The Dark Side of the Flickr Acquisition

January 31, 2007

Yahoo’s making some evil changes at Flickr, so Flickr refugees have been emailing other photo sharing companies looking for discounts. SmugMug’s offering 50% off. Will others follow suit?

read more | digg story


Boise State - 2007 Fiesta Bowl Champions!

January 3, 2007

The new year could not have been brought in with a bigger bang! Boise State University played Oklahoma State in the 2007 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona, on January 1, 2007. If you missed this game, shame on you! What you missed was one of the greatest college football games in the history of the sport. We have finally earned some respect. I’m still reeling from the excitement as is the entire community of Boise and the state of Idaho. What a game, what a game! As a BSU football season ticket holder, all I can say is, I can hardly wait for next football season!!

Congratulations Broncos!!!

Broncos on the Blue!


One Of My True Great Loves

December 1, 2006

For the first time in my life, I found myself without a dog, and the urge to fill that void was too strong for me to ignore. I missed the companionship, friendship, and total unconditional love that comes from having a pet.

I made my way to the pet store, and this is what greeted me when I walked in:

Keesha

That was it for me. There was no question but that she was to be part of our family. She was coming home with me.

That was almost 14 years ago. Her name is Keesha. A beautiful Keeshond who soon became one of the great true loves of my life. We lost Keesha a few days ago. The bladder cancer she had been diagnosed with about a year ago finally was too much for her. My daughter and I made the decision that we had to let her go. In all of my years, this was the single hardest thing I have ever had to do.

Rest in peace my sweet girl. You will forever be missed and will always be loved.

Keesha / January 9, 1993 - November 28, 2006

The Rainbow Bridge - Author unknown

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge. When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor, those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing — they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind. They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent, his eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face, your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together …


Pug Halloween Party

October 29, 2006

Well, all I can say is, if you have never been to a Pug Halloween Party, you have no idea what you’re missing! Our local Pug Meetup Group had their annual Halloween Party on Saturday, October 28th. I would say 50 or 60 Pugs and their owners is a great turnout! My daughter made a great point: It was very therapeutic; just made you stand there and smile. If you were able to attend this and not smile, there is something seriously wrong with you!

Fun times! All the photos can be found HERE. Here are a couple of my favorites:

If you’ve got a great costume for your dog already, the next step is to buy a Halloween costumes for yourself!  If you’ve got children you’ll also probably need some great kids costumes such as Pirates of the Caribbean costumes, Star Wars costumes, or superhero costumes.  Halloween gives people (and animals!) of all ages a way to dress up and act out of character for a night.


2007 Calendar

October 29, 2006

Between my day job and my night job, I’m finding it difficult to get much done these days. However, I actually got my 2007 calendar ready earlier this year! Decided to go with a flower theme again. Can never have too many pictures of flowers :)

2007 Calendar - Floral Appeal

A preview is available here. It can be purchased here.

Floral Appeal - Cover


Murphy’s Law

October 14, 2006

So, I have one day off this week - today. Beautiful fall day; gorgeous falls colors outside; perfect photo opportunities! Yes, let’s get outside and take some pictures … something I have not had time to do in over a month. Get ready to go, grab the camera, decided to check the battery to make sure it was full, and to my utter astonishment, my trusty Sony DSC F717 is broken. Nothing in the viewfinder or LCD screen. All displays work; no picture. I felt like crying! Hopefully, the extended warranty I purchased will cover whatever is ailing it. However, I have been thinking for some time about moving up to a DSLR. It’s time. So as soon as possible (read–> as soon as I have the money), I have decided to go with the Canon Rebel XTi. Great reviews, and I think a perfect start to my move up to a DSLR. Very exciting!

So, no autumn pictures today, but managed to dig one up from last year.


SmugMug Updates

August 31, 2006

New features - August 31, 2006

Ok, ok, so we’ve had two releases since I last posted. I’m a slacker - I admit it. Please forgive me.

Of course, that makes it look like we have a huge release today, when really, it’s like 3 releases rolled into one. Here we go:

  • 14-day free trials instead of 7!
  • No credit card required to try SmugMug - friction free signup!
  • Can freely upgrade and downgrade between account levels during trial so you can experience them all.
  • Streamline signup process - takes you right to creating your first gallery instead of making you read a welcome page full of stuff no-one wanted to read.
  • Streamline creating gallery process - take you right to adding photos after creating a gallery, rather than dumping you on a new empty gallery.
  • Theme preview on gallery creation!
  • Upgraded the Universal Drag & Drop uploader to show both a per-photo and a per-batch status bar.
  • New Pro Pricing tool. Much faster, AJAX’d, new gradient design. Quickly price groups of products, including highlighting the ones you’ll be changing.
  • Bulk Pro Pricing - price all your galleries at once.
  • Tweaked the PhotoRank algorithm to be more fair.
  • Added ‘quick pricing’ when creating a gallery for Pros.
  • Added ‘create category’ when creating a gallery.
  • Added ‘create subcategory’ when creating a gallery.
  • Added YUI includes on all pages, rather than just some, for all of our hackers to really play with.
  • Show filenames in cart and pro order summaries.
  • Added the ability for customers to reset their Print Order password.
  • Made the upload log show only last 24 hours by default, with options to expand to recent week or month.
  • Fixed watermark fade previewer.
  • Updated the cart and catalogs to be more clear about which print sizes belong to with categories. Got rid of ‘xD’ on print size names - no-one knew what they were anyway.
  • Cancelling out of customize gallery and bulk settings now puts you back in the right place every time.
  • Setting your preferences to ‘Original’ no longer destroys Filmstrip style.
  • Made PhotoRank votes on tiny images get discarded so Popular Photos doesn’t fill up with junk.
  • Fixed sending Pro Sales emails to non-Pro users. Ooops.
  • Pro sales emails didn’t have proper totals. Oops.
  • Use the customer’s first & last names, instead of ‘A customer ordered’ in Pro sales emails.
  • Allowed setting a $0 download price (to disable it).
  • Couldn’t add to the shopping cart when only digital downloads were available (no prints).
  • Render tiny PNG transparent watermarks on-the-fly so they look better when doing custom watermarks.
  • Copying Pro pricing from one gallery to another didn’t work for digital download prices.
  • Fixed a browsing bug in SmugMug style on popular, dates, and keywords.
  • Replaced missing “map this” button on some pages.
  • Fixed bogus error message when attempting to upgrade from Pro.
  • Deleting a single photo somehow got broken. Fixed.
  • Fixed small bugs in Old Family Album, Longest Yard, Christmas, Sand, and Bon Voyage themes.
  • Fixed returning from customizing your geography.
  • Fixed a bug where orders with prints from multiple Pros and Proof-Delay could result in one Pro shipping the order before the other Pro was done.