Hello ShoZu, Goodbye Lifeblog

Submitted by Roland on Wed, 2005-10-26 11:20

If you want to upload lots of flickr photos from your Series 60 phone, I highly recommend ShoZu. I have stopped using Lifeblog and will now upload my pictures using Shozu? Why? ShoZu doesn't have a s*lly "4 photo at a time" upload limit like Lifeblog. ShoZu uploads automagically in the background, detects loss of GPRS and re-connects unlike Lifeblog. In short ShoZu was designed from the ground up for flickr and wasn't designed with a "mobile phone and Windows PC are the center of my photo universe" mentality which applies maybe to 1 or 2 people :-) but not to me!

Feature requests:

  • MUSTS

    1. Use the upload by email tags as default tags like Lifeblog does
  • WANTS
    1. Have feature to automatically delete photos from the phone after download.
    2. Have a feature where the user can enter a default title for photos like Hugin and Mugin and the title will have the photo capture time automatically appended (and/or use the appropriate flickr api to set the photo capture time). e.g. I enter Vancouver and the photos are titled: "Vancouver 10:50:30a.m. October 25, 2005", "Vancouver 10:51:00a.m. October 25, 2005", etc. assuming the photos were taken at 10:50:30 and 10:51:00

From ShoZu.:

QUOTE

Saving to Flickr: Once activated, each time you take a new photo, ShoZu will give you the option of uploading to Flickr (You may turn this off if you wish). If you click OK, the photo will be uploaded quietly in the background, leaving you free to do other things.

UNQUOTE

Comments

jelly (not verified)

Thu, 2006-02-02 10:45

I like flickr, but there's no video. I use fotojive.com and they have camera phone software that let's you upload both photos and video clips (but no tags) Tags you can add after - worth a look.

Roland

Fri, 2006-02-03 16:50

works really well but unfortunately because it's email the videos are limited to 3 MB which is about 10 seconds in QCIF format

mkhan

Wed, 2006-07-26 05:21

I used to be a Shozu user as well but was turned off by it because of known bugs in the application.

I now use an application called PixSense to automatically upload pictures from my Nokia 3230. I've tried Shozu and a few other applications but PixSense worked best for me.

Some of the reasons I switched to PixSense (instead of Shozu) are:

1) Easy to configure settings for upload
2) PixSense has phone-to-phone sharing for photos as well as videos. So I can share my photos and videos from my phone via sms to friends who may or may not be PixSense users.
3) Publicly publishing albums (photos, videos, comments) from my phone.
4) PixSense has a WAP gallery (http://wap.pixsense.com) for people who don't have
PixSense installed on their mobile phones so that PixSense can share their photos and videos with non-PixSense users as well.
5) In Shozu I need to make a shozu account and also a flickr user account. I just need to make one account for PixSense.
6) I can comment on pictures and videos from my camera phone itself and they instantly appear on the PixSense website.
7) The PixSense device installation isn't as long and painful as Shozu.
8) Shozu adds 10% to the size of the file during transfer. PixSense on the other hand has a compression technology that reduces the filesize by 50% before transferring. So users end up spending less using PixSense for photo, video and text upload.
9) If I am a Flickr and Shozu user and I want to put all my pictures, videos and blogs in the same place, I can't. My videos would go to You Tube, photos to Flickr, and text to Text America. There's no central place I can put it in, hence no single URL that I get to share with my friends. I have to give separate URLs for different kinds of media.
10) Shozu still has known bugs which PixSense does not have, like:
(a) loss of pictures http://www.flickr.com/groups/shozu-beta/discuss/72057594141637325/
(b) battery drain http://www.flickr.com/groups/shozu-beta/discuss/72157594144230281/
(c) more connection requests than picture uploads http://www.flickr.com/groups/shozu-beta/discuss/72157594144230281/

These are just a few of the feature comparisons in which PixSense proves to be a better camera phone app than Shozu. I would recommend using PixSense to see the difference yourself. (www.pixsense.com)

Try it out and let me know what you think. Also, take a look at the photos/videos I took using PixSense on beta.pixsense.com/citygirl

Roland

Wed, 2006-07-26 11:07

and definitely not interested in WAP (since none of my friends use WAP on their phones)

I will give pixsense a try, but as a flickr addict, it'll be pretty much impossible for me to use a service like Pixsense that doesn't work with Flickr. 

 

Thanks for the info :-) though!  

Roland

Wed, 2006-07-26 11:11

I'll try pixsense when it support the current phone I am trying which is the Nokia N91.

mkhan

Wed, 2006-07-26 22:09

Sounds fair :)

wiiman

Sat, 2006-09-02 00:37

I've had similar problems with pixsense but they don't have a forum. Atleast Shozu is open to discussion. pixsense just asks us to inform them without a proper bulletin board that can help other users and they don't integrate with flickr or youtube hence no mass audience appeal. I doubt if anyone would go to pixsense.com to search for pictures or videos unless they know a friend posts there.

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