Cem_Usakligil
Well-known member
Hi folks,
I have been wrestling with this dilemma for a while. Let me explain:
My galleries are hosted on SmugMug.com for a year now. Not much to complain about their service so far, except for the fact that the web browsing performance is not very good (i.e. pictures load slowly). I have got the power account that costs me USD 60 a year. I also bought the nifty utility Star*Explorer created by Nik Sklobovsky to upload my pictures. Star*Explorer works great BTW, certainly recommended to all SmugMug users.
Now OTOH, I also have a high-end web hosting subscription for my domains, which includes a fully customizable LAMP server. I already pay for this hosting dearly and will continue to do so. ATM, all it does is simple web serving, mail serving and forwarding. It is grossly under-used. I can put Gallery2 or something similar on my own web site and host my photos there. Firstly, that would save me the yearly USD 60 I have to pay to SmugMug. Also this scheme would be much more flexible, I'd have better control over the layout and structure of my galleries.
The most important issue, however, is the fact that the longer I use SmugMug, the more dependent I become on them. Consider this: I have so far posted some 80 pictures here on OPF (and many more on some other forums). Those pictures' links are hard coded to the SmugMug URL addresses. The moment I cancel my subscription, none of my pictures will be visible to the readers any longer. If I had used my own domain URL addresses to link to the photos, I'd never have this problem. I could then easily move my web site around to any hosting provider or use my own servers. There would be no consequences.
So the logic and the economics both dictate that I move my photos to my own web (hosting) servers now. That way, I can limit the damages yet to be incurred.
You see why I had to get this off my chest. Soon, all my pictures here at OPF will suddenly disappear into thin air. I doubt whether Asher or Nicolas can help me with this, but there is way too much search and replace involved and it will be a big hassle I'm sure. Even if they'd be willing to help me, I personally don't have the time to map all individual images from their new locations into old URLs, not in the short term anyway.
Sorry about this :-(.
Regards,
I have been wrestling with this dilemma for a while. Let me explain:
My galleries are hosted on SmugMug.com for a year now. Not much to complain about their service so far, except for the fact that the web browsing performance is not very good (i.e. pictures load slowly). I have got the power account that costs me USD 60 a year. I also bought the nifty utility Star*Explorer created by Nik Sklobovsky to upload my pictures. Star*Explorer works great BTW, certainly recommended to all SmugMug users.
Now OTOH, I also have a high-end web hosting subscription for my domains, which includes a fully customizable LAMP server. I already pay for this hosting dearly and will continue to do so. ATM, all it does is simple web serving, mail serving and forwarding. It is grossly under-used. I can put Gallery2 or something similar on my own web site and host my photos there. Firstly, that would save me the yearly USD 60 I have to pay to SmugMug. Also this scheme would be much more flexible, I'd have better control over the layout and structure of my galleries.
The most important issue, however, is the fact that the longer I use SmugMug, the more dependent I become on them. Consider this: I have so far posted some 80 pictures here on OPF (and many more on some other forums). Those pictures' links are hard coded to the SmugMug URL addresses. The moment I cancel my subscription, none of my pictures will be visible to the readers any longer. If I had used my own domain URL addresses to link to the photos, I'd never have this problem. I could then easily move my web site around to any hosting provider or use my own servers. There would be no consequences.
So the logic and the economics both dictate that I move my photos to my own web (hosting) servers now. That way, I can limit the damages yet to be incurred.
You see why I had to get this off my chest. Soon, all my pictures here at OPF will suddenly disappear into thin air. I doubt whether Asher or Nicolas can help me with this, but there is way too much search and replace involved and it will be a big hassle I'm sure. Even if they'd be willing to help me, I personally don't have the time to map all individual images from their new locations into old URLs, not in the short term anyway.
Sorry about this :-(.
Regards,