Flickr Frustrations

Image Source: Pixabay

It’s been a frustrating week for me.

I discovered several days ago that my Flickr was suddenly not working.  Now, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Flickr for a long time.  It started when I opened my Flickr account – something I resisted for a while, because they required both a phone number AND a yahoo account.

I didn’t understand (and still don’t) the need for a phone number and I did NOT want to get a Yahoo account given all their privacy issues and data breeches.  However, I finally caved and set it up.

I was happy with it and all went fine until Smug Mug bought Flickr.  Now, I don’t know much about Smug Mug, but of course they made a bunch of changes.

They changed the number of photos you can post on a free account (completely understandable) and they wanted you to migrate away from your Yahoo account/login.  Again, completely understandable.

Except I was absent for a while and I apparently missed the window to change my email/login for Flickr to something that isn’t Yahoo.  So when I discovered I couldn’t log in, I couldn’t fix anything, because I don’t/didn’t/never have used my Yahoo account that was associated with Flickr.

I researched the issue and tried several different things to no avail, so I contacted their support.  I stated my failure to log in and my inability to access the Yahoo email.  I got a helpful reply – telling me to log into my Yahoo email and follow the link to update my Flickr.

Yes, generic angry lady, this is exactly the face I made. Image Source: Pixabay

So, since Flickr was sooo much help, I decided to just try and see if I could log into my Yahoo account.  Maybe the password was a simple one??  I could try several I remembered and see??

Nope.  Nothing worked.  So I tried the ‘forgot password option.’  I couldn’t use the phone text option, because I haven’t had that number in literally years.  I thought I was completely screwed and would just have to start over on Flickr.  Which, likely, I would have just abandoned.

Thank goodness for past me, who thoughtfully linked a back-up email to that Yahoo account (something I generally don’t do, so past me was feeling super special that day!) and I was able to access that email to reset my Yahoo password, which in turn let me fix my Flickr login.

Whew!  All fixed, right?

I wanted to avoid all this in the future, so I thought, I’ll just update my email on Flickr to my current email address and be done.

Not so fast.

For whatever reason, you cannot just ‘change’ or ‘update’ or even add a second/back-up email on Flickr.

If I want to do that, I have to contact Flickr support.  You know, those people who were so helpful in the first place.  In this day and age, what site doesn’t allow you to update your information?  Especially email addresses?!

Copycats – Flattering or Annoying?

I haven’t posted anything to Flickr in a few weeks, but while I’ve been neglecting my own stream, I have been paying more attention to others.

What I’ve noticed is some people who seem to be copying the styles of other popular SL Flickr photographers.  Not that that is necessarily bad, or that they are doing it to cause problems for the other photographer.

I guess I find myself taken aback because when I see a photo, I think it’s by the photographer I associate with that style, and then realize it isn’t.  Doesn’t mean the photo is bad, just that it feels – wrong?

I don’t want to name names or point fingers, because again, I don’t know that there is any malicious intent behind it.  Maybe they just really like a particular photogs style and want to try and emulate it.

But I have to wonder if those photogs are flattered or frustrated by the copycats.  I know in at least one instance, the original photog felt frustrated because the copycat was not only copying the style but the content of the photo.  Which, again, could be a way to build your skills, but certainly comes across as disingenuous.

Have you had anyone copy your photos?  How did you feel about it?

Second question: What is with all the photos that appear to be taken portrait, but then turned to landscape when posted to Flickr?  I end up tilting my head trying to make sense of the images.  Is there a memo I missed somewhere that said this is the new ‘thing’ in photography?

The End of 21 Shoe

21Shoe is closing?! *sobs*
With all the frustration and lag that accompanies the many events in SL (like C88 or FaMESHed), I wonder why mainstore shopping isn’t more of a thing? Would you rather shop at an event (with many designers in one place) or at a mainstore? Why?

Moni's World

It is with a sad shoe-loving’ heart that I tell you all that 21 Shoe is closing. According to the website:

Dear 21Shoe Fans,

We are sorry to announce the closing of the 21Shoe Event. We have loved every minute of bringing you some of the best SL designers in all their exclusive goodness. We hope you’ll continue to support SL designers at their main store locations and continue to spoil your toes with all the grid has to offer.

As a farewell, some of our designers will be putting up one last 21Shoe offering for July, but we will not be able to offer a catalog of those offerings. Please watch group notices for more information directly from these vendors!(read more here)

So one of the designers that is offering something for a final farewell is Essenz.

Hi all,

I’m happy that Essenz could have been a…

View original post 94 more words

Days 11-16 with the Artiste

Image Source: http://www.eventective.com

This will be my last post about my first days with the Artiste.

I’ve learned a ton, but there are still hundreds of features I haven’t even touched on yet.

I hope to be posting some videos in the coming weeks to demonstrate what I’ve accomplished so far and what I hope to accomplish as time goes on.

Day 12:

I learned how to use the Director to control the curtain.  Also learned how to add the command into my autofx nc.  Decided to make an event 0 so I can fade the curtain at the beginning of the routine.  When you use an event 0, you also have to turn on AutoPrePostAutoFx in the *config nc.

Again, ran out of time to do much else.

Days 13 and 14:

I was so busy with various projects that when I snuck a few moments to work with the Artiste, I forgot to keep notes.  Sigh.

Day 15:

After realizing I forgot to keep any notes from the previous days, I sat down to try and remember all the stuff I learned.  I started working on another routine after scrapping my original idea.  I need to fade another object at the beginning of the routine, so put that fade and the curtain on event 0.  Because I added an event 0, I changed SeqOnPlay from 1 to 0 so the sequence won’t start immediately when I press play.

The routine I am working on is a duet, so I need to have each dancer doing a separate sequence.  I read through the grouping manual and figured out what command I needed on the autofx to make each dancer dance a different sequence.  The only mistake I made was to leave the number of dancers at 6, because I had the division set as HALF.  So in that case, 3 dancers do sequence A, 3 dancers do sequence B.  So I need ALT as the division with only 2 dancers.

Started discussing with Yummy things I could ‘add’ to the routine.  I wanted to add some lighting and had tried making a few lights with some palettes.  However, I ended up frustrated because it wouldn’t stay the color I was setting it to, and I couldn’t figure out why.  Turns out there is a default color setting parameter in the palette nc – once I changed that to ‘none,’ it worked perfectly.

I had also tried to make smoke using the palette’s built-in function.  I couldn’t get it to work.  After talking to Yummy, there was a problem in the code somewhere, so she found it and fixed it.  An updated palette later – voilá – smoke.  🙂  After reading through the updated manual, I also discovered that I could use one palette for both fire and smoke.  The fire is an animated texture (also built-in to the palette), and the smoke is a particle effect, so I can do both with only one palette.  Nifty!

When I couldn’t get the built-in smoke effect to work, I decided to make some myself.  Part of the Performer Series is a coupon for a free particle generator.  I have tried several, but this one is pretty easy to use/learn.  It also has a few ready-to-go effects, including smoke.  So I got the script, and dropped it in the palette (I deleted the 11-01B particle script in the palette, because it’s no-mod, and substituted my script).  Did the same thing with a fire particle effect, and added the start/stop commands to my autofx.

I tried to show Yummy what I was trying to do, but I couldn’t get the particle effects to fire.  Apparently there was a another bug, so she headed off to fix that.

I decided to go back to the palette manual and see what other ‘tricks’ I could add to the routine.  Decided to add in a ‘tip’ it.  I still need to go back and work on the events timing, because everything isn’t gelling the way I want it to.  The curtain is a slow fade, and other things are happening before it completely fades out, which isn’t what I want.

Day 16:

Today was a very frustrating day.  I added in my ‘tip’ command.  For some reason, it tipped me 180 degrees instead of 90.  So, I reset the palettes, and it worked fine.  I decided to try and film some short, quick, how-to videos on using the palettes to make smoke and fire.  I was filming on a platform and kept getting a weird script error.  Turns out it was because I had the anchor rezzed below – it was trying to let me know the palettes were too far away.  Doh!

Got the smoke video made.  Tried to film the fire one, but was having no luck.  So Yummy came to trouble-shoot.  While she was doing that, I decided to work on the routine again.  After about 20 failed attempts to get the curtain to fade, I am ready to pull my hair out and throw the HUD across the room.

Yummy to the rescue – again.  She realized that I had a problem with my events.  After reviewing my events and autofx, discovered I was giving the HUD conflicting commands.  So I deleted one of the commands and tried again.

No curtain fade.

It worked yesterday, what I have done since then to screw it up?  Then Yummy asked if I was logged into the Director.  Sigh.

No.  So, I logged into the Director and crossed my fingers it would work this time.

Nope.

I was getting so frustrated, so Yummy said to give her some time to see if there was a bug.  After a day of failures, I decided to log out and work on other projects.

However, I was determined to figure it out, so I logged back in several hours later to try again.  Yummy had left a message that she had found the problem and was working on a fix.  I will need an updated HUD, so I will wait until tomorrow.  I am going to get this!!