There seems to be a trend among new Web Services and sites NOT to offer a search capability. I guess the idea is that if you do a REALLY good job of design and navigation, search shouldn't be necessary. NOT!! Here's a case in point. I want to know "How do I post FROM Flickr TO Posterous?" There's no way to search for the answer to that question on the site.

I have set up the AutoLoad feature, so that if I post a photo in Posterous it will post in Flickr automatically. That works for some things. But not for others. For example, I posted a copyrighted photo and provided attribution in the blog post. But it posted automatically on Flickr and I don't have the rights to do that. So I had to delete it. On the other hand, I have some photos in Flickr I'd like to post in my Posterous blog. But Posterous isn't one of Flickr's blog choices (even tho the interface works INTO Flickr, it doesn't work automagically OUT OF Flickr). Or at least I can't figure out how to do that...

So Search would be really useful!!

Great story by Matt Clark in the Christian Science Monitor about "my" African Rural University for Women (ARU) in Uganda with photos by Mary Knox Merrill.  Here, Charlotte Mbaine, who just completed her third year at the University, is being thanked by one of the women in the Village where she did her "senior project"-- spending one month helping villagers articulate their Visions and begin to achieve them by discovering and using their own resources and talents. Check out the full story and video African Academy Empowers Youths.

Frustrated with my inability to post pictures from my cell phone, I tried posting this Burnt Island Light picture from the Web. That worked pretty well, except that the link for the source is NOT automatically embedded. Hmmm.. Doesn't that make it much too easy to copy others' photos without attribution???

Took my nephew, his wife and their two daughters to Burnt Island Light in Boothbay Harbor see the reenactment of the life of a lighthouse keeper's family in the 1950's. A great way to really grok what it must have been like living on an island off the coast of Maine, tending a lighthouse year round.

At least I haven't figured out how to do this yet. One of the many nice features of Posterous is that you can send posts from any of your many email addresses. Each email address has to be registered. You can also send SMS messages from your phone. I tried to email photos from my cellphone. Didn't work. Then I registered my cellphone number and tried to email them to post@posterous.com... Still nothing. Looks like you can only post SMS messages from your cell phone, not pix??

I have a lot of photos on my cell phone. It's so tedious to email them to myself or to others, I usually don't bother. Now, I thought, with Posterous, maybe I could email them once and get them both on my blog and in Flickr simultaneously. So far, nothing is showing up. How long does it take Verizon Wireless to actually send the photos? How long does it take Posterous to process them and post them to my posterous blog and to Flickr?

Registration on posterous.com is really easy. You can start with an existing facebook username. No need to add a lot of other stuff. (Although you DO need to confirm your email address.)
Setting up auto-posting links to other services is also really easy. All you need is your username and password on each site. If you don't remember them, you can open a new window or tab in your browser, log onto your flickr/twitter/facebook/friendfeed/youtube, etc. accounts and remind yourself. In each case, you need to confirm your intent to auto-post to and from each service.

Setting up my blog for autoposting gave me pause, though. Each blog has a unique voice and a unique focus. I realized that I didn't want a lot of extraneous junk showing up there. So, I've decided to let my default Posterous.com blog become the dumping ground for my random thoughts, that will then be directed to twitter, friendfeed, etc.

The biggest other gotcha that I foresee is that I already have my twitter account set up to tweet to facebook, friendfeed, etc. So, I am anticipating a lot of duplicate posts...