The visiting family members have left, the Christmas tree is out on the curb and the New Year’s Eve party confetti is all vacuumed up. If only sharing your holiday photos were as easy to manage.
After watching friends and relatives struggle to navigate the complications of photo sharing using Facebook, Apple’s Photo Streams and Google’s social network, Google+, I’m here to help. In this column, I’ve organized tips and tricks that might surprise even the most share-happy shutterbugs, and will serve as a helpful guide for people who want to feel more in control and comfortable when sharing photos. While there are numerous alternative methods for photo sharing, including thousands of apps, I zeroed in on Facebook, Photo Streams and Google+.
People can share albums from Google+ with anyone, including people who don’t use the network, by generating a link that can be sent to others.
Sharing With Friends Who Don’t Use the NetworkHere’s an all-too-familiar scenario: You spend hours uploading, editing, captioning and “tagging” (identifying people by name) photos to create an album on Facebook, only to be asked by the one person who doesn’t use it if she can see the album. If you’re like most people, you say you’ll send the photos along, eventually. Then you change the subject to something more pleasant, like the cavity you recently had filled.
Unbeknownst to many users, Facebook, Google and Apple enable sharing with people who don’t use their services. Not surprisingly, these out-of-network sharing options are buried in an effort to force people into using the services. So where are they?
In Facebook, after creating an album, open the page that shows the album’s title and contents, select the small gear icon to the right of the album title and click “Share Album.” A Web link to the album will appear that you can copy and send to anyone, even if they don’t use Facebook or aren’t one of your Facebook Friends.
Facebook’s iOS and Android apps enable uploading multiple photos to existing albums, using the icon, above, or new albums.
Any Apple device running the company’s newest operating system, iOS 6, can create and view Shared Photo Streams. These are collections of photos on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch that you can share with friends via email. If your friends also use iOS devices, they can use them to view the Shared Photo Stream.
People who want to see these photos but don’t have an Apple device can still do so, as long as the album creator moves a slider labeled “Public Website” to the “on” position. This public album link is included in an email invitation, but it’s easily overlooked because it appears below a much larger blue button labeled “View this Photo Stream,” which only works on iOS devices. Be sure to click on the text at the very bottom of the email invitation that says, “You can also view this photo stream on the web.”
When people use Google+ to share photos, they’re immediately encouraged to click once and share to “Circles,” which are select groups of people within Google+. But they can also share with friends outside the network by adding their email addresses into the line that says, “Add names, Circles, or email addresses.” This enables sharing with friends who don’t use Google+ or don’t have Gmail accounts.
A Shared Photo Stream as seen through a public album link.
Entire albums can be shared outside of Google+: Within Albums, select one and click the “More” drop-down menu to find “Share album via link.”
Sync Mobile Photos as You GoFacebook, iCloud and Google+ allow people to wirelessly synchronize their mobile photos with their accounts, saving them privately until they’re ready to be shared.
To set this up on Facebook, you can use the mobile app or the website. From the app, select Photos on the left-side panel, then Sync at the bottom right of the screen. Tap the gear in the top right to set whether your phone will sync over Wi-Fi or cellular or just over Wi-Fi. From Facebook.com, open your Timeline, select Photos, “Synced From Phone” at the top, then follow instructions to share images. People can sync up to two gigabytes of images.
Anyone who buys an Apple or Android device is prompted during setup to turn on Photo Stream or Instant Upload, as the companies call their respective offerings. Shared Photo Streams don’t count against your overall iCloud storage, nor do they work against your count of photos in Photo Stream, which syncs the last 1,000 images across your iOS devices. Google+ stores its synchronized mobile photos under a section called Instant Upload; these remain private until shared with others. Google+ has an overall limit of 5 gigabytes, but standard-sized photos like those captured on smartphones don’t count against this limit.
Other Helpful TipsFacebook Camera is the free app that first made it possible for people to upload multiple photos to Facebook via iOS. Now, the main Facebook app also enables uploading multiple photos on Android or iOS, and images can be added to new or existing albums by selecting “New” or tapping a small album icon. Facebook also makes it simpler to post several photos at once in a status update using your Web browser: Users can now click a small “+” icon that appears beside uploaded photos to add more. Also, it’s now possible to drag and drop images right into the status box for sharing with Facebook friends.
If you’re ready to share your Apple Photo Stream with a broader network of friends, these can be uploaded to Twitter or Facebook, but the steps are practically hidden from view. Do this by opening Photo Stream and clicking the small, blue arrow to the right of the Stream you want to share. Make sure it has a link associated with it by switching the Public Website slider to “on,” then hit “Share Link” and select your preferred social network destination. Apple’s own message system, iMessage, is also a sharing option here.
Photo sharing should be more intuitive, and Facebook, Apple and Google are obviously still figuring out the best ways to pack multiple features into their websites and mobile apps. With any luck, your friends and family will have an easier time viewing your photos than you did sharing them.
Email Katie at Katie.Boehret@wsj.com
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SugarSync’s popular cloud sharing app just got a complete web and desktop makeover. Version 2.0 beta is now available in desktop, web and Android app flavors, bringing a handful of new features to subscribers on multiple platforms. Mac and Windows users will have direct file system access to all of their cloud content, letting you transfer documents and other data without launching the app or web interface. You’ll be able to store files within individual folders, and you can hop over to the activity feed to see a list of items in the order they were added, making it easy to locate a file transferred recently.
A new search tool indexes all of your remote content, while also letting you locate files stored locally on computers and other devices. You can also drag and drop files to specific contacts or to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, without any need to copy and paste a download link. Apps will be available for Android at launch, and while BlackBerry, iOS, Symbian and Windows Phone users will need to hang tight for now, they’ll still be able to use previous versions alongside 2.0 in the meantime. As always, you’ll be able to sign up for a free 5GB account, with paid monthly plans ranging from $ 5 for 30 gigs to $ 40 for a monster 500GB plan. Grab the new version now at the source link below.
Filed under: Storage, Software, Mobile
SugarSync releases version 2.0 beta with new UI, drag-and-drop sharing and cross-device search originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Nov 2012 06:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Earlier this month we reported on a new piece of Windows Phone 8 that has yet to be detailed by Microsoft: Rooms. The feature will allow users to create interactive groups with friends, family, or coworkers and let them chat, share notes, build a communal calendar, and post photos for others in the room to see. Now we’ve got some visual evidence that confirms Microsoft is indeed working to include Rooms in the public release of Windows Phone 8 later this fall. The resourceful minds over at WinUnleaked have dug into the Windows Phone 8 SDK and produced screenshots of the feature in action.
As we’d heard, Microsoft will start users off with a default “Family Room” group — complete with a chalkboard family portrait as the backdrop —…
They grow up so fast, don’t they? Spotify’s US launch was just over a year ago, and the streaming music outlet wants us to know just how big its baby is getting. Americans listened to more than 13 billion tracks on the service in the first 365 days, and they shared more than twice as many — 27,834,742, to be exact. Not surprisingly, just over half of that socializing went through Facebook, as you can see in the company’s sugar-coated chart. Spotify is likewise flaunting 2,700 years’ worth of time spent skulking around its app platform. Don’t feel any pangs of regret if you forgot to buy something for Spotify’s birthday, by the way: the company isn’t holding any grudges and says you’ll “love” what it has gift-wrapped for year two. We’re hoping that involves more free radio stations and fewer holdout musicians.
Filed under: Internet
Spotify marks its first anniversary in the US with 13 billion listens, a whole lot of sharing goin’ on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Jul 2012 18:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Normally, we associate Karma with religion, or if we’re honest, luxury hybrid sedans. A company by the same name would rather you make that connection with WiMAX Internet service. Much like a 4G version of FON, subscribers to the Clearwire-rooted network are required to share their Internet link-ups with the public as a WiFi hotspot. As the name suggests, though, sharing the connection ideally pays back dividends through free access: for every guest who signs in on Facebook to get 100MB of free data through the hotspot, another 100MB goes towards the hotspot owner. If all goes well, the Karma user creates a virtuous circle (pun entirely intended) and pays little if anything for Internet access; while the WiMAX hotspot costs $ 69, the $ 14 per gigabyte rate only kicks in if the credit runs out. Trial runs are starting in New York City and might only hit 500 hotspots by the end of 2012, but the hope is to upturn the wider industry and make sure there’s never a shortage of public WiFi.
Karma rewards WiMAX subscribers for sharing their 4G originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jun 2012 22:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Once upon a time a company pioneered simple photo sharing. By allowing consumers to easily take and share pictures, photography became a part of everyday life.
Now, several generations removed, Polaroid is essentially an empty shell of the once iconic brand it used to be. The Instagram Socialmatic Camera is just a concept currently, but it attempts to revive the Polaroid movement with a little help from every hipster’s favorite mobile app, Instagram.
The large concept camera comes courtesy of ADR Studios, who modeled after Instagram’s logo (which itself is a play on Polaroid). Around the back of the camera is a printer capable of producing photos on sticky strips for quick and easy sharing. The camera would also feature 16GB of storage, a large 4:3-inch touchscreen, interchangeable lens, WiFi, and Bluetooth connectivity — all the goods needed for the ideal mobile Instagram machine.
The idea actually isn’t that novel. Polaroid and Olympus outed a very similar device in 2001 of course sans the touchscreen and the Instagram integration. That camera, the C-211 took pics, printed pictures and also had a pretty awful form factor.
Again, this is just a concept but as Freshness Mag points out, it would not be surprising to see something very similar hit Kickstarter in the near future with or without Instagram’s (and Facebook’s) permission.
The Blackberry 10 Dev Alpha we wrapped our mitts around last week didn’t tell us much about RIM’s big QNX-based OS update (being loaded with PlayBook OS 2.0 and all), but Crackberry forum user Biggulpseh seemingly has the deets that the folks in Waterloo weren’t ready to reveal. So-called internal documents reportedly detail a tilt-senstive lock screen that pushes notifications to the user based on the device’s movement (called “cinnamon toast”), a screen-sharing ability to ramp up the productivity of video calls and a robust video editor resulting from RIM’s acquisition of JayCut last year. Biggulpseh says the images come from a “trusted source,” and are part of a document that outlines upcoming features for the benefit of the firm’s employees. Ready to dive in and let your imagination run wild? Hit the source links below, just don’t forget your saliferous spices.
BlackBerry 10 to get video editor, screen sharing according to forum leak originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 May 2012 23:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It only makes sense that the Google TV initiative to increase personalization would extend to videos served up from its YouTube site, and now the official app has been updated to do just that. The new version brings recommendations meant to pull gems you might like out of the ever growing pile of content available, as well as a way to search between the new YouTube channels on your TV. Also users should notice improved video quality since the app will automatically try to play content at the best available resolution from the start, and if they find something interesting, it now supports +1 sharing to Google+. The new app is already live on Google Play, compatible devices should be pointed that way for the new experience.
Google TV YouTube app updated for better recommendations, search and sharing originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Apr 2012 17:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Hey there, Kindle Fire owners — Amazon’s rolling out a brand new software update for you, and it packs quite a few worthwhile (and arguably overdue) tweaks for your budget-conscious tablet.
Take sharing, for example. Oddly absent from the Kindle Fire at launch was the ability to share interesting snippets of text like its e-ink brethren, but that functionality has been added, along with the ability to tap into Amazon’s people-powered Shelfari service for what the company calls Book Extras — extra related information pertaining to the book a reader is poring through.
Amazon is also positioning the Kindle Fire as more of educational device than before with support for print replica textbooks, though I’m hoping against hope they eventually work up something like Apple’s more hand-on approach. Be warned though students — speaking as someone who tried in vain to give up textbooks in exchange for their e-book editions for a semester, you’d best be prepared for a bit of learning curve. If nothing else, the update makes it easier for owners to skim through long articles online, as Amazon has also added a special reading view for their Silk browser that that strips out all the cruft in favor of a less-is-more reading experience.
Also included are a handful of miscellaneous fixes that range from the minor (WiFi reconnects faster after the Fire wakes up) to the thoughtful (the time limit on movie rentals now starts when it’s first played, not when it’s downloaded). Alright, it’s not the most mind-blowing update, but Fire owners probably won’t be looking this gift horse in the mouth.
Amazon has said that the update will be pushed to be devices over the coming days, but particularly anxious Fire owners can go ahead and take the plunge now. And for once, you don’t have to worry if you’re rocking a rooted Fire, as the folks on the XDA forums have already managed to score root access to the thing — you’ve gotta love that ol’ hacker spirit.
