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Monday 30 June 2014

BE WARNED !!!!!! - on 30th June, 2014

Another blogger has fallen into the omnipotent Picasa trap. I'm sure that many of you will be aware of this already, but just in case you are not here's the basics (for basics is all that I can offer).

I you use Blogger for your blog - and I guess that both my readers probably do - you will probably be uploading your images to Picasa (even if you don't know it, you probably are!). This is where the images that appear on your blog are stored, and if you delete the images on Picasa, you'll also irretrievably remove them from your blog posts - past and present.

OK, so so far that doesn't sound too dramatic, but here's the rub. The chances are that you possibly also use a smartphone and/or a tablet. I can only offer advice from an Android point of view (I'm talking O/S here, and not suggesting that I'm not a biological product!), but if you look at the 'Gallery' app. on your device, you'll probably notice that all your blog images are neatly stored here. WELL, THEY'RE NOT !!!! These are only links to the the images stored in the clouds with Picasa. Delete these from your device and you can say goodbye to them forever - everywhere! If you see that the folder with the images has a depiction of a rainbow-coloured camera iris, leave it alone!!! That's the Picasa logo. I'm not sure about this next suggestion, and I'm not about to take any chances by trying it, but it may be that it only happens if you are a Google + user.

I was fortunate enough to hear of this problem before I joined the smartphone/tablet set so, thankfully haven't fallen into the trap - yet! - No telling what I'll do as I advance further into my dotage!

Whilst on the subject of warnings, the week before last I bought one of the the Wildlife Cameras that Aldi were selling for GBP 69.99. To match the spec. of this camera you'd probably have to pay three times this, or more, elsewhere. The offer was so good that they'd sold out in the first day. Sadly, mine was faulty and has had to be sent away. However, whilst trying it out I did capture (nearly) this (shown below) with the camera at 00.55 one morning. Until now I'd been totally unaware that a Fox had entered our garden, or even could enter our garden. I wonder what visits your garden/back yard, without you knowing about it!

Fox - our garden
It'll probably be back to the owls with the next post .

Thank you for dropping by.

16 comments:

  1. oh, oh guess what this android user did for his swallow post the other day. Just checked and they're still stored..phew , thanks for the warning.

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    Replies
    1. Sounds as if you might have had a lucky escape, Doug!

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  2. Excellent bit of advice/info for everyone to heed Richard. Google are a pain in the rear, they think they are doing everyone a favour in places like Picasa where they store your images and also poke their noses into them and store silly things like faces taken from images, I have hundreds of them, just faces of people most of who I don't know but just happened to be in the shot. I don't want them and they also clog up your computer with rubbish you just do not want. You've already issued the warning but I'm going to repeat it again if that's OK with you Richard....

    DON'T SEND TO THE BIN ANY ALBUMS STORED IN GOOGLE + PHOTOS, 'COS THEY'LL BE REMOVED FROM ANYWHERE AND ANYTHING ELSE ON YOUR COMPUTER FOR EVER.

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  3. Thank you Richard for the heads up,well noted.
    John.

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    1. You're welcome, John. A couple of years back one person, who's photography was superb, had this problem and was so (understandably) upset that he gave up blogging. I'd hate to lose anyone else through this!

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  4. Replies
    1. Sorry to take so long to publish your comment, David. The results of anyone falling into this trap can be devastating to them.

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  5. WOW, what a post about Picasa and the disappearing pics you post through Blogger!
    I use only my tablet to store a few pics, it serves me as a business card somewhat!
    Your picture of that fox is amazing, I have never tried to leave a camera at night in the garden!
    Your comment really made me laugh, Richard, I am surprised at how young you are!!!! LOL!!!

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    Replies
    1. I'm hoping to get better out of that camera when it comes back, Noushka. The Fox image was a cropped grab from a video sequence that was only triggered as the fox left the frame - hence the missing bit. For night vison video, I don't think the quality is too bad. If only I can get it to do what I want it to do, when I want to do it.

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  6. What a cool photo! I only have racoons, skunks, squirrels and rabbits in my yard as far as I know.
    I transfer my photos from my iPad to my computer hard drive before I upload them on my blog.

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    1. We should all keep back-ups of our photos, etc., Karen. However, the sheer effort of loading images back into Picasa, and then trying to sort out what images belong to what posts, and where in the posts - maybe going back quite a few years - is not something one is likely to do. For me, my blog is a bit like keeping a journal, and sometimes I go back over my posts. I'd hate to have my 'journal' destroyed.

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  7. I must admit I would like one of these cameras for my garden, I often wonder who is wandering around in my garden at night. A couple of years ago I bought some pond weed for my pond, four bunches of them. A few days later I noticed there was only two bunches in the pond and a couple more days later all the pond weed was gone! So, who, I wonder is eating my pond weed, I can only think it must have been a deer, coming for a drink and decided to eat the pond weed that I had only just bought.

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    1. Apart from the fact that the one I bought was faulty, Linda, I was very impressed by the quality of the images it produced. The still images are even better than the fox image that I 'grabbed' from a movie that I shot and then cropped down. If Aldi have that offer on again, I should go for one!

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  8. Some sound advice there buddy, but what do you mean by "gallery app"?? I use an iphone 4S and don't have that on it?

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    1. Sorry Paul but, as mentioned above, I've no knowledge of the Apple O/S. There's a good chance, however, that if you look in the place where photos go when you take them with your phone (if you ever do?) you might find some photos that you recognise as having been posted on your blog, together with your profile photo, etc. This is where you need to be careful about deleting them. I hope this makes sense, but give me a bell if you want to discuss. All the best - - Richard. P.S. I'm now finding juvenile LOs all over the place - how about you?

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