Instant flickr with PicoBlogger

The other day, info about Shozu was flying around the net, so I decided to give it a try. I went to the site and signed up, but never got the SMS with the confirmation code to complete the signup process. I tried several times, no SMS. So, I decided to forget it … maybe I’ll try again someday when they get the bugs out of the registration process.

This got me to thinking, after having posted several images lately from my 6682 to flickr, that I should try PicoBlogger again. I tried it a while back, and eventually deleted it when my phone started crashing a lot. The crashes turned out to be completely unrelated to PicoBlogger, but I just never bothered to reinstall it. So, I had been moblogging via LifeBlog, which is nice, but just takes too many clicks. Plus, I use a Mac, so I can’t take advantage of any of the synchronization features.

So, I tried PicoBlogger, and after a bit of initial setup frustration, it seems to work pretty well now, especially with the AutoBlogger feature. There are some tricks to setting it up, so here’s what worked for me.

1. Install PicoBlogger. Make sure you install it in the phone memory, not on the expansion card. I had problems getting it to remember Flickr as my default blog account when I initially installed it on the card. It would always default to posting to my PicoBlogger account instead.
2. Start PicoBlogger and register a PicoBlogger account. Unfortunately, this seems to be a necessary step. I never use my PicoBlogger account now, so you can pretty much just forget about it after you sign up.
3. After PicoBlogger signs in, click Options -> Blog accounts, then Options -> Add.
4. Select Blog service, and scroll down to change it to Flickr.
5. Enter the email address you registered with Flickr in the Username field. Your regular username will not allow you to connect via PicoBlogger.
6. Enter your password. Here’s the next tricky part. This is your regular Flickr password, but you have to enter it twice. Initially the Password field reads None. Click the Password field and enter your password and click OK. That will return you to the previous screen, but the Password field will still say None. Click the Password field again, and enter your password again, exactly as you entered it the first time, and click OK. After clicking OK this time, you should be returned to the previous screen where the Password field now contains ***** signifying that your password has been saved.
7. On to the next tricky part. Whatever you do, do not hit Back. This step is so important that it deserves its own number.
8. Click Options and select Retrieve. This will connection to Flickr to retrieve your account information.
9. If it connects successfully, you will be returned to the Blog accounts list, where you can now set your Flickr account as the default blog. This allows the AutoBlogger to automatically post photos to Flickr instead of your PicoBlogger account.
10. That’s it, now give it a try. If AutoBlogger is turned on (in the Settings), you can quit PicoBlogger, fire up the phone’s camera and snap a picture, and AutoBlogger will pop up a message asking if you want to post the photo. Say yes, and your data connection will activate (it may ask you which connection to use, but this can be set in PicoBlogger’s settings as well), and the photo will be on its way to your Flickr account.

Tags: blog | flickr | mobile | moblog | technology