Chp 670. The Images are Back!

As I have mentioned in my previous post, image hosting site Photobucket really did a number on me by disabling my 2000+ images across 650+ blog posts that I have been tediously updating for the past 13 years, unless I pay a ransom amount of $399 (INR 25,580).

Even though I was super pissed and overwhelmed with a gut wrenching emotion, I finally decided to pay, until others pointed out that even with this ridiculously high premium membership fee, they were still going to limit bandwidth usage, for which they were probably going to ask for even more cash, so I finally said enough is enough.

I am not blogging to make any money, my adsense revenue is peanuts. I'm just a typical middle-class struggling game designer, and in my spare time, I write. I write because I enjoy writing, and in a way, it is a therapeutic remedy for me to escape this maddening corporate world. And sometimes people find some of my posts useful in terms of getting to know about new culture or information about important causes etc., which brings a smile upon my face as I lay to bed after a stressful and hectic day at work.

So yesterday, my friends from work helped me set up my own AWS server. I am not going to rely on any third-party image hosting sites anymore. Alternate image hosting sites like imgur, flickr etc may be free for now, but they can go the Photobucket way any day. Once bitten, twice shy, it's time to have my own space.

It took me a few minutes to activate my account using my credit card, and finally, I was registered.

Amazon Web Service (AWS) is a trusted name, and I've been fiddling with the S3 console and infrastructure since yesterday and I really love it! It took me some time to get used to the dashboard navigation, but all I can say is, wow! Their cloud service is impeccable, and creating and arranging folders and uploading files are pretty easy and smooth too. The bandwidth and data usage plan seem to be quite affordable as well, with a plethora of other useful add-on services available.

This is a trial post to see if my embedded images are being displayed properly or not. Let me know if the images are loading quickly or if you face any problem viewing them.

As I have mentioned in my previous post, there are a lot of things I want to blog about, starting with our family and friends gettogether for a beautiful Goan wedding…

…and of course about food! My love for food has grown multifold…

…to a ravishing wedding reception at Bangalore and Mysore…

…and MOAR food, those of you who have my number will know about my daily ritual of posting photos of scrumptious meals on my WhatsApp story :)

…I want to blog about the amazing weekend getaway I went to with my office colleagues at an idyllic private hill resort…

…and back to food again, about experimenting with different home-cooked veg dishes…

…to hanging out with friends and bidding farewell to old ones…

…and making delicious home-cooked non-veg dishes and momo parties…

…to this "WTF was I doing" moment during our crazy trips to the serene Lavasa tourist spot…

…to an even crazier time at a combined birthday party at a private bungalow in Lonavala…

…and finally back to food again about the different dishes and pickles I've ordered recently guaranteed to make your mouth water…

And that's just a few of them. There are many other topics I want to write about and once I am more comfortable with my AWS server, I will be more enthusiastic to publish more content.

Uploading images to AWS S3 is very simple, and my friends recommend I use an FTP to make that process even easier. Copying and pasting links from my console to my blog is also easy as pie, though the only thing I wish it has is the option to view images in thumbnail mode (maybe there is and I haven't figured it out yet).

Looking forward to a brighter blogging future now.

I will slowly be editing my old posts too one by one too, and hopefully by the end of this year, all my 650+ blog posts will have images on them again. Once I cross my allocated monthly bandwidth limit, it will be a bit expensive to keep hosting the images, but my friends and I calculated and realized it will still be cheaper than Photobucket's $399 cost. And this is Amazon we're talking about. A brand everybody trusts.

Cheers for now mes amis!