How to post cruise photos while on your cruise, and afterwards.

[Neilius]

How does everyone upload their cruise photos? I know there are a zillion ways to do it, but I thought it would be helpful to discuss the way different people handle this task. It might make life easier for some people who haven't done it much before.

 

1. How do you upload photos while you're onboard ship? (OR, "You actually want to send emails while you're cruising????" :))

 

My goal when cruising was to upload photos as quickly as possible because (1) I'd rather be enjoying the cruise than sitting in front of a computer and (2) the internet connection is really expensive. So my aim was to get in, upload the photo, write a quick short descriptive comment, then log out and go have a cocktail. The quicker the better. Ideally in less than 5 minutes for the first photo, and 3 minutes for every photo thereafter.

 

I found it impossible to hook my laptop up to the wireless LAN on the Pacific Star. So I decided to try out their internet terminals. The computers on the Pacific Star have SIM card readers on them. The SIM card reader takes cards of a number of different sizes, so you can pull the SIM Card out of your camera and read the photos on the internet terminals.

 

The problem is that the ship's internet terminals are locked down pretty tightly, so you don't have access to things like MS-Front Page, or Internet Explorer, or FTP. There's a fairly simple browser, and an email program that lets you SEND emails but not receive them. But of course you could always access your email via hotmail, gmail or yahoo or whatever.

 

My normal method to upload photos would have been to use the "Upload" button on my blog (Blogger.com), but the upload button didn't work on internet terminals because of security restrictions.

 

So the only way I could upload photos while I was onboard was via the email to web function of Buzznet (one of the sites I use to hold photos). When you sign up for an account with Buzznet (Buzznet.com) or Flickr (Flicker.com) you get a secret email address that no-one else knows. If you send emails to this address, the web site automatically publishes that photo in your area on the website, which is then publicly viewable.

 

The problem is that Buzznet doesn't seem to work too well with the new gmail based Blogger accounts.

 

But Flickr does. In fact it will automatically create a blog entry for you at most major Blogging web sites.

 

So next cruise I'll be emailing photos to my Flickr email address, with a short description, and Flickr will automatically create the blog entry for me.

 

2. How do you upload photos after your cruise (OR, "Sharing photos as a therapy to combat post cruise blues" :) )

 

It's much easier to manage photos, and write commentary afterwards. Most blogging sites let you upload photos to your hearts content, and write as much as you like about them.

 

I've tried 3 different methods - all of which seem to work ok.

 

(a) Use your own website / domain name, and upload the photos via MS-Front Page, or FTP, or whatever software the website hosting company gives you.

 

(b) Use the same photo hosting websites I mentioned above (Buzznet or Flickr).

 

© Upload the photos to your blog directly - i.e. use the photo upload button when you're writing your blog.

 

My preferences:

 

When I'm away from my home computer, I'd use Flickr.com every time because it's quick and easy to use.

 

When I'm sitting at my home computer, I'd upload the photos to my Blog directly. Unless I HAVE to, It doesn't make much sense to me to have my main blog in one place and my photos in another place if I can have them all in one place.

 

(Postscript. I noticed some of the P&O staff sitting up on deck 10 with their laptops when we were in Noumea. Aparently you can hook your laptop in to the unsecured wireless lans in the offices of some of the companies close to the cruise terminal, if you know what you're doing).

 

How does everyone post their photos?

 

Neil