Changes

The pluspora site (that I have been using since the end of Google+) will be going away very soon. I have concluded that my last options for logging watch service and repair projects is this blog and my elgintime instagram account.

For various reasons, without pluspora to cut and paste longer text from, the instagram account will include much less detail, much shorter text descriptions, and no links.

Projects will be documented here on this blog. This means that updates may be less frequent as this platform does not lend itself logging each day's work. I will probably create posts for projects in process, and then update them as they go rather than create posts for each update, or wait until the entire project is completed. 

It will be awkward to determine an efficient workflow that doesn't force me to spend all day typing here, or copying images from one place to another.  We'll just have to see how it goes.

Meanwhile, I will also be working on posting, back dated, content on older projects going back quite some time. This is a large project and there's no quick way to do it. I have extracts of both Google+ and pluspora.

For 20 years I have been working with the goal of creating a body of online content that was durable. No expects content to last until the sun goes dark, but something that can outlive me at least would be nice. This goal has proved remarkably difficult and perhaps unattainable. I fully expect Google to pull the plug on Blogger at anytime. It is already not receiving support and updates and seems to appear in search results only rarely.

Watch projects are tagged. This is the link.

https://elgintime.blogspot.com/search/label/Watch%20Projects

Thanks for sticking with me. 

New Site!

Given the fate of Google+, future daily watch project images and updates will be posted here:
https://pluspora.com/people/982fc890ad7301364692005056268def

There isn't much there yet, but it will grow in the days to come.

This blog will continue however to host summery posts on each project. These summary posts come less frequently.

Thanks!

Google Photos, Text, and Unfinished Elgin Plates

I didn't realize that Google Photos can add, and organize, text blocks interspersed with images in an album. This might provide me with a way to post the Watch Project images I currently collect on Google+ when Google+ drops the classic UI, finally killing off its photo support.

View my sample unfinished plates album here.

More Functionality Dropped

As of this morning, clicking on an album link from an old Google+ post no longer goes to the classic Google+ Photos interface, but to a brand new album viewer instead. It's seems to be a new, redundant, viewer, not even the Google Photos viewer!

Wow, Google is truly dead serious about making sure you can not interact with images in Google+, and making sure there is are very, very tall walls dividing Google's tools!

For me, this means there is no longer a way to add final watch photos from Drive, to their project album. To add a photo from Google Drive to Google Photos requires downloading and re-uploading the image!

Speechless...

Blogger Broken

Today I noticed that Google Blogger has stopped displaying the side bar. Completely. The layout is an uncustomized Google provided template. It just doesn't working anymore.

So for the time being I moved everything that was on the side bar down to the bottom. The layout is now awful, but at least all the content appears, until I can figure out a work around. Sorry for the mess. I don't expect Google is actually maintaining Blogger at this point.

New Arrivals

Here are the latest incoming watches for service!

I normally only post these images here on Google+, but that service is getting harder to use and especially more functionally limited with ever "upgrade" Google does, so I plan to have more of that content here on this blog, and elsewhere.

Managing Google Photos in Google Drive - Don't Do It!

When you turn on the option to show Google Photos in Google Drive a folder is created in "My Drive" where all your photos and videos appear in folders by year and month.

In Drive you can then organize and edit files at will, without impacting Google Photos , and with risk of deleting or breaking existing Google+ posts.

But if you delete a photo from My Drive, it is deleted from Google Photos, and thus potentially from Google+ posts.

I have just this morning discovered to my horror that:

1) It appears that photos copied to My Drive by this feature do count against your storage quota even if they are under the free and unlimited size level in Google Photos.

2) There is no way to remove these photos from My Drive. They stay there even if you turn off the feature, and can not be deleted without breaking Google Photos, Blogger posts, websites and other places you have used the images. Turning off the feature only causes no new photos to be added.

I turned on that feature awhile back when it appeared. It didn't think much of it. But Now my Drive is at quota. I turned the feature off, but soon I will either have to pay +Google for more Drive storage that I do not want to use, storage for files in Drive that Google created, files that are free in Photos, or I will have no option but to stop doing what I do on Google+ and elsewhere using Google services. My Drive will be frozen at its current state.

Unbelievable.

If you have the option turned on, I would strongly encourage you to turn it off now, before Google gets you painted into this corner. On mobile, it is a Drive option in Settings, right at the top.

Oh, Canada!

A few months ago I received an inquiry about watch repair that asked "where in Toronto are you located?"

This is funny because I am in Portland, Oregon, but I didn't think anything much of it.  I get watches in from all over the world anyway.  But this morning I received another similar email, asking about Toronto.  So this time I asked the sender how they got the idea that I was in Toronto, eh?

It turns out that if one Googles "Elgin pocket watch repair Toronto", one of my pages is at the top of the results!  I have no explanation for this, it's a Google mystery.