VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

yo bwd krew,

i've seen other sites that have galleries with no limitations on size and quality of photo uploads, just a cap of 3 or 4 MB for each member's gallery ... it would be up to the individual member if they wanted many photos of smaller size, or just a handfull of higher quality pics ... this would help conserve webspace on your site and also give users option to u/l or save any quality desktops in full original state ... also it would force people to keep up a healthy rotation of newer/better pics all the time ... there's some nice pics posted on your site that would be sweet to have in their original full glory, no-wah-i-mean?

if given the choice, i would choo-choo-choose quality over quantity

any thoughts?

helloooo? ... is this thing on?



i give up

primative solution I found....
www.photobucket.com/
free, seems to be a decent amount of storage... would be pretty awkward though, everyone would have to register individually, and then in the gallery area, each person's name would have a link directly to their photo galley @ photobucket.... kind of primative and awkward but it might do the trick...??

not sure if you can link directly into the gallery though as there is a login/pass etc.... maybe...?

nevermind scrap that, I just found the specs on their free service:
25MB per album
direct linking
but 250k max image size

~ pimp hand ~ wrote:yo bwd krew,
i've seen other sites that have galleries with no limitations on size and quality of photo uploads, just a cap of 3 or 4 MB for each member's gallery ... it would be up to the individual member if they wanted many photos of smaller size, or just a handfull of higher quality pics ... this would help conserve webspace on your site and also give users option to u/l or save any quality desktops in full original state ... also it would force people to keep up a healthy rotation of newer/better pics all the time ... there's some nice pics posted on your site that would be sweet to have in their original full glory, no-wah-i-mean?
if given the choice, i would choo-choo-choose quality over quantity
any thoughts?

I was waiting for other people to give their opinions first. Here's mine:

There are two limits for a webserver: the first is disk space and the second is bandwidth (data transfer). I have 150MB of disk space and 6GB of monthly bandwidth. I am using 106MB out of the 150 allowed disk space and it is half way through the month and the website has used 4GB of transfer (66%). When I go over the monthly limits I pay extra. Last month was the first time that the monthly bandwidth went over 6GB. This means the site is getting more popular so that's good, but it means extra $ per month for hosting.

So what I'm trying to say is that if I let people upload 1MB or 2MB single photos then the bandwidth would go up even more (if I have 80 photos each at 100kb people won't necessarily look at them all, but if I have 4 each at 2MB its more likely they will check all 4 out).

I'm also not sure about the "quality over quantity" idea. A photo for the web can easily be under 100kb at 800x600. Check out the galleries from Rob Creese or Elizabeth for an idea of great photos at small and regular sizes. If you want photos for printing or screen savers then yes they should be bigger, but the gallery might not be the best place for them. I have another web host that has 2GB of disk space and I'm happy to put photos or videos there, you can just email them to me or use the FTP upload. But that webserver is cheap and not reliable enough to host the gallery. Also, you could post your email on the photo caption and say "email me for a higher res pic".

A lot of people have been uploading large files (>200kb each photo) and that is fine since every few days I just run a script that resizes the photos and brings them down to <100kb in most cases. It's easier for me to do this for everyone and I understand that some people don't have access to photo editing software. If you don't want your photos resized after uploading then keep them less than 600 pixels wide.

But I like your idea about decreasing the cap that people can upload - I think it might be 8MB now. I might change it to 5MB so people rotate their pics and I will probably delete the older pictures in the pulic galleries (Windsurfing People, etc).

In the future I plan to look for another host for the gallery and forum that will give us more disk space and then maybe we can revisit this idea. But don't expect this any time soon....I'm sort of getting website burnout lately and I'm spending most of my time just keeping the site going as is (webcams, weather station, latest reports, MM5 models...)

thanks
dave

I was waiting for other people to give their opinions first. Here's mine:

i was waiting too, but i'm beginning to think there's a 'gag order' out to NOT reply to any posts by pimp hand ?

if I let people upload 1MB or 2MB single photos then the bandwidth would go up even more

200kb per photo would be fine with original dimensions

I'm also not sure about the "quality over quantity" idea. A photo for the web can easily be under 100kb at 800x600. Check out the galleries from Rob Creese or Elizabeth for an idea of great photos at small and regular sizes.

sure they look fine if you got a nice slr with a zoom, but for the rest of us ?? ... also useless for saving for wallpaper at those sizes

A lot of people have been uploading large files (>200kb each photo)

not me, i try and get them all down to approx 100kb, but they still end up getting resized and downgraded to like 40-50kb making them virtually unusable as desktop wallpaper

I run http://thewindsurfer.com. The service comes with 2400mb of space and 120gb of bandwidth. I wouldn't mind sharing as much as you need.

eenglish wrote:I run http://thewindsurfer.com. The service comes with 2400mb of space and 120gb of bandwidth. I wouldn't mind sharing as much as you need.

Thanks Elliot, that's a very generous offer. I'll PM you about your host since I'd be interested in finding out more. I have 2GB disk space and 5GB daily transfer from http://powweb.com, but their reliability is questionable and their SQL access is slow. I'd have to move the whole Gallery and then work out cross domain cookies since the forum and Gallery are tied into the same login. I plan to move them eventually, its just finding the time.

Thanks and great site btw,
dave

I think that the site has become so good with the webcams etc, that it sould be a pay site. Have an annual fee and password. Could use money for more webcams (Nitinat).

I would be willing to look at going that route.

I'm with Pimphand and Desktop on this. There were some awesome wide screen shots - of the Gorge last year that really gave a sense of the power of the wind and surprisingly big waves there - I can't remember who took them, couldn't find them just now, perhaps the photographer deleted them after they were downsized? I find 800 x 600 just too small to be satisfying on a high res monitor for SOME pics. People shots etc are usually fine in the smaller size. Also, substandard pics shouldn't be posted above this size.

HOWEVER, we must bow to Dave's bandwidth and personal time commitments. It is tough to raise enough money to cover the direct expenses of the site: there is no way we could ever raise enough money to pay him for the time he already spends and we can't ask him to do extras like custom sizing etc. Perhaps people could leave a comment when they want a bigger shot and the photographer could then post it in another venue?
My two bits worth

Ok, so I upgraded to the next hosting plan so I now have a bit more disk space and bandwidth to play with. So we'll try this out for a few months to see how it goes

If you upload photos to your own personal gallery they can be any size and I won't touch them (although I'd still prefer it if you kept them <150kb each and around 800x600), but it's your choice. When you upload photos now it should tell you how much space you are using out of your allowed 8MB. If you upload to the general galleries (Windsurfing People etc) then they will be resized if they are too big. Also, please try and delete older pictures if they have been up for a while and everyone has seen them...thanks.

I'm also in the process of switching hosts for the webcams, so hopefully they won't go down like they did in the past week.
dave