Photo uploading has been a thorn in our side for a long time now. Unfortunately, there's not a lot that can be done about it. Most internet cafes in the world use DSL connections (except for the few that still use dial-up), and one of the major drawback to DSL is that it's designed to move things in one direction: From the internet to your computer. Moving files the other way (such as sending photos up to Blogabond) is often 10-20 times a slow. That's just the way that DSL was designed.

Adding to the problem is the fact that most digital cameras are 5 megapixel and above, so the files you have to send are a lot bigger than they were a few years back. So now you have to send a 3 MB file the wrong direction up an already slow connection. It's painful, to say the least.

Worse still, the things you can do to make it easier (such as editing the files down to a lower resolution) are not really an option when you're sitting at a shared computer. I've been kicking around the idea of releasing a little tool that would resize and upload your photos automatically, and maybe now is the time to start thinking about it again.

Anyway, you'll notice that I don't really have a good solution for you. Blogabond is set to accomodate files up to 20MB, and it will keep showing that little green bar all afternoon, so long as your machine is still connected. I like your idea about giving a little more progress feedback, and we might be able to at least do that. But in the end, it's likely to stay a bit painful for the forseeable future.

I guess the best advice I can give is the approach you're already taking: Upload the best photos from the road, then once you get home again, post the rest from a faster internet connection.

Good luck on the RTW trip!

Jason

written by  Jason Kester on July 22, 2007