With the latest release of jUploadr, I think the app is at a point where just about any end user would be able to use it. It’s got a really intuitive interface, and now has a configuration UI. When I started writing it, I really just wanted something to do batch uploads from Linux. At first, it was quite pathetic –there were no frills other than setting tags and metadata. In addition, the UI would freeze during uploads. However, I kept plugging away and with some help, it’s turned into a pretty decent application.

However, until today, Google has been letting me down. jUploadr has consistently been on the second page of Google searches for both ‘flickr uploader’ and ‘Linux flickr uploader’. One problem was that very few of jUploadr’s pages had ‘Linux’ on them. I mostly referred to it as a cross-platform uploader. With the latest version, I’ve fixed that problem. However, the other reason is more interesting.

It seems I have an Indian counterpart. A very eager and resourceful Indian counterpart. He’s written an uploader for Linux which –and I’m being generous here– is lacking features and polish. However, it seems that the energy he’s saved in adding features to his program has been expended in promoting it. He’s commented on every blog that deals with uploaders, often begging the blog owners to include his program in their reviews –even though it’s pretty much a proof of concept. He also has two sites (one of them a blogger blog) that keep his page rank high. Now I have done a bit of self-promotion with jUploadr, but it’s probably one of the most complete uploaders out there (I have yet to see the windows client).

What irks me is that he’s a huge Linux fan, but in effect, he’s doing Linux users a great disservice by prematurely and artificially promoting his project. I waited until I had a version that was at least somewhat usable and useful to end-users until I announced it. It was certainly alpha-quality, but it allowed users to complete a task (uploading multiple photos while setting all parameters). Vardhman’s uploader only allows you to upload a single file at a time, and then you have to use a file dialog to pick another, which is a very painful process. Additionally, there is absolutely no error checking on input fields. You can specify a photo to be both public and viewable by friends, which is impossible. One only hopes Flickr makes sense out of this. He’s also overlooked some important details of uploading photos. In effect, he always tells Flickr that you’re uploading a jpeg, even if you’re uploading a PNG or a GIF.

I’m not saying he’s done all this with malicious intent. From reading his blog, it appears that he’s just very enthusiatic and excited. I genuinely think he wants to make something cool and help people out. It’s kind of sad that his actions have the opposite effect.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 16th, 2005 at 7:56 am and is filed under Soapbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.