Basically here are the things [...]]]> Couple of months ago when I landed in Oulu for Student Exchange Programme, I was hunting for an online gallery to store my photos. I chose Smugmug after weeks of consideration but might consider switching to Picasa at the end of 1 year because of the hefty price that Smugmug charges.

Basically here are the things I noted throughout my weeks of consideration.

Flickr [$24.95 USD]

Pros

• API Support
• Large Community
• Video Support

Cons

• Ugly interface

Summary
Most photography enthusiasts have at least 1 or 2 photos in Flickr. Flickr is so popular that no other galleries can compete with it. It has a large community that users can tap on, giving comments, joining groups and sharing photos with other people around the world that has the same common interest. However the interface is not the most pleasing to eyes. Browsing of photos could be a problem for non-Flickr users because of its unique way of browsing that is uncommon to many. Therefore, the API support of Flickr could be very useful to developers as they can create their own galleries, hosted on their own website, with pictures linked from Flickr. This will remove the only Flickr con of ugly interface.

Picasa [$5 USD - 20GB] Prices increase linearly.

Pros

• Google’s product
• Offers Picasa software for easy photos manipulation and uploading
• Synchronization between folders and galleries
• Very cheap, around $5USD for 20GB of storage

Cons

• Average looking interface

Summary
Looking at how successful Google products are these days, one will not easily brush aside Picasa as it is a Google´s product. Picasa Web Gallery, together with its own software, Picasa, this has to be the best combination of the 3 galleries highlighted in this post. You can do simple red-eye reduction, cropping, resizing and many more with Picasa. Synchronization between folders and online galleries are possible too! This way, you do not have to upload new photos manually every time a new photo is taken.  Everything is done automatically. What’s more, it’s only $5USD per year for 20GB of storage!

Smugmug [$39.95 USD]

Pros

• Themes
• Configuration of CSS and site is possible
• Video support can be added by paying more

Cons

• Expensive
• Lacking community
• Default uploading is done through browser interface

Summary
Smugmug adopts a template system where users can choose how they want their galleries to look like by using predefined templates. With higher prices, one can also edit CSS, header, footer of the gallery. However, all these come at a hefty price! Uploading is done through browser interface with their rather buggy JAVA software. Other uploading alternatives are available too but they are done up by other users and has no official support from Smugmug.

I hope what I provided above is useful to you.

If you are interested in getting Smugmug at a $5 discount, do use my coupon code 3d5s/RztXI1rg.

Just bought this book yesterday…

Quite interesting read which includes things like “The making of EOS 7D” and “Features of 7D”. All photos in the magazine have their respective EXIF data next to them.. Impressive…

Can get it at Popular Bookstores @ $19.90.

Update 1: Singtel updates price plans to allow more Data.

Update 2: M1 increases to 12GB.

Here’s the breakdown of the three telcos plans for iPhones currently.

System sounds + SMS: /System/Library/Audio/UISounds/ Ringtones: /Library/Ringtones/ Wallpapers: /Library/Wallpaper Themes: /Library/Themes Apps: /private/var/mobile/Applications/

Update: my games

The long awaited iPhone 3GS finally launched in Singapore.

I preordered and went to collect today.

Reached at 6:10pm and the queue is already crazy.

7pm after some time….

crazy queue inside the tentages

first demo set… finally seen at 10:21PM (notice the iphone time)

some mio tv crap..

inside some air conditioned place after hours of queue..

finally at around 12am+

get to [...]]]>

The long awaited iPhone 3GS finally launched in Singapore.

I preordered and went to collect today.

Reached at 6:10pm and the queue is already crazy.

7pm after some time….

crazy queue inside the tentages

first demo set… finally seen at 10:21PM (notice the iphone time)

some mio tv crap..

inside some air conditioned place after hours of queue..

finally at around 12am+

get to smell the counters…

finally… waiting for queue number.

finally… reached home at 2+am… dead.

Presenting to you gothere.sg! One of the best interactive road directories in Singapore!

In fact I have been relying on gothere.sg since early July. I think this site is indeed worth mentioning.

No explaination from me. Go there and you will know.

http://gothere.sg

The following image is from http://www.cyber.sg:

… Apparently Nexon is sueing us. Currently we don’t even know what claims they have against us – so far we have received a bill from a court with the information that it’s about €350,000 matter in controversy. And it’s sent from the Landgericht Hamburg. Neither of this makes sense to us (we are [...]]]> Quoting from OdinMS.de,

… Apparently Nexon is sueing us. Currently we don’t even know what claims they have against us – so far we have received a bill from a court with the information that it’s about €350,000 matter in controversy. And it’s sent from the Landgericht Hamburg.
Neither of this makes sense to us (we are not in Hamburg, neither is Nexon). Without any claims we don’t even know why they are trying to sue us.
We don’t know if or how much we’ll actually have to pay at this point.
We don’t know what will happen now. We won’t be trying to risk our financial futures for keeping this project alive (sorry).

OdinMS has been sued by Nexon, apparently asking for €350,000(Approx, $941,599SGD). In case you are wondering, what is OdinMS. Well, they created an open source java project for packet communication with MapleStory client. In short, by using their compiled code, you will be able to run your own private server while using Nexon’s MapleStory client.

By doing so, it has violated Nexon’s policy by using the client to communicate with other unintended servers.

Imagine leveling at the rate of 1000x exp rate? Killing a snail will give u 3000 exp. points. That is why so many people are obsessed with these private servers. Servers can be configured to drop items that Nexon’s MapleStory doesn’t, and/or selling rare items that are over 1000 times cheaper than the original.

Well, with this law suit, I believe many private servers currently running on OdinMS will have to think twice. Singapore servers, like Cyber.sg, will have to take extra precaution if they are to continue their servers. Asiasoft will not let this go easily in this “law is above all” country.