I know… I know.  I keep making site changes—like videos and photos and themes.  Get over it.

I’m presently testing an image hosting service.  If it works out, I’ll be moving all of my images off of this server and over to the hosting service.

But what service is it?

I’m glad you asked.

I’m tinkering with Zooomr.  Why not Flickr?  Because Zooomr, although still in testing, offers more functionality as far as I’m concerned.

Keep in mind, though, this is still a test.  If I hate it, I’ll drop it like a bad habit and try something else (like Flickr).  For now, however, this is what I’m toying with.

And there’s another reason besides its functional differences and offerings.  Right now, Zooomr is offering pro accounts to bloggers.  For free.  For a limited time.

So I figured there was an even bigger reason to check it out.  Since pro accounts are better than not-so-pro accounts, this gives me more flexibility in my testing.  It can’t hurt, right?

My hope by utilizing a hosting service is to gain more control over my images, reduce my own bandwidth costs, and provide some kind of gallery functionality that doesn’t require me to piddle around with more software and more server changes and more blah blah blah…  Or something like that.

Then again, I might just leave things the way they are.  You never know.

On another note, I’m continuing to modify my blogroll.  Some things are vanishing and some things are appearing.

With the advent of PayPerPost and other advertise-by-blogging services, some of the sites I’ve enjoyed in the past have become nothing more than marketing mouth pieces.  I’m sorry.  I have no intention of endorsing by linking any site that swings into that territory.  I read blogs for the personal views, the learning experience, the photography, and the kindred spirit.  I don’t read them so I can see advertisements all day.  That’s just not my thing.

And as I’ve said before, my tastes are always changing.  Right now my focus is mainly on photography, science, philosophy, writing, and nature sites—not to mention those whose writing and perspectives I enjoy regardless of emphasis.  You should expect more of those to appear over the coming days and weeks.  If that squeezes out some that are there now, so be it, yet I’m rather fond of those I have now and can only think of a minority that could fall prey to this endeavor.  We’ll see how that goes.

[Update] Okay, scratch that idea.  None of the image hosting sites allow me to control my images.  Anyone can link to them if they have the proper address (which, obviously, is available from my site if you view the page code).  That means even Flickr’s superior security settings don’t hinder people from displaying my images on their own pages if they find them here.  All they have to do is grab the URI from xenogere, add it to their site, and suddenly my material is embedded on their page.  That means I’m going back to the old method, which at least allows me to block all other sites from using the images unless they download them from here, upload them to their server, and then link to them directly.  I’ll of course keep looking around, and I’ll also keep working on the image project I was already involved in that will reduce image quality and sizes to something more manageable yet still usable.