Flickr is a photo sharing service that’s taken off in the last couple of years. It allows for tagging (read: labeling) of photos, incorporation of photos into sets, sharing with groups, featuring them easily on your web site, blogging them easily, and plenty more. In the last year or so, they’ve added printing services a la kodakgallery. And it’s free (though there is a paid version that gives you more bandwidth and ad-free browsing). The only downside I can really see to it after a recent redesign that made the site easier to use is that it doesn’t seem to have a way to share private photos with people who aren’t members of Flickr. Kodakgallery lets you send email to people that lets them see your private photos without being members.

My company makes a browser that has a nice Flickr uploader tool built in. This is great for me as a Linux user because none of the other tools that make Flickr or Kodakgallery manageable for Windows and Mac users work for Linux. So to use the services without Flock, I have to manually browse to and blindly upload each photo in an ugly form and then go in and apply tags, descriptions, privacy, etc. Flock lets me browse, resize, crop, tag, describe, set privacy options, and add photos to a set in a nice little window devised for the purpose. It’s great.

Because we’re tied in pretty heavily with photo sharing services, my company got nice (compact 7.x megapixel Canon PowerShot) cameras for all staff members. M and I already had a pretty nice Canon PowerShot that she, as family photographer, maintained control over. Which meant that when I went out to CA or even just out and about, I never had a camera. Which was ok because I’m not a good photographer and don’t have any sort of passion for it. But now that we have two cameras, I get the original one and she gets the newer one and I snap photos of random things now. Take for example the cans pictured here.

I upload them to Flickr using Flock, but I mark most of them private and viewable only by friends and family because most of the shots I take are of Lennie, and I don’t want just anybody having pictures of my often half-naked (diapered) daughter. There are some real weirdos out there. So, basically, if you’re somebody I know personally (don’t bother otherwise) and don’t have a Flickr account but want to see pictures of Lennie when I upload them (every two or three days of late), get an account and ask me to add you as a friend.

If you happen also to download Flock, you can add me as a contact there and be notified automatically when I upload new photos. As in a little button changes colors to let you know that there’s new stuff. When you press the button, you get a little slideshow-type view of my pictures. Nifty, huh?