A quick update to report that there have been many useful enhancements to the Mihalism image hosting system recently.  The backend continues to improve with many new options.  This solution is moving fast and may soon provide a good alternative to imagevenue, tinypic and the other traditional providers.  Soon everyone will be able to run a hosting solution :-)

Here’s the changelog:

1. More bug fixes to help improve stability and reliability.
2. Fixed Webpage URL Upload not posting to “Upload To” album.
3. Cleaned up code base to make it easier to edit & understand for mod developers.
4. Added wildcard IP address bans. Example: 123.456.*.* or 123.456.321.*.
5. Fixed random string generator not outputting correct value.
6. Improved stability of new URL upload options.
7. Fixed Imagick issue with thumbnails.
8. Fixed iFrame uploader not working.
9. Fix Internet Explorer 6 warning slideout returning false positives created by Internet Explorer 8.
10. Added “Advanced Debugging Tools” to Site Settings page. Basically linking hidden debugging pages.
11. Added page to Admin Control Panel to show recent PHP error logs to help debugging.
12. Added page to Admin Control Panel to show System Information such as hard drive space remaining, RAM use, and more.
13. Converted MySQL Driver to use MYSQL_*_TABLE constants for easier table renaming when using multiple sites.
14. The design of Advanced Thumbnails has changed for people with the most recent version of Imagick Image Library.
15. And a few more minor updates, tweaks, and changes.

Get it here.

I have been running a small hosting solution for my projects for a while using the Mihalism Multi Host software. I really like this little piece of software and I was surprised to hear that development had been halted after version 4. Luckily the developers are back in action and have just released version 5, which is available here.

The trouble is, for people like me who need to upgrade from version 3, there is no upgrade script from v 3.1 to 5.0. One needs to first upgrade to version 4. This is what I just did and I thought I would share how to do it as the developers are providing support for version 4 users but not currently to version 3 users.

First step

As a first step I did a backup of the whole folder where the Mihalism and the images reside.  In my case it was the /hosting folder:

tar -czvf images_backup.tar.gz hosting/

Then I did a backup of my whole sql database, using MyPhpAdmin.

Second step

I downloaded the v 3 to v 4 upgrade script, which is available here. I am also hosting a copy here:  multihost_3_1_0.

I unzipped the file, which gave me a folder called “upgrade”.

I downloaded version 4.0.2 of Mihalism Multi Host from their official website.  I unzipped it and uploaded the resulting folder on my server.  I called this new folder “hosting2″.

I then uploaded the upgrade folder into hosting2.

Third step

I copied the following from my old Mihalism version 3 (folder hosting) in my new Mihalism version 4 (folder hosting2):

- the files folder and its contents;

- the config.php file.

I then ran the upgrader by accessing /hosting2/upgrade/ from my web browser.  The upgrade went smoothly except for the upgrader’s inability to overwrite my config.php file:

Now that was not much of a problem, as the upgrader gave me instructions on how to update the file.  Or so I thought.  Actually, the file it was attempting to write was not hosting2/config.php (the one I had moved over from my previous version) but hosting2/source/includes/config.php.

I edited that file as per the instructions, I changed the name of my new version from hosting2 to hosting so that links to my legacy  files would not be lost.  I then deleted the upgrade folder and the install.php file and I was done!

I just did it and it seems to be working all right!

M

Update: I have now updated from v3 to v5. Everything works perfectly!

DryIcons.com – Free Icons and Vector Graphics.  Dry Icons has plenty of free icons.

One of the common problems with phpbb is that the forum design expands in width when users post images that are too wide for the forum. Here are two fixes to this problem.

There is a fairly advanced mod for phpbb3 that allows you to apply an automatic image resize in forum posts, together with an optional lightbox. You can find it here.

For those of you who are interested in a less advanced solution, here is a little hack that will automatically resize all posted images down to a width of 550px wide.

Preview

With this hack, images that are too large to fit, like this:

are automatically resized in a size that fits, like this one:

Download

Download the file from here.

In my previous Flickr images post I focused on the built-in Flickr functions of RapidWeaver and the various Flickr image integration plugins available for both Wordpress and RapidWeaver. But there are literally hundreds of tools and webapps available to integrate Flickr images on your website which have not been specifically designed with RapidWeaver or Wordpress in mind. Fear not, you do not need to be a big web wizard to unleash the power of Flickr and put great photo effects on your website.

Today I will be looking at the various options available to allow picture browsing on a map.

Prerequisite: you need to tell Flickr where pictures have been shot

Unless you have a very sophisticated camera with GPS integration, Flickr cannot guess where pictures have been shot. You must first put your pictures on a map, in a process known as “geotagging”. There are various ways to do so:

• The über geek way: synchronize gps data with your camera. This is reserved to the professionals or the very advanced photography amateurs, and requires that you have specific gear or software that allows you to match the time stamp of a gps coordinate on your handheld gps with the time stamp of the photos taken with your digital camera. There is one free photo software called Jet Photo Studio that allows you to match digital photos with time synchronized GPS track logs. The popular Apple iPhoto software also does it, but you need to unlock the feature.
• Geotagging photos on your computer. The same Jet Photo Studio also allows for relatively easy placement of your photos on a map in conjunction with Google Earth.
• Geotagging on Flickr. The most straightforward way to geotag your pictures is by using Flickr itself. Once you have uploaded your photos, click on the >”Organize” tab in Flickr, select the photos you want to put on a map, and Flickr lets you search locations on a Yahoo map on which you can drag your pictures. This process is shown in the image below

• Geotagging on steroids. If you are serious about geotagging, or if you are planning on using the Travelr map described below, you will want to use the localize it bookmarklet. This powerful webapp lets you place any of your Flickr images on a map from within Flickr in a much easier and more elegant way than Flickr itself. The elegance of this solution is shown below. We will also see that Travelr does not require the geotagging of all your photos, which is a big time saver.

Once you have geotagged the pictures which shall be shown on your map, the fun can begin.

Your Flickr photo map using Trippermap

Trippermap is a beautiful free webapp that lets you create a world map showing where your geotagged pictures were taken, zoom on any of them, view them as a slideshow and much more. The service requires that you sign up, and it takes a few minutes before your geotagged photos appear on the map. Below is Countries in Colors’ very own Flickr photo map using Trippermap.

Once your map is ready, Trippermap generates a short code which you simply copy and paste into your Wordpress or RapidWeaver post or page. The service works with all standard html pages, so you can also use it if you are using other publishing platforms. A premium version of Trippermap is also available and lets you add more photos, show your travel paths and use other maps (including Google, Yahoo and MSN satellite images) against a small annual fee.

Your Flickr photo map using Travelr

A slightly less powerful option is Travelr. It is also a little more cumbersome to install, as it requires you to download files which you must customize to fit your needs before posting them to your website. Integration is therefore less easy than with Trippermap, but Travelr has two advantages. First, it takes the hassle out of supplying geographic coordinates for each photo by only requiring them once for each location – not for each photo. This brings significant time saving if you want to publish lots of pictures. Second, you are hosting the map on your own server, which means you get more control and you are not dependent on a third party to host your map. You can see it in action on our Blue Site: Blue Brussels, Blue Bulgaria and Blue Hong Kong. The interface is also slicker than Trippermap’s, as shown below.

Travelr does not allow for many pictures to be posted, has a less powerful zoom, and may be tricky to integrate – I had to use an iframe above :( This being said I like its interface better.

I hope you will find this useful. If you like browsing pictures using maps, I’d suggest you check out the great Localize.us website: amazing! Enjoy Flickr!