Jasmine, I am curious about the dreaded Photobucket bandwidth issue. I have a few questions. It seems like I recall that sometime recently Travelmel was having a similar problem (I THINK it was Travelmel; could be wrong) with Photobucket. Seeing that I use Photobucket too (though will probably start loading a bunch of other pictures onto Shutterfly), I need to be prepared. The problem that I usually have with them is that they are slow loading and combined with my slow computer, it is a nightmare trying to do anything with pictures.
But about the bandwidth issue, because I am confused - first of all, is it a
monthly limit of 25 MB bandwidth on Photobucket or is it an overall account limit of 25 MB? I remember you said you took over 500 pictures on the DLR trip earlier this month, so did those exceed the limit? Would the bandwidth limit increase if you upgraded from the free Photobucket service to the paid service (which I was considering doing so I could create MORE than 10 online albums, but I may not if I go to another service)? Is there any way you have of knowing when you are uploading photos that you are reaching the limit, or do you not find out until it's too late? Like do they give you a warning ('you are reaching your limit', etc.)? And what is the purpose disabling the images until February 4th? It seems like they would just tell you to delete some pictures, right?
I certainly uploaded a
bunch of pictures from my last couple of DLR trips recently (definitely 500 or more), including 300 PhotoPass pictures and other older DLR pictures, so I was getting worried. But when I thought about it just now, I realized that I uploaded all those pictures from my film rolls (like the black and white ones, etc.) in December. There were a BUNCH. The PhotoPass shots, along with all the Bret Michaels/Poison pictures I have recently posted, etc., were uploaded in January - just in the last few weeks. So maybe I avoided the bandwidth issue unknowingly because I did it in two separate months.

I had been planning on uploading a bunch more older DLR pictures to post on here in my TR, but maybe I will wait until tomorrow to start, since it's the first day of February!!!! I have already reached the 10 album limit that the Free service allows. So I can either pay Photobucket and get more albums, or start putting a bunch of other pictures on another site. Mariezp was using Webshots, but has begun to put a bunch of her stuff on Shutterfly. Do you know of any other good (free) image hosting sites, Jasmine? Snapfish and Flick'r are no good.
I just want to know how anyone knows they are reaching the Photobucket bandwidth limit before they disable all of your images!!