

In the meanwhile, hold on please!

Asher

Hi Asher,

While any efforts on your or Ray's or Sean's part will be greatly appreciated, it will be still a big manual job to match the old and the new URLs. So I won't hold my breath at all. And I don't want to burden anybody.

What would be a good idea for the future is if we can post the images to OPF directly. That would guarantee continiuty and also lower the treshold for some people who now won't or can't post due to the hassle of the process (ie upload elsewhere, copy URL, paste into message text manually).

Thanks anyway,

Cheers,

[Asher Kelman]

Originally Posted by Cem Usakligil

Hi Asher,

While any efforts on your or Ray's or Sean's part will be greatly appreciated, it will be still a big manual job to match the old and the new URLs. So I won't hold my breath at all. And I don't want to burden anybody.

What would be a good idea for the future is if we can post the images to OPF directly. That would guarantee continiuty and also lower the treshold for some people who now won't or can't post due to the hassle of the process (ie upload elsewhere, copy URL, paste into message text manually).

Thanks anyway,

Cheers,

Well, we have already discussed a routine for replacing images. We can vacuum them up and have alookup table as long as the name of the image is not changed!

We intend to store all the images on OPF. Sean has the question right now!

Asher

[Sean DeMerchant]

Originally Posted by Cem Usakligil

Hi folks,

I have been wrestling with this dilemma for a while. Let me explain:

My galleries are hosted on SmugMug.com for a year now.
... I also have a high-end web hosting subscription for my domains, which includes a fully customizable LAMP server. I already pay for this hosting dearly and will continue to do so. ...

The most important issue, however, is the fact that the longer I use SmugMug, the more dependent I become on them. Consider this: I have so far posted some 80 pictures here on OPF (and many more on some other forums). Those pictures' links are hard coded to the SmugMug URL addresses. The moment I cancel my subscription, none of my pictures will be visible to the readers any longer. If I had used my own domain URL addresses to link to the photos, I'd never have this problem. I could then easily move my web site around to any hosting provider or use my own servers. There would be no consequences.

So the logic and the economics both dictate that I move my photos to my own web (hosting) servers now. That way, I can limit the damages yet to be incurred.

What is your timeframe on this Cem? I can directly access the database and change things, but fully automating it will take some effort.

Originally Posted by Asher Kelman

You've raised a great point! The threat to OPF of server dysfunction and or switching of gallery hosting. I'll talk to Sean to see if we can make a program to remap your pictures.

We have talked.

Originally Posted by Cem Usakligil

While any efforts on your or Ray's or Sean's part will be greatly appreciated, it will be still a big manual job to match the old and the new URLs. So I won't hold my breath at all. And I don't want to burden anybody.

What would be a good idea for the future is if we can post the images to OPF directly. That would guarantee continiuty and also lower the treshold for some people who now won't or can't post due to the hassle of the process (ie upload elsewhere, copy URL, paste into message text manually).

The current goal will be a daily or weekly automated copying (or some) such and remapping the URLs from the original host to the OPF copy. I know I have zero intention of trying to make such sweeping changes via vBulletin and would favor a more automated solution (SQL and some scripting glue). But I need to test this out.

At this point I would prefer to take this discussion offline using Cem as a test subject.

all the best,

Sean

[Cem_Usakligil]

Originally Posted by Sean DeMerchant

...At this point I would prefer to take this discussion offline using Cem as a test subject.

Great! :-)
I'll be your voluntary Guinea Pig.

My subscription ends at the end of December, so we still have 1.5 months.

Cheers,

[Asher Kelman]

We'd like to know what people's needs are for images.

So could you spend a moment and share your experience here .

Thanks,

Asher

[Cem_Usakligil]

Originally Posted by Sean DeMerchant

What is your timeframe on this Cem? I can directly access the database and change things, but fully automating it will take some effort....

Hi Sean,

I can only imagine how busy you must have been, everyone is around this time of the year.
But my time is really running out now, only 3 more weeks to go. Any idea whether this migration will be doable?

Cheers,

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Cem,

Thanks goodness Sean is busy and therefore earns a living. The downside is that changes can be slow. He's let me know that your work is the highest priority right now.

PM me off lien and let me know how much storage this requires.

Asher

[Sean DeMerchant]

Originally Posted by Cem Usakligil

Hi Sean,

I can only imagine how busy you must have been, everyone is around this time of the year.
But my time is really running out now, only 3 more weeks to go. Any idea whether this migration will be doable?

Cheers,

Hi Cem,

I am currently sitting on about 2 weeks or work before I can touch non-security* related OPF issues. Well that and this upcoming weekend is my 35th birthday so I will be taking that off (at least one day).

In short, you are not forgotten, but I have just been swamped.

thanks,

Sean


* Security related issues (i.e., patches) are generally shifted to the top of the priority queue but the rest gets scheduled.

[Cem_Usakligil]

No worry Sean, I know what you're talking about. Any effort on your part no matter when or how, will be greatly appreciated. BTW, happy 35th birthday already! :-)))