sbm12

I'm sure you'll be surprised to learn that other phones have similar apps.

Or take photos on a non-connected camera (though many have wifi these days) like I do and mass import from the memory card using your image management tool of choice.
You should look in to adjusting your theme/style sheet so that the default caption style looks the way you want it to.
You have options for plugins which will auto-scale the images as they are uploaded, saving the precious server resources. That said, most decent hosting plans that you'd need to support any volume of reader traffic shouldn't get too hung up on disk space. My approach is to manage that on export from my image management tool. It is a bulk operation which happens very, very quickly.
I retouch nearly all of my photos. Getting them done in under a minute per image (and usually far less than that) still isn't much of an issue for me.

I still believe that total time per image - including downloading from the SD card, selecting the good ones, cropping, tagging, minor lighting adjustments, exporting as a resized image and uploading to the server - is well less than a minute per picture. But I've got a good workflow in Picasa and am comfortable with it. I don't begrudge those who take longer, but I do question just what they're doing if it is significantly longer and they haven't figured out options to automate or expedite some of it. There are a lot of tools out there that make this stuff easier.

I don't put 50 images in a trip report because I think that's a boring trip report. But I absolutely do have that many images from many of my trips and upload them to share, often on Facebook. And it is way faster than the process being described here.

luluv

Is he getting some sort of kickback from Air Serbia for all of these badly-written, cheerleading posts for an airline product he has never flown? He has every right to make money, but at least put some effort into not sounding like a pure shill. What happened to the "Hello Kitty flight"-era Ben who regularly put up trip reports that he was enthusiastic about and were fun to read?

alexrg

Last week, Tiffany made a post called "Upside: The Travel App that Rewards You For Saving Money." I couldn't tell if this was advertising or not, so I looked into this "Upside" app and found that OMAAT is a "launch partner." OMAAT is obviously earning a cut of the money from this Upside thing (per a disclaimer on the top of the page), so I'm kind of doubting the sincerity of the couple of posts about it.

This and Tiffany's whole Mexico TR series have kind of lowered my opinion of her. I still think she is still one of the better contributors at OMAAT who posts with some frequency (I really only take her, Travis, and Mike seriously, as Nick is a blind Delta fan, Matt hasn't posted in several months, and Ford is, well, what can we say about him?), but the whole blog has kind of gone down hill in terms of quality, from the Air Serbia thing to all the CC pimping to this thing with "Upside."

And the best part, even after Tiffany's FAQ post, I still don't know what Upside really is...

alexrg

I've been asking myself the same question. I think that Ben got a taste of the CC-pimping, paid-advertising life and the desire to make money overrode the desire to have a good time. In short, he became a real business man as opposed to a guy running a low-paying blog that he really seemed enjoy writing.

After all, I remember reading about him flying ex-Ted A320's out of TPA, sitting next to crazy people, mileage running, and seeming to have a good time. Now, he just reviews F on a Middle Eastern carrier and flies business class "for the readers." The blog used to be about a guy flying around the world for fun. Now it's a blog about credit cards, Air Serbia, and apps nobody has ever heard of (see above.)

nemme99

I lost respect for Tiffany when she called me and one other person out in comments for being negative. Can't remember the post but there were so many afterwards she couldn't respond to all. (Post wasn't even hers; she was being defensive for someone else.)

And I agree about the recent shilling. Guess they're trying to replace Chase money?

FallenPlat

So here's something you don't see everyday on Boarding Area, one blog openly ridiculing another. See today's Loyalty Traveler Post entitled "Do You Feel Lucky, Punk?"

That passes for clever, I guess, in that it incorporates both a "cultural" reference and a pun. (Clint is revered among French intellectuals, after all.)

I'll leave the merits to those more knowledgeable than I. I'll only comment that I've been following non-stop DFW-Europe fares for over 25 years and that, these days, anything under $1200 is pretty decent; but I did find a small handful of November dates under $700.

My point, though, isn't the merits. It's the open ridicule! There are at least a zillion perfectly legitimate things you could throw (and have thrown) at Ben by way of ridicule . . . but lack of knowledge about airfares simply isn't one of them.

I'm not sure what motivated Rick to take this particular swing.

JetAway

If they're shilling for Air Serbia they're running out of rope.

Big_Foot

So I guess we established he is banned from United Airlines for life
for cheating. He clearly avoids any United subject.
But that doesn't stop him from writing about United miles 100% bonus
and placing a points.com affiliate link for United Airlines miles purchase.
I'm sure nobody even knows it's his link and many will click it.
This click will probably stay alive for a month. Paying him what, 10%?
Of course tons of credit cards' affiliate links are also included.



facepalm

Astrophsx

Who cares? He's not deceiving anyone.

He's not like Deals We Like or other BoardingArea blogs that post targeted Amazon offers that they themselves were not targeted for (heck 99% of their readers probably were never targeted). They post these "deals" so that you will click their referral link hoping that within 24 hours you will go purchase something so they can earn a commission. Hey click here to see if you were targeted for a $20 off Amazon coupon!!

FallenPlat

If you think a United ban for life, at this point, is a "facepalm," you're simply mistaken.

That lovely topic has been roundtabled on this thread to death, repeatedly.

Who cares indeed.

gpapadop

I remember when I added OMAAT and VFTW to my "Blogs To Ignore" list (and cost them six clicks in total lol) I used to get very inflammatory angry email by fans telling me how wrong I am. Well, those emails have been replaced with emails telling me how much these two great blogs have succumbed to non stop shilling and just awful content...

This...

Mountain Trader

Only his readers who think he is providing an unbiased survey of the entirety of travel options. In other words, many, many people.

Big_Foot

He's deceived me.
I didn't know it's his link until I clicked and saw the address line change.
And as far as I know if I buy Starwood points now, completely unrelated,
he will make $300? Or if I decide to buy Intercontinental points
in 3 weeks, he will make another $200?
Sorry, but this is deceiving by definition. And yes, I care.
I will make an effort not to use my personal computer, but do it from work
or from my phone only not to give this guy any of my money.

Adam1222

You appear not to understand the point of disclosure.
You disclose facts so the individual reader can decide whether he cares or not. If a reader doesn't care if an author Ben committed fraud and was banned for an airline, that's a reasonable conclusion. But it would also be reasonable for a reader to be more skeptical of some of Ben's advice or opinions.

Not disclosing, however, prevents the reader from making an informed judgment.

Astrophsx

If only there was a method of removing cookies from your computer... hmm....