Inchiquin

Is it just me, or does this all seem rather silly? Alamy can't stop people typing in crested tit, so they're going to do it anyway. But Alamy doesn't accept pornographic images so no-one's going to find pornography! So the result is exactly the same regardless of whether the word is banned or not - except that in the current configuration casual searchers are going to go somewhere else because Alamy seems to be poorly represented in respect of several bird species. Alan

Ouch, that's a pretty damning conclusion. I can vouch for Epson inks (and the cheaper replacements from Marrutt). I have Epson/Marrutt prints from the R1800 on my wall that have been hanging in daylight for 10 years and the colours are as vivid as when they were put up. But I do leave the printer unused for periods and this is obviously why my R1800 gave up the ghost - at least two of the nozzles appear to be blocked and although Magic Bullet is supposed to free them, it hasn't done so for me despite multiple applications. What worries me about reading that article though is that Epson are now using dye inks, and it seems to suggest they don't have the same longevity. I'm in a quandary. I reckon I can save about £3 - £5 per print by doing it myself as opposed to my local printer. I should easily be able to sell 20 in a year so the printer would pay for itself in 3 years, plus I can produce them on demand much more quickly and there are other things, e.g. labels, that it would be extremely useful to have in colour. I think I'm tempted to give the ET-1800 a try just for the convenience of having a colour printer, and continuing to pay the extra for printing if it can't do the biz for saleable prints. One thing is certain - I can't risk splashing out for an expensive R1800 replacement if I'm going to leave it unused for weeks at a time. Alan

Somehow I doubt if it's photo-quality... Also the flights to Miami would eat into any savings I might make. Alan

For years I made lovely colour prints on an Epson R1800 but it now seems beyond its useful life. I don't think I could justify a like-for-like replacement as it would never pay for itself, but a cheap printer might do so eventually. Does anyone have any experience of the Epson EcoTank ET1800? At £170 it's cheap enough to perhaps give me a return after 2 or 3 years, but can it produce prints good enough to frame and sell? Alan

On our side of the pond the greater hazard is rising sea levels. I moved to higher ground some years ago but I'm not sure that will help much because when southern England is under water there will be too much pressure on the remaining space. Alan

When I was younger I was obsessed with the latest technology. I never had much money so I could rarely afford the latest gadgets, though I did buy one of the very first digital watches (the Sinclair Black Watch) as soon as it was released (and I may still have it somewhere at the bottom of a box). I also "invented" (in my head) lots of technology that wouldn't exist for decades - the basics of a smart home and a driverless vehicle system in the mid-70s, and in the early 80s a system for keeping all your music collection on one chip and plugging it into a computer, which I thought would happen before too long because of Moore's Law. However, in recent years I've found that technology seems to have reached a point where I don't actually need anything more advanced than I have now and maybe never will. So I'm planning to enjoy it for a good few years yet before jumping into that box. Alan

The main thing I remember about the film days was thinking "Can I afford this?" every time I pressed the shutter. Alan

I hate mobile phones anyway, so I hardly ever use one. Alan

I'm pretty sure that's a Standard Vanguard. Alan

Maybe not, but it's a bit disconcerting to know that you might have the perfect picture for the customer but it doesn't get seen 😒. Doesn't seem to me like a very good way to do it. Alan

OK, I get it now. Clicking on my images brings up the search in Relevant, and I have to change the filter to Newest before removing the -datetaken. That wasn't made clear. To be honest I'm not that bothered. I was mainly curious, especially about the duplication of some images. Alan

No, I mean the URL I get when I click on 5189 below my name. There is no reference to datetaken. The URL has the following parameters: _gl= <loads of ASCII characters> cid= <loads more ASCII characters> comp=1 mode=0 name=Alan+Wrigley sortBy=relevant st=12 Alan

That's very interesting for two reasons. Firstly I don't see "datetaken" anywhere in the URL when I click on it. Secondly, "sortBy=newest" may be a red herring, because the link I created a while ago for my own website (see below) has "sortBy=relevant" and that shows them in upload order exactly as the forum link used to do. https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/*.html?imgt=0&qn=alanwrigley&sortBy=relevant Alan

When I click on Images below my name on the forum, I used to get everything pretty much in the order of upload, most recent uploads first. Now they seem to appear in a fairly random order, a few from one batch then a few from another and so on. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but what's worse is that if I scroll through a few pages I see the same images appear more than once. This surely can't be right? If I have 5190 images uploaded and some are duplicated, which ones are missing from the display? And does the same thing happen if customers search my images? Has anyone else seen this behaviour? Alan

Ed is in Liverpool, not Notts. Alan