Not that I claim to know very much about servers etc

But I was thinking about the site recently creeping along and just how much space all our 733 thousand posts must be taking up on the server, or more specifically the pictures attached to them. As they say, a pictures worth a thousand words and I’m as guilty as anyone for slapping them all over the place but what about the ones uploaded to a post from years ago, really their just taking up server storage space and never to be seen again.

You could try deleting them but in reality that’s just not remotely practical, good luck even finding them.

So I was thinking - instead of uploading directly into the post using the browse function, any pictures for that purpose could be uploaded into a new folder (I’ve called mine Pictures for posts) in your photo archive , then a link to it be attached instead. Indeed exactly how this picture of the dogs has been done -


dogs on bed

That way once the post has become obsolete it takes just seconds to delete them from your archive without trawling through heaps of posts.

Hopefully doing that would keep the website clutter free as possible, maybe even speed things up and best of all needs no changes to the site, rather its just a change in how we use it.

Ta

Not an expert but is linking to pictures hosted elsewhere not even better?

Plus much easier and quicker to upload to? (Not a dig at the forum, its great!)

Yes but specifically I am talking about your own pictures uploaded from your own computer using the browser function


browser pic

[Edited on 19/2/09 by Mr Whippy]

I've never attached a picture file on LCB. Imageshack tbh. The way you show, whippy, in the OP is better than attaching pics, yes.

[Edited on 19/2/09 by Benzine]

You're asking people to do their housework here and that takes effort

IMHO the only way to manage this (not just on this forum) is for the photo archive facility to be more limited in size or removed altogether so people have to host their own (photobucket etc).

I guess server space isn't that big an issue for LCB/ChrisW (yet).

Yes that is what I meant. As opposed to asking people to look after their own pictures (which in reality will just not happen) just make them use an external hosting site.

I use photobucket, mainly because most of the pictures in my post on here inevitably end up being posted in another forum too!

Cheers just registered onto photo bucket and uploaded 5 pictures, took less than 5 mins

I’ll give that a go

I think a lot of people already have their photo archives categorized so they can easily achieve what you state in the op.

for eg:
http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/photos.php?action=gal&user=worX

I found it a lot easier that way before I died.

no doubt I'm preaching to the converted...

why does your dog have hooves?

google webalbums & picasa makes light work of uploading to the net (right click on the folder with your images, select upload to web albums) & it automatically resizes them to one of four preset sizes (for web: 640x480, for sharing 1024 x 768, bigger and bigger still)

then all you have to do is link to them from this site = optimised image size, less crap on the lcb servers

Trouble is we are talking about a few thousand people here, and you/we are not going to please all of the people all of the time, whatever we do!

I get no end of requests for stickies, and, for example, the recent flurry of posts in the SVA section, show that 'most' are just too lazy to even look at the section yet alone do a search!

Keeping stuff in relevant folders as Steve suggests is usually the easiest and tidiest way, then in a post you can say 'look in my photo archive, open folder XYZ and look for 'picture of engine bay'........ much tidier.

Old stuff in the archives is a must to keep as it is a record of how people have done something during their build that is relevant to a new builder.
The problem is that some people have loaded pics lots of them, that are totally irrelevant to a build, cars, meets etc. People just wont do their own 'housekeeping'.

The same goes for avatar size and the pics that they post within a thread, you ask them to resize, and you get back 'well how do I do that?' ....like it's never been covered before!.........

I must admit that since we did the 'service' on the site a few weeks back, I have not noticed any slowing down other than at 'peak times' and that isn't as bad as before.

So, Whipster, unless everyone decides to do a 'spring-clean' of irrelevant tatt.....it just isn't going to work.....

I don't think that it was just the photos that caused/was the problem anyway....

Just seen paul the 6th reply whilst composing this.......which is brill, the problem is getting people to use it!

Perhaps it might be a better idea that for the new site (NO, PLEASE DON'T ASK ME 'WHEN' ), that pictures above a certain size cannot be uploaded.

I will ask 'The Boss' .....

Fozzie

fozzie - when I've got 5 mins, would you like me to do a mini tutorial with some screen shots of how to use picasa/google webalbums and post it as a thread somewhere? Could make it a sticky and possible teach people a few simple tricks


I hated all the image hosting sites like photobucket, imageshack, bleh they're always full of adverts and send you junk mail, but google webalbums is on a par with googlemaps in terms of efficiency and ease of use

You have to have an account but they don't send you any crap and as far as I know, there's no limit on how many pics you can store on there. You can organise neatly into albums, and the fact it's integrated with google picasa (again another neat little program with some single click image tweaking features) - means you can upload straight from your files without messing on.



edit: all hosted on google webalbums of course

[Edited on 19/2/09 by paul the 6th]

Paul, that would be great.....

Some people do genuinely have problems with understanding how to do the resizing!

Although there are loads of us that could do it for them...we don't all have the time 'right there and then', and I am sure (most) peeps would like to be able to do it for themselves anyway!

So to point them to a link/sticky would be brill.....

Fozzie

no problem, i'll get sorted in the office first and then see what I can do this aft/evening

Agree about restricting the size of of pics people can upload.

As I browse mostly with a laptop, massive pictures are a total pain in the arse as I have to scroll around to view them and they're often so big you just can 'see' what's going on!

Obviously the now (as seems common) 10mbit pictures people habitually upload also take up huge amounts of space.

In my pictures folder on my PC I keep the original that's from the camera, then I also keep a 2nd copy of to-be-uploaded photos called e.g. picture1_small.jpg

Cheers,
James

quote:

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Originally posted by James
Agree about restricting the size of of pics people can upload.

As I browse mostly with a laptop, massive pictures are a total pain in the arse as I have to scroll around to view them and they're often so big you just can 'see' what's going on!

Obviously the now (as seems common) 10mbit pictures people habitually upload also take up huge amounts of space.

In my pictures folder on my PC I keep the original that's from the camera, then I also keep a 2nd copy of to-be-uploaded photos called e.g. picture1_small.jpg

Cheers,
James

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tutorial here: http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=107220