Sorting, organizing, and storing your LEGO – the second hobby [Essay]

Sorting, organizing, and storing your LEGO – the second hobby [Essay]

As I started building my second major creation (more on the first later), it became quite obvious to me that I was paying the price for over 10 years of nonexistent or half-ass sorting. It was almost impossible to build because I couldn’t find anything. So I got sucked into covering my entire living room with 25 years of accumulated LEGO in an effort to make some sense of it. Hopefully the lessons I learned from my mistakes and the help I got from my friends can help some of you who are struggling through the same process or paralyzed by the mere prospect (that was me for 10 years).

To begin with, there is no single perfect way to organize a LEGO collection that will satisfy everyone. The closest thing is a receptacle for every element in every color ever made. But even The LEGO Group can’t have all the elements in all the colors up at any single time (thus a common [silly] complaint about Pick A Brick). There’s no point setting an impossible standard for yourself. And if you’re anything like me in the early stages of hobbying, you probably don’t have enough pieces to justify hyper-organization. (Photo at right, LEGOLAND Model Shop bins, courtesy of Tim Inman)

Broadly, the two most common ways to sort are either by color (yellow, gray, pink, etc) or by type of element (wheel, tile, brick, plate, etc.). Josh has also reviewed the Box4Blox, a device that allows you to dump unsorted elements in a box and then sift them down by size, after which you can sort those sizes into appropriate colors or types.

I’ve found sorting by type and size works best for me. It’s easier for me to spot the blue 2×4 plate among the other 2 x n plates, rather than finding the 2×4 plate among the other blue pieces. If taken to it’s crazy logical conclusion, both systems will result in sorting everything by color and element, but in the interim, I find sorting by type easier to both do and use for building.

That brings us to one of the other truths about sorting and organizing your collection: It will depend on your personality, patience and what you like to build. Sorting isn’t a must either, some people don’t do it. They just break down sets and keep them separated in boxes or baggies, then use Peeron or other resources to find the pieces they want, then dig out the set and find the piece they want. Some of the best builders out there have such huge collections that it’s out of control.

During the actual sorting, I used 16-quart tubs to sort into plates, bricks, Technic, slopes, minifigs/accessories, vehicle parts, vehicle elements, and large building elements. As a tub filled up, I split it further, for example separating my 1 x n bricks from my 2 x n bricks. I also bought a couple 39-drawer hardware units to put all the smaller elements into. Lots of people use craft trays, drawers or they recycle yogurt/margarine containers.

Once you’re going for a fairly permanent home for your bricks, here are four broad characteristics of a good permanent containment system:

1. Transparent. Clear containers are my choice, but others use labels or double-sided tape to stick an example element on the outside of the container. It’s just nice being able to look at a container and know what’s inside.


2. Diverse, but compatible. Lots of drawers or boxes of various sizes. Hundreds of a small element will only take a tiny drawer, while a few dozen big pieces can take up a pretty large space. It helps if the types of containers you use are in some way compatible with each other. (Below, Alyse and Remi’s building table is a good example)


3. Stackable. Use vertical space well by having boxes, drawers and/or shelves that stack on top of each other, or by just using tall units with lots of drawers.


4. Expandable. As a collection grows, it’s good to have a system that you can just buy more of the same containers to expand. It’s also important to start a containment system that will be around for a while, so during a later round of expansion you’ll actually be able to find more of the same.

If you want to strive toward even greater perfection, here are a few specific things that I and others have found pretty helpful:

• Hardware drawers that have anywhere from 6 to 40 small and medium sized drawers for holding bolts, screws and nails are ideal for smaller elements and specialty pieces.


• Fishing tackle or craft boxes with lots of little dividers are also pretty handy. Be careful with any container that has removable dividers, if flimsy, they just result in everything spilling together when bumped.


• Rubbermaid, Sterilite, Plano and other companies make a variety of stackable plastic boxes and 3-drawer systems that are exceptionally versatile.


• Especially for sorting and building, drawers/boxes/bins with rounded bottoms and corners make it easier to scoop pieces out.


• In a pinch, zip-loc bags, recycled margarine containers and the more solid LEGO boxes are great for both sorting and sub-diving within other bins.

Oddly enough, I find contrast is quite helpful, both in shape and color. For example, I keep my black and white 1×1 square plates together, I can see with my own eyes easily enough which is black or white, that way I can keep those elements that I have in huge quantities together. (Photo at right, Bruce Lowell does something similar). My 1×4 tiles and 2×2 tiles are also together; I’m not going to get them mixed up very easily and I really only have enough tile to justify 3 small containers. For me, the point is to be able to find something, not have a perfectly orderly universe.

Right now I don’t have enough of most of my large specialty elements to justify separate containers for them. Though I’m not 100% satisfied with the results, I’ve dumped them in boxes by general categories, such as architectural, vehicular, printed, tires, big ugly rock pieces, maritime, etc. Which brings me to one of the most important things: It’s an ongoing process. As needs, interests, patience and size of collection change, you’ll modify the system. Because of that, flexibility is good. Finding one or two compatible containment systems will help you adapt as time goes on and make sorting easier down the road.

Fortunately or unfortunately, because of BrickCon I now have a huge cardboard box packed full of unsorted LEGO, which has set me back a bit. My wife and I are also still in the process of the complicated marriage negotiation of where/how to make room for my LEGO amongst her Barbie, pottery, sewing and scrapbook collections. Thus my stuff is stacked in the living room:

Do you need Anti-Virus on your Media Center PC’s?

Do you need Anti-Virus on your Media Center PC’s?

It’s a legitimate question don’t you think? My case in point. I have a Media Center Server that does nothing but record shows, serve extenders, and serve other Media Centers. Do I need to install an Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware product on it? Well, I have Microsofts Security Essentials installed on it whether that is right or wrong.

Do you want the security scanners trying to scan every bit that is served up to your client PC’s? I don’t however, I do perform some mild downloading and surfing via remote desktop and at the console. I think that is a good case to have some sort of protection.

I could have also titled this post, Microsoft Security Essentials Detects it’s first Exploit. I’ve never seen it pop up before and was a bit stunned. Check out the following screen grab if you have never seen MSE do it’s thing.

How did I come about such an exploit you may ask? Downloading actor images, and meta data via the MetaBrowser utility! I never imagined I would run across an exploit in such a way but there is also a good chance that it’s just a false positive. I don’t blame MetaBrowser for it but should we be concerned? I would like to know what image it was trying to download but since I quarantined the image I can’t find it! I did send the file to MS as seen by the grabs below.

Here are more detail about the exploit. Leave me your thoughts.

Part 1: Building A Balanced Gaming PC

Part 1: Building A Balanced Gaming PC: "What does it mean to build a truly-balanced PC? How great would it be to piece together a machine bottlenecked by neither CPU or GPU? We set forth to measure the perfect balance in seven different games and four resolutions in this first of several parts."

Don't Upgrade Your Hackintosh Netbook Just Yet [Hackintosh]

Don't Upgrade Your Hackintosh Netbook Just Yet [Hackintosh]: "

If you're running Leopard or Snow Leopard on a 'hackintosh' netbook, don't allow it to upgrade to Snow Leopard 10.6.2, or Leopard 10.5.9. The core kernels in those update kill off support for Atom-based netbook CPUs, which is almost certainly the processor inside your netbook. There are likely fixes in the works by the hackintosh community, and you might be able to retain your current kernel and upgrade, if that's something you know how to do. Still, for the time being, it seems like sticking with what you've got is a pretty wise move. [OS X Daily via Gizmodo]

How to Really Browse Without Leaving a Trace [Privacy]

How to Really Browse Without Leaving a Trace [Privacy]:

Think that your browser's private mode keeps your browsing completely private? Not so! More often than not, you're still leaving traces of your browsing session behind, and today we'll tell you how to get rid of them for truly private browsing.

The Problem

Keeping track of where you've been doesn't end with simply clearing out your browsing history and other private data—your operating system continues to store more information about what you've been up to, like cached DNS lookups and worse, Flash cookies that don't get wiped. It's worth noting that you won't be able to erase all of your tracks all the time—if you are browsing stuff that you shouldn't at work, you can still get caught by a system admin even if the history on your PC is gone. On your own PC, however, here's how we suggest boosting your browsing privacy (complete with a couple of scripts to automate the process).

Cached DNS Entries

Every time you browse to a web page, your PC has to request the IP Address for that web site from your default DNS server, and then caches them locally on your machine for a while to speed up future access to that web site—even in a private browsing session.

You can see these for yourself by opening up a command prompt and typing in ipconfig /displaydns to see the full list of cached DNS entries, then open up a new private browsing session and go to a site you don't normally access. If you re-run the command again, you'll see that it's been added to the DNS caching, telling anybody with access to your machine that you've been watching the PowerPuff Girls. Cleaning the cache is easy, just type in ipconfig /flushdns to wipe everything.

Worse: Flash Cookies

The secret tracking information doesn't stop with simple DNS entries, which don't really tell anybody much about what exactly you were looking at—but the hidden Flash cookies will tell a whole different story.
You can see these entries by heading into the %appdata%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects directory, and once you are done panicking, you can simply delete them all to get rid of them—for now.

Clear Flash Cookies in Firefox

Luckily Firefox's great extension support makes it really simple to get rid of those awful Flash cookies with the previously mentioned Objection extension. You'll have to download the development release and use an about:config hack to make it compatible with the latest versions of Firefox, but once you've done that, installed the extension, and rebooted Firefox, you should be able to head into the settings to make short work of those Flash cookies.

The Settings tab gives you an option to automatically remove the Local Shared Objects on browser open or close, the File details tab will allow you to take a look through all of the local cookies already stored, and the Flash player settings tab gives you access to a bunch of options, including telling Flash to never store information.

Run CCleaner After Browsing

When it comes to cleaning up all of the extra traces that applications leave behind, nothing quite equals using CCleaner to get rid of all those little bits that really shouldn't be there anymore, regardless of which browser you are using. Just make sure to open up CCleaner and look for Adobe Flash Player in the Applications tab, and keep that box checked.

Once you've made sure that your CCleaner settings are perfect, you can create a shortcut to run CCleaner silently with a simple double-click on an icon, or even assign a hotkey for quick junk removal. If you are using Windows 7 or Vista, you'll probably notice that there's a UAC prompt every time you run the shortcut-you can create shortcuts that bypass UAC, or just disable it entirely instead. If you are even more paranoid, you can set up CCleaner to run on a schedule, automatically.

Create a Batch File to Clean Everything

Your best bet is to create a simple batch file to run after your browsing session, to make sure your browser cache, Flash cookie cache, and DNS entries are cleaned out. You could get fancy and create an AutoHotkey script to do the same thing, but a batch file should do the trick for regular people. Just create a new plain text file and save it as a .bat file (e.g., browserclean.bat), then add the following to the file, noting that the /AUTO switch tells CCleaner to run silently.

'C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe' /AUTO
ipconfig /flushdns

Once you've created the file and saved it into some useful location, you can create a shortcut on your desktop, quick launch bar, or pin it to your start menu.

Create an AutoHotkey Script to Automatically Clean Everything

If your geek skills are a little more advanced, you can simply create a script that opens up your browser in private browsing mode, and then waits until you've closed the last window to run CCleaner and flush the DNS cache. Just create a new AutoHotkey script and paste in the following script, modifying the paths for your own install locations.

Run, C:\path\to\chrome.exe –incognito
WinWait, – Google Chrome
WinWaitClose ; Wait for Google Chrome to close
Run, C:\path\to\ccleaner.exe /AUTO
Run, cmd /c 'ipconfig /flushdns'
MsgBox, Browsing Session is Cleaned.

The first line in the script will launch Google Chrome using incognito mode—you could use Firefox instead, but you'll need to install the Private Browsing Command Line Flag extension and use the -private argument. The WinWait lines tell AutoHotkey to wait until the browser session has closed (you can change out 'Google Chrome' for 'Mozilla Firefox' if you need to), and then the script continues by running your cleaner utilities.

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So what's your take? Will you take the extra steps to keep your privacy intact, or is wiping the history enough for you? Share your thoughts in the comments.

The How-To Geek uses Google Chrome incognito mode as an excellent cache-free web development tool. His geeky articles can be found daily here on Lifehacker, How-To Geek, and Twitter.

Turbo Charge Your New XBMC Installation [Winter Upgrades]

Turbo Charge Your New XBMC Installation [Winter Upgrades]

We give a lot of attention to XBMC here, and with just cause. It's an open-source, cross-platform, highly-customizable media center solution that outperforms just about every commercial option out there. Here's how you can make it even better.

If you've played around with any commercial media centers or extenders, you've probably quickly realized how clunky and inelegant the user interface and experience is. Sure once the movie is playing and you're no longer staring down the interface all is well, but prior to getting to the actual showtime the menus are ugly and the navigation is kludgy.

Yesterday Adam detailed how to set up a silent, standalone XBMC media center on the cheap—and that's a good starting point. The "out of box" experience with XBMC is fantastic, but even better than that, it's extremely customizable. You can alter menus, vary the display method, and completely swap out the skin for a fresh new look. We've reviewed some great XBMC skins and shown you how to install them. For this article we've selected the excellent AEON skin to showcase some of the advanced features of XBMC.

Getting Started

Before we delve too far into tweaking and customization, you'll need a media center running XBMC. It all began with XBMC running on the original Xbox, and you can still turn an old Xbox into an XBMC platform. Check out our original guide to installing XBMC on your Xbox and XBMC Installer Deluxe. One thing to keep in mind regarding using the classic Xbox for XBMC: it's just a Pentium III in there with 64MB of RAM. You can, under exceptional circumstances and with a hard to find Microsoft AV pack, squeeze out some better than standard-def images, but it's pushing it; if you want HD playback you simply won't be happy with the classic Xbox.

Thankfully XBMC has been ported from the classic Xbox and can run on Windows, Mac, and Linux-based machines as well as off a USB drive. Our most recent guide to building an XBMC is a fantastic one: For around $200, you'll have a silent and HD-capable media center. If you'd like to use existing hardware, you can always run XBMC off a USB drive or visit the XBMC wiki to read up on other installation techniques.

If all you do is install the stock version and add your media shares, you'll be a happy camper and you'll get frequent compliments on your rocking media center. If you want to get frequent compliments and have people express complete disbelief that you got such awesome media center software for the outrageous price of free, then keep reading.

Taking XBMC Beyond the Basics

Installing XBMC is easy, and so is performing the basic setup, but because XBMC is a work in progress and new innovations and features are constantly being added, customization can get a bit confusing. Take it from a guy who has loved XBMC for years and runs it on the classic Xbox and on a custom-built HTPC—I frequently find myself reading over the user forums and saying "What? It can do that? Oh man!" If you've looked at screenshots of XBMC and wondered how they made it look so cool or got such and such custom icon to appear, this is where you'll want to pay close attention.

XBMC is equipped with a variety of "scrapers"—scripts that scan your media and pull information from the folder structure and file names—to help you get things like thumbnails, fan art, and movie and show information. These scrapers can access a variety of databases like TheTVDB.com for television show art and information and IMDB for movie posters and info. This entire process, once you tell XBMC what kind of content a folder contains, is totally automated. For most entries you can select from multiple movie posters, thumbnails, and so on—check out this entry in TheTVDB for the show Heroes to get a feel for it.

The automated process is awesome and for the most part hassle free. You can increase the effectiveness of the scrapers by properly formatting your directories and file names. One thing that merits particular emphasis: You must keep your movies and TV shows separate. XBMC can't scrape a folder for both television and film and if you attempt to scrape it twice all sorts of weird things can happen. Store your movies completely separate from your television shows and you'll save yourself quite a bit of frustration.

When you set the content type for the folder you can specify 'Use Folder Names for Lookups' and it goes a long way towards accurate file identification. It also saves you from having to cleanup files names and if you're using direct DVD-rips you must use folder name lookup or the scrapers won't function. Here's an example folder structure:

\Movies\
—-\Army of Darkness\
—— AofD.DTS.x264.mkv
—- \Blades of Glory\
—— Blades.CON.x264.mkv

When XBMC scrapes the folder names it will easily find a match. In the rare cases where a movie has a title that has been used before or is a remake of a prior movie you can include the year in the folder name, such as Halloween (2007) and Halloween (1978).

As awesome as scraping is for saving you tons of time, it does have a few down sides. It takes a long, long, time on a moderate to large size library. Have a thousand movies and dozens of TV shows saved? You'll be leaving it to run for hours. Any time you make changes, move things, reinstall XBMC, etc., you'll end up scraping all over again which can get a bit tedious. The other down side is the limitations of scrapers. For most genres they are fine, but sometimes you'll find that they don't have the artwork you want or even any info at all about your media. When this happens it's up to you to fill in the blanks.

Fortunately XBMC follows a specific structure for checking information. It checks the local directory first, then the XBMC library, and then if necessary it will scrape for the data. The following directory structure will show you where support files go

\Movies\
—-\MovieTitle\
—— MovieTitle.mkv
—— folder.jpg
—— fanart.jpg
—— movie-trailer.flv
—— title.nfo

\TV Shows\
—- \Show\
—— folder.jpg
—— fanart.jpg
——- \Season\
——— folder.jpg

In the above format the folder.jpg is the source for the small thumbnail assigned to the folder and fanart.jpg is the large image placed in the background during showcase mode. See the image below to see what showcase mode looks like. For more examples of folder structure with some excellent and informative info-graphics, check out this post on the XBMC forums.

NFO files provide additional information about media. If you don't want to mess around with NFO files, having the thumbnails and fan art saved to disk will speed up the scraping process enormously. You can read about NFO files and how XBMC center uses them here. You can also greatly automate the process of manually inserting fanart, thumbnails, and managing NFO files by using helper applications like Ember Media Manager.

The area at the bottom of the screenshot above, highlighted with the red box, is where your media flags will show up. The media flags are a really nice touch and indicate things like the studio that produced the film, what quality the video is in, and other media information like what kind of audio it has. All media flag information is pulled, oddly enough, from the file name. If you want the Blu-ray or HD-DVD icon to appear you need to add that information to the file name within the /Movie/Title/ folder. The following file name for example would enable the Blu-ray, 1080, and 264 encoding flags in skins, like Aeon, that support it.

/Move/Title/Title.bluray.1080p.x264.mkv

It should be noted that while the general release of XBMC doesn't presently support pulling media information directly from the files that the functionality is available in the beta builds for power users—and it looks stunning! You can read more about that here. If you'd prefer to use the current stable release, then grab the AEON skin and read the readme.txt for additional information about enabling media flags. You can greatly speed up the flagging process by using a helper application like Media Renamer.

At this point in the tutorial, if you've formatted your folders properly, let the scrapers do their thing, and filled with your own pictures and fan art where you wanted to improve on the scraper or fill in some missing information, you've got a library whipped into shape and ready to show off.

Two resources you'll definitely want to check out—because we simply can't cover all the awesomeness that is XBMC in a single article—are the XBMC official wiki and the XBMC forums. You'll especially want to check out any sub-forums for the skin you decide to use, the discussions and resources you'll find in them are invaluable.

Have a favorite helper app for XBMC? A skin you can't rave enough about? A trick that took you a week of digging in the XBMC forums to find out about? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Top 10 Apps that Boost Your Media Center [Lifehacker Top 10]

Top 10 Apps that Boost Your Media Center [Lifehacker Top 10]:

Streaming video, digital DVD backups, DVR recording—it's all possible from your TV-connected media center, and you don't need a system administrator to pull it off. These 10 apps make filling and controlling your media center PC even easier.

Photo by William Hook.

10. Give your tunes the covers they deserve

Your favorite band, assuming it's not Motörhead, probably spend a good bit of time thinking about their album art. Pay credit to their creative indulgences, and give your media center something to show when their tracks are playing, by embedding album art in your MP3 collection. Rick Broida ran through the basics in his 2007 guide to whipping your MP3 library into shape, and I revisited the best sources and tools for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems in a 2008 album art guide. Whatever tool you use, having album art consistent across your library might feel a bit obsessive, and it is—but there's a certain reassuring payoff when your TV displays the same art as your iPod.

9. Remove ads automatically from recorded TV

Some commercials are worth their short time commitment, but sometimes you just want to watch exactly 24 minutes of condensed television. Windows Media Center plug-in Lifextender does the job inside your hooked-up PC, while DVRMSToolbox runs through Media-Center-recorded files independently, and can then export them to more generally usable formats than Windows' somewhat locked-down system. (Original posts: Lifextender, DVRMSToolbox)

8. Boost Boxee with repositories and feeds

Boxee is basically the XBMC media center app with a different look and a more social flair. It also supports a lot of independent content creators and independent developers, whether through the official App Box, through adding repositories of new apps, or through stand-alone RSS feeds. We've covered some great sources for Boxee apps and content in a quick Boxee guide. Looking for even more app repositories? Check out Boxee's list of known repositories and see what strikes your fancy.

7. Rename files for easier detection

Media player apps try their best to figure out exactly what TV shows and movies you've got loaded into storage, but they often have a hard time keeping up with the naming schemes used by a variety of applications and fallible humans. Grab an app like MediaRenamer (for movies and television) or TVrename (for shows alone) and whip your files into a shape that XBMC, Boxee, Windows, Plex, or any other media center can easily figure out. For a quick read on what media center apps like to see—XBMC in particular—read Jason's guide halfway through his XMBC add-on guide.

6. Plug Hulu into Windows Media Center

It's not an officially supported streaming site, like Netflix or CBS, but Hulu's own Hulu Desktop can be worked into Windows Media Center with a clever little back-and-forth plug-in. Install Hulu Desktop Integration, and you'll get an icon for Hulu among your video options. Click it, and Windows Media Center closes down, opens up Hulu Desktop; when you're done watching Hulu, the app shuts that down and re-opens Media Center. Clever, helpful stuff.

5. Rip DVDs the easy way

Rather than find out halfway through the final disc of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles that your Netflix disc is scratched beyond repair, you could rip the suspect DVD to a digital file and play it from there, with just a minor skip. Adam's built a tool called DVD Rip to make it a dead-simple process in Windows, but it's fairly easy to pull off with HandBrake or VLC Media Player on Windows, Mac, or Linux systems.

4. Schedule TV recording from any browser

With a TV tuner installed, Windows Media Center or Home Server makes for a pretty hardcore DVR device, without the monthly fees. Make it easier to catch good TV when you think of it at work with Web Guide, a free scheduling program that shows you what's on in the future, streams what's on now, and otherwise delivers your media center's TV experience to wherever you happen to be at the moment. (Original post)

3. Media center remotes for your phone (or iPod touch)

Sure, you could go the easy route and buy an infrared-based, media-center-friendly physical remote for your TV-attached setup, but if you'd like a bit more functionality—and, more importantly, actual typing input—there's probably a free or cheap remote for your Wi-Fi powered phone or iPod. Gmote turns an Android phone into a multi-system remote, assuming you don't mind a quick software installation. iPod/iPhone owners have their pick of many XBMC-compatible remotes in the App Store, the free Boxee remote, and MediaMote (iTunes direct link) ably handles your Windows Media Center remote.

2. Make your router more media-friendly

Your standard off-the-shelf router treats all net traffic the same, can't tell you exactly how much you've downloaded this month, and is fairly difficult to turn into anything other than an agent of your cable modem. Install DD-WRT or Tomato on your little antenna box, however, and it can be a wireless bridge for your entertainment center, as well as ensure that Hulu and Netflix get all the bandwidth they need with quality of service rules. (Installation guides: DD-WRT, Tomato)

1. Convert and transfer tracks to your portable player

The best media centers can play just about any video or audio format out there, but even the coolest phones and media devices have a fairly limited format range, and only so much space. Among the five best media converters we rounded up, Super and Format Factory can match most devices and file types, while MediaCoder and HandBrake get the job done on any platform. Need help getting the file onto your phone or device? The doubleTwist media manager is the easiest drag & drop solution we've seen.

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What helper applications make your digital entertainment experience that much more enjoyable? How do you smooth the kinks out of your admittedly geeky setup? Tell us all about your tricks in the comments.

A Beginner’s Guide to Flickr

A Beginner’s Guide to Flickr:

Flickr changed my life. True story.

I am a relatively new Flickr convert and a full fledged Flickr evangelist and my number one message to the masses: Flickr isn’t a dumping ground for ‘pics’. It isn’t a graveyard where millions of images are laid to rest never to be seen again. It is a community where photographers share their latest conquests and view beautiful works by other artists. Of course, there are probably millions of users who merely dump and run but I think Flickr has done something rather clever to prevent too many non-users: they charge a minor yearly fee for accounts who want to upload more than a certain number of images. This might turn off a huge percentage of users who just want a free method of generating a url for their photos to put on Ebay but I think it just weeds out those who don’t intend on doing much with their subscription in the first place.

So how can I make the statement that Flickr changed my life? First I’ll lay a foundation for where I’m coming from. I firmly believe that the number one way any visual artist can become better at what they do is to view other works of art. It opens you to the possibilities, techniques, ideas and concepts you may have never entertained before. Allow me to demonstrate. Before I became engrossed in Flickr, I’d never before seen:

1. The beauty of captured light as in R. Lily’s forest mushroom


2. The richness of textures as in Paul Grand’s Sunflowers


3. The gentle calm of ethereal florals as in Shana Rae’s Spring Pastels

I didn’t know about such things when I was newly into photography and having my eyes opened to not only beautiful photography but also the techniques processes that fellow photographers use to achieve such works revolutionised my skills and ability immediately. I think all photographers experience the frustration of not understanding why they haven’t achieved a look they were going for and I think that a photographer who isn’t wholly committed could easily give up after their first couple disappointments. But with the community of Flickr, you don’t have to wonder how to take beautiful photos. Users regularly share their techniques and even detailed ‘recipes’ they used in their post processing work flow. Had I not been able to access that valuable information, I would have thought that I was just a bad photographer and been discouraged. I didn’t realise that there were such things as textures and presets before being enlightened to them courtesy of the wonderful photographers on Flickr.

What about the safety of your images? Well, when you add someone as a contact, you can also specify if you want them to not only be a contact, but also a ‘friend’ or ‘family’ status. Then when you upload certain images with permission limited to family, only they can see them. Their most ingenious function, though, is that you can choose to not allow users to view your photos in their full size and Flickr will do something amazing: they layer a transparent image over your image so that if someone right-clicks to save your image, they are actually only saving the clear overlay. Genius.

I have learned a couple things about protecting yourself lately. There have been a few people found on Flickr who add other users’ photos to their stream and say that they are their own. Obviously, a HUGE no-no and one which doesn’t usually take long to catch. I put my name on all of mine. Another trick is that if you notice that quite a few of your photos have been ‘favourited’ by a particular user and you go to their profile and they have no photos of their own, only favourited ones, there’s something fishy going on. I only allow real users to keep my photos. If I notice someone favouriting my photos who has a profile of nothing but other users’ photos, I block them. Just seems to me that they may be stockpiling images for stock or other uses which aren’t above-board.

If you haven’t used it before or are new to Flickr, here are some pointers and screen shots to help guide you (there is a thumbnail gallery below if you want to click on them and see full-sized).

1.} This is the main page to login

P

2.} A 'Photostream' is the first thing Flickr takes you to when you click someone's name or login to you account. It is a steady stream of every photo you've ever shared, newest at the top. There are more convenient ways to view photos, however (below)

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3.} 'Sets' are sets of images determined by the user. Here, you see my sets such as 'vintage', 'Sue & Barry', etc. If you click 'sets' where you see I have hilighted, you will see the user's sets.

PP

4.} 'Collections' are a bigger folder for sets for example "portraits", "engagement & weddings", etc.

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5.} "Favourites" are photos which you have tagged as a favourite while viewing other users' photos. When viewing someone's profile, you can click to see what they have added as a favourite, too, which can lead you on a magical journey of discovery. This is how I've discovered so many of my favourite photographers.

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6.} Your profile is the place where people go to learn about you. When you click on someone's name, it doesn't take you to their profile it takes you to their photostream (Flickr is all about the photos afterall!) You have to click profile to see their profile which will show you groups they're a member of, photos they have favourited recently and loads of other tidbits.

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7.} When you are viewing your own photostream or profile, clicking the 'you' dropdown menu will give you the option of seeing all of your sets, collections, favourites, tags, etc.

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8.} This is my favourite function. Clicking 'organise' will take you to the biggest, best way to organise your photos by dragging them into groups, sets, collections, etc. You can drag a certain few photos which you want to batch edit and change something about them all at once. It's a fab tool and you'll love it!

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9.} I lied in that last one. Groups are my favourite function in Flickr! This is where all the magic happened for me. If you joined a group (for example 'Flypaper Textures' as in the photo below) you would be able to use the organise feature (explained above) and drag photos into the group. Groups such as these for different texture artists, preset artists, specific editing methods (I'm in the 'Orton' group) are limited to photos which apply to that subject. If you did a killer edit using a Flypaper Texture, add your photo to the group for other users to see. Many of them even give their post production recipes to tell you which texture they used to achieve the look. Groups also contain discussions to get into. Participating in groups is the way to get your photography seen and commented on and possibly even featured on the Flickr front page.

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10.} 'Explore' is another completely fabulous area! It is a continuously updated stream of exceptional or interesting photos to jumpstart your creativity or simply set you on your way for an evening of getting sucked deep into the world of Flickr of which I am a permanent citizen.

Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips.

A Beginner’s Guide to Flickr