FlickrExport 3.0.0b23 has been released to finally tidy up the problems users were seeing with incorrect “date taken” fields on photos uploaded to Flickr. You can download it through FlickrExport 3’s software update feature, or at the FlickrExport Beta page.

New Support Arrangements Starting May 1st

The formal starting date for support via Get Satisfaction is May 1st. The page is already up and running so, if you have a problem between now and May 1, you might want to raise it there instead of by email.

If you’re using the 3.0 beta series, I just released 3.0.0b22 with the following fix:

• Fixes a bug introduced in b21 that caused the "date taken" field to be set to a strange value like "January 1, 0003".

Download it through b21’s software update, or at connectedflow.com/flickrexport/beta

Sorry for the inconvenience this bug has caused.

My bug tracking software, FogBugz, has failed me for the last time. I’m putting some new support arrangements in place for Connected Flow which I hope will improve the situation.

The Problem, Part 1

FogBugz is the software that reads email sent to support-at-connectedflow.com, assigns a case number and sends you an auto-reply to acknowledge your message. It then sends me a ticket, and I respond to you.

Occasionally (too occasionally), FogBugz decides to stop importing email altogether until I (a) notice and (b) go and click on a link in its admin interface. This stinks, since it’s never easy to know the difference between a quiet period of support email and FogBugz being broken again.

The really embarrassing thing is that I see the latest beta has some issues that are affecting people, and I only heard about that today. Sorry, everyone.

The Problem, Part 2

The second problem that has become an increasingly large one over recent months, as the number of FlickrExport users has continually increased, is the general amount of support email. One person only scales so far. I find that the biggest time-suck is answering the same question repeatedly, rather than the quite rare case of someone having a completely unique problem.

The Solution

I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while, but this has pushed me over the edge. All support is now going to go through the Connected Flow page at Get Satisfaction. Don’t worry - I’ll still be doing the support but the idea here is for me to answer any particular question once, and then subsequent people with that question can get the answer from the website.

I realised I was at the point where I was using FogBugz as little more than the world’s worst email client. From now on, I’ll keep tickets and customer support better separated, so that a better job can be done on each.

Private Matters

If you have a business or sales-related enquiry that you don’t want to have on the public internet, you can write to info-at-connectedflow.com. That address gets right through to my iPhone, so please use responsibly.

The Transition

Once I’ve cleared up the backlog from FogBugz’ most recent breakdown, I’ll start to decommission the Connected Flow FogBugz this week.

I’ll be moving the existing tickets into a new system and the support-at-connectedflow.com email address will start to auto-respond and redirect you to the Get Satisfaction page. Also, connectedflow.com/contact will be modified to point you there too.

Other Places

There’s also the FlickrExport Users group on Flickr and I’m also active in the Aperture group there. Please don’t use my personal FlickrMail for support requests (because it gets filtered off somewhere that is rarely looked at!).

A quick note to say that I’ve posted FlickrExport 3.0.0b21 to the Beta Page.

Changes:

• Fixes an exception in Aperture when the keyword to be added to exported images was the empty string.
• FlickrExport now uses ~/Library/Caches/ to cache images before upload rather than ~/Library/Application Support/FlickrExport/ so that Time Machine will not attempt to back up images cached for upload.
• Many robustness improvements were made to the NMEA log file parser.

The final release is getting close. It’s currently held up more by business issues than technical issues - things like VAT registration - still working on all of that.

Just to let you know of a little update for both versions of FlickrExport.

This release fixes a potential crashing bug when going through proxy servers such as Privoxy.

You can download it from the front page of connectedflow.com.

Finally it’s here. I’ve uploaded the first public beta version of FlickrExport 3. Please visit the beta page and watch a brief screencast of the major new features in FlickrExport 3.

To summarise, these are:

• Routing photos to multiple groups.
• The ability to store a collection of group additions and recall them for later use (e.g. “Send to all my Black and White groups”)
• A new photoset creation UI which lets you set the photoset order and key photo independently of the order in which you upload photos.
• Integration with GPS track logs to geotag images on Flickr.
• Geolocation presets: store latitude/longitude presets and recall them for later use.
• Upload engine rewritten to be more robust against interruptions.

Upgrade Policy

FlickrExport 3 will be a paid upgrade. Pricing will be announced when the final release of 3.0 is made available.

Upgrades will be free for anyone who purchased FlickrExport 2 for iPhoto or FlickrExport 1 for Aperture in 2008.

On Version Numbering

Prior to this release, FlickrExport was at version 2.x for iPhoto and 1.x for Aperture. With the release FlickrExport 3, both products will move to version 3.0.0 and develop from there. Aperture users, please don’t be confused that I’m skipping over version 2.x!

Flickr Group and Thanks

Thanks to all those who have helped me polish the beta in private testing over the last few months. We’ve been using a private Flickr group to discuss the beta and everyone is now welcome to join us there for the duration of the public beta.

Apple released Aperture 2.0.1 this week. You can install it via Software Update or by downloading it from the Apple support site. Here’s what’s new for FlickrExport:

Export Progress Bug is Fixed

Aperture 2.0.0 would not show any progress indicator for export plugins. This is fixed in Aperture 2.0.1. The information that FlickrExport used to present in the progress sheet is now shown in the Activity window (Window > Show Activity).

File Naming Conflict Bug is Not Fixed

The problem with conflicting file names documented in the Knowledge Base is still present in Aperture 2.0.1 (and will now even show the warning dialog multiple times). The documented workaround for this is still necessary if you see the error.

Keyboard Shortcut for FlickrExport

Aperture 2 added the ability to customise any keyboard shortcut in the application. Aperture 2.0.1 now makes this possible for export plugins as well, which means you can now assign a keyboard shortcut to FlickrExport. I personally like Command-Shift-E, but you have the freedom of the keyboard to choose your own.

FlickrExport 1.0.8 for Aperture has been released. This version provides a workaround to a bug in Aperture 2 which could cause exports to be aborted if any of the exported file names conflicted.

Connected Flow Knowledge Base

I’ve installed WikkaWiki on the site to serve as a place to keep more specific documentation about particular things, and this bug is the first page. The Knowledge Base is at connectedflow.com/kb and the Aperture 2 File Name Conflict Bug is the first big content page.

I have also written up a document which clarifies the expected and unexpected ways in which Aperture 2 fails to show proper progress information for FlickrExport: Aperture 2 Shows No Export Progress.

Download

• FlickrExport 1.0.8 for Aperture

Here’s a new version of FlickrExport for Aperture that uses the Lens Model field as a Flickr tag.

There are a few things you need to ensure to have this work:

• Firstly, your camera needs to write that data into the EXIF header. Most Canons and Nikons do, I believe.
• You have to be using Aperture 2. The preference does nothing under Aperture 1.5.
• Your images need to be using the RAW 2.0 decoder in Aperture 2. For images that you first imported in Aperture 1.5, you’ll need to migrate them to the new decoder using the RAW Fine Tuning adjustment.
• Finally, you need to turn on the preference in FlickrExport!

Please note that FlickrExport 1.0.7 still works perfectly well with Aperture 1.5.6. It’s just that, under 1.5.x, this preference will have no effect.

Happy lens-tagging!

Download

• FlickrExport 1.0.7 for Aperture

[Edit: fixed link]

As you know, I’m sure, Aperture 2 has been released and it is really, really great. The even better news is that FlickrExport 1.0.6 works great with Aperture 2.

Background Exporting
Those of you who emailed asking for FlickrExport to export in the background will be happy to see that Aperture 2 now does all its export operations in the background, including FlickrExport. Now, those big uploads to Flickr won’t lock up your work in Aperture.

To see the status of FlickrExport’s progress, open the Activity window (Window > Show Activity) and FlickrExport should have an entry there. Please be aware that there is a bug in Aperture 2.0 that will sometimes cause there to be no entry in the Activity window for export plugins. The export will continue, but you won’t be able to cancel the upload. This will be fixed in a future Aperture update.

Lens Model Metadata
Those of you who like to tag your photos with the lens you used to take the shot will be pleased to see that Aperture 2 can read the lens metadata written by your camera. I wrote about a couple of caveats with this feature that you should be aware of on my own blog.

The good news is that this field is available to plugins. I’ll be adding a feature to FlickrExport for Aperture to optionally pick up this field and create a Flickr tag from it. I have a couple of other things to check out, and I hope to have 1.0.7 released with this feature within 48 hours.

If you see any other problems with FlickrExport in Aperture 2, please send email to support at connectedflow.com.