webshots is going away
 

If you currently use webshots to store photos, you need to read about the changes they're making. First off, any photos or videos currently on webshots will be deleted by November 15. If you don't want to move them to "Smile", the replacement for webshots which will not be free, you need to download them to your computer or to another service before they disappear.

http://smile.webshots.com/landing

thanks for the warning.,.. i think my sister uses this site

I don't use it. Seems everyone is trying to find ways to make money.

Or another way of looking at it -

Everyone wants something for free.

duplicate post

Yeah, that was an unpleasant surprise.

The way I found out was totally by chance.
While linking to a picture, I noticed a typo in my notes and went in to edit it.....but no changes are allowed.
Instead of the box with all the editing options, there was a big SMILE logo instead.

It's not so much that the site is going away, it's that the new version, SMILE, has a totally different business plan than Webshots did (even though it's the same founders), which excludes a ton of current users in the hopes, I guess, of acquiring new users for the new service.

So it's not just a case of now charging for the basic service - which I would have been fine with - I think most rational people can understand it costs money to store all those photographs and maintain the site.
And I was NEVER bothered, or quite frankly, even noticed, any advertising as an unpaid member.

To be honest, I just used it for my quilt album - at the time, it was the easiest-to-use site out there, and had enough features for my limited needs.
I'm glad I did because after the Great Hard Crash of 2010, those were the only photos I had left.

Apparently, even if you opted for the new service, the automatic transfer over was/is a hot mess - instead of nicely organize and annotated albums, they just got dumped.
Including those of paid webshots users.

The level of anger and ire on the boards/blogs associated with users was the highest I've seen in a long time - especially about the almost total lack of communication about the change-over.

You have until Dec 1 to download your photos off of the old webshots site before they go POOF for good!!

I think most people are more or less okay with being charged with a service 'up front'

I know I get upset when a service was 'free' or 'included' before - and THEN I start to get charged for it.

I have some photos on webshots that I don't have anywhere is because of partial crash and/or lazy repair guy and cannot, at this point retrieve them. Thanks for the warning. I will have to work on this.

I have my photos organized the way I want them. Now, I need to figure out what I want to do. I think I would have been ok with them saying they can't be free anymore, I just don't like they are changing it completely.

What other photo sharing sites do you use? I have some on fliker, but it limits the free ones to 200.

I've used photobucket but that was mostly for eBay auctions - linking additional pictures so I didn't have to pay more in fees.
I never bothered to organize it nicely since it was just my "workspace."

And I noticed on their blog that they're in the process of testing a beta revamp - so who knows how that will end up.

Flickr is only $25/year (to view more than of the most 200 recent pics) -which is fine - but I've never been crazy about the interface.

I'm guessing all those sites are all moving in the same direction - assuming that users are trying to/want to consolidate their photos, currently located on multiple sites and devices - and want to share them with the world.

Not me.
I'll deal with the next week.

Thanks for the heads up. I have photos on there from my fostering days I will most definately move them to my computer.

I don't like that they are automatically uploading the photos from your computer. I didn't see anything about being charged for the service when they changed.

I can't get it to change the wallpaper on my computer. Anybody have any suggestions? Using the normal Microsoft won't work with the Webshots/Smile to change it either.

Haven't tried it yet but it should make life a bit easier - download all your photos into zip files:
http://help.getsmileapp.com/customer...os-and-videos-

@MaggieLou:
Smile is having a free trial period before the changeover. Then it's paid membership only.

I'm so darn "technical dumb" that I have no idea what to do. Can anyone here help me with "non-tech" instructions? Or what will happen if I just ignore their instructions?

If you ignore their instructions and do nothing, then on Dec 1, any photos still on the webshots site will be gone.
As in...POOF.

If you follow the link I posted upthread (in the post right before yours), it will take you to a page where you can elect to download all your photos - webshots/smile is providing this service.

You sign in and click on DOWNLOAD and you'll shortly (not immediately) receive a link to the .zip file(s) you can download to your home PC or laptop.
That file will only be available for two weeks.
You can request it again, but only if the photos are still on the webshots site.

Not difficult at all.

I did the download from webshots , got an email with a little orange bar that says download your photos and videos and it doesn't do anything. I tried to click on it. Back to the help section over there I guess but it is progress? lol

Okay, I did mine.
Weird.
I got the email and clicked the link. My webshots email is an old aol.com address.
When I went into AOL webmail, the link (orange bar) would not work.
However, when I went in via the AOL portal, the link opened a web page that allowed me to download it.
Mine was one zip file, but I had under 300 pictures.


So that's weird. I open links from within AOL (web) all the time so I don't know what's going on.
And it seems your issue is similar.
Like I said, weird.

And what a cluster&(&W the download is - it's like SMILE doesn't even care about wooing existing users over.

My zip file, when unzipped, opens to contain 14 files (= 14 albums I had online, so that's a good sign).
And each folder has the pictures that were online ..but now with some long arbitrary alpha/numeric name.
Certainly not how I ever named them.

And all my notes that were associated with each picture aren't attached in anyway.
So I guess I'm going to have to go in manually and CAP them into word or something temporarily if I want to save them.

And my pictures on the SMILE site-
Just one file with all the pictures in no recognizable order.

You know, they're quilt pictures of my quilts mostly, so they're easily identifiable and I could probably reorder them relatively easily.
But I really feel for people who had thousands of photos...where do they even begin?

Were you successful in downloading your pics?

mine is a yahoo address. I tried to go into my mail different ways and it didn't help. I still can't open it. I sent them a message it says to wait 72 hours. I can't even copy and paste my pictures. It do have some of my foster babies on there that I don't have anywhere else anymore. I am NOT amused.

The more I keep reading, the more I just don't get it.

This from the Smile site:
[h=3]How is Smile different from other photo services?[/h]Smile focuses on two things: 1) creating one secure place for your family's images and 2) making it easy to effortlessly share photos with close friends and family. Many people nowadays have their photos scattered on various computers, phones, disk drives and cameras, not to mention sites like Facebook and Flickr. And they’re worried about losing them. Smile solves this problem by organizing all your photos in one place and securely storing them in the cloud. Smile also lets you share life’s experiences and events with close family and friends instantly, without having to upload, tag or edit photos.

So even if I wanted to send you a link to my quilt pictures in my photostream, and you were a paying member at Smile as well, I don't see a way to direct you to only certain pictures in my photo stream.
Or vice versa.
I want to see your new quilt but could care less about your latest cruise pictures.

Maybe, just maybe, people had their pictures all over the place because they wanted/needed it that way.
Certain blogs use certain photo hosting sites.
What happens to all those links that were webshots based.
You can't even do a mass change to map from webshots.com to smile.com because the names/ID's have been altered.

And the $15/year they'll be charging - or even the $30 for the upgraded account - is really peanuts.
I would have gladly paid it if things stayed relatively the same.

Anyway, back to your problem.
If you go into your pictures on webshots.com, click on the picture, then select full screen.
You should be able to right-click and save the image that way.
A PITA if you have a ton, but if there are some you HAVE to have, then that's a quick way.

Now I have to go back up the zipfile because I have a history of HD fatal crashes.

I have a gmail account. You can download "Google Drive" to your computer. I upload documents, pics, anything else that I want available to my Android phone. I use it as a back up drive. Hope this helps.

I finally got them but not from the email they sent. I tried different ways to yet to my yahoo even rebooted just in case that helped. Well it does on some things. lol
Anyway I ended up going to the webshots /smile site and going through the help questions and the link there took me to the zip files. What a PITA it was. Well in the greater scheme of things maybe not but I just don't want to have to mess with it. Changing my drivers license over was enough to do for one day. LOL

Hmm just got an email from Webshots customer service. BTW I don't have Firefox, I don't want Firefox.


Thank you for contacting Webshots Customer Support. We're sorry that you had this trouble downloading your photos. If you have received notice that your photos are ready to be downloaded, you can use these steps to locate the zip file(s) and save your photos to your computer. Please note that we recommend using the Firefox browser (www.mozilla.org) to access Webshots to download and save your photos.
1. Go to www.webshots.com by typing the URL in the address bar of Firefox. Sign in to your membership.
2. Paste http://community.webshots.com/<WBR>features/downloads in the address bar of Firefox.
3. Click the "Download my personal photos" button. If your photos are ready to be saved, you'll see the zip file(s) after clicking the Download button.
4. Your photos will be bundled into manageable Zip files. Your videos and Picture Show videos will be listed as individual links for download.
5. When you click on the link for a zip file, winzip will open. This will show the albums (folders) included in the zip file. Select a folder and then click Extract. Now, choose a folder on your computer to save the photos to and click extract at the bottom of the window. Repeat this process for each folder in the zip file.
7. If you have more than one Webshots membership, you will need to log in and initiate the download process within each of your Webshots accounts.
SPECIAL NOTE: The files you download in this process will be available for 2 weeks. Please DO NOT DELETE OR MOVE YOUR PHOTOS AND VIDEOS from Webshots until you have downloaded and saved all the files to your computer or other storage media! If you miss the two week window, you can initiate the download process again, but ONLY IF YOU HAVE NOT DELETED YOUR PHOTOS from Webshots.
PLEASE be aware that once photos are deleted, we are unable to recover them! DO NOT DELETE any personal photos or videos until after you have securely downloaded and saved them to your personal computer or storage media.
Eventually, the Webshots site will completely close and all photos and videos will be deleted from our database. After the closing date, personal photos or videos will no longer be available. Please save your personal photos as soon as possible!
Thank you,
Dennis R.
Your Customer Support Representative
www.Webshots.com

Huh.
And I was using Firefox when I tried and it didn't work for me.
Go figure.

Well, at least you have your photos.

eta: Here's a more detailed explanation of what and why the changes were being made.
It does explain a lot.
This is a webshots community set up on Flickr:
The email from Penny Adams starts a bit further down.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/wscommu...7631725916517/

I'm glad I never uploaded any of my pics to webshots. I just used them for the wallpaper and screensavers. Does anyone know if that will still be available and if there will be a cost?

I would suggest....reading the posts in this thread.

I was shocked to see last week that webshots will be closing, but thrilled that the original crew would be taking over.
Then reality set in.
Their Smile site ideas are based on photosharing in social websites. If you want someone to see something you have to upload it there from smile.
Nothing on Smile will be open to the public.

Fine by me, I don't have time for social networking sites. But when I downloaded the Smile software to capture the images off Webshots (I have about 20 albums and over 1K of photos, and a paid subscription) I was appalled.

It pulled everything off my computer too, as mentioned above without any option not to, and what I keep on my computer is ebay and temporary use images, I certainly don't want them cluttering up photo or wallpaper software.
And then the software doesn't work anything like the website examples, there aren't any options to set wallpaper, or delete...And they've said there will be 4 new wallpapers sent to the software every day (expiring in 60 days) but i haven't gotten any.

I expect those complaints are from releasing software that wasn't ready. But I will surely miss Webshots.
So far my webshots software is still working, keeping my fingers crossed as I have so many gorgeous wallpapers stored there.

edited to add a little later...Webshots just uninstalled from my computer :( ...automatically, along with millions of other peoples.
All those wallpapers...

Yeah, there's a difference between downloading to the webshots software and downloading a regular .zip file loaded with .jpgs.
You pictures should still be on webshots.com so you can use the alternative download procedure (the one referenced upthread).

I had never reinstalled the software after my laptop crashed a couple of years ago.
I can't believe it just uninstalled off yours.

Is the file that contained the pictures within that software still on your hard drive?
I read about a way to convert it to .jpgs - it's on the webshots/smile blog.
It didn't pertain to me so I bypassed it.

I discovered this last week when I went to WS to check something. Unfortunately I clicked on the link for more information and apparently they downloaded something onto my computer. It removed my WS desktop and kept trying to install the Smile desktop, which I didn't want. Every time I'd boot my computer that msg would come up that it was looking for Webshots. I finally realized they'd installed something and went looking for it. Nothing under Smile but under Webshots I found a Webshots Supplant folder and a Webshots Supplant Launcher.exe. I deleted both those and the popup stopped. I was furious that they put something on my computer without my knowledge or permission. I'd had a lot of WS pics that I'd downloaded over the years and when my computer crashed and we had to reinstall everything, I'd saved all the Webshots Data (with the pic files) onto an external hard drive. So apparently they couldn't get to that. I went in and found them all intact. Of course they're all .wbz files but I'd downloaded a free program. Ultimate Webshots Converter, last year that someone had told me about. It converts the WS pic files to .jpgs. I went into all the WS pic files and converted all to jpgs. I found that I can still use them as wallpaper by opening a jpg in the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer and right clicking on it, you can set it as the desktop background. When they initially zapped all my WS data, suddenly my wallpaper disappeared! A slight shock! There's one particular pic I love....a sea/beach scene, and I had saved it elsewhere so was able to reinstall it as wallpaper.

I was so mad I could have throttled them! I posted it to Treadleon, one of my sm lists and people there started trying to get their pics off. If you haven't, check out the Smile blog.....on the WS page at the top. There have been over a K of very upset WS users screaming at them and threatening lawsuits etc. As many said on the blog, I don't want to use WS as a photo storage space....I have 2 external HD's for that and there are many other sites for that too. WS was a community in many ways....on TO we could post pics of our quilts, sm's etc. and share them, make comments etc. I also used it to post pics of things I was selling on e.g. Craigslist and put in a link to see more pics of the item. Those original owners may think they're doing something special but they don't seem to have any idea of how people were using the site. I did find that I could go in and delete my pics and albums and since I didn't have a lot there and have it all on my computer, it was no loss. But there's a woman on TO who does research on White sm's who had an enormous presence on WS and is having a hard time getting all her stuff off it.

Hope everyone gets their stuff off before it disappears!!

I have read the posts. I don't want to use it to store pics. Just use it for wallpaper and screensavers. I know they will charge for storing pics.

..........................

I have been putting all our photos on flash drives. Matter of fact, am going to get a 32 GB as I am scanning 50 years of of our photographs that are in 17 boxes (in chronological order). I love them and I can find anything I want. Our close friends are in their own folders and when I want to rehash our days together, I just pop it into the computer, and have a slide show. One couple is gone now but we can travel through our lives together, with memories. The past 12 years are from digital cameras, I just downloaded them from discs onto the flash drives. All of our vintage photographs are on the flash drives too, some are 120 years old.

This morning a icon appeared on my screen for the Webshots Widget. A little box that shows the photos of the day (of which there are no new ones coming)...useless. But I did manage to get into Webshots and delete all the albums that were there for sharing with other members

I then found the http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/win...w-108874.shtml
Ultimate Webshots converter mentioned above and I'll see how long it takes me to muddle through. This review is pretty step by step, and I'm really hoping all my wallpaper isn't gone.

If you decide to use the 'Ultimate Webshots converter' watch closely as you go through the six pages in the pop-up
UNselect all the Babylon stuff boxes or you'll find your browser quite changed.
DECLINE (on the left bottom) when asked to accept advert tracking focused on your browsing habits. It will then install.

Things coming and going from my computer is a bizarre way for a company to do business.

If you have a paid Webshots account, it is very simple to get your money back. Click the ACCOUNT button on your webshots page, the link is right under the line that says when the account was paid.

Just to update a few days later.
I'm STILL trying to get the smile crap off my hard drive. It just keeps coming back.
I'd advise against the Ultimate Webshots converter
Once you down load it you can't use it unless you pay for it.
It also includes a lot of spy/malware even when you opt out of everything you can find to unselect.

The link on your Webshots account page to cancel account and get refund, now goes directly to a Smile page which does Not give you any refund options.
You have to use this address
http://help.getsmileapp.com/customer...uest-a-refund-
Very simple form.

what a total foobar.
Is there ANYWHERE else on the web to get nice wallpaper?
I'm hoping some internet genius is working on a site as we speak.
I do understand that the old site was too big and too complicated to fix and renew. But they could have just left it as a unmanned companion site, after all, they bought it.

http://blog.webshots.com/2012/10/lat...e-by-webshots/

Our longtime photo editor Penny Adams is continuing to license professional photos that we are releasing under the new Webshots Daily photo stream. We’ve also introduced the Smile Desktop (which we continue to make it easier to use – with more robust wallpaper and screensaver features).


As I never used those features on Webshots, I don't know if that's something that would work for you.

(As is often the case, the comments are more fun to read than the actual blog post.
I like the Smile=Slime)

I didn't download the SMILE desktop version - thankfully - but I can see it's causing havoc on computers all over.

PPP, for sure.


(Piss-Poor Planning)

An update:
http://blog.webshots.com/2012/10/message-to-webshots-customers/
Blah, blah, blah.
Blah.
Blah, blah.


The deadline is still Dec 1 if you want to download (to your hard drive) or transfer (to Smile) your personal pictures off the old webshots site before they go poof permanently.

I don't have winzip on my computer. Is there a free zip file reader I can download to see my picture files? I managed to download RealPlayer so that I could see the 4 videos I had stored there, thanks in advance for help. I have read all of the postings here but I don't really understand the one about "extracting"

So you've already downloaded the zip files but not extracted the individual photo pics yet?

If not, I would suggest you at least download the zip files of your photos via this link
http://help.getsmileapp.com/customer...os-and-videos-

That way, at least you have your pics, regardless of any changes made to the webshots.com site.

Are you on a PC or a Mac?
Running windows?
Because the extractor always comes as part of Windows (or at least seems to).
I can't think of once in the last 20 years that I ever downloaded it separately - it's just always been there.

How about this one:
http://www.7-zip.org/
Some nice reviews out there.

I have the files downloaded (at least they pop up in the download box) but can't open zip files. I have windows xp home version 2002 sp3, thanks on a pc.

Weird. I guess I just took it for granted.
I have a new laptop sitting in a box - I'll have to remember to check to see if winzip was preloaded or not.

But try the link in my previous post for 7-zip - after reading some the reviews, I might even download it.

Actually I am going back in there now & saving each file as I had previously just clicked on the open with ... 7 at 12 minutes each, not so much fun!