November 23, 2006
Time Off, Time Away
After a number of months, I have finally found some time for some personal photography, which is what generally ends up here. Unfortunately, work has kept me busy to the point where I don't have time to keep the blog up-to-date. Hopefully, that will change in the coming weeks.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by slewis at 3:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 14, 2006
The Newsroom Is Operational
We've now added a Newsroom presenting the latest RSS feeds from various digital photography resources on the Internet. The RSS feeds are updated hourly, and provide links directly to the related items and articles.
As long as you're here, please take a moment to see the latest headlines and article excerpts from digital photography resources in the Newsroom.
Posted by slewis at 6:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 19, 2006
One Year And Counting...
The Gallery has reached a milestone: it has now been up and running for a year. Over the last year, the Gallery has faced more than a few challenges, including two hurricanes (Katrina and Wilma), power outages, and a variety of other minor bumps along the way. Nonetheless, the Gallery has remained up and running, and with a little luck, will continue to improve as we bring in some new changes and features. Stay tuned, as the Gallery continues to grow.
Posted by slewis at 12:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 28, 2005
Hurricane Wilma Update
Thanks to a wireless card that finally arrived (UPS was supposed to deliver the card before the storm, but failed to do so), we have limited connectivity again (the lack of electricity in South Florida remains a problem). However, provided we can find some power to recharge our batteries, we should be able to start posting to the Gallery again.
Sorry for the interruption.
Posted by slewis at 9:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 25, 2005
Hurricane Wilma And Its Aftermath
If you're a regular visitor, you probably noticed that the Gallery was off-line for a day due to a power outage caused by Hurricane Wilma. Miraculously, power has been restored to the Gallery's server despite the fact that most of South Florida is still without power, including the systems used to upload images to the Gallery. Until such time as power has been restored, or a temporary power source is located, we will probably not be able to upload additional images. We are working to resolve this issue, and hope to be in a position to upload new images to the Gallery soon.
Sorry for the inconvenience, and please check back soon.
Posted by slewis at 10:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 8, 2005
Software Upgrade
We've now upgraded the blogging software that runs the Gallery to version 3.2. This new version is supposed to help prevent spam comments and trackbacks, and adds a host of other features.
Our initial experiences with the new software have been positive, and it appears that everything, incuding the dynamic generation of archive entries, is working properly. As always, if you notice something that doesn't seem quite right, please let us know.
Posted by slewis at 10:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 13, 2005
Trackback Abuse
We've discovered that in the last few days, people have started abusing the trackback system (a system designed to make it easier to keep track of references to this site in other blogs), and they are creating fraudulent entries on other websites promoting various pornographic and gambling websites. These trackback entries are fraudulent because the websites referenced to not actually address or discuss the entry from this blog.
As we have started doing with those who would seek to abuse the comment system, we are permanently blocking access to the Gallery to those who create fraudulent trackback entries. Unfortunately, we must catch and remove these entries before we can prevent future entries from the same source. We apologize if you happen to review some of these trackback entries before we have an opportunity to review and eliminate them. We are doing our best to prevent this sort of wrongful conduct from forcing us to shut down or otherwise seriously restrict access to the Gallery.
If you wish to discuss one of the entries here in another blog, please feel free to use the trackback system. And as always, we hope that you enjoy your visit to the Gallery.
Posted by slewis at 1:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 8, 2005
New Archives Added
The growth of the Gallery has exceeded our original expectations, and as a result, we wanted to ensure that there were still ways to locate older, archived entries.
We have now added two links to the Archives section on the right side of this page. The first link, "All entries organized by category", will display the titles of each Gallery entry together with the date of the entry, and all entries are organized by category. Alternatively, you can use the second link, "All Monthly Calendars", to bring up a page showing the calendar for each month the Gallery has been in operation. As with the calendar display on the right side of this page, the dates containing entries are highlighted and selecting a date will bring up the corresponding entry.
Of course, we still have the category archives--which will bring up a page displaying all entries in the selected category--and monthly archives--which will display all entries for a given month. And we still have a search feature that will search the text of each entry to locate matching keywords.
Hopefully, these additional archives will make navigating the Gallery's archives easier and faster.
Posted by slewis at 10:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 22, 2005
Abusing A Good Thing
As with most blogs, the Gallery permits people to leave comments regarding postings. Comments have ranged from simple complements to questions about the images posted. All comments regarding the substance of the Gallery are welcome and appreciated.
In the last few weeks, however, there have been a rash of inappropriate comments submitted. By and large, these comments have not related in any way to the Gallery; instead, they have been gratuitous advertisements for entirely unrelated Internet-related scams and ventures.
As we have since the first day the Gallery went on-line, all comments are reviewed and approved before they are posted and visible to other visitors to the Gallery. Since we are already restricting comments in this fashion, repeated abuse of the comment feature will leave us with no alternative but to block access to those individuals abusing the system.
For everyone else, we hope that you enjoy your visit to the Gallery, and encourage you to leave comments that related to the Gallery.
Posted by slewis at 10:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 24, 2005
Testing Trackbacks...
We have started testing the trackback feature built in to the MovableType blog software. As a result, you should begin to see a hyperlink for "trackbacks" in addition to a "comments" hyperlink at the bottom of each entry.
I'll report in a few weeks how the testing is going.
Posted by slewis at 11:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 16, 2005
Growing Pains
We are now nearly done reoganizing images on the Gallery server. In addition, we noticed that certain categories were taking a long time to load (particularly on slower connections). In order to remedy that, we have created additional sub-categories so that there won't be as many images grouped together in broad categories.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Posted by slewis at 6:24 PM | Comments (0)
June 26, 2005
Housekeeping
When I started the Gallery, I had no idea how long I would keep it operating. I was surprised to find that it has been running for about six months now. Unfortunately, that realization was prompted by the number of unorganized images floating around the Gallery's directories. In order to prevent the situation from becoming unmanageable, I have started reorganizing the image directories and revising the blog entries to reflect those changes.
If you find that any of the image links are broken, please let me know. My apologies the for the inconvenience, but these changes are necessary in order for the Gallery to keep expanding.
Posted by slewis at 6:34 PM | Comments (0)
June 21, 2005
Software Upgrade
Having missed one of the MovableType upgrades since I started running this Blog, I finally upgraded to the current version of MovableType. Thus, you may notice that the "Powered By" comment now reflects the new version, 3.17.
If you notice any problems with the Gallery now that the software has been upgraded, please leave me a comment describing the problem. Thanks.
Posted by slewis at 7:42 AM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2005
Monitor Calibration Target Added
After hearing that the images appeared differently on different monitors, I realized that most displays are not properly calibrated for viewing images. In order to help ensure that everyone can view the images the same way, I've added a gray scale at the bottom of the main page with instructions for using the scale to adjust monitor brightness and contrast settings.
Posted by slewis at 1:06 AM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2005
Growing Pains
After a week or so of testing a new server, I moved the Gallery to its new home today. Unfortunately, while the Gallery and its database were up and running, the server's networking wasn't. After a bit of frustration, the problems were resolved. The new server and the Gallery seem to be happy.
Although the Gallery seemed to be running fine on the old server, the new server should speed up page loading.
Posted by slewis at 6:22 PM | Comments (0)
February 27, 2005
More Page Changes
I made a few more changes to the main page so that when there is more than an image in an entry, the text will be excerpted and provide a continuation page. My hope was to keep the main page as uncluttered as possible.
Posted by slewis at 7:56 PM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2005
Comments
Thanks to everyone who has commented on the photographs. It is always nice to receive feedback.
Posted by slewis at 3:43 PM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2005
Listed on Photoblogs.org
After enough testing to know that this blog is running, I finally listed the gallery on photoblogs.org. I've also attempted to optimize the images for faster loading.
If this is your first visit, please be sure to look at the archives as I've been posting images since I started testing...
Posted by slewis at 1:17 PM | Comments (2)
February 11, 2005
More Changes
A few minutes of playing with Photoshop resulted in the new, stylized banner above. With a little luck, it has been optimized to the point where it will look sharp and not take forever to load in a browser.
Posted by slewis at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)
Progress With Stupid Database Tricks
After a fair amount of frustration over the last several days, the MovableType software and the mysql database have been configured to allow for dynamic page loading. What this means in practical terms is that I no longer need to generate the web pages for this site every time I make a change. Now, web pages are generated on the fly as they are requested.
Please let me know if you notice any delays as pages are loaded.
Posted by slewis at 5:59 PM | Comments (0)
February 9, 2005
Gallery Technology Advancing
I've managed to move the Gallery database into a SQL database. The next step is to switch from static to dynamic pages. This is proving to be somewhat more challenging than originally anticipated. Please let me know if you see any problems. Thanks.
Posted by slewis at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)
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