Also did a little cleanup and removed some obsolete import/export options:
-AOL Pictures: Site no longer exists
-Faces.com: Site (the one I built support for) no longer exists, and has been replaced with a social network.
-”Phanfare 2″: There were previously two versions of Phanfare set up for migration from within Migratr. This is because Phanfare went through some pretty drastic changes, and for a time was really two different services- The old one and the new one (designated as “Phanfare” and “Phanfare 2″). They were kind enough to leave the old version of the site up for several months in order to give users time to debate whether to convert over to an account on the new Phanfare (managed internally by them) or to determine that the new vision for the site wasn’t for them and migrate elsewhere (which is where Migratr came into play). The transition is complete, and there’s no longer a reason to keep the API for the “Old” Phanfare in Migratr. So it’s been removed, and to clear things up, “Phanfare 2″ (the New Phanfare) has been renamed simply to “Phanfare”, as there’s only one version up anymore.

As mentioned in a previous post, I’ll be digging into Gallery 2.3 issues as time permits. My earlier statement that “It’s stopped working completely” turns out to be wrong- It works for me, which is really frustrating- I can’t duplicate the issues others are experiencing. Those of you who have emailed me about Gallery support- I might be hitting you up for beta testing in the coming weeks:)

For the time being… Enjoy the download, and happy Migrating!
-Alex

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Oh snap! What’s that? Yeah, you read correctly. Migratr [finally] has Photobucket support! So for those of you itching to give Photobucket a shot, or for those of you with a few hundred photos wrapped up in photobucket and wanting to give another service a shot, now’s your chance. Go! Play! You’re free now. It’s all okay.

Also, I outsourced some logo development for Migratr. The picture you see at the top of this post is what you’ll see from now on as the application icon in the start-menu and/or desktop shortcuts.

Anyway, as always, rock the big download button to download the new, swanky version.

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Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I’ve been plugging away, but sometimes it’s hard to get to a stopping point where I can say “this is ready for release”. Will prob. have something up before the end of the year. And, as a sidenote / friendly reminder, AOL Pictures closes on Dec. 31, so all you who use that service have just under a month to get your pictures and get out:)

-Alex

As if AOL hasn’t done enough disappointing things in the past, like getting rid of a number of people who relied on their jobs because the company’s plans for some silly thing it tried to launch didn’t work out right, or badgering people who try to cancel their membership over the phone until they’re nearly in tears, now AOL users who are still loyal to the company (for whatever reason) have something else to contend with.

On July 14th, Kevin Conroy (he’s AOL’s Executive Vice President, for those of you who don’t know), sent out an internal memo saying that AOL Pictures and a few other things – XDrive, BlueString, and MyMobile – were going bye-bye. Just leaving. Why? Simple. And the same reason that any business gets rid of anything – it’s not pulling in the huge sacks full of dollars that the company thought it would back when it launched. It doesn’t seem to matter that a lot of people like this service and use it, or that there are a lot more AOL members who might be enticed to use it in the future if it was marketed to them properly. AOL users would probably be pretty disappointed about the disappearance of their photo site – if they knew.

Conveniently, there is no mention on the actual Website (http://pictures.aol.com/) that the service is shutting down. Not even a hint hidden somewhere in a corner or a little tidbit of info stuck down in all that fine print along the bottom. Instead, the site offers to log you in or sign you up for a free account if you don’t already have one, and invites you to do more with your pictures and check out BlueString (also leaving). You’d think that a site that has a number of users who rely on it and was going away in the very near future would make some mention of it, but hey, that’s just AOL
for ya.

Thankfully, there’s a solution. Here’s what you do. Download Migratr and move your photos away from AOL Pictures, and to something that will still be there for you the next time you want to look at or share those photos. Migratr is a desktop application that’s designed to take photos from one sharing site and put them on another one, along with all the titles, tags and captions you’ve added to them, along with the albums you organized them by. Then the next time AOL gets a bright idea and launches a photo sharing site and then yanks it away just a few short months later, users will be better prepared. In the meantime, AOL users – let’s get those photos moved!

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/24/full-text-of-aol-email-xdrive-aol-pictures-mymobile-and-bluestring-to-shut-down/

http://www.callingshotgun.net/about/migratr

Anyway, here’s a maintainence release for you.  If you already have Migratr and .NET 3.5 installed on your machine, there’s no need to download this version.  If you have been experiencing crash issues with Migratr, though, please download this version and give it a spin, so that either the problem gets magically fixed, or we narrow it down significantly:)

Enjoy the release!

Big Giant Download Button Of Extreme Justice:

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So I decided to make a quick update, and flip the ordering.  Basically, in the new version, photos are downloaded from flickr Oldest-To-Newest, instead of the default Newest-To-Oldest.

Also, a small bugfix for the new upload interface-  There was an issue where if a photo was checked under multiple “sets” for the set-style photo services (flickr, 23hq, zooomr), it would upload the photo multiple times.

This has been fixed.

Enjoy the release!

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-Alex

Needless to say, Migratr has changed a lot since then.  It has a genuinely easy-to-navigate UI, lets you move photos and metadata in any direction between a solid selection of different photoservices, and has been embraced by the photographic and web-enthusiastic communities.

It did have one fatal flaw, though.  Upon the release of Zooomr’s Mark III release, the API was “temporarily disabled” for a week, which turned into a month, which turned into a year.  Migratr could not interact with the webservice which had been its initial inspiration.  To say I was saddened, to say I was frustrated, to say I “sort of nagged” Kris Tate about getting the API back up and securing access to it, would all be understatements.  I was seriously bummed.  I hated disabling the Zooomr button in the Migratr UI.  And oh my god, when it came to Kris, I was like some sort of mother in law from hell.  Honestly, I tried to be polite about it, and whether he believes it or not I DID restrain myself.  But I bugged him, relentlessly, mercilessly.  I did it over email, IM, the zooomr-dev google group, and his zipline.  I simply refused to take “soon” as an answer (good thing, too).  Eventually the service got to a point where he could hand out API keys, and Kris was kind enough to hook me up.  I said in earlier posts that I wouldn’t feel Migratr was 1.0 until it had Zooomr support back.  Friends, users, countrymen… That day is finally here.

New Features in Migratr 1.0.0:

*Zooomr Support

*Phanfare 2 support (Phanfare 1 support is still active, as a different button)

*New Upload Screen

Major Changes

*Backend change from .NET framework 2.0 to  3.5 (Might require its own download, depending on your setup)

I made the hop from .NET Framework 2.0 -> 3.5 because the new additions to the framework are amazingly helpful to my ability to develop Migratr efficiently, and write elegant, maintainable code that I can immediately understand when I look at it again a month after writing it.  I’m sorry it will require a 20 MB download for you if you’ don’t have it already, but I can tell you with complete honesty that from my end, it’s a major contribution to the development process.

The new upload screen bears explanation.  Instead of simply choosing the folder on your hard drive to upload from and letting Migratr go to town, “Choose a folder” will instead load all your photos into a tree of checkboxes, labelled by filename.  From here you can actually choose which files you want to upload to the new service.  They tree out by album they are contained in, too, for easy organization.

After you’ve selected which photos you actually want to upload, just hit “Start Migrating” to actually start the migration.  Neato, huh?

So far all of you who have been itching to get in or out of Zooomr (or the new version of Phanfare), hit the download button and enjoy!

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Thankfully, an astute forum member brought it to my attention. Special thanks to MSPhotog!

To download the fix, just click the ever-popular “big giant download button”.

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A few new things in this version:

1. Support has been added for Gallery 2. This has been tested on 2.2.3, but should work with all 2.x versions. As a sidenote, this requires that you have the “Remote” module installed in your Gallery 2 installation (since Migratr uses the same API as the Gallery Remote client). If you get authentication errors, try downloading the Gallery Remote, and testing with that to make sure your Gallery installation is set up to work with desktop clients.

2. Updated to the newest version of the FlickrNet library. This means some bugfixes, performance enhancements, and most importantly, the ability to disable the cache! Resuming a migration from Flickr & 23HQ should run a little smoother now. This also means that we have all been liberated from having that “Flush Cache” button sitting there in the import screen, generally looking smug and not making any sense. Since there is no longer a cache to flush, it has been removed.

3. I changed the “You tried to export to the same service you imported from” message from an error message to a confirmation (Yes/No) dialog box. Being that Migratr was designed with the intention of moving photos between services, it had honestly never occurred to me that someone would want to import from one service, and then export to that same service. To that end, I wanted to make sure that nobody accidentally went on “autopilot” and accidentally created doubles of every photo in an account. However, several of you in the forums have mentioned using it to move between accounts on the same service. To that end, Migratr will now simply pop up a dialog as a gentle reminder to make sure that you’re selecting the same service intentionally, and then let you proceed as you wish.

And now, for a the traditional “Big Giant Download Button”

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Enjoy the release!

-Alex

A fellow developer gave me some pointers on how I might be able to accomplish migration of data from one of the latest additions to the Photo-Sharing Deadpool, ImageStation. I consider closing sites to be of the highest priority, however, since they’re not allowing new accounts (And while this might indicate why they’re closing, I never heard of them before they actually announced the service was shutting down), I have no way to code against their website.

So I’m asking you guys for a favor. If you have an active ImageStation account with photos on it (preferably with at least SOME metadata… tags, album, description, etc), and are willing to let me use your account as a guinnea pig, I would GREATLY appreciate if you emailed me the login/pass information for your account. My personal email address is callingshotgun@gmail.com. Of course, I will treat this information with the utmost confidence.

What will you be getting out of this, you might ask? Fair question. After all, I’m asking you for LOGIN INFORMATION. That’s kind of ridiculous, and it’s not something I normally like to do. But here’s the deal… You’ll be helping me help you (and countless other stranded users) move your photos to wherever you want- Not roach-motelling them into Shutterfly, which offers no API, and not having to pay them money to burn a DVD and mail it to you. Your choices as of the current version of Migratr will include moving to SmugMug, Phanfare, Flickr, PicasaWeb, Zenfolio, and 23HQ. Or heck, letting migratr just download all the photos and all your metadata to your hard drive, and letting you do whatever you want from there.

So, there it is. I’m asking you. I’m begging you.

Help me set your photos free.

-Alex