Here's a recent PS blog article on storage:

http://blog.photoshelter.com/corp/2009/06/how-to-store-your-digital-phot.html

I was wondering about the State of California myself as a Canadian who ships greeting cards, etc. there.  To make it more confusing, they have different tax rates between counties.  Do I stop doing business in California? 

If you live in California you should have a read on this from Ken Rockwell this morning

Proposed New Internet Taxes

I'm unsure exactly what's going on, but proposed California Assembly Bill 178 (AB 178) will require out-of-state sites like Amazon (and pretty much every site) to collect sales taxes on everything sold into California.

This sounds like a bad idea to me, so I oppose this. (I bet my wife opposes it more; she shops even more than I do.)

You might want to express your opinion to your California assembly member by clicking the "Find My District" link on the left and letting them know. These are our representatives from all over California who represent our opinions in the California State Assembly where this is voted on.

This is scary: AB 178 isn't a fake urban rumor like AB-602 that was claimed to be a tax on each email.

I just phoned my local California State Assembly representative, and confirmed it: AB 178 is a real bill with real consequences for all of us here in sunny California.

I hear that this could be voted on next week; so don't dawdle and then come complaining to me about your internet purchases from Nevada, England, Hong Kong or wherever collecting state sales taxes.

 

THAT SUCKS!  I know here in Canada if I order something from the states, there are no taxes.  If I order from a different province, I have to pay GST (federal tax).  Only if I order something in Manitoba do I pay GST + PST.  I hope it doesn't change here any time soon.

You've just been lucky so far.  When it comes from the U.S. you don't pay the retailer the tax, but you pay the Canadian agency both PST and GST.  If I order stuff in my name it sometimes slips through (Amazon or photobooks sometimes), but if it comes with my business name on the box I always get flagged to pay the tax upon delivery - Post, UPS, Fedex.  I think for certain things like if you go to Alberta and buy a car, you pay the MB PST before they give you your Manitoba plates.

Maybe she clipped it from a legit buyer.  I mean once a real buyer puts OUR legally purchased unwatermarked photos on THEIR website, its up for grabs for the whole world to right click.... sad but true.

My husband got an Iphone last month and is he ever pissed.... but they are giving him a price match because the new phone costs quite a bit less through Costco/Rogers.  Supposedly Google is (has?) coming out with a hot new product soon, that's why the price is so much better.

3.  Wouldn't it be easy to take a few shots of a good image but at a different angle, crop, lighting and then put an exclusive shot in that family of shots into each site that offers exclusivity.

I asked that same question once, anything from the same series or setup can't be exclusive if you are selling the similars elsewhere.

I'm sure this must have been in the planning all along, but still I wonder if IS was surprized by how many opted out of this deal all together.  Maybe in the end they didn't have anything to offer JIU/P.com so now they are putting the screws to us at StockXpert.

Whatever, I remain opted out.

It definitely did affect search engine ranking, I had one reported and it was selling quite well then stopped dead, but it started selling again since the recent search engine changes though, so the number of sales attached to it must be a new search factor.  In my case, this was from my very first batch and when I (years late) saw the keywords I cringed and went back and rekeyworded everything.  I seem to remember a notice about what words were flagged though.  If you don't feel they are fair, just explain your case to admin - it may simply be a difference in use of the language.

Well, a few days ago I mentioned that ppd's have really bounded back...  which of course led to a complete stop of any kind of sales but JIU.

This is not an endorsement, just a FYI.  I read about a new site fotomoto.com where you can sell prints on your own website.  Right now it is by invitation only.  I'm only posting because a while back I remember someone looking for a product like this one. 

For me it's intermittent which is quite puzzling.  Last week every time I would press a button I would be taken back to log-in, but as of this weekend it is working normally.  I had to manually remove a virus recently, and in the process I changed all my security settings and had to set the pop-up blocker back to medium or IS, SS wouldn't work after logged in.