Star*Explorer Thread

[Nikolai]

Thanks Nikolai! I love the new album deletion feature!!!! Previously when my better half uploaded, I'd have to do a manual cleanup when he created duplicate albums that were empty. This makes it so much easier! I just tested with the deletion of 100 albums in a category and it worked perfectly!!! The captcha confirmation part was a perfect check too.

I love Star*Explorer and think it's one of the best purchases I've made since becoming a smugmug user. Thanks again!

Kara

Thank you Kara, great to hear! :lust
Keep a watchful eye - more pro features are coming pretty soon... ;-):deal:wink

[Nikolai]

OK folks. It's a big one... :wink

Move Albums (drag and drop)
Delete Albums
Rename Albums
Move Images (drag and drop)
Copy Images (drag and drop with Ctrl)
Delete Images
Hide/Unhide Images
Locate lost images locally
Export Images info in a variety of formats
Smart "get image info"
Multitude of bug fixes, including reliable process cancellation...
New features are availabe via Pro Feature packages (there are three of those) for the Pro License holders, as well as for the owners of the brand new Studio Edition - the latter includes all Pro Edition features, all current and future Pro packages and Premium support.

More packages coming later this year.

Each package is only $4.99 per account.

And for a very limited time - until Jan 15th 2011 - you can purchase two packages and recieve the last one free of charge - that's 33% discount!

Enjoy your new S*E! :clap

[Nikolai]

It was fairly late last night, so I didn't have much time to explain things properly.
Here's a bit more on the new packages and new Studio edition...

S*E Pro Feature Packages



Albums1
Drag (multiple) albums to a category tree (any of the two)
Delete albums along with their images
Rename albums. Parameters %a%, %s%, %c% are supported.
Images1

New duplicate verification option - Check & Update.



Only the new and updated images will be accepted into the upload queue.

Locate lost images. If you move images to another location after the upload, S*E loses its connection to them.

To restore it, you can run Locate Images command for a single or multiple albums and specify the new potential location.
S*E will traverse it and hopefully restore the severed connection.






New Get image Info dialog allows for much smarter and faster info update.
Images2

Drag (multiple) images to move them a new album in the albums list. Press and hold CTRL to copy instead.
Delete images
Hide or unhide images
Coming Packages (ETA Q1/2011)




As a reminder - the new S*E Studio Edition will get ALL features at no extra cost immediately as soon as the feature is available - even if the packages is incomplete and is not released yet.:thumb


The content of the future packages is not set in stone and can be changed without notice. This is only a declaration of intentions...:deal




Albums2
Make albums public/private
Adjust album’s maximum size (L..O)
Apply Watermark
Remove Watermark
Printmark support
Apply Printmark
Remove Printmark
Sharegroups1

Sharegoups Tree

All Albums



So you can select and add them to a sharegroup below
All Sharegroups

Sharegroup 1
Sharegroup 2
….

Sharegroups for selected albums

Sharegroup 1
Sharegroup 2
...


Include album into a sharegroup by dragging it into the Sharegroup tree
Exclude selected albums from a sharegroup - dialog or context menu
Sharegroups2

Create a sharegroup (optionally include currently selected albums)
Delete a sharegroup (optionally delete all inlcuded albums)
Rename a sharegroup
Change a sharegroup description
Have an idea/need for a feature?




Now that I have a way to add features in a small packages, the proverbial "time to market" can be much faster than before.


Suggest a feature you need, maybe we'll get a vote on it to see if there is a demand - and it may be up and available sooner than you can say "wow" :-)

[jfriend]

It was fairly late last night, so I didn't have much time to explain things properly.
Here's a bit more on the new packages and new Studio edition...

S*E Pro Feature Packages



Albums1

Drag (multiple) albums to a category tree (any of the two)
Delete albums along with their images
Rename albums. Parameters %a%, %s%, %c% are supported.

Images1


New duplicate verification option - Check & Update.



Only the new and updated images will be accepted into the upload queue.

Locate lost images. If you move images to another location after the upload, S*E loses its connection to them.

To restore it, you can run Locate Images command for a single or multiple albums and specify the new potential location.
S*E will traverse it and hopefully restore the severed connection.

New Get image Info dialog allows for much smarter and faster info update.

Images2


Drag (multiple) images to move them a new album in the albums list. Press and hold CTRL to copy instead.
Delete images
Hide or unhide images

Coming Packages (ETA Q1/2011)




As a reminder - the new S*E Studio Edition will get ALL features at no extra cost immediately as soon as the feature is available - even if the packages is incomplete and is not released yet.:thumb


The content of the future packages is not set in stone and can be changed without notice. This is only a declaration of intentions...:deal




Albums2

Make albums public/private
Adjust album’s maximum size (L..O)
Apply Watermark
Remove Watermark
Printmark support
Apply Printmark
Remove Printmark

Sharegroups1


Sharegoups Tree


All Albums



So you can select and add them to a sharegroup below
All Sharegroups


Sharegroup 1
Sharegroup 2
….


Sharegroups for selected albums


Sharegroup 1
Sharegroup 2
...




Include album into a sharegroup by dragging it into the Sharegroup tree
Exclude selected albums from a sharegroup - dialog or context menu

Sharegroups2


Create a sharegroup (optionally include currently selected albums)
Delete a sharegroup (optionally delete all inlcuded albums)
Rename a sharegroup
Change a sharegroup description

Have an idea/need for a feature?




Now that I have a way to add features in a small packages, the proverbial "time to market" can be much faster than before.


Suggest a feature you need, maybe we'll get a vote on it to see if there is a demand - and it may be up and available sooner than you can say "wow" :-)












I'll offer my feedback that this all way too complicated for me and you're making less money off me than you could. Multiple editions, feature packs, etc...

I would have been perfectly happy to just pay an upgrade fee to a 2.0 and 3.0 version like I do with all my other software and get some new features along with each new version. And, I probably would have bought multiple upgrades by now in an effort to stay current with the core software, but because of the way you're doing it now, I haven't bought any feature packs. For the kind of app it is and the number of customers you have, this whole feature pack thing with lots of separate charges just seems overblown to me and doesn't work like any of my other software.

Obviously you're trying to do something different here, but from my point of view, it isn't working.

[Nikolai]

I'll offer my feedback that this all way too complicated for me and you're making less money off me than you could. Multiple editions, feature packs, etc...

I would have been perfectly happy to just pay an upgrade fee to a 2.0 and 3.0 version like I do with all my other software and get some new features along with each new version. And, I probably would have bought multiple upgrades by now in an effort to stay current with the core software, but because of the way you're doing it now, I haven't bought any feature packs. For the kind of app it is and the number of customers you have, this whole feature pack thing with lots of separate charges just seems overblown to me and doesn't work like any of my other software.

Obviously you're trying to do something different here, but from my point of view, it isn't working.

Thank you for the comments, John!
As I said earlier, I don't like forcing people to do monolithic upgrades. :deal
Apart from that, if you want *all* the benefits and don't want to pick and choose - get the Studio edition and have it all, now and later...
Also, I think it's a bit too early to say what's working and what not when not even 24 hours has passed since the release :dunno. Give it a month, then we'll talk...
However, judging by the fact that I have already received several requests for Studio price quote and pre-sales questions for packages - I guess, I'll be fine :wink
HTH

[jfriend]

Thank you for the comments, John!
As I said earlier, I don't like forcing people to do monolithic upgrades. :deal
Apart from that, if you want *all* the benefits and don't want to pick and choose - get the Studio edition and have it all, now and later...
Also, I think it's a bit too early to say what's working and what not when not even 24 hours has passed since the release :dunno. Give it a month, then we'll talk...
However, judging by the fact that I have already received several requests for Studio price quote and pre-sales questions for packages - I guess, I'll be fine :wink
HTHHow much is Studio (pricing doesn't appear to be anywhere on your website)?

You can have an opinion that you don't like to force people to buy an upgrade to the whole package. That's fine. That's your opinion. I'm a customer and I'm expressing an opinion that I don't like all the complication you're putting into things. If I'm still using your product, I'd much rather buy a yearly upgrade to keep current with the latest features. Massively simpler for me. As it is, I don't think I'll find your feature packages worth investing in in advance one at a time. But, I would have paid $39 for a 2.0 upgrade to stay current.

I thought you started doing packages awhile ago when I last discussed with you. I guess I didn't realize you're just now shipping your first packages.

Also, I have multiple Smugmug accounts. How do feature packages work with multiple accounts?

[Nikolai]

How much is Studio (pricing doesn't appear to be anywhere on your website)?

You can have an opinion that you don't like to force people to buy an upgrade to the whole package. That's fine. That's your opinion. I'm a customer and I'm expressing an opinion that I don't like all the complication you're putting into things. If I'm still using your product, I'd much rather buy a yearly upgrade to keep current with the latest features. Massively simpler for me. As it is, I don't think I'll find your feature packages worth investing in in advance one at a time. But, I would have paid $39 for a 2.0 upgrade to stay current.

I thought you started doing packages awhile ago when I last discussed with you. I guess I didn't realize you're just now shipping your first packages.

Also, I have multiple Smugmug accounts. How do feature packages work with multiple accounts?

They were in beta/trial mode. Some of the features still are - at least till Jan 15th :wink

You are current, that is if you got the latest. Bug fixes and general improvements are free.
But if you like annual updates - email me, I'll be happy to oblige and provide you with a custom solution that will include yearly upgrade. Granted, $39/yr won't buy you Studio, but they'll get you somewhere...:-)

Studio: the reason prices are not on the site is because pricing is custom-tuned, please email to support@starexplorer.com for a quote (which is exactly what site says).
Please provide the number of accounts with your request as this information will be needed anyway...

Packages and multiple accounts: package operate on per-account basis.
So you only buy what you need for whatever account you need.
If you need 1 package for for 3 accounts, you buy 3 copies of that package (click the button and adjust the number of items in the cart).
If you want 2 packages for 2 accounts, you purchase 2 copies of each (and until 15th you'll get the 3d package free), etc.
It's not all *that* difficult, IMHO.

HTH

[jfriend]

They were in beta/trial mode. Some of the features still are - at least till Jan 15th :wink

You are current, that is if you got the latest. Bug fixes and general improvements are free.
But if you like annual updates - email me, I'll be happy to oblige and provide you with a custom solution that will include yearly upgrade. Granted, $39/yr won't buy you Studio, but they'll get you somewhere...:-)

Studio: the reason prices are not on the site is because pricing is custom-tuned, please email to support@starexplorer.com for a quote (which is exactly what site says).
Please provide the number of accounts with your request as this information will be needed anyway...

Packages and multiple accounts: package operate on per-account basis.
So you only buy what you need for whatever account you need.
If you need 1 package for for 3 accounts, you buy 3 copies of that package (click the button and adjust the number of items in the cart).
If you want 2 packages for 2 accounts, you purchase 2 copies of each (and until 15th you'll get the 3d package free), etc.
It's not all *that* difficult, IMHO.

HTHI'm not comfortable paying per account I occasionally use (I contribute to the management of 7 different Smugmug accounts, but spend most of my Smugmug time in 2 accounts). That would be like having to buy a separate license of my email client for each IMAP account I use which is unheard of.

I'm one user who happens to deal with multiple Smugmug accounts. For that, you want me to pay double, triple or even 7x to use your tools. Sorry, but not going to happen here. All software I regularly use is licensed by user or by computer. This all sounds like I'm headed to do less (just uploads) with StarExplorer on only a couple accounts rather than more.

I'll send you a request for a quote for what I really want, but it sounds like your current per account, per feature charge is a big misalignment with what I need.

[Nikolai]

I'm not comfortable paying per account I occasionally use (I contribute to the management of 7 different Smugmug accounts, but spend most of my Smugmug time in 2 accounts). That would be like having to buy a separate license of my email client for each IMAP account I use which is unheard of.

I'm one user who happens to deal with multiple Smugmug accounts. For that, you want me to pay double, triple or even 7x to use your tools. Sorry, but not going to happen here. All software I regularly use is licensed by user or by computer. This all sounds like I'm headed to do less (just uploads) with StarExplorer on only a couple accounts rather than more.

I'll send you a request for a quote for what I really want, but it sounds like your current per account, per feature charge is a big misalignment with what I need.

All this heated talk over less than a $20 (two accounts times two packages times $4.99) one time purchase?
John, dude, you're cracking me up :wink:rofl

[jfriend]

All this heated talk over less than a $20 (two accounts times two packages times $4.99) one time purchase?
John, dude, you're cracking me up :wink:roflYou can laugh at me if you want, but I'm not sure I need any of your packages so I'm not currently thinking of buying them. But, I told you I would have spent in the $20-$40/yr range to keep my Star*Explorer current if you just kept adding features to the version I have. You can call that silly if you want, but it's psychologically how I think of my software. I own no software that charges me by the feature, nor does it sound like a model I'm all that interested in. It sounds more like my cable company and my cell phone company, both of which I hate how they bill/charge.

I would be interested in a feature that let me set an individual gallery setting or a group of settings by category or sub-category. When Smugmug implemented bulk settings, they missed the only feature that matters to me which is doing it by category or sub-category.

I sent you a request for a Studio edition quote.

[Nikolai]

You can laugh at me if you want, but I'm not sure I need any of your packages so I'm not currently thinking of buying them. But, I told you I would have spent in the $20-$40/yr range to keep my Star*Explorer current if you just kept adding features to the version I have. You can call that silly if you want, but it's psychologically how I think of my software. I own no software that charges me by the feature, nor does it sound like a model I'm all that interested in. It sounds more like my cable company and my cell phone company, both of which I hate how they bill/charge.

I would be interested in a feature that let me set an individual gallery setting or a group of settings by category or sub-category. When Smugmug implemented bulk settings, they missed the only feature that matters to me which is doing it by category or sub-category.

I sent you a request for a Studio edition quote.
Replied.

[Nikolai]

Albums2 Pro Package (S*E Pro/Studio License required):

making albums public/private
set/remove password protection
apply/remove watermark
apply/remove printmark
adjust max allowed image size
http://www.starexplorer.com/images/Albums2.jpg

Bugfixes (including upload cancellation)

[Nikolai]

New direct-to-the-cloud SM API behavior revealed a 5 year old :huh bug that was hiding in the heart of the S*E uploading engine :dunno. As a result any upload action was considered "failed", thus forcing the rest of S*E to repeat the uploads over and over. :cry
It is fixed now, so S*E is back and even slightly faster, both due to the server's direct-to-the-cloud behavior and some further internal optimization.
I apologize for the inconvenince it caused to a few good people.:bow

[Nikolai]

Video download bug fixed
S*E uses the actual URLs for downloads instead of constructing them
Redirection issue (a long time plague) is fixed, allowing graceful scaling down in case a higher-res image is not allowed.
Get those new SM vertical Videos back! :thumb

[jfriend]

Video download bug fixed
S*E uses the actual URLs for downloads instead of constructing them
Redirection issue (a long time plague) is fixed, allowing graceful scaling down in case a higher-res image is not allowed.
Get those new SM vertical Videos back! :thumbSmugmug had a couple minute outage today while I was near the end of a 127 photo upload. I saw SE gets some failures and do some retries. When SE finished, the result was that 4 images were left in the upload queue as unable to upload. After the Smugmug issue cleared, I hit upload to finish the upload queue. It seemed as if everything worked as it should and it certainly worked a lot better than any of the Smugmug uploaders would have.

On the other hand, my gallery did not end up clean. I don't know how much of this is an SE issue that you could protect against vs. purely a SM issue, but I'll describe what I ended up with and you can decide. In my gallery, I ended up with four images that were permanently stuck in the state of no thumbnail (they have some sort of uploading placeholder thumbnail). Hours later, they were still that way. And, I ended up with a couple duplicates. I manually deleted the stuck images and manually deleted a few duplicates (at least the ones I found).

So, the good news is that SE seemed to properly detect that it had issues uploading a few images and kept them in the upload queue for me to manually upload later. The bad news is that the gallery didn't end up clean after that. Do you think there are non-atomic upload issues at Smugmug that should be reported to SM where they stop with a partial upload and don't clean up after themselves? Any SE issues that should be cleaned up when connectivity to SM goes away?

For reference, at the time of the SM outage, a regular SM page access was generating 503. I don't know what the situation was on the upload endpoint, but it was clearly getting some sort of failure too as I could see that in the SE upload log.

I can send you my SE upload log if you want that. I should mention that I was running 1.0.0.275 which I believe is what I downloaded from your site yesterday.

[Nikolai]

Smugmug had a couple minute outage today while I was near the end of a 127 photo upload. I saw SE gets some failures and do some retries. When SE finished, the result was that 4 images were left in the upload queue as unable to upload. After the Smugmug issue cleared, I hit upload to finish the upload queue. It seemed as if everything worked as it should and it certainly worked a lot better than any of the Smugmug uploaders would have.

On the other hand, my gallery did not end up clean. I don't know how much of this is an SE issue that you could protect against vs. purely a SM issue, but I'll describe what I ended up with and you can decide. In my gallery, I ended up with four images that were permanently stuck in the state of no thumbnail (they have some sort of uploading placeholder thumbnail). Hours later, they were still that way. And, I ended up with a couple duplicates. I manually deleted the stuck images and manually deleted a few duplicates (at least the ones I found).

So, the good news is that SE seemed to properly detect that it had issues uploading a few images and kept them in the upload queue for me to manually upload later. The bad news is that the gallery didn't end up clean after that. Do you think there are non-atomic upload issues at Smugmug that should be reported to SM where they stop with a partial upload and don't clean up after themselves? Any SE issues that should be cleaned up when connectivity to SM goes away?

For reference, at the time of the SM outage, a regular SM page access was generating 503. I don't know what the situation was on the upload endpoint, but it was clearly getting some sort of failure too as I could see that in the SE upload log.

I can send you my SE upload log if you want that. I should mention that I was running 1.0.0.275 which I believe is what I downloaded from your site yesterday.

Hi John,
a damn good question... I wish a had a similarly good answer...:-(
I don't know how to detect outage, "stuck" images, etc. I can go nuts checking the internet connections, SM availability and error codes, but in the end none of this would give me a 100% certainty, just would make the decision making a nightmare.

From the very launch of S*E my approach was very simple:

If I get the image ID (and later, key) back - this image was delivered to SM server and my part is done. I cannot do anything afterwards anyway, as there is no API (and I honestly don't think it's needed).

Similarly, if I don't (a hiccup, an outage, tornado, tsunami, etc.) - I can either try immediately a few times more (configurable) or leave it in the queue. If I finished the batch and there is some files in the queue still, again, depending on the configuration I can try to run this (hopefully, smaller) batch again or leave it up to the user to decided what needs to be done.

Unfortunately, at this point I don't have a reliable info telling me if it was a true or false negative. Simple approaches (like getting the content of all the affected albums and try to match it to the noon-yet uploaded portion in hope of finding those that actually made it and removing them from the queue) are totally unreliable due to the also simple fact that it can take an absolutely non-predictable time until the image actually shows up in the album. Normally it's not such a big period, but we're not talking about normal circumstances. And when SM is busy... well, it's busy. I've seen queue times far longer than 10.20 minutes... Not often, but I don't get errors often either.

So it's kinda a catch 22. When the delivery channel is working as it should, the number of issues is minimal, and my purely "true-or-false", "black-or-white" logic works just fine, no need to make it any more complex.
Yet when the situation becomes worse (power outage, weekend traffic jam, etc.) no feasible decision method can help, as the is no new immediately available data to make one.

I'll be happy to hear your or anybody's (hi devbobo! :wave) ideas how to get out of this "failed to receive the ID" conundrum without increasing the risk of creating duplicates.
:ear

[jfriend]

Hi John,
a damn good question... I wish a had a similarly good answer...:-(
I don't know how to detect outage, "stuck" images, etc. I can go nuts checking the internet connections, SM availability and error codes, but in the end none of this would give me a 100% certainty, just would make the decision making a nightmare.

From the very launch of S*E my approach was very simple:

If I get the image ID (and later, key) back - this image was delivered to SM server and my part is done. I cannot do anything afterwards anyway, as there is no API (and I honestly don't think it's needed).

Similarly, if I don't (a hiccup, an outage, tornado, tsunami, etc.) - I can either try immediately a few times more (configurable) or leave it in the queue. If I finished the batch and there is some files in the queue still, again, depending on the configuration I can try to run this (hopefully, smaller) batch again or leave it up to the user to decided what needs to be done.

Unfortunately, at this point I don't have a reliable info telling me if it was a true or false negative. Simple approaches (like getting the content of all the affected albums and try to match it to the noon-yet uploaded portion in hope of finding those that actually made it and removing them from the queue) are totally unreliable due to the also simple fact that it can take an absolutely non-predictable time until the image actually shows up in the album. Normally it's not such a big period, but we're not talking about normal circumstances. And when SM is busy... well, it's busy. I've seen queue times far longer than 10.20 minutes... Not often, but I don't get errors often either.

So it's kinda a catch 22. When the delivery channel is working as it should, the number of issues is minimal, and my purely "true-or-false", "black-or-white" logic works just fine, no need to make it any more complex.
Yet when the situation becomes worse (power outage, weekend traffic jam, etc.) no feasible decision method can help, as the is no new immediately available data to make one.

I'll be happy to hear your or anybody's (hi devbobo! :wave) ideas how to get out of this "failed to receive the ID" conundrum without increasing the risk of creating duplicates.
:earThat sheds some useful light on what probably happened. It looks like Smugmug accepted some partial uploads that were interrupted by the outage and then left them in my gallery that way. That sounds like a bug on their part.

And, the connectivity issues probably prevented you from getting a couple image IDs on something that did successfully upload, thus it was left in the queue or retried resulting in a couple dups. I guess dups are better than erring the other way (missing images) so perhaps that's decent failure mode if nothing better can be done (I assume that was your logic). The only bad failure here would be if uploads were completely, but imageIDs were not being fetched as SE might upload a lot of dups if SM was failing in that way.

I'm sure this problem (reliable transfers that both sides can reliably know whether the full transfer completed or not) even when there are connectivity hiccups has been solved many times before. Too bad something more robust isn't being offered.

[Nikolai]

That sheds some useful light on what probably happened. It looks like Smugmug accepted some partial uploads that were interrupted by the outage and then left them in my gallery that way. That sounds like a bug on their part.

And, the connectivity issues probably prevented you from getting a couple image IDs on something that did successfully upload, thus it was left in the queue or retried resulting in a couple dups. I guess dups are better than erring the other way (missing images) so perhaps that's decent failure mode if nothing better can be done (I assume that was your logic). The only bad failure here would be if uploads were completely, but imageIDs were not being fetched as SE might upload a lot of dups if SM was failing in that way.

I'm sure this problem (reliable transfers that both sides can reliably know whether the full transfer completed or not) even when there are connectivity hiccups has been solved many times before. Too bad something more robust isn't being offered.

It has been solved numerous times, indeed. All the solutions I know essentially operate on a concept of "transaction".

It can be done in a multitude of ways, and the gist looks like follows:

* Client (S*E in this case) initiates a new transaction
* Server (obviously, Smugmug) responds with a transaction ID and maybe some metadata
* Client starts uploading (in one piece, or, even better, in multiple chunks - the latter should make uploading large videos a breeze), each time indicating a transaction ID, and, optionally, a chunk ID
* Client indicates it's done uploading for this transaction
* Now, at any moment (within reason and settings) Client can ask Server if the transaction X is complete. The obvious answers are:
- No, still working - in this case Client would wait some time and will ask again.
- Yes, here is result ID/KEY (or whatever else is needed),
- Error: (unknown ID, missing chunk, corrupted data, invalid format, etc.)

This way it's foolproof. No matter what happens, both sides can reliably identify a subject (transaction id) and its status.

Practically, the only thing needed is that darn transaction ID to be sent back right away, as well as the ability to query against it. The image ID shall be only returned as a part of that query when transaction is complete.
Of course, one can use the image id as the transaction id, return it immediately and then only return the key if it went OK. This way certain ids would never come to fruition and whether SM would like to have those unused ids - it's a design question.

Given my experience with transaction-aware databases, Amazon SQS, MSMQ and other "delivery guaranteed" methods, it looks like it *can* be done, especially considering the fact that SM already utilizes AWS.
But whether it *will* be done - it's a whole different story.

[Nikolai]

Under certain scenarios originals were downloaded without an extention; X2Large were not downloaded at all.
Fixed.

[BradfordBenn]

Between speed boost and loading to the cloud, man is S*E fast. 205 images, ~365MB 9 min 33 sec

[Nikolai]

Between speed boost and loading to the cloud, man is S*E fast. 205 images, ~365MB 9 min 33 sec
Thanks Brad! :thumb
But you gotta get FIOS... :wink:rofl

[BradfordBenn]

Thanks Brad! :thumb
But you gotta get FIOS... :wink:rofl

Remember there are people around here who still have rotary phones - that is no hyperbole.

[Nikolai]

Remember there are people around here who still have rotary phones - that is no hyperbole.
You're kidding, right? :huh

[BradfordBenn]

You're kidding, right? :huh

No. One of the local attractions ... http://www.amishacres.com/

Yes, I chuckle that they have a Internet presence and free WiFi

[Nikolai]

No. One of the local attractions ... http://www.amishacres.com/

Yes, I chuckle that they have a Internet presence and free WiFi
Free Wifi? Internet? Wow, I didn't know Amish communities are that advanced... Kinda goes against the whole "stuck in XVII century" approach...

[Scott McLeod Photo]

Does S*E do video uploads?

[Nikolai]

Does S*E do video uploads?
It sure does. By default it may be configured to ignore videos, but it's up to you to modify the Options and allow whatever types you want. Just make sure they are SM compatible.

[Scott McLeod Photo]

It sure does. By default it may be configured to ignore videos, but it's up to you to modify the Options and allow whatever types you want. Just make sure they are SM compatible.

Ok that is what it was, I was selecting them but they were not showing up in upload queue. I have become frustrated with trying to upload some videos via smugmugs uploaders.

[SamirD]

I have become frustrated with trying to upload some videos via smugmugs uploaders.Remember that if a video is not processing correctly via SM's uploaders, it won't be any different with SE. SM currently has issues with certain type of videos, and it's been going on for weeks. :dunno

Now, if the problem you're having is crashing or something of that nature, try a different type of uploader. HTML5 always crashes for me while Simple works fine. :dunno I've heard that the flash one is pretty good too.

[Scott McLeod Photo]

Remember that if a video is not processing correctly via SM's uploaders, it won't be any different with SE. SM currently has issues with certain type of videos, and it's been going on for weeks. :dunno

Now, if the problem you're having is crashing or something of that nature, try a different type of uploader. HTML5 always crashes for me while Simple works fine. :dunno I've heard that the flash one is pretty good too.

Not really crashing just slow and tons of fails. Do you know what types of files its having issues with. I am trying to upload all .mov files from Canon cams.

It does seem in the recent weeks to be video issues. Has SM said anything, or is it there usual default position of, "User error".

[SamirD]

Not really crashing just slow and tons of fails. Do you know what types of files its having issues with. I am trying to upload all .mov files from Canon cams.

It does seem in the recent weeks to be video issues. Has SM said anything, or is it there usual default position of, "User error".They've been having problems with some mpgs as well as audio codecs. It's interesting that movs are failing--that's what they keep telling me to convert to for success. :rofl

Are these raw files from the cameras? Have they worked without issues in the past? As far as speed, what type of bandwidth do you have?

[Scott McLeod Photo]

These are files straight from the camera. I am very new to video, and don't have a reference point. I am on a fairly fast cable connection, like 20 down and 2 up.

[SamirD]

Can you change the quality settings in the camera in a way that affects the format? For example, SD vs HD, framerate, or the audio? Then we could experiment with uploading the different file types and see what works and what doesn't. Then we could pass this info onto the help desk.

With a 2Mb connection, you should be able to do about 1gb/hr if you're maxed out. Maxing out is the tough part since a single upload will rarely do it. So, realistically you have to look at 1gb/2-3hrs unless you're transferring multiple files simultaneously.

[Scott McLeod Photo]

They are 1080p and 720p vids.

I was initially trying SM uploaders and also mistakenly thought that Star Explorer didn't do video (it does, I just needed to change a setting to allow it to). I am now having much better success using Star Explorer. Yeah I am coming close to a 20 hour mark for a little under 20GBs of videos (221 clips) from a wedding. I have about 50GBs from the wedding total (3 seperate cams). Like I said I am new to the video side and I am learning.

Thanks for the info Samir.

I might have a little time to experiment with the settings while on vacation in Washington State but probably not. So I will be somewhat gone for about 3 weeks.

[Nikolai]

They are 1080p and 720p vids.

I was initially trying SM uploaders and also mistakenly thought that Star Explorer didn't do video (it does, I just needed to change a setting to allow it to). I am now having much better success using Star Explorer. Yeah I am coming close to a 20 hour mark for a little under 20GBs of videos (221 clips) from a wedding. I have about 50GBs from the wedding total (3 seperate cams). Like I said I am new to the video side and I am learning....
Glad to hear!
I do hope SM will come with "chunked" upload at some point in the future, so if those last few Kb of a 500Mb video do not go through you don't have to redo the whole video and only redo that bad chunk...

[SamirD]

That's a lot of data. With your bandwidth, you'll be lucky to finish uploading in 50hrs. It's a big job to say the least. If you regularly plan on uploading this size of data, you need to upgrade your upload bandwidth, even if it means getting multiple 20m/2m connections.

[agallia]

Hello! Is anyone home at Star*Explorer? Been trying to contact via support email and Dgrin message with no response.

[Nikolai]

Hello! Is anyone home at Star*Explorer? Been trying to contact via support email and Dgrin message with no response.
Al,
I was out in the Sierras for a few days with no connection whatsoever.
There was (and still is) a warning on my website that no new licenses could be issued during that time...
Truly sorry about that.
Nikolai

[jfriend]

Al,
I was out in the Sierras for a few days with no connection whatsoever.
There was (and still is) a warning on my website that no new licenses could be issued during that time...
Truly sorry about that.
NikolaiPerhaps an auto-responder on your support email might have been helpful. Small businesses have a hard time taking some vacation.

[Nikolai]

Perhaps an auto-responder on your support email might have been helpful. Small businesses have a hard time taking some vacation.
Yeah, probably, thanks!:thumb

[agallia]

Al,
I was out in the Sierras for a few days with no connection whatsoever.
There was (and still is) a warning on my website that no new licenses could be issued during that time...
Truly sorry about that.
Nikolai

Thanks. All is well now.

[agallia]

I used Download Images... from S*E album right click menu to download 5 files from my Smugmug album. Then modified one. Next I used Check & Update to upload the 5 files expecting that only the modified file would actually be replaced. But all 5 files were uploaded and I ended up with 2 copies each in the album? What went wrong?

Please advise how Check & Update works. Also same question for Check & Reject and Check & Replace. Were special macros needed in Download Images... popup?

Thanks.

[Nikolai]

I used Download Images... from S*E album right click menu to download 5 files from my Smugmug album. Then modified one. Next I used Check & Update to upload the 5 files expecting that only the modified file would actually be replaced. But all 5 files were uploaded and I ended up with 2 copies each in the album? What went wrong?

Please advise how Check & Update works. Also same question for Check & Reject and Check & Replace. Were special macros needed in Download Images... popup?

Thanks.

Al,
the download part has nothing to do with the upload. :deal

Download is merely a way to get your stuff back from your site (a fancy way though)

"Check & xxx" works for Upload only and it works like follows:
When you upload an image S*E checks if you have uploaded the same file (filename is important) to the same album before (using S*E) by looking to its own local database.
If the answer is yes, it can then make various decisions, as in reject or replace.

Now, if you didn't upload the stuff using S*E, you can still "prime" the detection logic by downloading images info first. You can do it by albums (or by images, but not in this case).
Then S*E would know about them and would be able to recognize the duplicate.

HTH

[agallia]

Al,
the download part has nothing to do with the upload. :deal

Download is merely a way to get your stuff back from your site (a fancy way though)

"Check & xxx" works for Upload only and it works like follows:
When you upload an image S*E checks if you have uploaded the same file (filename is important) to the same album before (using S*E) by looking to its own local database.
If the answer is yes, it can then make various decisions, as in reject or replace.

Now, if you didn't upload the stuff using S*E, you can still "prime" the detection logic by downloading images info first. You can do it by albums (or by images, but not in this case).
Then S*E would know about them and would be able to recognize the duplicate.

HTH
FYI...never have been able to get "Check & Update" to work satisfactorily. Tried several times...always get 2nd copies...will continue to try. Should downloaded files have same filenames as originally uploaded files without SM added prefix/suffix?

[Nikolai]

FYI...never have been able to get "Check & Update" to work satisfactorily. Tried several times...always get 2nd copies...will continue to try. Should downloaded files have same filenames as originally uploaded files without SM added prefix/suffix?

This logic only works if:
1) you uploaded images using the same copy of S*E
2) you downloaded images INFO into this copy of S*E for the given target(s).
Otherwise S*E has no clue what's up there in your SM account. :dunno
HTH

[agallia]

Will the Pro Package feature option to switch thumbnails from square to original be coming soon?

[agallia]

This logic only works if:
1) you uploaded images using the same copy of S*E
2) you downloaded images INFO into this copy of S*E for the given target(s).
Otherwise S*E has no clue what's up there in your SM account. :dunno
HTH

So if I uploaded the originals to SM using Lightroom, Photoshop or SM uploader, it won't work, right?

[Nikolai]

1) square thumbs in pro packages - soon
2) other uploaders: yes, correct. You have to download images INFO first before the logic can work

[agallia]

1) square thumbs in pro packages - soon
2) other uploaders: yes, correct. You have to download images INFO first before the logic can work
Do I download the images first and then the image info? Where is the info put?

[Nikolai]

Do I download the images first and then the image info? Where is the info put?

Al,
you don't have to download IMAGES.
Just images INFO (much faster, btw).
It goes into S*E's cache (db).

[agallia]

Al,
you don't have to download IMAGES.
Just images INFO (much faster, btw).
It goes into S*E's cache (db).
But if I wish to download the original from SM for additional PP, I can, right? Info is related to original filename, right?

[Nikolai]

But if I wish to download the original from SM for additional PP, I can, right? Info is related to original filename, right?
Oh, sure, that would work, too. ALl I'm saying downloading images is an overkill for duplicates logic to work, info is enough. Downloading an image also gets its info, that's a given.

[agallia]

Oh, sure, that would work, too. ALl I'm saying downloading images is an overkill for duplicates logic to work, info is enough. Downloading an image also gets its info, that's a given.
Thanks. Will try it again later. Have a good day!

[SkintDad]

Hi,
Newbie to Star*Explorer so please be gentle!
I have a Pro version and I am able to download Image information to my PC such as Filename, Orientation, caption, keywords etc. By right clicking any one of the listed files I have the option to "update Image Info", however, I do not understand where I can change the image info to be able to upload it.
What is it I want to achieve? I want to be able to download all comments from the SmugMug site, delete/add/edit comments and then reload the comments to SmugtMug. I cannot see how to do this in Star*Explorer.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks,
Trevor
Windows 7 64 bit

[Nikolai]

Hi,
Newbie to Star*Explorer so please be gentle!
I have a Pro version and I am able to download Image information to my PC such as Filename, Orientation, caption, keywords etc. By right clicking any one of the listed files I have the option to "update Image Info", however, I do not understand where I can change the image info to be able to upload it.
What is it I want to achieve? I want to be able to download all comments from the SmugMug site, delete/add/edit comments and then reload the comments to SmugtMug. I cannot see how to do this in Star*Explorer.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks,
Trevor
Windows 7 64 bit

Hi Trevor,
unfortunately, the image-associated content (comments, etc.) is not currently downloadable via S*E. :dunno
I'll mark this as a user feature request.
Nikolai

[SkintDad]

Hi Nikolai,

I have misrepresented my requirement. I can currently download the image information for an album to Star Explorer which includes the "Caption" field.

I would like to be able to change/delete/add to the caption field for either individual or groups of images and then send back to SmugMug.

Is this possible?

Thanks,

Trevor

[Nikolai]

Hi Nikolai,

I have misrepresented my requirement. I can currently download the image information for an album to Star Explorer which includes the "Caption" field.

I would like to be able to change/delete/add to the caption field for either individual or groups of images and then send back to SmugMug.

Is this possible?

Thanks,

Trevor

Not currently, no. But I have it in the blueprints for one of the future Pro packages.

[Nikolai]

Albums3 Pro Package (applicable to Pro, Pro+ and Studio editions). :clap
The package functionality is accessible via Albums context menu (More..) and includes the following features (applicable to a single album or a selection of albums):
1. Change albums keywords
2. Change albums description
3. Enable/disable right click
4. Show/Hide Owner
5. Clean on/off
6. Change square thumbs: for now, albums settings only for the future uploads, as there is no API to change existing thumbs. Once API is there, this functionality will be updated.

[SkintDad]

Hi Nikolai,

would I be right in assuming that this does not allowing editting of comments?

If not, do you know when there will be a package that will do so?

Many thanks,

Trevor

[Nikolai]

Hi Nikolai,

would I be right in assuming that this does not allowing editting of comments?

If not, do you know when there will be a package that will do so?

Many thanks,

Trevor

Hi Trevor,
yes, you're correct, no comment activity here. Only what I have listed.

FWIW, edititing comments via API is not possible. You can delete existing ones and add new ones (it's not in S*E but it's possible), there is no API for anything else.

At this point I can't say when the "comments" functionality will be added to S*E. Frankly, I fail to see a business reason for this :dunno. If you could describe a use case that current Web UI doesn't cover that would help.

Thank you!

[SkintDad]

Hi Nikolai,

The scenario I have at present is one album where I want to add photographs on frequent basis and I might want to have a single comment for each batch. As an example:

Album - Baby May
10 pictures added on Day 1, would like to have the same comment on every file, e.g. "Baby Mays 1st Day"
15 pictures added on Day 5, same comment on each to to be "Baby Mays fifth day in incubator"
3 pictures added on Day 7, Same comment on each to be "Baby May comes off CPAP for an hour today"
etc etc.
Clearly I could separate these into individual albums but when I have sent the original album link to friends I don't want to have to keep telling them there are new albums every few days. My first email would invite them to check back periodically to see the new photographs.
Does this make sense - is there an easier way for me to do this outside of Star*Explorer? What I want to avoid is having to enter the same comment multiple times.
Thanks,
Trevor

[Nikolai]

Hi Nikolai,

The scenario I have at present is one album where I want to add photographs on frequent basis and I might want to have a single comment for each batch. As an example:

Album - Baby May
10 pictures added on Day 1, would like to have the same comment on every file, e.g. "Baby Mays 1st Day"
15 pictures added on Day 5, same comment on each to to be "Baby Mays fifth day in incubator"
3 pictures added on Day 7, Same comment on each to be "Baby May comes off CPAP for an hour today"
etc etc.
Clearly I could separate these into individual albums but when I have sent the original album link to friends I don't want to have to keep telling them there are new albums every few days. My first email would invite them to check back periodically to see the new photographs.
Does this make sense - is there an easier way for me to do this outside of Star*Explorer? What I want to avoid is having to enter the same comment multiple times.
Thanks,
Trevor


Trevor,

What stops you from putting that info into an image Description, let alone image Caption? :scratch
Comments are for your visitors, you have access to a more solid info ;-)

[SkintDad]

Hi Nikolai,

I am not sure how I get information into image description therefore I have to look at an alternative.

However, I have just seen on SmugMug that I can add comments to multiple photographs by using:

Tools, Many Photos, Caption/Keyword.

Seems to fit what I want to do for now until I can investigate image information further.

Thanks for your help,

Trevor

[Nikolai]

Hi Nikolai,

I am not sure how I get information into image description therefore I have to look at an alternative.

However, I have just seen on SmugMug that I can add comments to multiple photographs by using:

Tools, Many Photos, Caption/Keyword.

Seems to fit what I want to do for now until I can investigate image information further.

Thanks for your help,

Trevor

Ah, this is not about the commenting... this is changing caption (name) and keywords. That functionality is in fact in the blueprints slated for release later this year.

[SkintDad]

Thats good news, I will look out for it.

Cheers,

Trevor

[Motophotog]

Hi all,

Huge issue here. I've been using star explorer for a few years. This is the first big race weekend in the northwest for roadracing. I use it for all the various racers for their particular galleries.

At any rate, I've got a batch of 95 folders for about 2700 photos. It buzzed through 700 photos uploaded fast. Then (as it was known to do from time to time last year) the computer lost its internet connection (the yellow box that shows on the bottom right corner of win7 and other windows based computers.) The only way to get it to go away and work again is to restart the computer and restart Star explorer. I did this about ten times and now im to the point its only working a few photos before the program is somehow not agreeing with the good ol internet connection

I apologize if this question has already come to light. Looking for a reply asap! Thanks so much in advance!!!

[Nikolai]

Hi all,

Huge issue here. I've been using star explorer for a few years. This is the first big race weekend in the northwest for roadracing. I use it for all the various racers for their particular galleries.

At any rate, I've got a batch of 95 folders for about 2700 photos. It buzzed through 700 photos uploaded fast. Then (as it was known to do from time to time last year) the computer lost its internet connection (the yellow box that shows on the bottom right corner of win7 and other windows based computers.) The only way to get it to go away and work again is to restart the computer and restart Star explorer. I did this about ten times and now im to the point its only working a few photos before the program is somehow not agreeing with the good ol internet connection

I apologize if this question has already come to light. Looking for a reply asap! Thanks so much in advance!!!

Hi Darren,
looks like you've got a connectivity issue. Try to reboot your DSL/fiber/cable modem (power cable off, 10 sec wait, power cable back on) and make sure you get decent upload ratings to San Jose server via speedtest.net. After all, if there is no good connection, no upload can be solid...

[Motophotog]

Hi Darren,
looks like you've got a connectivity issue. Try to reboot your DSL/fiber/cable modem (power cable off, 10 sec wait, power cable back on) and make sure you get decent upload ratings to San Jose server via speedtest.net. After all, if there is no good connection, no upload can be solid...


Edited, because this is not the issue. Comcast was called. Acct was online, but they pinged anyway.

[Motophotog]

Hi all,

Problem not fixed. Comcast was called and because I'd reset my modem/router so many times, I essentially made the uploading worse. Comcast pinged my acct and fixed the issue. The second I was back online, i did the typical restart steps. and was able to use smugmug as a regular uploader, i could go anywhere online with no issues and with fast speed.

Once again, I went to use SE. It now wont even upload one photo, it gets the photos ready to go, heads to the upload green/black screen, and then simply eats up the internet connection. No freakin idea how this could happen.

Does anyone know? Nikolai thinks its Comcasts side... but i think going through the steps and seeing it only goes out when i use SE... that cant be the issue.

Has anyone else had this issue since upgrading to the newest version? I upgraded today before uploading and im wondering if i can uninstall SE and reinstall without losing all my information. :cry

Either way i have 180 galleries and 5000 photos sitting on my harddrive, not for sale and online. :scratch

[Nikolai]

Hi all,

Problem not fixed. Comcast was called and because I'd reset my modem/router so many times, I essentially made the uploading worse. Comcast pinged my acct and fixed the issue. The second I was back online, i did the typical restart steps. and was able to use smugmug as a regular uploader, i could go anywhere online with no issues and with fast speed.

Once again, I went to use SE. It now wont even upload one photo, it gets the photos ready to go, heads to the upload green/black screen, and then simply eats up the internet connection. No freakin idea how this could happen.

Does anyone know? Nikolai thinks its Comcasts side... but i think going through the steps and seeing it only goes out when i use SE... that cant be the issue.

Has anyone else had this issue since upgrading to the newest version? I upgraded today before uploading and im wondering if i can uninstall SE and reinstall without losing all my information. :cry

Either way i have 180 galleries and 5000 photos sitting on my harddrive, not for sale and online. :scratch
Email me...

[Motophotog]

Technology glitches... No clue what caused it, no clue what fixed it.

What I do know is the next day without even restarting or doing anything differently, i restored the upload queue , and it just worked. Not only worked for all my saturday uploads, it then took sunday and uploaded that flawlessly.

One thing I will say, and I have zero idea if this helps. Instead of uploading everything at once, I split the upload into 1200 photo uploads (essentially half) for each day. The idea I had was that maybe it was having an issue uploading such a large queue of work. Either way it all worked out and i should say, this is the second time in 4 years or so I've gotten stuck and Nikolai was available within 30 minutes of emailing him. Which was very impressive. :barb

[Nikolai]

Technology glitches... No clue what caused it, no clue what fixed it.

What I do know is the next day without even restarting or doing anything differently, i restored the upload queue , and it just worked. Not only worked for all my saturday uploads, it then took sunday and uploaded that flawlessly.

One thing I will say, and I have zero idea if this helps. Instead of uploading everything at once, I split the upload into 1200 photo uploads (essentially half) for each day. The idea I had was that maybe it was having an issue uploading such a large queue of work. Either way it all worked out and i should say, this is the second time in 4 years or so I've gotten stuck and Nikolai was available within 30 minutes of emailing him. Which was very impressive. :barb

Good stuff Darren, glad you're out of the rutt :-) :thumb
I'd say, "2d problem in 4 years" is not bad for a workhorse type of the application :wink :ivar

[Nikolai]

Currently the only functionality in this package is Image Duplicates Removal.
I will add more beef to this package in the future, just wanted to get this one out.

Available via both Albums list and Cat/Sub tree context menus.