If like me Photobucket (I won’t even link to the trash) has shafted you by deciding to effectively take ownership of your photographs and content – and break who knows how many of your internet links, whether they be on social media, blogs, albums from yesteryear – we are running out of time until their next shafting!
It is a long story behind this saga but it can basically be summed up as follows – of course this is just my opinion – but here goes…
The Photobucket Story So Far:
Photobucket Got Greedy.
Photobucket froze millions of users out of their accounts – then decided to charge extortionate prices to let people back in. In the region of $400 a year to be a Premium member! Or if you didn’t want to be Premium you could pay $99 / year to be ‘allowed’ to link to your own photos elsewhere – such as on this blog! The result was the internet became flooded with this image :
Photobucket held the internet to ransom in 2017 – 2019
The internet obviously reacted with fury as billions of images had just been effectively deleted. Well established forums lost years of valuable photos and posts – imagine a Tutorial on a car site with no photos – that is the reality! Only that car site with the tutorial – was actually millions of sites and millions of tutorials, threads, content that could never be replaced. Original Posters (OPs) abandoned threads, abandoned writing content, it was a disaster for many really decent sites – all Photobuckets fault.
Photobucket reacted – they allowed the ‘hotlinking’ of images again – and the internet got its content back – but honestly the damage was done. There was a caveat though – the images were only back temporarily. The Photobucket fat cats decided to give users a ‘grace period’ to get their accounts in order and more importantly pay up!
Photobucket Price Plans 2019
If you didn’t pay up you went to a free account – which they claim to be approximately 250 images.
To be fair – at those prices I would have paid. But the disgraceful, underhanded behaviour displayed by Photobucket means I never will!
Important Information for anyone using ‘Evolution Camping’ in 2019 :
Some very unfortunate news coming out of the Isle of Man tonight in relation to Evolution Camping, which no doubt will have an impact and a resultant loss for many visitors to the island for this year’s TT Festival…
Hopefully this will come to a satisfactory conclusion for all those affected. If you are affected make sure to contact the Isle of Man Police and please share this information so that a full and accurate case can be presented against any offender(s).
The 2019 Premier League of Darts lineup has been announced.
As is now the tradition, at the end of the World Championship of Darts, Barry Hearn gets a little extra TV face time to announce the lineup for the upcoming Premier League of Darts. Here it is :
2019 Premier League of Darts Lineup
So two new faces, Michael Smith, the World Championship finalist gets a well deserved spot after an epic showing in the ‘Worlds’ and James Wade returns to the Premier League, hopefully in a better place than he was towards the end of his world championship.
Thankfully we will get to see Barney in the Premier League for one final season before his planned retirement, as he picks up a Sky TV wildcard for the Tournament.
Hopefully Price will modify his behaviour this year, because to be honest, I quite like the guy. Check him out on Twitter – he seems a decent lad off the stage, but on the stage, in front of the cameras he is just too hard to stomach, getting on like a truly magical sac. Thank goodness for Sky Plus and the Fast Forward button!
All in all though the lineup looks good, and will hopefully lead to some great Thursday night viewing.
The great news Apple & Amazon Echo / Alexa users have wanted for what seems like eternity has arrived!
As an Apple Music subscriber, a HomePod user, and having an Echo, numerous Echo Dots and an Echo Spot splattered about the house, all I can say is ‘Finally!’
Apple and Amazon have just announced that Apple Music will launch on Echo devices beginning the week of December 17. In a blog post, Amazon explains that Apple Music subscribers will be able to ask Alexa to play their favorite songs, artist, playlists, Beats1 radio stations, and albums, all through an Echo speaker.
One example they give is the command, “Alexa, play Bebe Rexha on Apple Music.”
Apple Music is coming to Amazon Echo Devices
The integration will launch as an Apple Music skill that will need to be enabled within the Alexa app, where users will also be able to link their account to start listening to Apple Music on an Echo speaker. Apple Music will join the ranks of a few other music streaming services already supported on Echo, including Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Pandora.
UPDATE : 05/12/2018 : I have managed to bring my image count to under 1000 on the Flickr platform. That should mean the rest of the galleries are safe, however I will be moving them all off Flickr. Their unbelievable greed has made them a non-entity of a platform to me. Good luck to all who continue to use it, but honestly there are alternatives!
Flickr 1000 image limit
First it was Photobucket – now Flickr has went down the pay to use model and has DOUBLED its prices from its previous Pro Option.
That puts it out of my price band – and means I need to find an alternative.
Remember this is not a commercial blog and is funded from my own pocket.
After a couple of days of testing and setting it up I believe I have got it so that I can link Google Photos Galleries into my posts. Hopefully. Please Google – stay blog friendly! Please!
Apple have just had their special event – the one the world has been talking about since the last one. The new iPhones (iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max and iPhone XR) were announced at the last one, this time the hype has centred around new iPads, new Macs, a new Apple Pencil, and the possibility of a new Mac Mini.
Well lots happened in New York so if you missed the live stream here’s all the announcements and what to expect from Apple in the not too distant future.
Apple Event – October 2018
First we were welcomed to New York in typical style – as it happens I also happens I like New York!
Invitations for the Apple October 2018 Event have been sent out. It will happen on 30th October 2018 in Brooklyn, New York .
There’s more in the making.
The invitations this time are a little bit special (they always have hidden messages and clues as to what to expect). This time though there are at least 18 individual art works for the invitations – a new one appearing each time the invitation reloads!
UPDATE : The previous estimate was grossly underestimated there are (so far) 370 confirmed unique designs!
See the end of this post for all the confirmed designs so far…
Say NO to the eBay Scalpers. It is the only way to beat them.
Playstation 4 Pro 500 Million Limited Edition Pre-Order Problems: If you are a keen gamer there is a good chance you found yourself in the position hundreds of us found ourselves yesterday and today. That is without a Sony Playstation 4 Pro 500 Million Limited Edition Console.
What is a Sony Playstation 4 Pro 500 Million Limited Edition?
Basically it is a special edition Playstation 4 Pro that celebrates the fact that Sony have now sold 500,000,000 Playstation consoles. They have limited this edition to a mere 50,000 units globally making it actually pretty limited. Limited of course means desirable to gamers, and unfortunately desirable to gamers means desirable to scalpers, or as I will refer to them from this point onwards – scumbags.
What’s so special about it?
To be honest thats a difficult question. You can regularly and easily pick up a PS4 Pro for about £300 in a bundle. This edition is £450, but comes with a camera, an upgraded 2TB hard drive and is housed in an awesome looking translucent blue case, each one individually numbered. If you don’t understand the appeal then this probably isn’t the article for you and you’d be best just moving on to the next one. If you do get it, or at least think you get it, have a look at this – I’m sure you will agree it is special!
I would just like to put a quick note of thanks out there to all my regular visitors, and my new, for popping into the site over the 2018 TT Festival period.
The TT Period is always a busy one for the website but this year’s race week brought unprecedented visitors to the site.
