Webpage / picture hosting

[Carlos Milovic]

Hi guys... this is kind of off topic here, but I wanted to hear your thoughts about this topic.

Several years ago I builded a webpage, and hosted it on astrosurf. As you remember, in the late 90s/ealy 2000s the only thing that was widespread avalaible was a pure html site (then, some java code entered... but many browsers were not that compatible). Anyway, the years passed, and now the site is highly outdated. Uploading new images is a PITA since I have to create a new special page, add links everywhere, create thumbnails of different sizes. Too much work.
So, I want to start something from the scratch, and have a new site to post every kind of images, not just astronomical. I've found a few nice looking solutions, like SimpleViewer, and some flash templates, but I don't not yet how easy are them to mantain, or to add new pictures.
Since ease to use is one of my big concerns, I was thinking also about other alternatives, common picture hosting sites, like Flickr or Photobucket. They provide a ready to use engine, free hosting, and lots of features (along with a community that may comment pictures, joing groups, etc etc).

I'm not sure which option to choose. In one hand, a homesite provides more freedom. But it requires more time... Picture hosting sites are less "professional", and have limited features... but I may spend less time adding new content, and also avoid creating the first template.

[Carlos Milovic]

Oh, I forgot to say that I would like to have something that is compatible with mobile devices

[RBA]

I'm not sure which option to choose. In one hand, a homesite provides more freedom. But it requires more time... Picture hosting sites are less "professional", and have limited features... but I may spend less time adding new content, and also avoid creating the first template.

Well you've got that one right, so the question is... what would you prefer? More control/independence but a bit more work, or less personalization but virtually no work other than uploading/categorizing your photos?

Many people use blog-like/forum-like apps that they install in their server, then customize it.. I'd suggest the one I use (behind deepskycolors.com there's actually a blog "engine") but unfortunately such blog engine is also home brewed (meaning I wrote the whole darn thing) and I'd rather recommend investigating about a plug'n'play solution instead.

[Carlos Milovic]

Instead of a blog style, I'm more inclined to image galleries. I've wrote some tutorials and articles in the past, but sadly most of them are obsolete. I'd rather keep the page simple, and if I want to write something related with image processing, I may publush it in the PI Magazine, or upload it to the PTeam server.

I guess that I'll follow the easiest way, and see what happens. That means, create a flickr account, and upload some pics there. I may always go back to a webpage, and keep that site for daylight images sharing

Thanks for the feedback.

[Nocturnal]

I used gallery2 previously (http://gallery.tungstentech.com) and a year ago created a Joomla site (http://www.carpephoton.com). The latter is not for the faint of heart. I know quite a bit about web development and have used several CMSs but Joomla had a steep curve. Actually I like DotNetNuke a lot better but it relies on SQL Server which is a pain to deal with. MySQL databases are easily dumped to your local computer and uploaded to a new server when you need to change providers. When I tried that with my SQL Server database it crippled my website (http://www.tungstentech.com).

[johnrt]

There are a budding friendly bunch of astrophotographers on flickr many of which use Pixinsight. In fact there is also even a dedicated PI flickr group!

http://www.flickr.com/groups/pixinsight/

[RBA]

For Flickr, you'll need a pro (paid) account. Otherwise your images are limited to 1024 pixels wide.
I think it's pretty cheap though.
I use Flickr but since it's not my main publishing site, I get along with the free account.

[astropixel]

Piwigo? http://piwigo.org/

[Nocturnal]

Piwigo? http://piwigo.org/

Looks like a nice gallery package for installing on a hosted site somewhere.

[Jordi Gallego]

Hi Carlos,

maybe you can have a look to Jalbum:

http://jalbum.net/es/

The gallery section of my webpage (which really needs some urgent work on it ) is made with this free software. Updating new pictures is quite easy job:

http://astrosurf.com/jordigallego/album/index.html

Regards
Jordi

[Carlos Milovic]

Hi Jordi

Very nice gallery I understand that astrosurf doesn't allow PHP, MySQL and a lot of other stuff. Also, the old policy states that it allows only 200Mb of space... so, that's one big reason I wasn't too tempted to pursue that path It is good news that this works. Right now I'm trying Flickr, and I'll give it a few days to see if I like it... anyway, I may keep it just to share other kind of pictures.

Thanks for that suggestion!