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Messages - Jo Ann Snover
4101
« on: September 04, 2013, 11:04 »
If you look at this post, I described my backup with UpdraftPlus, including what directories it's grabbing (not the whole web root). There is an add on to do FTP or a secure version of the files it creates, so this WP plugin can do it for you (base is free but the more files option is $15 and the FTP option is $10 (I think) http://www.microstockgroup.com/symbiostock-general/backing-up/msg342739/#msg342739
4103
« on: September 04, 2013, 10:59 »
I've used Updraft Plus with the More Files addon ($15; this lets me include other files and directories so I can get the symbiostock_ stuff) and it seems to be working OK with my setup - Bluehost and Dropbox for the cloud storage. I haven't tried the scheduling (I just did the "backup now" option), but I did download one of my zip files and unpacked it to be sure that the files were intact. I made a summary of the log file entries to cover the interesting bits in case anyone wants to take a look: http://digitalbristles.com/temp/UpDraftSummary.txtI had the chunk size cut down to 400MB for each .zip file - the default is 800MB - because yesterday's trial run took forever, I think because the process got killed a lot and had to restart, and Dropbox kept stalling or throttling or something. I can't see any major downside to smaller chunks and if it increases the likelihood of both my host and my cloud storage being happy, then that seems like the way to go. There is an option to encrypt the backup with a phrase of your choosing, but I didn't see any need to encrypt this. One other note: when talking over my strategy with someone else - asking if there was anything else I should be thinking about in planning how to do this, a couple of key points came up. The biggie was that wherever you place the backup files, (a) should be somewhere other than your hosting company for the site and (b) should be one of the major cloud storage vendors, or some company with enough of a track record that you trust them to be there - and your files to be there - should something go amiss. I looked at amazon s3 (and a couple of their partners) and Google's paid cloud storage, and the pricing is so complicated (storage, plus bandwidth, plus fees for access) that I can't be dealing with it. I need to know what I'm going to pay. I may grab a copy of the zip files for local storage on an external drive on a shelf at my house as well (at least once the site is set up). I set 2 copies of the backup as how many to retain for testing, but I probably want to up that a bit once I'm really live.
4104
« on: September 03, 2013, 16:49 »
I could be wrong, but I don't think any of the stock web sites watermark their thumbs. Given the small size, I'd be very leery of making it so hard for the legitimate buyer to get a sense of the images they're looking over that they give up and go elsewhere. I also don't recall hearing of any issues with stolen thumbnails - has this been a big issue?
I would very much like it to be an optional feature so those of us who would prefer to leave their thumbs as is may do so (and I can live with a kludge like having an empty PNG watermark file if that's the only way to get no watermark)
4105
« on: September 03, 2013, 14:50 »
Glad to hear about your success
4106
« on: September 03, 2013, 09:30 »
are you talking about Image Gallery Views? (it seems to be working here)
No. from submit.shutterstock.com go to Insights/Image Gallery Stats (Beta) and you'll get a list of your images, most recently uploaded first. Click on total purchases and you'll see the message noted above. This, and Keyword Stats, have been "beta" for many months and various bits of image stats have often been offline for weeks or months at a time. This clearly isn't a priority for SS (if it once was, I'm guessing going public has put an end to spending money on this sort of thing for contributors)
4107
« on: September 03, 2013, 00:57 »
...
So... please do give it a try and let us all know how it goes!
Will do. My first backup has started - it's making the zip files now and I'll get an e-mail of the log file when it's done. Fingers crossed...
4108
« on: September 03, 2013, 00:03 »
After ignoring them for a long time I pushed up 50 recent pictures - simple microstock shots, but good technical quality all of which passed inspection on SS, and I was shocked to get a 75% rejection rate for "not meeting the aesthetic standard". I would have thought that their buyers (if they have any) would have been the ones to decide whether the compositions were what they wanted. I only uploaded because I was tired of waiting months to get the extra $5 to reach the payout level and I thought some new uploads might generate a sale or two.
There were several reasons I stopped uploading to Veer, one of which was the very puzzling rejections for such things as "too editorial for veer customers" and too many similars - all for images that I know sell well based on performance elsewhere. And things were inconsistent - one or two batches would be 100% accepted and then some mass rejections of the sort you got (after a 3 week wait, typically) I like their extended licenses. I think their handling of partner sales is outrageous (that's the other reason I stopped uploading). But they don't communicate with contributors, the site seems to be in some sort of holding pattern - not growing as far as I can see, not innovating in any way, but the sales do keep coming even though I have only 800 or so of my images there. Unless they perk up a bit with sales, I can't see why I'd bother giving them anything new. It's a shame they can't get it together.
4109
« on: September 02, 2013, 23:54 »
Thank you so much for that explanation.
Copying the files could be a huge overhead for large portfolios with large image files (my symbiostock_rf folder is 3.7GB and I have only 400 images uploaded so far). I know that Bluehost says "unlimited" for storage, but they have all sorts of caveats about not using it for file backup.
I'm currently inclined to go with UpdraftPlus with the $15 extra files plugin add on and paying for storage (probably via Dropbox where you can get 100GB for $99 a year). As you've already signed up with VaultPress, it's probably a good idea to try and keep this going for a bit.
Have you given any thought to how you'll keep your copies up to date as you add files to your site - assuming you don't just delete the copy and re-create it each time you do a backup?
4110
« on: September 02, 2013, 23:45 »
I would not appreciate anything that can alter the keywords on my images without my say-so. I understand that we all make mistakes, but my experience with Dreamstime's keyword "reporting" tool is that 99% of the supposed problems are either (a) nonsense suggestions (I had a meadow full of dandelions get reported for "dandelions") or (b) a result of breaking up phrases into separate words. Same thing with iStock's wiki - I didn't agree with the vast majority of the changes. I follow some pretty tight rules when keywording - for example, I've seen cases where people put names of multiple countries on a picture of a tropical beach because it could be any of them. I think this is wrong. The only way to do location information is where it actually was - city, state, country, region. No one other than me can be sure where things were taken. I don't care what anyone else thinks about where it looks like. I'm not advocating individual control because I'm a spammer who wants to be free to continue  Some way to suggest to the image owner that they have an error is fine. But we are independent sites - as many others have pointed out - so barring some problem with a malicious spammer trying to ruin the network on purpose I don't think there should be any central control of what keywords are on what images.
4111
« on: September 02, 2013, 23:22 »
I noticed it was broken a couple of weeks ago, and so no, it's not just you Perhaps everyone there has been on vacation for the month of August?
4112
« on: September 02, 2013, 23:20 »
I'm here to publicly thank Picture5469 for hand-holding my efforts to get VaultPress to back up my images as well as other files.
Picture5469 and I were PMing for 2-3 hours tonight. Somewhere-in-England to Santa Fe-NM-USA and back and forth in "real time." (I'm old enough to find that truly amazing, even if some of you techies are not.)
End of story is... I managed to get it done, but only thanks to Picture5469's know-how and patience. Now I think I know enough to pay it forward if anybody else needs help doing that down the line.
Thank you, Mark! 
If I understand you correctly, you (two) were able to get VaultPress to back up the symbiostock_rf directory? If so, (a) that's good news as I was thinking I had to rule VaultPress out as a backup solution and (b) the answer I got from support wasn't correct. Can you run down what needs to be done here on MSG?
4113
« on: September 02, 2013, 18:11 »
I received a reply from VaultPress (very prompt, especially for a holiday weekend) "Hi Jo Ann,
VaultPress will only back up select files or folders in the root directory. You can find more details about what we do back up here:
http://help.vaultpress.com/get-to-know/
The additional directories you mention won't be backed up.
Best,
Chris"They were my first choice option of the ones I looked at, but I'd prefer to find something that handles all the files versus just some. Bummer
4114
« on: September 02, 2013, 17:46 »
I have my WordPress installation in the /blog subdirectory of my site root, so I just sent a query to VaultPress to ask about whether they'd backup everything in the /blog subdirectory or only the known wp-xxx subdirectories. I'll post here when I get a reply. What I'd like is if they'd take the entire contents of [root]/blog and then I'd be all set. For anyone looking to use Dropbox, you can add 1GB to the free space you get by installing the iOS Mailbox app and connecting it to your dropbox account. You don't have to keep using it to keep the space http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57599334-285/get-1gb-extra-dropbox-space-just-for-using-mailbox/
4115
« on: September 01, 2013, 12:13 »
As I'm uploading everything, I am setting those options in the hope that Leo, or a plugin (or me if I later can figure out how to make such a change) can use that data to display for buyers the PR/MR status of an image.
4116
« on: August 31, 2013, 20:26 »
I'm uploading to the directory wp-content/themes/symbiostock/inc/classes/plupload/uploads/
...and I'm using GD library...
my uploads are to .../wp-content/plupload/uploads/ If you go to the Stock Images/Upload Images section of your WordPress admin area, is the directory you're uploading to the one that it tells you to?
4117
« on: August 31, 2013, 15:08 »
It took me forever to add Lightroom to my workflow, even after I'd switched my RAW processing away from Capture One and DxO Optics to Camera RAW.
However, it was instrumental in me switching from shooting RAW+JPEG to just RAW as dealing with a few quick edits to a batch of RAW files and spitting out some web sized JPEGs became so quick and easy in LR. I still use Photoshop on every stock image I process, but for many quick edits, Lightroom is fast and easy and "good enough".
The performance in Bridge is just awful and LR is much peppier. I don't keyword in LR - although many people do. I like the notion of virtual copies to have a couple of different types of RAW processing on a single file without duplicating anything and being able to compare them side by side. Collections can be helpful to group and organize images.
It took a while to get used to it, and it still has some limitations and quirks I would love to see addressed, but it's been a very useful tool for me.
4118
« on: August 31, 2013, 14:59 »
I now do all my RAW processing in Lightroom, but CS6 camera RAW got a pile of great upgrades to highlight recovery, shadow lightening, automatic CA processing (along with LR 4). Styles on groups has potential to be very useful (i.e. something in the past I've wished they had) but in practice, having lived without it for so long, I've never actually used it in CS6 I don't find any of the new content aware stuff very useful in practice - there are enough flaws in what it does that you have to fix things to clean up after it. And if you're good and fast at doing that, then doing it yourself in the first place is faster. The healing brush is great for sensor spots, but that's several versions ago. I'd still recommend you get CS6 to extend the period you can use a "perpetual license" as long as possible. As OS upgrades come, sooner or later one of them will break something in Photoshop. More likely to break CS5 sooner than CS6 as the former is older.
4120
« on: August 31, 2013, 14:12 »
I would simply do the theme update inside WP admin area. Then activate a standard WP theme (I usually use Twenty Eleven), then re-activate the current (2.6.4) Symbiostock theme and then activate your child theme....
Is it required - or even, does it have any effect - to activate the updates to the basic Symbiostock theme after updating to a new version? I'm using Clean Theme 2.0 and so I update the underlying Symbiostock theme but don't do anything else (after the first time where I saw that Activating it replaced CleanTheme as my current theme and I then had to Activate that again). I did a little search on WordPress's help and tutorials and couldn't find anything.
4121
« on: August 31, 2013, 10:41 »
my wrong URL no longer shows up either - I was expecting to see the right one, not blank!
Leo did say that the networking problems (I had) weren't fully solved yet. Perhaps he broke everyone's temporarily?
4122
« on: August 31, 2013, 02:39 »
Now if only those three test purchases that Leo made while fixing this were three real purchases Thanks for that fix.
4123
« on: August 30, 2013, 19:30 »
The current version is 2.6.3. I haven't seen that problem (and don't recall seeing anywhere that you get to set the dimensions of the preview image) so perhaps it's a bug in the version you have?
4124
« on: August 30, 2013, 19:09 »
I did some test purchases yesterday (when I still had 2.6.1) using PayPal's test site. I thought perhaps I'd done something wrong because the purchase appeared to work looking at the PayPal end but nothing moved out of the cart on my site.
I now have 2.6.3 but figured I'd hold off on testing anything again until I get a fix from Leo for the problems relating to my site URL being handled wrong ('cause it's messing up enough things that I considered it might have messed up the PayPal stuff too)
4125
« on: August 30, 2013, 19:00 »
I just signed up for a free 15GB cloud service with copy.com . You can use my referral link below, to get extra 5GB so you'll end up with 20GB space.
That's a lot of space. Depending on your file sizes, it might accommodate a few thousands of images.
https://copy.com?r=v7M1IK
Les
I took a look at their site, but it appears (they are a big short of "Learn more" links and rather oversupplied with "Sign up" ones!) this only handles files you upload to them - like Dropbox - and not automatically backup up a web site's files. I don't want to copy files down from the server and up to a different server if I can find a cloud-to-cloud backup option. Did I misunderstand how Copy works?
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