Announcing "The Brogen Byte"

I have finally found a profession where my two passions, photography and technology, can merge providing an opportunity to bring my work to an entirely different level.  There are so many occasions to utilize today's technology in your photography business, and you don't have to be a "Tech Guru" to do it - though it does have its upside (LOL).  To that end, I am very excited to announce the release of my new blog, "The Brogen Byte"...a place where I hope to help other photographers merge their photography-centric business with our technology-centric world.  The goal of The Brogen Byte is to offer readers insight into their hardware, software, network architecture, etc by leveraging my 25+ years of experience in the technology industry, and how it all relates in a wide variety of situations.

I will be blogging on a weekly basis and will post real-world "bits" of information to help you utilize today's technology to enhance your photography workflow and overall business process.  With this knowledge and guidance, you can begin experiencing some of the benefits of integrating technology deeper into your everyday work routines.  Employing technology in business has become a necessity, especially if you want to really gain a competitive edge and work effectively.

Be sure to visit every week and post your comments to let me know what you're thinking, and/or if you have specific topics that you would like me to cover.  You can get new "Bits" automatically by subscribing to my blog using the links on the right side of the page.


Technology Bit - "Facebook Allowing Friends To Print Friends' Photos"

Yes that is correct, by default, Facebook "opts you in" to allow some major companies like Walmart, Target and Shutterfly to name a few, to print your photos from Facebook at the request of your friends. Some of you may be aware of this from a post by Mark Lutz or Trent Ernst but I think it is important to repost the information to ensure, that as professional photographers, we are all aware of what this actually means.

Well Facebook in their infinite wisdom, automatically allows these companies to be able to print your photos via their Facebook Apps.  While some of the vendors like Walmart have an explicit "Photo Center Copyright Policy" where-in they will not assist in the copying of an image or document that has a watermark or copyright mark on it, the other vendors are not so pro-active.  You, as the image owner will not be notified of any such printing so you just won't know if you don't take action.

So what action can you take?  Because of Facebook's automatically allowing these applications to have access to the images, you are forced to go in and "Block" each individual one so that they do not have access to your account.  While there are currently only 6 major known ones, it does require you to go to each one one time and select "Block Application".

How To Block Print Applications

First, be sure you are logged into your Facebook account and then simply click on each link below and click on the "Block Application" link for each one.

Walmart

Walgreens

Target

Shutterfly

Pixable

Kodak Easy Share

I hope that you have found this "Technology Bit" useful and will come back for future editions.


News Bit - This Weeks Awards
I received two awards this week...

The first was a Picture of the Day award on 10/5 from Photographyvoice.com for this senior portrait shot.

I received a second Picture of the Day award on 10/2 also from Photographyvoice.com for this shot of a "Veil of Eggs".  This veil was laid by a goosefish at the New England Aquarium and was estimated to be 56' long, weigh 25 lbs and contain over 1 million eggs.