Author Archives: John

OfotoExpress Update

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Following my last reply to Kodak Gallery’s customer support I received a reply that actually contained information (reproduced below). I am not sure whether it was posting the article on the blog or copying their PR department that prompted a response that was both more informative and much quicker than before.

The upshot is that the OfotoExpress tool was broken for people who have more than 100 albums by the recent site updates. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to know when they will have a fix for it. Read the response from Kevin C. after the jump.

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Photo ID and False Security

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I’ve noticed that more and more people are now asking for photo ID, supposedly for my security. This afternoon it was my apartment complex management, so I could exchange my old ‘X’ key for a new one (they changed the locks last week).

I was told the ID check was needed for my security. The key in question opens a few perimeter gates, the pool gates and the laundry room. The perimeter is not even fully fenced – there is even an open walkway right past the leasing office front door, and a driveway for cars behind it. The few gates that have locks rarely close on their own, so the key is not really needed (I don’t think I’ve used the locked perimeter gates more than a couple of times in the 8 years I’ve been here). If you forget the key, you only have to walk 50 yards to a gate-free entrance. The pool wall is low enough that kids climb over it all the time. That leaves the laundry room… hardly a threat to my security (and often propped open anyway during the day to ventilate it).

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Kodak EasyShare Gallery

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Want to know how to wreck a pioneering web service in three easy steps? Kodak knows, and they’ve executed the plan perfectly with what was once the premier internet photo sharing and printing service, formerly known as Ofoto.

Back in 1999 Ofoto appeared as one of the first photo sharing and printing services. Snappy name, simple business model, and simple to use thanks to upload tools which avoided the problems of trying to upload multiple files through a web browser.

In June 2001, Kodak bought Ofoto. At first not much changed. A small icon appeared on the site denoting that it was a Kodak company, but nothing else changed. Then, in 2005, they started to destroy the service:

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Peralta Returns

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Funny thing coincidence; I was talking with a friend yesterday morning on our ferry ride from Alameda to the city about the pending return of Peralta, the larger and faster ferry that was sent away for some pretty serious warranty returns (seems the shipbuilders used the wrong metal for the hull). Today she was there at the dock in Alameda.

SF TechConnect Blocking Port 80

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Two nights in a row now I have tried to get on the SF TechConnect wireless network at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, only to find that they are blocking access to the web (i.e. connections on port 80). Seems to be intentional since I was able to establish an ssh connection without any problems.

It will be a shame if this is a permanent change as it was very pleasant being able to get cup of coffee from Peets in the ferry building and then sit and check email, surf the web or connect back to my desktop and work (guess I can still do this part as long as they don’t block port 22 as well).

Unknown Bird

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Oakland BirdComing out of the Phnom Penh restaurant in Oakland (which is an excellent Cambodian place in case you’re interested), I saw this bird sitting on a commercial bin. He let me take one shot relatively close up with my Nokia phone camera, then jumped down onto the road where I got this not-so-close shot.

Anybody got any idea what it is? There are three more photos on Flickr, but two are “in flight” shots where it jumped just as I was pressing the shutter release.

Skype Calls Fail

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So, they claim that all calls from US/Canada to US/Canada numbers (landline or mobile) will be free. And, sure enough when I tried to call my home number earlier this morning it rang.

Next I tried calling a Canadian number that was in my contact list: Call failed. So, I tried a US mobile number. That worked. I delete the contact from my list and try again, but it still knows the name I had associated with the number. Exit Skype and restart it. Now I can call the number in Canada. Annoying, but I guess it was free (the quality was pretty poor too, although the call to the US number was OK, so perhaps that was a problem at the other end, which happens to also be a VoIP service number).

A couple of hours later I try to make another call to a US landline: Call failed. So, I retry the call to my home number: Call failed. I don’t even know for certain whether people could have called me; since I could not call out, perhaps I was actually off the network?

Conclusion: I will stick with GizmoProject, which has worked flawlessly for me on Linux and MacOS as well as with hardware ATA and SIP phones. It might not be free to call US numbers, but at least I know the call will connect, and the voice quality will be acceptable. I keep seeing people in the Gizmo forum claim that Skype is better, but I’m not seeing it. Coupled with all the problems its architecture can impose (you give them permission to use your computer and bandwidth when you sign up), I don’t see any reason to stick with Skype.