Simtropolis = where to keep images ?

[Silur 3,304]

Simtropolis = where to keep images ? I had a FROG, now PHOTOBUCKET there is a box in Simtroplis. But there is no single Bank. We see that all the work turns to dust. There are normal thoughts?

I tried to work with OneDrive by Microsoft - but it only gives a link to my jpg. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

[CorinaMarie 29,619]

I personally have a free Photobucket account and so far in 4+ years nothing has gone missing. A few months ago they started having a pop up suggesting a paid membership. This concerns me that it might be a prelude to borking the free accounts. Imgur is a another fav of many peeps. I'd guess one of these two are the safest. However, I'd also guess a paid account would likely have even greater longevity.

[Silur 3,304]

CorinaMarie - Thank YOU...

I personally have a free Photobucket account too. 

I have the excitement...

But I know that all the free ends very quickly and badly. Frog destroyed the entire pictures on Simtropolis and SC Devotion.

Next - Photobucet and Imgur - may be I'm Wrong?

[JP Schriefer 5,590]

I use Flickr and I find it very good, especially because it maintains the image quality and file format. Imgur is also good, but if your image is too big it will decrease the quality.

[Silur 3,304]

Thank You - JP Schriefer ( this very hard to me write "JP Schriefer" -    but I think - this is right) ...

For example - try write: Ембелашишковская ? 

Thank You once more - I'll can try it ... 

[JP Schriefer 5,590]

I can imagine how hard it is since you're probably using a Russian keyboard. By the way I've no idea how to write that.

But you're not the only one, I changed my username sometime ago because it wasn't so good to write Schriefer, so you can call me just JP

[Silur 3,304]

Yes it is. I have ENG-RUS keyboard and Google Translater.  Your name JP Schriefer  does not bother me (this is right on English?). 

Thank you for Your clear answer, but I don't want to lose my pictures - I'm a very old man. 

[CorinaMarie 29,619]

11 minutes ago, Silur said:

I don't want to lose my pictures

One thing I do is to have separate Folders under My Pictures on my hard drive to sub-organize major projects. This gives me a place to re-find them should my host close out my free account. Sure it'd be a lot of work to re-host and re-post them, but some projects would be worth it. Here's a small sample:

• My Pictures
  • Single Use Online (Here I put the pics where I've posted one or two in random threads.)
  • CORIMAPS (All the pics for that project.)
  • Rock Shoppe (All the pics for that one.)
  • Water Shoppe (You get the idea.)
  • Beach Shoppe
  • Terrain Shoppe
  • And so on ...

[Silur 3,304]

Thank You CorinaMarie (is this right?) ... I have 3! copies of all. But I can't to escape from the FROGS and Others.

Thank You once more - Each of us have your's free fate.

I can show You my DOC's, but I think this very terrible - ALL FILES from Begining SC4 - with China and Korea (I don't remember how I do it with South Korea !!!!  This is destroy my brains forever ). 80% Lots and Props  from South Korea - this is War theme. And I think - North Korea - 100%. But there is no SC4 in North Korea - I know - no Internet here - only one Great KIM's family  right radiostation   

You can see World visitors on SCD - never see anybody from NK 

Thank You once more ... 

[rsc204 21,815]

3 hours ago, Silur said:

I tried to work with OneDrive by Microsoft - but it only gives a link to my jpg. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

The problem with MS, Google, DropBox and similar services is that whilst they will host your files, they do not allow "Embedding" them on third party websites. That's because every picture that's hosted on their servers but viewed through a site like ST, costs them money for the bandwidth. Conversely, with ST and the like being not for profit sites, there simply isn't the money to host everyone's images here where they might be safer long-term.

3 hours ago, Silur said:

I had a FROG, now PHOTOBUCKET there is a box in Simtroplis. But there is no single Bank. We see that all the work turns to dust. There are normal thoughts?

Totally. This is a big problem that is more wide ranging than just the SC4 community, the internet is not kind to anything that becomes irrelevant. Back to the cost of bandwidth for embedded images, providers like Photobucket and others offer their services for free, in the hope that a sufficient percentage of users end up paying for the service. Their business model relies on this and a small amount of money raised through advertising. However, the internet is full of flawed business models which if you went to a bank to ask for a loan, they'd laugh you out of the building, because you have no revenue stream. On the flip side, users don't want to pay for most of the internet services either. The net result of all this means that when services become unable to support the costs of the users any more, they need to change. In some cases this means enforcing a paid-only service, some simply shut down because they are loosing too much money regularly. I don't think any of the image hosting services started with no intention to continue the free services. It's just a poor way of making money and so many of them end up this way. Big companies like MS, Google and the like can keep loss-leading services going, because if nothing else, it keeps your custom with their brand, something they attach monetary value too. What the internet needs to do is mature into a proper business, where a reasonable monthly cost is sufficient that customers are willing to pay and they can make money. But all too often when they do decide to charge, the costs are quite high. Sure $5 a month wouldn't be a big deal for many for an internet service, the issue is when you stack a number of such charges together, it gets expensive. Imagine you paid subscriptions for Mail, News, Image/File hosting and every other service you used on the internet? That would get expensive for most people real quick, which is another factor behind most users reluctance to pay. This could be alleviated perhaps by a bundled service where you get everything you need as part of your ISP. But most ISPs are reluctant to offer such services directly.

Either way in 2017 things could and should be better. When services close or change, you should be able to move between services with ease and without the disruption of setting everything up once more. A large part of the reason this is the case comes down to the way such services are designed as closed systems. So if you start using one, you are locked-in, so if you do decide to change, you will loose out in some way. Until regulators start forcing fair practices upon the corporations behind internet services, that's simply a pipe dream. The real shame is in the way when things do change it can decimate entire communities or parts of the Internet's history. It's no wonder that the average user still doesn't trust the internet with their valuable data, when the companies responsible for it place no value on it whatsoever. But whilst the service itself remains free, what rights can you as a user expect for the service you are given? This is why Googles business model is so totally flawed, it all relies on using your information to make money. So you are no longer the customer, you are basically Google's lackey, making them money, by their terms, with no control over what you get in return.

There are no easy solutions, in the meantime, the very thing the internet was meant to embody doesn't really work very well. If the internet is a library, it's one prone to burning down and loosing everything it preserves all too often.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

2 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Until regulators start forcing fair practices upon the corporations behind internet services...

It would be hard to justify the use of force upon a free service. If you haven't paid for anything, then you generally have little claim to anything. If one wants something done right, one should do it one's self.

What most people don't realize is how easy (and cheap) it is to setup and run a web-server program on a computer at home. Servers don't need the studly CPUs required for slick user-facing machines running bloat-ware like Windoze (and a server doesn't need any graphics card at all). With commodity-level machines available used for $100 (or even free if you know whom to ask), the biggest cost turns out to be the electricity to run the fans.

Sure, your dynamic IP address will change each time you replace your modem or home LAN router, but that's what, once each four years? My latest modem acquired my current "dynamic" IP address from Comcast back in October 2012, and it hasn't changed since. The IP before that lasted from April 2009 to Oct 2012.

With your own web service running on your own machine, you can host your own files exposed to the WWW. With a little effort tuning your IP tables, you can decide exactly which 3rd-party web sites are allowed to fetch your pics and eat your bandwidth. For a pittance per year, you can register a domain name where you record your IP number each time your ISP changes it. It can take up to 4 days for the WWW to catch up to a revised IP, but that's good enough for hobby-level hosting of pics etc.

And, if you really don't want to setup your own web server at home, there are domain registrars that will host your files for you for about $50 per year (but bandwidth limits/surcharges might apply, and you probably won't be able to filter 3rd-party access -- YMMV).

And finally, if you can connect your expenses to any kind of business activity, then (in the US), you can deduct them from your business income before taxes.

[Silur 3,304]

Thank You - rsc204!

We are besieged on all sides. It is not enough my payment for the Internet. They want to eat everything and never respond.

[rsc204 21,815]

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

What most people don't realize is how easy (and cheap) it is to setup and run a web-server program on a computer at home.

I have just the hardware for a server, a little quiet mini-ITX box, but there are problems, it's not as simple as you make it sound. The #1 issue is security, if you provide access to world and dog to a computer on your home network, that's going to leave you open to all kinds of potential nasties. Sure it can be done securely, but it's not within the capabilities of your average user. So whilst I have one which provides local access for devices in my home, opening that to the web, not going to happen. Not to mention, security means running a modern patched OS with frequent updates, that changes the cost of the hardware dramatically, you can't just slap an old XP box together.

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

And, if you really don't want to setup your own web server at home, there are domain registrars that will host your files for you for about $50 per year (but bandwidth limits/surcharges might apply, and you probably won't be able to filter 3rd-party access -- YMMV).

$50 a year might seem like a nothing to you, but it's a big deal to me, if it's $50 a year to show some pics of work on my hobby, then I probably wouldn't do it. Not to mention, the other things I would use such hosting for, simply aren't worth that sort of money to me. You might get a few GB of storage these days, but probably less than OneDrive, Google Drive or other online services offer. With the exception of image embedding, they do everything I need for free. I don't use them to store my important data, just files I might wish to share. Frankly if there existed a sensible/easy way to share reasonably large files in a P2P manner (similar to Bluetoothing a file, but between two PCs over the net). Outside of my work on SC4, I wouldn't even bother with such services either.

I've 2x4tb drives in a Raid mirroring setup, with a third providing a backup of the backup. That's more than enough storage/redundancy for my personal data, none of which do I trust a cloud provider with.

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

It would be hard to justify the use of force upon a free service.

The one thing you are perhaps failing to take into account is the market dominance of a small number of service providers. When there is a monopoly, users get treated badly, free service or otherwise. Who will stop MS stealing every last thing you do on your computer? Google from holding everything you've ever done on some server somewhere? You can't simply bulldoze every argument because the product is free. There are plenty of reasons why regulations should protect consumers from abuse and encourage proper competition.

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

If one wants something done right, one should do it one's self.

OK, how would you power your home? Make your own connections to the outside world? The internet is basically a utility, a service people need but can not reasonably provide themselves with. Hence it needs to be regulated and kept fair and open for all. The original vision of what the internet should be was tossed out of the window the moment businesses got involved. It's sad really, because the internet was a place of good values and had a great vision of benefiting mankind. But what it's becoming is just a total mess, why only the other day I found out this is a thing:

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjfvKPHpsDTAhXlCcAKHZM-DL4QFggiMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FAmazon-Dash-Button%2Fb%3Fie%3DUTF8%26node%3D10833773031&usg=AFQjCNHdnUPWBuqZ7xpm5XUcBqtw9lWP1g

Sad, very, very sad.

[Silur 3,304]

Yes, rsc204 - I agree with YOU 100%. I pay my ISP for about 20 USD each month - half of that they charge for old and rusty wire in my house. They call it the technology of TP-LINK with 39 to 50 MB/sec and with low connection.   

The second half goes stupidly at home phone that nobody uses, but which cannot be turned off!

I still somehow survive with my old WinXP, but have Win8 on my HP Notebook. The truth had to completely reinstall the original so he never asked stupid updates. My job at HP is to work with Win8 - put - check it out. And it infuriates the blood.

Still I always wonder - Internet Explorer won't work with WinXP, but Opera work fine without any issues... Who is cheating here?

YES - "Sad, very, very sad. "

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

23 hours ago, rsc204 said:

it's not as simple as you make it sound. The #1 issue is security, if you provide access to world and dog to a computer on your home network, that's going to leave you open to all kinds of potential nasties. Sure it can be done securely, but it's not within the capabilities of your average user.

I guess I've been doing such things for so long that it has become easy. I also see so much tech detail being mastered by the denizens of these forums that I am optimistic that nearly all of you could climb the learning curve by Googling a tutorial or phoning a friend. Perhaps I could have hedged my assertion by saying that having your own web server is surprisingly "within reach", especially if you know a tech geek in your circle of friends. At least it does not require thousands of dollars of specialized pro-level equipment.

Security is indeed an issue. The solution begins with port-forwarding within your router so that only a few kinds of "requests" go through, and they're all sent to the machine that is setup to handle them. That setup (firewall and web service software) probably equals "power-user".

23 hours ago, rsc204 said:

security means running a modern patched OS with frequent updates, that changes the cost of the hardware

Not at all. My server (running multiple web and Minecraft servers) was built in 2004. It runs a now-decrepit CentOS 4.

On 4/25/2017 at 0:20 PM, rsc204 said:

if it's $50 a year to show some pics of work on my hobby, then I probably wouldn't do it.

Agreed, for SC4 pics alone, $50 is high. What I meant is that once one begins to see uses for serving one's own content, $50 per year can quickly become justifiable (e.g. as soon as you put up a web site that promotes your career, cause etc). And some of those uses are tax-deductible. I have a personal web site with two sections (my career side and my hobby side). Hosting some pics for 3rd-party access would be gravy.

However, sans business justification, it's cheaper to run a server at home than to pay for hosting. External hosting means paying for someone else to know about routers and firewalls etc. Also, because you're paying them, they're not supposed to fold without notice (the risk from free services that started this thread).

 

[catty-cb 4,401]

I'd be perfectly happy to pay Simtropolis a yearly fee to host any pictures I had on here .... they could be free for say the first X number of pictures and after than you pay a fee that goes up based on the number of pictures you had on the site, most people would never go past the free stage

[tigerbuilder 131]

This is a fascinating topic. It does relate to way the internet is evolving. A thread should be created in "off topic". There could be some interesting conservations. 

[CorinaMarie 29,619]

6 minutes ago, tigerbuilder said:

A thread should be created in "off topic".

Feel free to create such a topic and post a linky to it here. One thing I've learned about Simtropolites is that we love to discuss things.

[rsc204 21,815]

On 27/04/2017 at 2:17 AM, catty-cb said:

I'd be perfectly happy to pay Simtropolis a yearly fee to host any pictures I had on here .... they could be free for say the first X number of pictures and after than you pay a fee that goes up based on the number of pictures you had on the site, most people would never go past the free stage

I think that would open up a number of potential problems, the most obvious being the change from a not for profit site to a business. Which for starters would incur things like tax liabilities.

 

[catty-cb 4,401]

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

....Which for starters would incur things like tax liabilities.

 

Yes and then there is the nightmare of each country having different tax laws, but I'm assuming voluntary subscriptions wouldn't fall under that situation, but then you would get people taking advantage because they feel it should be free and they don't see why they should pay for anything including buying legal versions of the game .... over at Black Liquid a user been trying to get help since Saturday cos he couldn't get MegaMod to work, yesterday he finally posted a picture of the error message he was getting .... and as you can probably guess he's got a cracked illegal version of the game so naturally it doesn't work properly.

-catty

 

[Silur 3,304]

I'm trying to work with "Onedrive". It is possible that 5 GB will be enough, if you compress the pictures...

[huzman 445]

On 4/28/2017 at 0:41 AM, tigerbuilder said:

This is a fascinating topic.

To say the least, but not only. Every time I read threads like this one, I get more and more uptight.

[HayleyRenaNemeth 465]

I usually use Imgur , funny thing is I've clicked the share post button on there and it seems to get downvoted. not sure why. at one point I was using Fb and just making it public but as C!C@ on Afterhours.fm has warned me , it won't last forever as the link will eventually break. which he is right.  So Imgur is better. 

[HayleyRenaNemeth 465]

On 4/28/2017 at 2:09 AM, rsc204 said:

I think that would open up a number of potential problems, the most obvious being the change from a not for profit site to a business. Which for starters would incur things like tax liabilities.

 

plus it would be a misuse of money when other sites could do it much better. like the ones for imagehosting. something amount keeping focused on being a city community and not drifting into other ventures. its a trap that a lot of companies fall into sometimes, getting there hands into too many pies. MMMMMM Pie. 

[Propfam 2,289]

From client side/your perspective, Google Photos is best place to save your images. The compression algorithm doesn't reduce the quality of image drastically, especially for non-detail images like CJ images (I don't afiliated with Google). The storage is unlimited if you choose this option. If you want details, just select Original but you don't get unlimited storage except if you have Pixel phones. The 15 GB storage is more than enough for CJ images since in-game screenshot never produce RAW format.

If you don't want Google monopoly, you can use the included attachment feature. The attachment, however isn't for CJs because the image is embedded on bottom of the post.

From server side, S3 is a big storage house. You can save files on it with cheap prices since it's using object-level storage. You just need to pay if there is an object or more. However, S3 is difficult to implement. You must to install some plugins to accomplish the task.

Thanks

[Silur 3,304]

2 hours ago, Chief ZDN said:

From client side/your perspective, Google Photos is best place to save your images.

Thank You, I'll try work with Google Photos too ...

[poshbakerloo 186]

This worked for me, from Google Photos! (Excuse the random photos lol)