Ringo is closing (D-8)

Ringo is closing and the wheels are turning. June 30th the site will be gone, but something will take its place in August. Subscribe to my blog to the left to stay up to date on the new site to be.

Ringo.com is a photo sharing and social networking site. It focused mainly on photo sharing and keeping your contacts up-to-date with your contact info. However, some time ago they announced that they are ending the Ringo service. Note the similarity of expage, a small community website creation site that went down after alerting its users of termination.

The site itself had some impressive features such as several convenient ways to upload photos and videos. The upload form worked in an interesting way in which you did not have to click the "submit" button like you usually do. Instead, simply selecting the file would cause it to upload and simultaneously produce another upload field. They also had a program you could download to automatically upload entire directories of images at once, kind of like a one-way ftp. Until now, they haven't offered any convenient ways to download photos, however.

When they first mentioned closing, they also mentioned their service of creating CD's and DVD's of a user's photos which could be purchased. At first I thought that the closing letter may have been a deliberate hoax to convince people to purchase something they would have otherwise ignored.

I myself actually used the ringo service to store large amounts of photos for easy access on other computers, due to their free unlimited storage and easy upload solutions. I had long since deleted my local copy of the images. I actually suspected this would happen, considering Ringo is a small site. At least they told us in advance! I knew I could create a script that would download all my photos, but the task seemed daunting.

Instead I opted just to pay the 7 or 8 bucks for a CD. Only weeks later to find out that they now have a service which you can download your entire set of photos as a zip file for free. Of course, it is nice to have a hard copy. Would have been cheaper for me to download and burn but eh just a few bucks.

About Ringo(mirrored)
Ringo Closing Notice(mirrored)

At any rate the site will be closing in 8 days. So much for their guarantee of "never be out of date with your friends again" or something like that. Whatever.

Broken Beaked BlackBird

I was walking through the Plaza when I walked by a blackbird that was sitting amazingly still on the ground. I walked within inches of it and it didn't fly away. My first instinct was that it was somehow injured, and I noticed its beak looked a little crooked and there was blood on its eye. Also when it hopped, its foot dragged on the ground and an awkward angle. Everyone else seemed to be ignoring the bird but I decided to do something about it. I went to Chef's and got a napkin, and after a couple attempts I caught it in my hands. I carried it to the nearby pet store where they proceeded to put it in a box. They then called animal control, which I'm still not sure is a good thing. I have a feeling that they would find it inconvenient to send such an animal to a wildlife center, and instead might kill it. =( In retrospect I could've brought it to my basement where I could take care of it while it's safe from cats, until it healed or I could send it to a proper wildlife center. But at least I did something. Here's some pictures from before I picked it up.