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AppleFan360

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jan 26, 2008
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I recently moved to iCloud but am keeping my MobileMe active (for now).

I have a website on iDisk along with lots of photos and videos in my gallery.

What should I move them to before next June? What are the best services out there?

Thanks.
 
I'd go with SquareSpace for hosting, but that may be overkill if you're getting by with iDisk at the moment. DropBox, box.net, and SpiderOak seem to be the big online storage options, but I'd recommend staying away from DropBox because of the larger implications of their recent series of security blunders. Personally, I'm hoping iDisk will be revived in some form before they flip the switch on MobileMe; if not, there are a bunch of generic WebDAV hosts out there.
 
box.net are giving away free 50 gb accounts (for life) if you sign up through their ios app ;)
 
gallery

I'm really going to miss gallery, I use it a lot, easy to setup from iphoto for family/friends photo sharing, access controls, uploading full res copies, etc. I'm not really sure WHY apple is choosing to get rid of it.
 
I'm really going to miss gallery, I use it a lot, easy to setup from iphoto for family/friends photo sharing, access controls, uploading full res copies, etc. I'm not really sure WHY apple is choosing to get rid of it.
I agree. I'm a bit irritated with Apple about dumping gallery. Like you, I use it all the time for sharing photos and videos. Plus I can password protect them so only certain people see them. Very convenient.
 
I'm really going to miss gallery, I use it a lot, easy to setup from iphoto for family/friends photo sharing, access controls, uploading full res copies, etc. I'm not really sure WHY apple is choosing to get rid of it.

same here, I use gallery a lot - for the same reasons you mention

I've moved over to iCloud for all the other services, and for now will continue using Gallery w/ iPhoto until I decide on a replacement - I'm glad iPhoto 9.2 still supports MobileMe Gallery. I don't use iDisk - for some reason it has always been soooo slow that it was always unusable. I use Dropbox and recently signed up for that 50GB box.net promo too

thinking of Smugmug to replace Gallery, seems to have most of what I need and is cheaper than MobileMe used to be. Photo galleries & templates there seem to have a real pro look to them, compared to some other sites.

someone on the Macbreak weekly podcast recently mentioned another new free photo sharing site called ZangZing - it also looks good but I guess it's some new startup so I kinda worry about long term reliability. anybody here tried them out?

p.s. a similar thread discussing Gallery replacements, here
 
I got the impression that ZangZing was specifically aimed at allowing multiple people to pool their photos from a single event, rather than general use. There's always Flickr or Photobucket , but I don't use either.
 
I joined Flickr a while back when I heard MobileMe was ending. As yet, I have no idea what I'll use instead of iDisk (which I use a lot and have over 50GB stored there).

I guess I'll just let my iWeb site die as I don't update it anymore.
 
I got the impression that ZangZing was specifically aimed at allowing multiple people to pool their photos from a single event, rather than general use. There's always Flickr or Photobucket , but I don't use either.

that feature - allowing friends/family to post to your gallery - is a feature I use in Gallery, but it seems to be missing at Smugmug. that's what caught my attention with Zangzing, but I've not yet looked into how it fares at general use as permanent home for personal albums. it does seem to have per-album privacy settings, as do Smugmug and Gallery

I don't like the "look" of how photos are displayed at Flickr or Photobucket (I do have a Flickr account that I seldom use)
 
I've used SmugMug for many years and can recommend the service.

I also read where you can put your web pages on Dropbox and configure them to work there, but didn't keep the link. Maybe someone else?
 
I use iDisk mainly to store and send shared links to Audio projects which I upload as archived ZIP files. These range from single song mixes to AiFF files, stems and ProTools sessions etc.

There's also the option with iDisk that colleagues can upload to your public folder.

This method of sending and sharing music data is pretty much the lingua franca of the pro music community.

I like the fact that with iDisk, anyone can download from the shared link - they don't need an iDisk account. However, my understanding is that shared files on Dropbox require both sender and receiver to have a Dropbox account.

YouSendit and similar services work for sending files but they delete the files after a certain period, whereas iDisk is also an online storage solution.

So, at the moment, as slow as iDisk is, it's still the best all round solution for me. Unfortunately, thanks to iCloud, it won't be for much longer.
 
Yeah that is one of the PITA bits of DropBox, if I want to share a folder everyone who wants access needs a DropBox account. From a business POV I understand why they force this, but from a paid user POV I do not like it. I feel, if you are a PAID user you should be able to share folders to anyone and not require them to have a DropBox account.
 
DropBox is too convenient for me, though for really critical things (i.e. identity theft type things) I store them local, not in the cloud.
 
Yeah that is one of the PITA bits of DropBox, if I want to share a folder everyone who wants access needs a DropBox account. From a business POV I understand why they force this, but from a paid user POV I do not like it. I feel, if you are a PAID user you should be able to share folders to anyone and not require them to have a DropBox account.

http://www.dropbox.com/help/16

Public links can be shared and accessed by anyone, not just Dropbox users
 
I have replaced iDisk with SugarSync. SugarSync is miles ahead of DropBox in terms of pricing, storage options and features. Plus you get 5GB free instead of 2GB and can still earn more.

I never used the Gallery much as I've been a paid Flickr member for years.

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I like the fact that with iDisk, anyone can download from the shared link - they don't need an iDisk account. However, my understanding is that shared files on Dropbox require both sender and receiver to have a Dropbox account.

SugarSync allows this. You can just send someone the public link to download a file. They don't need anything else, just the link. They will need a SugarSync acct if you want them to be able to upload to it though when you allow add/edit permissions to the folder you share with them.

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http://www.dropbox.com/help/16

Public links can be shared and accessed by anyone, not just Dropbox users

Complete text from that DropBox link:

Dropbox designates a unique internet link to each file in your Dropbox Public folder. You can send these links to anyone by pasting them into your emails, instant messages, web pages… Any method you like.

First, you'll have to make the file available to anyone by moving the file you want to share to the Public folder located in your Dropbox.

This is not quite the "sharing a link to a file" we're talking about. You have to move or copy a version into a specific folder for someone to be able to access it publicly.
 
http://www.dropbox.com/help/16

Public links can be shared and accessed by anyone, not just Dropbox users

unfortunately Dropbox only lets you share a link to a FILE with non-Dropbox users.

I'm a longtime Dropbox user, and I agree with the previous poster that this is a huge missing feature - Dropbox will not let you publicly share a link to the entire contents of an arbitrary FOLDER.

if you have a whole bunch of files you want to share to non-Dropbox users, you have to put them in your Public folder, then give out the public link to EACH and every file you want to share separately.
 
It seems that I remember reading in an interview of one of the Apple big-wigs (not sure if it was Tim Cook or not) that they "may be open to the idea of extending iCloud to include some missing items like gallery and iDisk if the demand is there"... I just wonder who you would email to or what web form could be filled out that would *really* make a difference (would be read by someone who has the influence).

While I currently do not do much with Gallery, I'm still working on a friend of mine to get him to move over from Windoze, and with his wife being photo-crazy with their kids, the current Gallery would be great for her to spread photos around to the grandparents and all that... Mainly because of the ease-of-use with iPhoto driving it.
 
Meh at this point IMHO even if Apple brought gallery back as a paid add on I would tell them to stick it after forcing me and so many others to move gigs and gigs of data around due to the abandonment of gallery. DropBox is a win win in this case as it has a nice gallery tool and a better iDisk replacement.

You only need to find and easy way to move your pics from the iPhoto library to DropBox and there are several free utilities that do this.

Or PhotoBucket using its iOS and iPhoto plug in which makes it as easy as Gallery on MM to upload pics from camera roll and iPhoto.
 
Feedback

I also gave feedback. Have tried SS based on Apple forum comments. Very disappointed with drawback of orphaned photo files after a hard drive crash. I can't delete them and it's eating up 3 GB of SS storage. SS Support states this is Expected Behavior!
Here's the link to the problem:
http://sugarsync.hivelive.com/posts/2ecdf3f153
 
the newly released iPhoto for iOS has a feature to publish "journals" to iCloud from your iPad or iPhone.

a sample journal I've seen looks a lot like MobileMe galleries, with some added nice formatting features like captions, more flexible layout, maps, etc. Not sure if you have the ability to password protect like in Gallery lets you, but anyhow Journals look interesting. but only iOS, for now...

I wonder...
will some future version of iPhoto or Aperture for OS X also add support for publishing Journals from your Mac? it seems to make sense to add it. maybe this could be a replacement for MM Galleries?
 
unfortunately Dropbox only lets you share a link to a FILE with non-Dropbox users.

I'm a longtime Dropbox user, and I agree with the previous poster that this is a huge missing feature - Dropbox will not let you publicly share a link to the entire contents of an arbitrary FOLDER.

if you have a whole bunch of files you want to share to non-Dropbox users, you have to put them in your Public folder, then give out the public link to EACH and every file you want to share separately.

You could just zip up the files and send a link to that.
 
Didn't the iPad 3 keynote make it clear iPhoto will have the equivalent of Gallery built-in? That makes the gallery question no longer a serious concern.

As for idisk. Hopefully some sort of solution emerges from Apple.

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I wonder...
will some future version of iPhoto or Aperture for OS X also add support for publishing Journals from your Mac? it seems to make sense to add it. maybe this could be a replacement for MM Galleries?

Certainly seems to be exactly what ML is for. Finishing the iCloud integration and adding the rest of the useful iOS features.
 
Didn't the iPad 3 keynote make it clear iPhoto will have the equivalent of Gallery built-in? That makes the gallery question no longer a serious concern.]
yes, you're talking about Journals for iPhoto for iOS - but my point was they've said nothing about same features for iPhoto for the Mac (yet). but if they DO also bring the same Journals feature to OS X, then maybe we have our Gallery replacement.

hopefully it will come to the Mac sooner than the upcoming June 2012 demise of Mobile Me Gallery...
 
Journals

Journals count against iCloud storage and take time to set up. Plus I am not an iPad user. They may be the solution for some but I have found comfort in Smug Mug. It handles my photo and video back up plus allows me to share the photos and albums I want to anyone regardless of whether they are Smug Mug account holders. I have it on auto sync from my WI-FI enabled SD card and it also can be set to sync from iPhoto, Aperture and Photoshop. I liked that I can set up my SD upload to a SmugMug unlisted album and can use any Internet device to sort, move and create public or URL albums. I have unlimited GB for $50 a year and piece of mind that all my photos are backed up in full resolution off site.
My loyalty to Apple has eroded since they stopped MM, iDisk support. They seem much more focused on capturing a new profit market of iPad users.
 
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