Mar 23, 06:10 AM: FlickrBackup v1.0.2 Released!

Back around the beginning of March, Flickr changed the way that URLs are built to include the server number of the farm that a photo is coming from. They said that they would always honor the old URLs, and I took this to mean that FlickrBackup didn’t have a pressing need to be updated. Turns out, Flickr really meant that they would honor the old URLs for old photos. Any new photos would only be accessible via the new URL scheme. Therefore, when you tried to download a photo with FlickrBackup, all you got was a place holder image that said “Photo currently unavailable.”

FlickrBackup v1.0.2 resolves this issue and can now be downloaded from the Sourceforge page as usual. I’d like to thank the new developers over at flickrj for fixing the issue in there so the update was minor on my side. I also like to note the this version now writes a log file to the java.io.tmpdir (which on Windows should be in your HomeDir\Local Settings\Temp and *nix (including OS X) will be either /var/tmp or /tmp). The log file is called FlickrBackup.log. This should help when users notice a problem with FlickrBackup so they can send me the log.

One more note I would like to add is that the next version will very likely be a Java WebStart version only. I would like to get away from having to maintain 3 different releases, and also worry about users not having the latest and greatest version of FlickrBackup. So keep your eye out for that one.

Thanks to everyone who have help and supported FlickrBackup up to this point. I know that I have been slow in doing development on this project lately, but life gets hectic sometimes. Thanks again for all your kind words.

Sep 3, 12:03 PM: FlickrBackup v1.0 Released!

FlickrBackup v1.0 has just been released! This version fixes the issue of FlickrBackup not working any more due to the change by the Flickr Team. I worked with the author of flickj for quite some time trying to find out what broke flickrj and we finally fixed it. While that was the main reason for this release, you are all getting some new features along with it.

A lot of people have asked me to make FlickrBackup download photos with a better name than the random numbers that flickr assigns them. Well, now they will download with their title as their name (if possible). Some names will not be allowed as filenames, so please try not to use special characters in your photo titles. FlickrBackup should notice an illegal character if one exists and not use the title if that happens. If you notice it doesn’t, please let me know.

Another very requested feature is that Sets be downloaded into folders. We’ll you got that one too! The Set will download into a folder with the set title as the name (again following the no special characters rule).

Both of these features are configurable through a new options menu. You can enable/disable them there if you would like. You will see one other option to replace spaces with a character if you would like as well.

Thank you all for your patience which FlickrBackup was broken. I hope the new features will make it worth the wait!

Aug 16, 01:19 PM: FlickrAPI update breaks Flickr Backup!

The folks over at Flickr have made a recent update that breaks Flickr Backup completely. I’m currently working on a fix with the author of the flickrj API and hope to have an update released soon. This release will also have to contain some new features I’ve been working on which include saving Sets to folders, real file names, and a fix to allow you to download private sets. Thank you for you support and patience!

Jan 25, 02:15 PM: FlickrBackup 1.0a2.0.1 Released

I’ve posted a Bug Fix Release for Flickr Backup that fixes a problem where some of your photos load, but the rest just show up with grey boxes. Flickr decided to change their URL naming scheme for the static image URLs. This caused a problem in flickrj which in turn caused the problem in FlickrBackup. I helped fix the problem in flickrj and have pulled the new jar into FlickrBackup. You can find the release on the sourceforge page.

Please let us know if you have any problems.

Also, for the developers out there, I found a cool Ant Task that lets you build your Mac OS X Application Bundles. This is a life saver for those who do this by hand! I only had to do it twice to know that it was no fun. Now my build script builds it for me and I don’t have to worry about it any more! You can find JarBundler over at Loom Communications. Thanks Loom!

Nov 30, 11:34 AM: Flickr Backup on G4 TV (sort of...)!!

WOW! First off, Google Analytics is awesome, so if you have a website, go sign up! So I was looking at my Report for sunkencity today and I saw a bunch of traffic that came from G4 TV! Their Free File Crew posted Flickr Backup as Free File #284 and it generated a lot of traffic. Thanks for the props G4TV!

Nov 19, 06:51 AM: Mac Installer for Flickr Backup posted

I have create a package installer for Flickr Backup on Mac OS X. It will install a new Flickr Backup application in your Applications directory. So now you can have Flickr Backup as on file on Mac OS X and keep it in your dock because you use it so much! Let me know if you have problems with it! You can grab it from the downloads page.

Nov 3, 08:48 AM: Flickr Backup Alpha 2 Released

Flickr Backup Alpha 2 has just been posted to sourceforge! Some of you may be wondering what took so long in getting Alpha 2 released, and the reason is mainly that I spent a lot of time getting the web site up and designing the new Flickr Backup Logo. So without further adieu, here is what you get with Alpha 2:

• Flickr Backup has a new Logo!
• A new button has been added to allow users to change the user they are logged into flickr as.
• A new progress label has been added to each tab to let you know how many photos/set have been loaded and a total number for each tab.
• The 500 photo maximum limit has been fixed. You can now load all of your photos
• Added a Select All Checkbox on all tabs.
• Added a logo to top of the GUI.
• Added a splash screen when launching the GUI.
• Added an application Icon.
• Flickr Backup now has a Windows EXE file for distribution making it easy to launch!

• Fixed numerous bugs that were causing Flickr Backup to not load all your photos. It would load random numbers of your photos. Now it loads them all every time.

So please go download it and let me know what you think! Thanks for all your patience!

Oct 27, 05:25 AM: Do more with your flickr photos

Looks like Flickr is trying to beat me to the punch! Today, Flickr announced a number of service partnerships that let you Do More With Your Photos. One of these services will allow you to purschase a DVD with all your photos on it for backup purposes. Yes, this is something that Flickr Backup will do as well. But remember, Flickr Backup will always be free! So no, I’m not stopping development on my project here. We will keep on churning new features that will hopefully give everyone a better way to save their memories. Thanks again for all the support everyone!

Sep 30, 03:38 AM: Flickr Backup Gaining Steam!

Flickr Backup is really starting to gain some steam and has been getting a lot of visibility. We went from having like 6 download in the first few days, and now we are up to 572 downloads! There are people blogging about it all over the world and it is fantastic (this is my favorite so far! ) I would really like to thank everyone for checking it out and for spreading the word.

We’ve got 2 feature requests in the tracker so far, so please feel free to join them and ask for the features you would like to see. I’m still trying to get my initial design ideas up on the web site, so keep watching for that.

I haven’t been working on it too much lately just because I have been spending the last few weeks trying to get this web site up and running. I’m thinking I might need to get a real host for this web site if the traffic keeps flowing like it has! But now that the website looks pretty good, I’ll get back on developing and getting out the next release soon. Keep you eye on the blog for news!

Thanks again everyone! This is great fun!

Sep 19, 05:39 AM: The new face of sunkencity.org

sunkencity.org has been around for a while, but hasn’t had a real definition of what it is until now. The true identity has been revealed as sunkencity software! I have always planned on there being a software piece to sunkencity, and what better use than make the entire web site devoted to our software.

For those of you that haven’t figured it out, sunkencity is a play on the Lost City of Atlantis. atlantis.com/net/org were all taken, and sunkencity popped into my head one day. Atlantis was know for it great technology, so what better a name for a software company who uses new and upcoming technologies to provide better services and products.

We look forward to serving the open source community and hope everyone gets some good use out of our products.