I'm an idiot.  I forgot to renew mozimedia.com.  When a domain isn't renewed, it doesn't work until you cough up some money.

Guess what uses mozimedia.com?  Photographica.  Guess what that breaks?  Images, javascript, RSS (my.yahoo.com), and everything else.  Not to mention my email too!

Domain renewed.  Order will be restored in mere hours.

How embarrassing. Seriously.  I am really embarrassed.

At least it was an easy fix though!

I'm pleased to announce the fact we now have to web servers, bringing the total number of computers serving Photographica to four.  The new server is about two orders of magnitude faster than the original web server and should serve us quite well!

Let me know if you run into any trouble!

If you were getting "module not found" or "page not found" errors when trying to log in last night, I've fixed the issue.  Can't explain why the system decided to go afoul, but if it keeps up by all means drop me a line--don't be shy :-)

coryking@mozimedia.com

Howdy Folks,

So far, so good.  If you were a donor, I've just granted you a badge.  I'll add those who mailed in checks once I get it in the mail.

If you dont see yourself on the list, drop me a line and I'll get you added.  I tried pretty hard to make sure everybody was included, but I could have let a couple slip through.

Thank again for all your support.  Without you, this site would not be funcitoning today!

http://www.photographica.org/badges/51/donor

Howdy,

I've added a new feature and fixed several bugs.

1. New Story Manager
2. Fixed the logout page so it doesn't give an internal server error (oops!)
3. Fixed artclick.org so the images on the bottom of each story will display correctly when clicked on.
4. Fixed the forum page so it shows the correct information.
5. Updated: Fixed the list of story pictures so there are no duplicates.
6. Updated : Added a Badge for members who have over one thousand images and a badge for those with over one hundred stories .
7. Updated : Added yet more badges.  "Famous Story " has been changed to include only stories with one hundred comments.  "Popular Story " is for stories with at least 30 comments.  Added a "Commenter " badge for your first comment.

Howdy,

Working on an even better way to edit and filter your stories.  Right now, it is on my development server running here at home .

Please give this new way of listing stories a shot .  You'll need Silverlight installed --I haven't finished with the "revert to non-silverlight" yet.  I'll leave my development server running all night.  You might have to create an account there if you haven't already.  Remember... anything goes on that server, so have fun!

Thanks!

Both are fixed on my development server and you'll love the new way stories are listed too.  I'll be pushing out the changes later today or tomorrow.

Sorry I've been slacking.  I had to put out a pretty major fire for a client and I've been busy trying to get a real job in this sour (but picking up) economy.  If I had more free time, I'd have had everything fixed already :-(

UPDATE :  I've updated your dashboard with a better way to list stories.  It is still a work in progress, and I'll probably have a couple more updates today.  I wanted to ship it now so you get a feel for what I'm doing.

SECOND UPDATE: Please give this new way of listing stories a shot .  You'll need Silverlight installed --I haven't finished with the "revert to non-silverlight" yet.  I'll leave my development server running all night.  You might have to create an account there if you haven't already.  Remember... anything goes on that server, so have fun!

This has only been a test.  Had this been a real story, you would have seen something more interesting. 

If the upgrade worked, nothing should be different.  Why the upgrade?  It is a secret :-)

UPDATE: There is still some buggaros.  Mostly with the whole new comment business and the forums

Yes, a story about the website.  How boring :-)  Hear me out though because this might be a good idea.

Groups.

Flickr has them.  Facebook has them.  Myspace has them.  Everybody has them.  Photographica, I think, should have them.  A group would be basically a mini version of Photographica with its own sections, and possibly its own forums and challenges.   Here are some examples of a group that one might create:

• Seattle Photographers Group
• Nikon Owners Group
• Urban Photography Group
• Newbie Group

Anybody with an account should be able to start a group on Photographica.  Initially, group membership would be open to all, but in the future I'd add support for invite-only groups as well.  These groups would have very granular permissions and the owner could delegate tasks to their own editors just like is done here on Photographica.  Further down the line, if a group got big enough, its members could pool together, purchase their own domain name, and start their own "real" website with very little fuss.

What about stories? 
How would you write a story in this regeme?  The same as you do now.  You'd start with a draft and when you are finished you would publish the draft to one or more groups, each with their own sections and rules about how often you could post.  That is right, I'd get it so a single story and its comments would be shared across one or more groups and even websites--for example if you created a really cool abstract art peice in Photoshop and were in some "Photoshop Artists Group" on Photographica and you were on a "Abstract Art" group on artClick, you'd post the story to both places.  The comments would be shared across both websites.

What about the front page of Photographica? 
This is where it gets tricky.  Flickr doesn't really have a "front page" like we do.  I like our front page, and I think you all do as well.. it makes things more intimate because your work is shown for all to see.  Keeping this in mind, I have a few ideas that I'd like to toss out: 

1. Photographica's front page shows all stories posted, including those from any group.
2. The front page show only stories that the author chose to post there.  Keep in mind that the author can post a story to both the front page *and* a group.
3. The front page shows only stories that group owners and editors select.
4. The front page shows stories show content front groups the system deems "popular" (as in gets enough comments, gets enough visits, etc)
5. Some combination of the above.

I dont want it to loose intimacy and "everybody knows everybody" feel of Photographica, but I also think the idea of groups is something many of you would really like.  Unlike voting, I think it would solve many of the problems with peoples hard work getting lost; the groups would probably move slower then the front page, but if the group is big enough, your work would still have lots of eyeballs.

So, two questions:

1. Is this a good idea or am I full of it?
2. If it is a good idea, what would the front page show?

That is right, I've added the ability to search Stories and Users .  Not much else to mention about the whole ordeal, but have fun!  Oh yeah, happy Thanksgiving to all of you as well!!

Here are some interesting queries to give you an idea of what is up:

• HDR
• f-stop
• Bi-Weekly Challenge
• Photoshop Tips
• Nikon D80
• Autumn Leaves
• Roller Coaster
• Washington DC
• Seattle at night
• City Moon

Have fun!

Things go wrong.  Stuff stops working.  Life grinds to a halt.

Order should be restored.  Sorry for the interuption!

By the way, if you haven't yet, you should really check out PhotoSynth .  It is pretty slick .

Check out the sweet new way to view slideshows !

If you are running Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, or Opera on Windows or an Intel Mac, with a quick install of Silverlight you should be able to view the slideshows using the cool new method.

If for some reason, you cannot install Silverlight, you can always opt out.  The system should detect if you are running a browser that cannot install Silverlight and simply use the old slideshow.

And just for the heck of it, here is another slideshow to test it out !

PS: I also changed how some things get loaded.  Let me know if you run into any problems with *anything* :-)
PPS: Next up will be a way to zoom into images, as requested.  It will be a silverlight app , just like the stuff above.

Hello All,

I'm working on a way to reward your participation on Photographica.  If you publish stories, post helpful comments, or provide feedback, you will be rewarded with various badges.

For example, if you post a comment that at least 5 people find helpful, you will receive a "Good Comment" badge.  If you publish a story that has at least thirty comments, you will receive a "Famous Story" badge.  Along side your name, other users will see how many badges you have been awarded.  Your profile page now has a list of the badges you have been rewarded so far.

This new system is still under development so I invite your feedback and any ideas for new badges.

Update: You can get a list of badges here .

Howdy Folks!

I've scaled back the original posting limits so that you can post only once per 12 hour period, not 24 hour period.  That way if you post a story at night, you can post another one during your lunch break the next day.

Anybody try the new slideshow editor yet?

UPDATE : I let the domain the image server is on expire by mistake. I renewed it this morning, but it usually takes a day to get everything going so I hacked around the problem until everything is back to normal.  The only "catch" is things will load noticably slower until tommorow.

Howdy Folks, I've just pushed out a pretty slick new slideshow editor.  It's not done yet, and while it should work on about 90% of all the browsers, it won't work on some.  If you haven't already done so, you'll be required to install Microsoft's Silverlight before you can use it.

Do let me know if you have any problems using it or even just figuring it out.  You can always use the old editor by clicking on a link below the new editor.

I *think* I fixed the issue people were having with slideshows.  For one, it doesn't stop working when you have a hard-core popup blocker like it used to.  For two, I made it a bit less complex, so that alone might fix things. Further, I upgraded the text editor I use to the latest version and while doing so discovered that I was using two versions at the same time!

Second, I fixed a bug where if you clicked on a link to your private messages in an email, it would sometimes crash photographica.

Third, I did some magic on the server to speed things up.

Fourth, I made it more obvious that you have to have an account to comment.

Fifth and finally, I improved the page that gets generated when things blow up in your dashboard.  Granted things shouldn't blow up, but at least now when they do it gives you a happy message and spews out a bunch of debugging information that will help me find the problem.

Update: This time, I think I really did fix the slideshow bug!

All kinds of fun... 

1. Avatars: You can now upload any size for your avatar and crop it right here on photographica.
2. Mail: Looks nicer.
3. Profile: You can add up to 10 website links.
4. Profile: AIM/MSN/ICQ instant messenger accounts can now be added.
5. IE6: Fixed some bugs, probably caused some new ones, and died a little inside.

I'll be out of town this weekend, so I sure hope all this works!

If you are having trouble uploading today, know that I'm working on it.  Specifically, if you upload and it returns a "timeout" error, it means you took too long to upload, which is not your fault.  The cause relates to how I fixed yesterdays problem... moving the load balancer that decides what physical server should send you a webpage.  Long story short, unadjusted, the new load balancer gets a little pissy when you take a long time uploading.  In the meanwhile, you can probably avoid the error by uploading smaller images or perhaps getting a faster internet connection (grin ;-).

UPDATE: should be fixed.  let me know if you have problems uploading still!