bioneural.net » gallery

An ABC of geotagging photos on the Mac

Bruce — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:30:54 +0000

This article considers geotagging photos from a Mac perspective, looking at automatic and manual methods, and explaining terms such as data loggers, track points, waypoints, and routes. It lists OS X software options for connecting to data loggers, converting track log formats, geo-locating photos, and writing that data to EXIF for both raw and JPEG images. It also covers the importance of time synchronization, what you can do with geotagged photos, workflow, choosing a data logger and controlling it from your Mac. Introduction With my blog articles geotagged and mapped, and the launch of geotagicons.com behind me, the next challenge was to consider geotagging my photos in future. Some time ago I blogged about doing this in iPhoto, and although workable for a small selection of images this manual/ best guess option doesn't scale well to 2-3 week vacations when you return with several hundred images and a poor recollection of what was taken exactly where. Before getting started on something (i.e. spending money!) I like to try and gain a reasonable overview of what I'm about to get into. What follows is a summary of my research into the terminology, technology, hardware and software that a budding Mac photo geotagger will want to get to grips with. If you also like to look before you leap then this article may be of service to you. Although written with fellow Mac users in mind, if you're afflicted with Windows much of the article is still relevant. What is geotagging? In a photographic context, geotagging ...

A Xmas spent upgrading bioneural.net

Bruce — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:08:26 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

It's amazing how much detritus accumulates in your server directories and MySQL tables over the years. Add to the mix a propensity to hack core files to the point where you dare not upgrade your packages, and you have yourself a fine mess. I hope it wasn't too obvious, but bioneural.net had developed Diogenes syndrome. It was time for a clear-out and makeover. If you're thinking that sounds like work, it is. What follows is not riveting reading, but if you're contemplating doing the same, perusing what this involved for me might help you judge how many days to set aside—and maybe bug-fix your own migration. Why upgrade? There were multiple reasons why I felt a major overhaul was called for: My host (mt) told me I needed to upgrade from my (ss) product to the (gs) product that had superseded it, and that if I took no action I would "loose the benefit of choosing [my] own migration timeline"; The (ss) product was stuck at MySQL 3.23.58 and PHP 4.4.1, whereas the (gs) upgrade offered MySQL 4.1.11 and PHP 4.4.7 or 5.2.2; Such upgrades would bring security fixes, as would upgrading Gallery from 2.1.2 to 2.2.4; WordPress 2.3.1 (current as of this writing) requires MySQL 4.0 or greater, so I was stuck on WordPress 2.0.11; I wanted to configure ecto 3 to work with WordPress's new integral tagging system (ecto 2 did work with UTW and some hacks to xmlrpc.php); I made a number of hacks to core WordPress files (xmlrpc.php, wp_rss2.php, etc.) which makes updating a ...

Fixing feeds for the Siriux Gallery theme

Bruce — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 09:50:23 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

As previously noted, the currently available RSS module (1.0.6) is incompatible with the Siriux theme for Gallery (2.1.2). I wanted to be able to offer a feed (photocast) for an album in my own gallery, but finding a hack for the code was only half of the problem. For some reason defining a feed in Gallery is very non-intuitive. Here's how it's done, step-by-step. There are perfectly valid reasons why you might want to offer a web (RSS) feed for a dynamic album on your website. In our case, as we explore and photograph Wellington ourselves, those with an interest in Project Koru can visually explore with us via a photocast/ photostream. If they subscribe to the photo feed, they go where we go. Hack the RSS module To improve compatibility with the Siriux theme, you need to edit Callbacks.inc, located in /gallery2/modules/rss/. As described here, make the following PHP edit: if (isset($blocks)) { foreach ($blocks as $block) { if ($block[0] == 'rss.RssBlock') { $params = $block[1]; break; } } } Define a feed Using the instructions I found here as a basis, with a bit of trial-and-error, the following steps proved successful. This assumes you have the RSS module installed and activated, and that the Item actions block is already set to display on album pages. First you need to add the RSS Feeds block: Login to your Gallery as administrator; Edit the Album for which you want to display a feed; Add the List of RSS Feeds block to show on album (and/or photo) pages and Save. Now go to Site Admin to set ...

A plugin-free WP embedded Gallery

Bruce — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 12:22:04 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

When it comes to web development, I have a propensity to revisit old problems. I just don't like defeat... or maybe I just excel at procrastination? Some months ago I tried to integrate Gallery into WordPress but gave up for several reasons. I thought I'd share how I achieved an embedded Gallery page that does away with PHP bloat (WPG2 not required), fits in with my blog design, and is valid XHTML. If at first you don't succeed, try again. I did, and I met with the same failure (invalid XHTML produced by the WPG2 plugin). So try again. I did, and this time have a solution I like. Firstly, some environmental details. I'm using K2 with WordPress and Siriux with Gallery. The width of my content area in K2 is 780px; the Siriux theme is set to a page width of 700px so that it comfortably sits inside my K2 content width. iTry an iframe The iframe element lets you create a "page within a page" by embedding one HTML/ XHTML page as a scrolling "inline" frame inside another. I wrote a simple template for my WP theme folder called page-gallery.php: Sorry, your browser does not support inline frames. However, you can still view the gallery here. Notice get_sidebar() is omitted; this is because I wanted the gallery to fill my entire page width to avoid squeezing the albums into a tall and narrow column. I had previously created a page for WordPress called "Photos". I went to WP Admin and chose Manage > Pages > ...

Making the switch from DreamHost to (mt)

Bruce — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 15:04:05 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

Apologies to my fictitious regular visitors, who may have imagined that my WordPress-based site has been offline almost daily for the past month. DreamHost has been a down host, and I've made the switch to (mt) Media Temple. In fairness to DreamHost they haven't been the only hosting company affected by recent power cuts, but the power outages seem to be only the culmination of a string of longer-standing problems resulting in slow server response times or non-availability. One minute I'd be working on my site—editing a template for example—and he next I'd be unable to save it back to the server, or to check the result for the rest of the evening. I'd noticed and reported intermittent problems (e.g. it would take half a minute for my WordPress admin page to display) since I signed up. But the last 4 weeks have been simply horrendous, and my patience became exhausted by repeating Support suggestions that I and my fellow DreamHost customers be patient. The way I see it, I'm paying for service not patience and if I don't get reasonable service then it's time to move on. How do I know if my site is down? Aside from regularly visiting your own site and reviewing visitor statistics, there are a couple of free services that might be of use in monitoring your server. One of these is FeedBurner's which includes a FeedMedic feed that alerts you when you feed is not available. To be frank, it's a little hard to gauge ...

iPhoto to web gallery bypassing .Mac

Bruce — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 11:45:57 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

Apple's .Mac HomePage was a simple way to build a web gallery using versions of iLife prior to 06. With iLife/iPhoto 06, you're forced to use iWeb instead if you want integration. But it's not the changes that have caused me to shy away from .Mac—it's the lack of them. All those regular member benefits dried up like a Namibian river bed. When I migrated to WordPress the only substantial part of my online presence that remained dependent on .Mac was my photography. That is the case no more. What do you need to perform a .Mac bypass? An alternative web host (e.g. Media Temple) A version of iPhoto (I'm using iLife 06) Gallery software that "connects" with iPhoto Some photos (huh?) Gallery software for "static" web-space To a large extent your initial choice of gallery software depends on the capabilities of your web space; if you can upload only static pages (as with .Mac), you can't make use of solutions that require server-side scripting. If you want something very basic, you could just use iPhoto's built-in "Web page" Export plug-in (just upload and link to the exported pages): If you want more options, Galerie is a free Universal Binary application (it's not a plug-in) that integrates with iPhoto to publish your pictures or albums with the press of a button (shown without configuration): Gallery software using server-side scripts There are several open-source photo galleries based on PHP and a back-end database, such as MySQL. Rob has written an informative write-up comparing Coppermine and Gallery. I installed Gallery ...