Hosting/Website questions.

[de8212]

Have some questions on a new site idea. What I would like to do is get some good, reliable hosting on a small site. The site will mainly consist of pictures in a picture gallery. So my main question is are there any good templates, etc. that I can download to set up a picture gallery? I do have dreamweaver MX if needed. I would also like to see some examples if anyone has a picture gallery.
What I am thinking would be a page that would have a smaller picture and then when you click it it opens up a page full of lower res pics. Then if you click on a certain lower res pic, it would open up the higher res pic.

And I would like to get this fully functional off line and get it working properly before I upload it. I would like it to be live by xmas. So please feel free to suggest a hosting company but I just want to get it working soon.

 

[dartworth]

http://www.sonataweb.net/

 

[MiniDoom]

I use Coppermine and host on my cable internet so its pretty cheap.

 

[Brazen]

I believe Coppermine is VERY popular - probably the most popular though I have not used it myself. From what I've seen, it looks like a common thing to use it along with phpBB for forums and Joomla as the portal that ties your site together.

 

[randomlinh]

I would have to say gallery is probably more popular than coppermine. version 2 had me switch over from coppermine

either way, they are both very good pieces of software. my vote for hosting goes to hostpc... granted, I'm still not a fan of their site design now they are running a 2 for 1 special now.

 

[de8212]

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

I have heard of coppemine, will look into it further.

Inguyen -
Your link for http://gallery.sf.net doesn't work. But when I copy/paste it into IE it takes me to http://gallery.menalto.com/ .

Just want to make sure this is the correct one you are talking about. If it is I get an error when I try to view samples and screenshots.

Any other ideas? Or do people normally just hand make the galleries?

Any actual examples on live sites?

 

[RossMAN]

Here's what you'll need:

1) Domain register through GoDaddy.com or NameCheap.com

2) Web hosting, a few suggestions are:
HostPC.com which has a great 2 for 1 sale going on!
SonataWeb.net offers MULTIPLE DOMAIN hosting for $5.95/mo you get 750MB disk space and 15GB per month bandwidth. With this plan you can host multiple domains, each gets their own domain, email, cPanel, everything.

3) Image gallery software such as coppermine, gallery or 4Images. HostPC and SonataWeb offer auto installers which can automatically install coppermine in about 30 seconds.

You can do all 3 in about 1 hour and have your web site up and running (software already installed) TODAY.

Let us know if you have any questions

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: de8212
Thanks for the suggestions so far.

I have heard of coppemine, will look into it further.

Inguyen -
Your link for http://gallery.sf.net doesn't work. But when I copy/paste it into IE it takes me to http://gallery.menalto.com/ .

Just want to make sure this is the correct one you are talking about. If it is I get an error when I try to view samples and screenshots.

Any other ideas? Or do people normally just hand make the galleries?

Any actual examples on live sites?

yeah, gallery.menalto.com is correct, the sf.net is short for sourceforge... which forwards to menalto and it's a lot easier to remember unfortunately, the installer that hostpc uses (installatron) for direct admin does not have v2 yet of gallery. but if you're up for it, it's not too difficult.

 

[iamme]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
Here's what you'll need:

1) Domain register through GoDaddy.com or NameCheap.com

2) Web hosting, a few suggestions are:
HostPC.com which has a great 2 for 1 sale going on!
SonataWeb.net offers MULTIPLE DOMAIN hosting for $5.95/mo you get 750MB disk space and 15GB per month bandwidth. With this plan you can host multiple domains, each gets their own domain, email, cPanel, everything.

3) Image gallery software such as coppermine, gallery or 4Images. HostPC and SonataWeb offer auto installers which can automatically install coppermine in about 30 seconds.

You can do all 3 in about 1 hour and have your web site up and running (software already installed) TODAY.

Let us know if you have any questions

yup. if it takes you until Christmas to get an image gallery up, you didn't deserve it in the first place.

j/p with all the open source resources out there, it's VERY simple to get a sophisticated image gallery up and running overnight.

 

[de8212]

Thanks again for all the help everyone.

I looked over the mentioned galleries and while they do look nice I guess I'm looking for something less professionel, more personal. I know that probably sounds dumb but it's the best way I can describe it.
This will be for pictures of my son (9 month old now) to be displayed for friends and relatives to go to the site and view/save the pictures.
Maybe there is something offered by coppermine and gallery.menalto and I just missed it.

Here is a sloppy, quick basic idea of what I want. Way more simple than waht I saw in either one of the other galleries. Not knocking those galleries at all.
Keep in mind this was done in excel in about 30 seconds.

Click Me.

Of course the empty squares would be one low resolution picture. The text to the side would describe waht occasion/event that will be shown if you click on the picture. When you click on it then there will be numerous other smaller pictures. Then if you see one you want you click on that one and it would open the full resolution picture so you can view/save/print, etc.

And I tried to find some sample galleries similar to what I am wanting through google but couldn't find any yet.

So again, thanks everyone, please let me know if something this basic out there exists. I guess I can just make it myself but wiht the large # of pictures I was hoping something could maybe automate some of this.

 

[randomlinh]

hrm... not sure what you're getting at, cause that's just albums... gallery v1 actually fits that layout even moreso In both coppermine and gallery you can have albums for events that you can click and display. gallery is a bit better with having sub-albums. unfortunately, don't have any samples off hand other than mine

 

[de8212]

That looks fine to me Inguyen. Some of the other samples I saw looked too "busy". Is yours customizable? like do you have to have Random Image and most viewed image on the pag at all? Can it be moved or removed?
Also when i click on cars, the top 6 pics are in a a frame or whatever with a grey background but the bottom 4 aren't. Is that on purpose? Just curious.
Then when you finally select a picture it isn't that big. Again, is that a limit of the gallery or just waht you wanted? Most of my pictures are 2048 x 1536. So it would be extremely large. Just not sure how that would look?????


Thank you for posting that.

 

[randomlinh]

it's one of the themes I used... there are generally plenty. the original gallery v1 is also pretty simple. the random thing i have is removable. The grey backgrounds signify sub albums.. so if you click them, you get another subset of pictures. otherwise, you will get the actual image in the thumbnail.

as for sizing, that's what I have specified. I wish you could click the image and make it bigger, but there's a size selection in the upper right hand side. That is pretty much controllable by you.

Here's something to consider though, if you start putting up high res images... bandwidth will be needed. That and you will not be able to use the web client to upload, most places don't like huge file uploads via the web end.

 

[de8212]

Thanks again.

Just so I understand, why do you say "I wish you could click the image and make it bigger, " but then say "That is pretty much controllable by you. "? If you can control it why don't you make it bigger?? Just want to make sure I understand.

And as far as bandwidth I hope, in the end to assign passwords to family and frineds so only about 10 - 15 people will have access to the pictures. I'm sure they'll use a bit at the beginning but after that they'll just look at the newer stuff.

 

[RossMAN]

Dennis,

What's your realistic budget for web hosting?

 

[de8212]

After looking around a bit, $10/month should get me the plan I want.

 

[RossMAN]

For $10/mo there are plenty of options available.

Take a look at WHT Web Hosting Offers forum
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=4

Keep in mind that 75% of those web hosts are 14 yr old "web hosts"

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: de8212
Thanks again.

Just so I understand, why do you say "I wish you could click the image and make it bigger, " but then say "That is pretty much controllable by you. "? If you can control it why don't you make it bigger?? Just want to make sure I understand.

Sorry, didn't mean to confuse you. In coppermine, you can set an "intermediate" sized pic to save bandwith.. pretty much the same way gallery does it to in how it shows the medium sized first, and you can manually select the larger size

However, w/ coppermine, if you click the intermediate sized image, it opens a new window w/ the full sized image. a neat UI thing IMO. I am not sure if there's a template that does the same for gallery. However, I switched to gallery because they have a java program to allow easy batch uploading, and it seems to be a lot more flexible with themes now (they seem simpler and cleaner now, but that's personal opinion).

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: de8212
Thanks again for all the help everyone.

I looked over the mentioned galleries and while they do look nice I guess I'm looking for something less professionel, more personal. I know that probably sounds dumb but it's the best way I can describe it.
This will be for pictures of my son (9 month old now) to be displayed for friends and relatives to go to the site and view/save the pictures.
Maybe there is something offered by coppermine and gallery.menalto and I just missed it.

Here is a sloppy, quick basic idea of what I want. Way more simple than waht I saw in either one of the other galleries. Not knocking those galleries at all.
Keep in mind this was done in excel in about 30 seconds.

Click Me.

Of course the empty squares would be one low resolution picture. The text to the side would describe waht occasion/event that will be shown if you click on the picture. When you click on it then there will be numerous other smaller pictures. Then if you see one you want you click on that one and it would open the full resolution picture so you can view/save/print, etc.

And I tried to find some sample galleries similar to what I am wanting through google but couldn't find any yet.

So again, thanks everyone, please let me know if something this basic out there exists. I guess I can just make it myself but wiht the large # of pictures I was hoping something could maybe automate some of this.

Why not just use WebShots?

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: Brazen
Why not just use WebShots?

that ad ridden POS? heh... seriously, I hate it w/ a passion. And I like to have a little personalization to it. Dunno about the OP.

However, as a side note, flickr might be worth looking into ... I almost switched.. but the reality is my family probably wouldn't download the pictures. heh. Nor will I upload 3MB images... not until I get FIOS or something that has a better upload speed.

 

[de8212]

OK, so if I decide togo with Coppermine or Gallery, can either of these run off line? IOW can I download them and put them in something like Dreamweaver (save the hand coding comments) so I can test it out?

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: de8212
OK, so if I decide togo with Coppermine or Gallery, can either of these run off line? IOW can I download them and put them in something like Dreamweaver (save the hand coding comments) so I can test it out?

Yes if you have Linux installed.

You can also install them on your web site and turn off the gallery so no one can see it. Or you can password protect it.

I have an idea, is that your correct email address in your profile?

 

[Sphexi]

Originally posted by: lnguyen
I would have to say gallery is probably more popular than coppermine. version 2 had me switch over from coppermine

either way, they are both very good pieces of software. my vote for hosting goes to hostpc... granted, I'm still not a fan of their site design now they are running a 2 for 1 special now.

I use gallery myself, although an older version of it (1.4). I love it very much, very customizable.

 

[de8212]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
Yes if you have Linux installed.

You can also install them on your web site and turn off the gallery so no one can see it. Or you can password protect it.

I have an idea, is that your correct email address in your profile?

No Linux. Yeah, I know I could turn it off, etc. I just wanted to get it looking the way i want offline. Also I can work on it at work where my connection speed is slooooow so it would just be better to work offline.
Email address should be correct.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: de8212

Originally posted by: RossMAN
Yes if you have Linux installed.

You can also install them on your web site and turn off the gallery so no one can see it. Or you can password protect it.

I have an idea, is that your correct email address in your profile?

No Linux. Yeah, I know I could turn it off, etc. I just wanted to get it looking the way i want offline. Also I can work on it at work where my connection speed is slooooow so it would just be better to work offline.
Email address should be correct.

You should also be able to install on the Personal Web Server in Windows, although you will also have to install PHP and PHP is a hassle installing on Windows (on Fedora Core linux, it's just "yum install php" and you're set).