patndoris TechnoGeek

For the last couple of years, I’ve had a free account with both Flickr and Photobucket.  They both have their advantages, but lately I’ve had the nagging feeling I should be trying to consolidate my photos into one site.  Managing accounts on two sites is becoming tiresome. (Yep! That translates to "I’ve got the urge to get into something else to take up more of my time because I don’t already have enough on my plate.” Or maybe I just need something new to keep my mind off other things, who knows…) After some serious consideration of both sites (yes the pluses and the minuses), I decided on the Flickr Pro account.

The 200 most recent photo display and limited sets were a drawback of the Flickr free version. Photobucket didn’t have the same limits, but it also doesn’t have what I consider the same reputation either. While both Flickr and Photobucket have good functionality, decent features, nice uploaders available and play well with lots of other sites - the iPhone app for each is what made the difference for me. The Flickr app is much slicker and faster than the Photobucket one. I found the Photobucket app brings up an image as blurry and then focuses it. Depending on network speed at the time, it is an unacceptable quirk for me. I also use Picnik, a great online photo editing site, and it’s set up to integrate directly with Flickr.

So, with my decision made, I went ahead and made the jump last night to charge my credit card and get moving on integrating everything. For the next several weeks (at least) I’ll be working on moving my pictures from one site to the other and getting some other photos uploaded that I may not have shared before. It’s a task in and of itself deciding what to put online, what to make public, how to tag it, etc. Then I may just get back to my existing project of scanning old photos to preserve and share them as well. And just how does any of this relate to Flickroom you ask?  You know - that extension referenced in the post title? Glad you brought that up!

Just the other day I saw a write up about Flickroom.  It’s a beta - but it was compelling enough on the surface that I bookmarked the site and went back to take a look at the application that same night. I already have the Flickr uploader which works well, but this application is a little different. It’s far more than just an uploader. It’s built on the Adobe AIR platform and I’m really impressed with it. The installation is quick and painless (as I’ve found most Adobe AIR applications to be) without a lot of requests to install extra crud or make a lot of choices. The authentication to allow the use of the extension is no more difficult than it is for any other site. I was up and running within a matter of minutes on Flickroom. 

It boasts a dark theme that really allows photos to display well. It’s a nice simple interface and it works as both a photo browser and drag-and-drop uploader (as you would expect). You can view your Photostream (or map), add comments, tags and notes, as well as put photos in to sets or groups, save to disk or Tweet about your photos. Notification of activity on you Photostream is virtually instantaneous.

You can also browse your contacts and groups, or explore all users and mark favorite photos. An interesting feature is a chat room where you can talk to other Flickroom users. I took a quick look (although I didn’t stay to talk) and I’d say there were at least 25 or so users in the chat room on a Saturday afternoon. That’s not a bad ratio if you just want to talk with other users and photo buffs from around the world. I think you’ll enjoy trying out this application as much as I am….though I think mine will be getting more of a workout over the next several weeks. While I’m certainly not going to uninstall my official Flickr Uploader, I really like the Flickroom application. It’s an app I definitely recommend you try out.