Anyone use Fototime for photo hosting?

[BradW]

Looks like Fototime has been down for a week and may be gone for good.

[Gdetrailer]

2oldman wrote:

BobsYourUncle wrote:
I'm going to check it out and figure out how to do it.
Thanks!

See if you can display a google image here.

See if you can access from my links, here is some PDFs from my Google shared docs folder..

Homemade wire lugs..

Click HERE

My TT Rebuild PDF..

HERE

My 8700W gen sound test video (for those folks thinking the muffler is where the sound comes from)

HERE

If you can open up my PDF and video links, pix files will be no issue..

You do not "need" to use Google pix for sharing pictures either.. Just use the Google drive and set for sharing..

May take a couple of tries to get it working as it isn't 100% obvious on how to do it.. Thought about making a doc to show how it is done but by the time I would get it posted Google would most likely have changed how to set it up..

[2oldman]

BobsYourUncle wrote:
I'm going to check it out and figure out how to do it.
Thanks!

See if you can display a google image here.

[AsheGuy]

BobsYourUncle wrote:

Well! How about that one?
I just learned something new.
I have had a Gmail account since its inception, back when you had to have an invite to get an account. And they gave you 10 invites to pass out to other people.
All those years and I did not know until I read this that I could use it that way and hot link to a picture.
I went for years here, and on a photography forum without posting any pics after I took my TT rebuild website down. I used to host my own pics.
I'm going to check it out and figure out how to do it.
Thanks!

Are you serious??? A gmail account is your entry to all Google apps:

• mail.google.com
  
• photos.google.com
  
• drive.google.com
  
• contacts.google.com
  
• calendar.google.com
  
• maps.google.com
  
• news.google.com

All good free apps and accessible on all devices.

For Example...

[BobsYourUncle]

Gdetrailer wrote:


If you are looking for free pictures and document hosting, just setup a GMail account, free version comes with 15GB of online storage and supports hot linking/sharing.

Just setup a folder in the online storage and you can set that folder for sharing without password, now all of the items you place in that folder are shareable and you can generate a hot link for each file or the entire folder.

So far, using Google drive has been the most stable way I have found to share photos and other files that hasn't gone away YET.

Well! How about that one?
I just learned something new.
I have had a Gmail account since its inception, back when you had to have an invite to get an account. And they gave you 10 invites to pass out to other people.
All those years and I did not know until I read this that I could use it that way and hot link to a picture.
I went for years here, and on a photography forum without posting any pics after I took my TT rebuild website down. I used to host my own pics.
I'm going to check it out and figure out how to do it.
Thanks!

[BradW]

I'll give fototime a couple of weeks to come back from the dead or get bought out by someone (both unlikely). After that I'll pick one of the big name sites and start rebuilding what I can of my online albums. It will be relatively easy to rebuild the big albums for vacations, cruises, jeep trips, etc. What will not be possible are all the separate photo links (thousands) in the individual posts I have made over the last 20 yrs.

What surprises me the most is how few complaints I found about fototime shutting their doors. I must have been one of the few people using it. I remember all the crying, whining and gnashing of teeth when photobucket had their problems a few years ago.

[2oldman]

BradW wrote:
I think it was about $35/yr.

Thanks. I've been on ImageEvent for years at roughly the same price.

[BradW]

2oldman wrote:

BradW wrote:
Fototime was a paid site.

How much?

It was different prices for different levels. I probably had 10,000 photos and 20 videos on fototime. I think that was less than half of the storage I was paying for. I think it was about $35/yr.

And we paid $1,100 for our first house. It was a 1953 house trailer made by Pontiac Coach Company. The roof leaked and the floor had a hole big enough that the cat came and went on his own schedule. Life was good in them days. 🙂

[Gdetrailer]

2oldman wrote:

BradW wrote:
Fototime was a paid site.

How much?

Does it really matter if the site is dead?

Most paid online storage will be setup in a "tier" arraignment, starting with the lowest data storage possible, data speed restrictions, simultaneous connections limits (amount of people that can connect at one time). Typically your going to see something like a max of 100GB storage for around $5-$10 per month with 5-10 simultaneous connections with hot link sharing URLs. The price goes up from there with more storage and less limitations.

Compare that to Google drive which comes with a GMail account, they give you 15GB of free online storage which is hot linkable shared and no connection limitations..

Need more, You can upgrade to a PAID account and get more online storage.. Not sure if the prices are current but a while ago, 100 GB was only $1.99 per month with Google drive and they had a max of 30TB you could upgrade to if you needed..

Best bet is to stick to the major "known" players, Google Drive, MS One Drive, Dropbox as those most likely are not going to pack it up and go out for lunch without you.. Although they too can decide to dump any service or feature they like in the future if they feel they are not making enough profit.

As for myself, yeah, I am not in any hurry to pay for an online service since the free Google Drive seems to work fine for me.. You can shrink/resize the photos down to fit a lot more on 15GB of space.. Additionally, there is no limit on Google accounts you can open, just setup another GMail email account and bam, 15 more GB of free space..

On edit, I should also note, that Google Drive, One drive and Dropbox are not limited to photos only, you can put pretty much any data file on those drives, PDFs, DOC files, spreadsheets, photos, Music or video files (your own copyrighted material)..

[2oldman]

BradW wrote:
Fototime was a paid site.

How much?

[Gdetrailer]

BradW wrote:
Fototime was a paid site. Worked great for 20 years.....then POOF!.....GONE!

It must not have been many people using it because I have found very little discussion about it online. I found a little discussion here: https://watchintyme.com/index.php?threads/%F0%9F%93%B8-fototime-down.732644/page-3 That's about it.

Since the Fototime crash I have put some photos up on Google Photo.

As I mentioned, even paid online storage is not a certainty.

Myself, one of the online storage places I was paying for disappeared with no trace one day and gone was the 9 months of paid service that was left that I had paid for (I paid by the year).

Get used to it, you WERE very lucky to get 20yrs out of it as I only got 2.25 yrs out of the paid one I was using.

This is one of many reasons I refuse to depend on online storage for backup anything of my data..

I will say this, if you are planning to go ahead with another paid storage, research it, see if you can locate a real sticks and bricks address with a real working phone number that gets answered by a live body that is inside the USA.. That will eliminate a lot of outside the USA fly by nighters that standup cheap storage, take your money and fold when you are not looking..

[monkey44]

Any time you use photo-hosting, you take the chance it will either stay-up, or go-down. If it's important that you link to sites or family, I'd suggest you put up a website and install your photos. It's not very expensive. Then, you can link them anywhere you want - you can also make it a private site, and then make a share-page for the photos you share or post.

I'm not a tech, so can't explain how, but I do have my own site, and can share if I choose, or not. And unless the entire website host bites the bullet, then mine are as safe as the website. And, yes, I back everything up on SSD too.

[BradW]

Fototime was a paid site. Worked great for 20 years.....then POOF!.....GONE!

It must not have been many people using it because I have found very little discussion about it online. I found a little discussion here: https://watchintyme.com/index.php?threads/%F0%9F%93%B8-fototime-down.732644/page-3 That's about it.

Since the Fototime crash I have put some photos up on Google Photo.

[Gdetrailer]

BradW wrote:
They are all backed up, but that ain't the problem. I have thousands of photo links on the web that are all dead now. Just like the fototime link in my signature. I used fototime for 20 years and never had an issue until a week ago.

Only happened ONCE to you?

You are indeed very lucky.

Myself, have lost PAID and even free online storage three times over the last 10 yrs. Never lost my files as I always keep backup copies off line but it is a irritation losing many hot links to forums that I would rather not try to go back, find and fix..

Online storage comes and online storage goes..

They go belly up, they decide they are not making enough revenue by hosting free storage with hot linking and then they change TOS with no notification..

If you are looking for free pictures and document hosting, just setup a GMail account, free version comes with 15GB of online storage and supports hot linking/sharing.

Just setup a folder in the online storage and you can set that folder for sharing without password, now all of the items you place in that folder are shareable and you can generate a hot link for each file or the entire folder.

So far, using Google drive has been the most stable way I have found to share photos and other files that hasn't gone away YET.

Another possible place is by subscribing to dropbox, not sure if you can generate a hot share link without password though..

[NamMedevac_70]

If you receive no answers here you might try IRV2 and Escapees RV forums and likely one of those can assist you. Good luck

[BradW]

They are all backed up, but that ain't the problem. I have thousands of photo links on the web that are all dead now. Just like the fototime link in my signature. I used fototime for 20 years and never had an issue until a week ago.