View Full Version : Image Hosting Service - IMGBolt.com
Hello PowWeb Friends,
Just wanted to get your opinion on one of my PowWeb hosted image hosting sites called IMGBolt.com, it's a free service that allows you to upload images. :)
I'd appreciate it, if you can give it a quick test run and let me know what you like, dislike, suggestions etc.
http://www.imgbolt.com
Croc Hunter
8-11-07, 01:27 PM
No upload filesize limit is not only reckless but inaccurate. Then you say 5Mb max filesize? A "free"' photo hosting site like this annoys me. In essence you are giving away my bandwidth, speed and performance to some idiot who has no idea what Powweb is about let alone they pay for Photoshop. It's against Powweb's ToS to resell your webspace, to give it away is a slap in the face to us all. Your site is pretty and all that for a cookie cutter site but expect no sympathy from me if you are shutdown in a few months.
Yeah yeah.. I know.. you'll be the one screaming, "But I didn't do it."
If you register there is no file size upload limit, if you don't register then your limited. I actually checked out all the policies before signing up so I am allowed to have a image hosting site on PowWeb thank you very much. Plus images tend to be very small when hosted on the net, so bandwidth is not a problem. In any case I paid for hosting, so i'm getting hosting.
There IS a filesize limit inherent with php. Although you can adjust that with a custom php.ini, there is still a max that the server can accommodate [somewhere around 16 MB i think...] even though you can edit it to gi-normous numbers. Also, there IS a 60 second script time-out limit that is NOT adjustable here. So be prepared for that.
My understanding of the ToS is that all files on your webspace must be needed for your website; the space is not meant to be a storage or repository for non-site related files. I am interested in how you plan to limit the storage space and bandwidth to your registered members... i believe you state '5 gb storage 30 gb bandwidth' and what you mean by image statistics. The fact is that Powweb is SHARED hosting... you need to be aware that what YOU do with your share of resources (CPU usage, etc) impacts all others using the same resources, just as what others do may impact your site. Site like the one you are setting up are best hosted on dedicated servers. Just my opinion, don't get your knickers in a knot.
IN addition, note that you are responsible for all content on your webspace.. so if someone uploads something of a nature that is not permitted on powweb, you risk being in violation of the Terms of Service, and being shut down.
Might I refer you to this thread (http://forum.powweb.com/showthread.php?t=76029)specifically the post by dmacminn.
Your interpretation of the policies and the actual policies may not agree. Check out Customer Reponsibility, Paragraph 6 in the ToS:
Hosting space is intended for normal use only, and is limited to Web files, e-mail and content of the hosted Web sites, not for storage of media or other data. Hosting space may not be used as offsite storage for electronic files or for third party electronic mail or FTP hosts. You are responsible for removing any files which do not meet these requirements, and for adhering to any hosting space (disk usage) limits allocated to your account(s). Failure to do so may result in removal and deletion of such materials, and/or in discontinuation of your services or account, which actions we may take in our sole discretion.
I need coffee, I'm grouchy.
YvetteKuhns
8-13-07, 12:02 PM
You are responsible for anything stored on your account. If you let ANYONE upload files, they can break the ToS by exceeding resource usage or uploading inappropriate images. They cannot upload porn, images copyrighted by someone else or other images deemed inappropriate.
Someone who couldn't upload images to other web hosts may take advantage of your web site and YOU will be held responsible. I can see the spam now! There may be ads for Russian brides, Viagra or other porn sites. Hmmm..... I think I will get an account and upload banner ads for my website and all my friends. Oh, and that cute picture that PowWeb didn't allow me to post on MY website. ;)
Are you ready to handle a website where you must review every image uploaded? And all of the spam you may get? Looks like work to me.
I'd appreciate it, if you can give it a quick test run and let me know what you like, dislike, suggestions etc.
http://www.imgbolt.com
Can you please keep the suggestions on topic?
I myself like your site. It has a nice layout. It's very easy to upload pictures and files!
And like you said, the pictures most people want on the internet aren't that big. And it's not like uploading a 50kb file is going to take up that much of CPU power.
Overall: Very Nice Site
Tom
YvetteKuhns
8-14-07, 09:49 AM
Oh, my goodness! Now there is a banner for AdultFriendFinder and I even heard music. :eek: You are begging to be spammed. Linking to Adult websites is against the ToS.
I noticed that the image formats include pdf, psd, swf, doc and other formats. Some people could host resumes and other things here. Or they could use this for file sharing which is against the ToS.
There are other websites that allow visitors to upload their files for "free" while the website owner tries to make money on the affiliate ads. If you want to compete with those websites, you will need better web visibility and more traffic. Of course, you will also need a dedicated server.
I am not a fan of websites created just to make money from ads. I like websites that inform or entertain me. Of course, your audience may be entertained while snooping through other people's images. One member may like another member's pictures and contact him/her. With so many predators online, I can't help but think the freaks will be drawn to this website.
Sorry, but in my business, I have to look beyond the website owner's site purpose of making money and see what the website really does for all Internet users. I didn't see your ToS. How can you make me trust your site?
Look at the website from a mom's point of view who may want to post photos of family. Or maybe that isn't the type of audience you are trying to get. But who uses free hosting? Define your target audience and design for them. And get a host that will let you do what you want to do.
Oh, my goodness! Now there is a banner for AdultFriendFinder and I even heard music. :eek: You are begging to be spammed. Linking to Adult websites is against the ToS.
I noticed that the image formats include pdf, psd, swf, doc and other formats. Some people could host resumes and other things here. Or they could use this for file sharing which is against the ToS.
There are other websites that allow visitors to upload their files for "free" while the website owner tries to make money on the affiliate ads. If you want to compete with those websites, you will need better web visibility and more traffic. Of course, you will also need a dedicated server.
I am not a fan of websites created just to make money from ads. I like websites that inform or entertain me. Of course, your audience may be entertained while snooping through other people's images. One member may like another member's pictures and contact him/her. With so many predators online, I can't help but think the freaks will be drawn to this website.
Sorry, but in my business, I have to look beyond the website owner's site purpose of making money and see what the website really does for all Internet users. I didn't see your ToS. How can you make me trust your site?
Look at the website from a mom's point of view who may want to post photos of family. Or maybe that isn't the type of audience you are trying to get. But who uses free hosting? Define your target audience and design for them. And get a host that will let you do what you want to do.
Please keep your opinions about the how the internet works to yourself please, I'm asking what you think about the look, feel and layout of the website. Not your personal feelings towards image hosting.
Thank you Tom for your feedback.
imgbolt, don't open doors if you don't want people to walk through them. People are giving feedback in their own style. If you don't like it, I can close the thread for you.
YvetteKuhns
8-15-07, 09:48 AM
Just wanted to get your opinion on one of my PowWeb hosted image hosting sites called IMGBolt.com, it's a free service that allows you to upload images.
I'd appreciate it, if you can give it a quick test run and let me know what you like, dislike, suggestions etc.
You asked us for our opinions. You wanted to know what we like, dislike and suggestions. We gave you that. Sorry if you don't like what we said. This website is NOT suited for PowWeb. It is a fact and not an opinion. I don't care if you do this elsewhere. That is your business.
I gave you sound advise. You need to define your target audience. The banner gives me the impression that I don't fit that audience. It also attracts the spammers, but maybe that is your target audience. If it isn't, be prepared to make changes.
If you can't define your site purpose or target audience, people will get confused and leave the site. Everything must be clear.
I know you don't like to hear this, but someone DID post copyrighted images on the website which is against the ToS. Fair use is for educational purposes. You ARE responsible for what is on YOUR account. You would have to remove the files or ask the user to remove those files.
Not your personal feelings towards image hosting.
Image hosting is fine if it fits with the web host ToS. It is work to keep your website contents within the ToS. This is not my personal feelings. This is a fact.
I'm asking what you think about the look, feel and layout of the website.
I like blue and the simple background should not compete with images. The character using the laptop looks like a ghost! It's kinda spooky, but at least it is different. The site is easy to read and navigate.
On your registration page, you should ask if the person is at least 18 years old. You need to explain in your ToS that your users must obey the ToS which should be close to that of PowWeb's ToS.
Large image storage affects us all - I agree with the others who have said that Powweb isn't the place to 'host' this kind of site. You already have copyrighted material in the publicly viewable galleries, so it is highly likely that you will have in the slightly more private ones. This site is likely to be reported to abuse very quickly!
Sorry if that doesn't fit with your requirements for a review. Powweb isn't the place, although the look was OK. Find a dedicated server and you control resources, but on a shared one you're likely to hog resources.
Large image storage affects us all - I agree with the others who have said that Powweb isn't the place to 'host' this kind of site.
Why are you so worried about me hogging space? As long as I stay under 3000gb a month i'm no different than anyone else. So far I am im in the 50gb (~1% of the limit) a month area so there's no abuse being done to the servers.
Thank you all for your feedback, some of it has been quite helpful.
phlembol
8-16-07, 04:20 AM
Why are you so worried about me hogging space?
Not "space", shared resources. This isn't a nice house in the country, it's an apartment building where we don't want kids playing in the elevator all day.
YvetteKuhns
8-16-07, 09:46 AM
So far I am im in the 50gb (~1% of the limit) a month area so there's no abuse being done to the servers.
We are anticipating issues in the future. If/when people find your website through Google (image search), they will use (and abuse) your website. There are people who will upload improper images and there will be people who search for them. You need to check every image to make sure they are acceptable and even this will take more resources.
We are trying to be helpful, because we expect you to post in a few months complaining that your site is slow (if your site gets enough users). As long as you are watching to be sure your site doesn't use resources and/or break the terms of service, then we don't have a problem.
I'm looking forward to the day where my image hosting site uses up all the 3000gb bandwidth and is found on Google by many users. Because that will be the first day of success!! After the first 3000GB, I will purchase an additional block of 3000GB!! Just for you Yvette :)
Thank you all for your constructive criticism! I'll be sure to add a ToS to the site for people to skim through.
YvetteKuhns
8-16-07, 03:08 PM
Sorry for everyone jumping on you like that. It would be great if your website did well and no one would abuse it. I have visited professional business sites with spam posted in the comments. I fear that the Internet weirdos will hurt your website.
How will you be moderating the activity on your website? Posting the terms of services is one thing, but getting people to play by the rules is another. By the way, can I post some pics of myself in that French Maid costume holding my reciprocating saw? We discussed this image in another thread, but we weren't sure if the image would offend some people. ;)
Put this in your ToS: If you break the rules, I will break your leg! :D
Croc Hunter
8-16-07, 03:51 PM
Please unaccept the appology Yvette offered for me. I stand by my first reply, if you want to host an image hosting site do it on a dedicated server.
YvetteKuhns
8-16-07, 03:58 PM
I still agree that it should be on a dedicated server. I don't apologize for that. If you read the entire thread, it seems like we only commented on the negative points and didn't comment on the design. We all ganged up on the poor guy!
Thank you all for your constructive criticism! I'll be sure to add a ToS to the site for people to skim through.
As long as you're adding a ToS, you might give a thought to also adding a Privacy Policy as you are asking for personal information in the registration process. It needs to include information about what you can do and will not do with the information.
symo
By the way, can I post some pics of myself in that French Maid costume holding my reciprocating saw? We discussed this image in another thread, but we weren't sure if the image would offend some people. ;)
By all means you are welcome to host it.
Next question, why don't I host it on a dedicated server? Well the answer is simple, why buy a Ferrari when you can get by with a Camry? Until my site becomes successful there's no need for me to waste my money on an expensive Dedicated Server.
Thank you, and keep them comments coming. :)
YvetteKuhns
8-17-07, 08:42 AM
why buy a Ferrari when you can get by with a Camry? Until my site becomes successful there's no need for me to waste my money on an expensive Dedicated Server.
I agree with you. I have a client who planned to have a shopping cart on their website. Their website has been online for a few years and has been changed a few times. Now that they found me, they finally have a shopping cart.
They had a web host package that was labeled Economy and didn't even offer MySQL databases! I just upgraded them to the Business package, so they could have more features including databases. They didn't have to pay for something they weren't using.
Of course, your website may grow exponentially. It will be a pain to move all of the files to a new server and make sure all of the logins work. ;)
Thank you, and keep them comments coming.
Your name imgbolt creates an image in my mind. I picture a small yellow or orange lightning bolt zapping through the name. img~bolt where img and bolt may be the same color or a similar color like white and gray.
site is goodlooking
so for people who's complaining about :
giving away my bandwidth, speed and performance.
what is the diffifernts between image hosting , or gallery or forums or scripts , where other members can upload as well.?
if you run a forum or have gallery, is the same like image hosting. people sharing there images as well.
so if the images is not allowed, so is the rest of the scripst for sharing images also not allowed.
i run 3 forums on 3 different servers. 1 is heavy , dvd cover forum. big database and images.
before i buy a account here, i talk whit powweb about my project whit hugh database and images.
they told me that was not a problem and allowed. and hope to see me soon. so a few weeks later i made up a an account.
so what i do , can you compare whit the imagehosting as well.
for dedicated server, why ? when you have 300gig and 3000Gig transfer here.
just my opinion.
greetings
site is goodlooking
so for people who's complaining about :
giving away my bandwidth, speed and performance.
what is the diffifernts between image hosting , or gallery or forums or scripts , where other members can upload as well.?
if you run a forum or have gallery, is the same like image hosting. people sharing there images as well.
The big difference between this kind of image hosting and a gallery is the ownership and control. If the photos are owned by the publisher then you're not 'giving away' the bandwidth to others who should be paying for it. Content has also been discussed. All content should be yours, not copyright material without permission. There's no control on that - it's simply given away.
A site that is very popular does prevent others accessing their sites. If it is easily used for copyright breaches then it shouldn't be available! In fact once support get one complaint they will close it down, even if the site isn't popular and hasn't breached any limits on bandwidth etc.
entrecon
10-1-07, 04:04 PM
I just looked at the site and it looks pretty clean.
I uploaded some pictures and on 1 upload there was an error, but before I could see it I was taken to the upload screen where the image that did upload was displayed. I hit the back button to see the erro, but it took me to the upload page again and then I lost the link page for the one that did work. As a guest there is no way to get baack to that page. I guess it is just an orphan upload.
I did browse through some of the public galleries. Several times I received the "too many database connections" error message. A few times I received a 500 ISE. additionally there were a few images that had parenthesis in the file name and they errored out. I would suggest checking that on the upload.
As far as what your users have uploaded...
http://www.imgbolt.com/members/browse/100569 has several anime images, some that are explicit. I would think this is against the TOS
http://www.imgbolt.com/members/browse/100417/ has screen shots of Pirates of the Caribean and I am thinking this mght be a copyright infringement.
http://www.imgbolt.com/members/browse/100340 had a bunch of screen shots that looked like they were from a Japanese show/movie. Not sure about copyright since i am not familiar with teh work, but they were each 1MB in size. A few active links to these images could burn up your bandwidth quick.
I'd agree with you, entrecon on all three issues.
I'd take care of it soonest, imgbolt. Now that it's been posted and pointed out, more people are going to see it!!
jeff1022
10-2-07, 01:06 PM
Hmmm...nice to see who my neighbors are! And to think I was trying to keep all my images somewhere around the 150-160k mark. I am just gonna start posting full size tiff's from now on.... j/k ;)
Croc Hunter
10-3-07, 03:13 AM
The explicit images are still up there. Like I said, this kind of website does not belong at Powweb and is doomed.
HalfaBee
10-3-07, 03:31 AM
I suppose this part of the TOS/AUP covers this.
# Pornography. No Customer shall use PowWeb's services to engage in pornography. This includes uploading or publishing material that would commonly be considered "indecent," "appealing to the prurient interest" or referred to as "adult" material. In addition, linking to these sites is not allowed.
Croc Hunter
10-3-07, 04:01 AM
Yeah or the indecent part HalfaBee. If my 5-9 yo nieces saw these pictures I would not be happy with the site owners or Powweb and their prurient interests.
entrecon
10-3-07, 07:26 AM
I have read inother forums these strict rules about what is considered part of your website and what isn't. In one discussion they have said that posting invoices that could only be accessed by ONE of my visitors was a grey area because it was not part of my website. How can image sharing be part of the website?
HalfaBee
10-3-07, 07:59 AM
I think the whole "part of a website" is a grey area.
Every forum has info that only one user can see.
Maybe we shouldn't run any forum on Powweb servers, at least mysql would work better.
Croc Hunter
10-3-07, 09:14 AM
I have read inother forums these strict rules about what is considered part of your website and what isn't. In one discussion they have said that posting invoices that could only be accessed by ONE of my visitors was a grey area because it was not part of my website. How can image sharing be part of the website?
Nah.. I think you've been mis-informed or mis-read. Invoices hold personal information and should in most cases only be viewed by the invoicee. As long as the invoice pertains to the website you operate here and not for mowing the neighbours lawn (unless your website is local lawnmowing) you're fine.
Galleries are allowed as a feature of your website. The images should relate to your website. An image hosting/sharing website is not allowed as far as I can determine. I will ask for a ruling. Pornographic images are certainly not allowed and will have any site here shutdown.
We need to keep on topic. It's a review of imagebolt and it's content.
entrecon
10-3-07, 10:05 AM
This is what I was refering to.
so, as case in point, if you were an architect, and you used the site to allow a client to remotely view some info for a contract -- that would probably slip under the wire, even though the use by your customer would strictly speaking not be your use
I guess I read "slip under the wire" to mean borderline, but that may just be my interpretation.
I am looking at this compared to ImgBolt where there are several directories that can be browsed, but there are several that can not. It is being billed as an image sharing site, but also could be used as remote storage. If I don't share the link with anyone, then it is for my private use. This would mean that I am using imgbolt for file storage which violates using PowWeb as file storage AND giving away space to a non-Powweb customer.
Since we are unable to view all of the files stored at imgbolt, how do we know that there aren't other violations in terms of copyright and adult material?
Since we are unable to view all of the files stored at imgbolt, how do we know that there aren't other violations in terms of copyright and adult material?We don't - but Powweb staff can access those areas. It's not the place of other customers to say what can and can't be hosted nor to decide if something breaks the TOS.
joshuamc
10-3-07, 11:35 AM
The site is going to be shut down within the next few minutes.
I apologize for doing that when all you were looking for was feedback, but it is in clear violation of our TOS.
It's also apparent from this thread that there is question as to whether or not we allow these type of sites. The answer is that we do not.
joshuamc
10-3-07, 12:29 PM
The site is going to be shut down within the next few minutes.
I apologize for doing that when all you were looking for was feedback, but it is in clear violation of our TOS.
It's also apparent from this thread that there is question as to whether or not we allow these type of sites. The answer is that we do not.
Alright. I take that back...sort of. You should have an e-mail arrive soon letting you know that you are in violation. If no action is taken on your part, we'll deactivate a few days.
Might as well,
From his/hers responces the guy/girl had a bad attitude, telling people to keep their opinions to themselves and only comment on what he/her was asking about.
I think he/her was "a burrito short of a combo platter", if I had a site that was anywhere near the borderline of the TOS for my host I would move on.
well i have been off the forum for a while and didnt check up on what you guys wrote. I disabled the feature just now but it looks like i was too late.
powweb has told me i violated the TOS and kicked me out. looks like i will have to go somewhere else to host my site. well looks like IMGBOLT image hosting is going somewhere else! Plus i didnt like POWWEB anyways, there was a database limit of a few people and couldnt handle the traffic the site was getting. ohh well better luck next time.
thanks everyone for their participation.
vBulletin v3.6.0, Copyright ©2000-2009, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.