And I really need to RANT. Several years ago, my husband gave me a Kodak Digital Camera....you know....when everyone was getting digital cameras. So, I loved the thing - of course - and downloaded the Kodak software and got rather used to uploading to the Kodak Gallery and now over the years I have grown out of my Kodak and into my Canon. I still have four gig of pics sitting out there on the Kodak Gallery. It was a FREE service to begin with. Has remained a free service. No Charge. Until recently. I received a mailnote from them telling me that I would have to PURCHASE $19.99 worth of products from them or they would DELETE my entire gallery! WHAT???????????????????????????????????? I freaked out.
I'm pissed off. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. But I didn't have any time to react. I was gone for seven weeks on a roadtrip. Upon my return, I tried without success to remove MY VERY OWN pictures from their site and put them back on my computer. Well. Lo and behold. It can't be done. Easily.
Yes, I can copy a postage stamp size thumbnail WHICH WILL DO ME NO GOOD AT ALL!!!
I did some research and found that there is some things I could do with html to fiddle around with and possibly get them off of their site.
Bottom line. It's not worth my time and energy. So, I bought a Father's Day gift from the site.
And I will NEVER use the Kodak Gallery again.
EVER.
And I suggest that you pass the word.
Not a good business practice. In my mind.
So....what do you think??
11 comments:
Please forgive my bluntness (but you asked). I think that you were silly to have used Kodak storage for your originals in the first place. That's lust plain dumb!
Given that most PCs (and laptops) come with at least 160Gb of storage, it's not like you didn't have enough room. And can you imagine leaving your negatives with Kodak in the old 35mm days?
So what to do now, well I'd get them all off the Kodak site and onto CDs, there's probably a utility on the site that does it.
Good Luck.
PS. I had a Kodak camera prior to my current one, and I didn't even use the bundled Kodak software to download images from my camera!
I store a few pictures here and there at sites just so that I can send a link instead of a picture if I want to share them, but I wouldn't trust even a paid site to safeguard them. The only site that I pay for is Webshots and that's really the for the same reason.
You're not the only one to be pissed. Here's a consumer article about the whole thing:
that you might want to read.For copying the photos back to your computer, here's what I found doing a search for you:
"For those who want to download entire albums from Kodak Gallery, only
from version 6.4 or later, here you are:
Eureka: I found a roundabout way to download the whole album from
Kodak Gallery with the latest version of Easyshare 6.4. I did so on a
Windows PC mind you. However it is the new "copy" function in "File",
hence it should be the same for Mac.
I tried to post this on a PC hosting forum, however I wasn't going to
pay $5 to post, so here you are. You just have to put up with PC
jargon.
- Pick an album (Test with my own album in the gallery, but I guess
you should be able to do same with others' with appropriate
permissions) to display all slides in it.
- Select all pictures (PC: cursor on 1 pict, CTL-A)
- Drag all pictures to Picture Tray (You probably can repeat for multi
albums as well)
- Click on "File" then pick Copy on the pop-up menu, follow the
prompts to put them where you like on your hard disk
.... Voila "
Does that help any?
I haven't a clue what you are talking about so I can't give you any sage advice.
However - that being said - I understand completely how angry you must be.
Raise hell or Cain girl. You can do it! And ya - get your pics back.
That is definitely frustrating. UGGGH. I store all of ours on huge backup drive AND on photobucket.
That policy is just wrong on so many levels.
Wasn't that kind of HoneyGo?!!! There you are! I'd go copy them now and if you get a new camera just store them on a cd or dvd...
Computer programs...Geez!!Hahaa...hughugs
ARGH! Yes, I would be angry, too, Jeanne! We store our photos on one computer, which is backed up onto another hard drive every day. (I'm married to a geek..what can I say?) Cd's are also a great way to store precious photos.
I would never trust an online service to keep my photographs for me.
WOW, that just sucks. I'm not so computer savvy though to know how to get them transferred so I use the photo programs for highlighting, cropping, fixing, etc. etc. but try to keep the camera cards too because after a computer crash wiped out my hard drive I didn't want to loose stuff that I forgot to back up again. The little mem cards aren't that expensive. I delete some pics off of them, but still keep alot too.
I used to use Kodak and liked my camera and their software program but then I also upgraded to a Canon. I am not completely thrilled with the program or the camera but it's what I have right now. My little Sony Cybershot was a good camera... until it broke.... stuff just isn't made to last very long these days.
Do you use Picasa? I have lots and lots of pictures stored there and so far it is free.
Have a wonderful weekend.
OH! This kind of stuff makes me furious!!
kind of like the "spider to the fly" story.
That is so bloody annoying! I'd be pissed too. Why don't you try www.picasaweb.google.com
It's a free online photo gallery, linked to your gmail account. Other than Facebook, that's what I use when I want to send out pics to family & friends.
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