13 replies to this topic

[cabirds]

As my gallery crosses 100 species here pretty soon, it's plain that just dumping them alphabetically isn't going to work well for much longer.

I've seen a couple sites (such as Doug's) organized by Order - but I'd like to avoid that since the average person looking for a particular bird is going to be clueless about what belongs in what order.

I'm thinking something more general like:  "Waterfowl", "Shorebirds", "Sparrows", [...]  Anyone know of a site or have a list that is generalized like that that would be recognizable to the lay-person?

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[Doug Herr]

One approach might be to organize them by habitat types, like marsh, forest, grasslands, back yard.  I suspect there will always be some gray areas and I'd have to fight the impulse to make too fine a distinction between similar habitats.

 I chose taxonomic organization mostly because I didn't have to make the choices, someone else has already done it for me :)  One advantage of taxonomic organization (might be making lemonade from lemons) is that it's an opportunity to educate the average person.

 

EDIT: I don't see why you can't have multiple ways of organizing the photos, at least at the user interface level.  In addition to taxonomic I've got some user selections for locations and for chronological (the "new photographs" link) and some hidden ones as well that would not be very useful for the general public.

[cabirds]

Thanks for weighing in!  There's a reason I pay someone else to design UI's. ;-)

The basic environment definitely has merit, although there's a potential for a lot of duplication.

Something like:

• Backyard Birds
• Coastlines
• Deserts
• Fields and Grasslands
• Forests
• Foothills and Mountains
• Lakes and Rivers
• Ocean
• Wetlands

 ?

 

[Doug Herr]

cabirds:

Thanks for weighing in!  There's a reason I pay someone else to design UI's. ;-)

The basic environment definitely has merit, although there's a potential for a lot of duplication.

Something like:

• Backyard Birds
• Coastlines
• Deserts
• Fields and Grasslands
• Forests
• Foothills and Mountains
• Lakes and Rivers
• Ocean
• Wetlands

 ?

 

 What I've done for my various UIs is to store the jpgs taxonomically then for each UI I link to the jpg.  This way the duplication(s) are only in the UI.  The disadvantage of the taxonomic filing is that it can get a little messy when the AOU re-shuffles the deck.

[cabirds]

[FAO Doug]

org  0x100 
mov  dx, msg_geek
mov  ah, 9       
int  0x21        
mov  ah, 0x4c    
int  0x21        
msg_geek  db '[Geek]', 0x0d, 0x0a, '$'
--------------------
 

I'm starting with a pretty solid base system (Gallery v3) that is entirely driven by a SQL database, and the UI is probably written in SMART or some similar uber-high-level-garbage.  Base code is PHP. 

Photos are stored in a non-web-accessible directory and linked in the database.  They're resized and watermarked on-the-fly at the server-side with ImageMagick.

So yes - duplication in this case is only in the UI, and changing the system in any one place will change it in every other (so the mess is minimal).

What I'd probably do is create a new database table with checkboxes for environment.  Then I could add new fields, remove relationships, etc. on-the-fly.  So yeah, from an architecture standpoint is really no big deal.  I was only concerned with user-experience.

 

-----------------

org  0x100 
mov  dx, msg_endgeek
mov  ah, 9       
int  0x21        
mov  ah, 0x4c    
int  0x21        
msg_endgeek  db '[/Geek]', 0x0d, 0x0a, '$'
 

 

[lyceel]

I've been trying to keep up with tagging my photos by location and species (band code).  The image metadata will also have the date taken automatically. Once each image has that metadata, you can use relational database techniques to create any kind of ordering you want (e.g.: all shorebirds taken at Merritt Island in 2011, or all Carolina Chickadees taken in Florida).  Even if the taxonomy is reorganized, the photos will naturally follow the new schema, since they're only tagged by species.  The one exception would be species splits or combines (you'd have to go back and re-tag them with the new band code).

I hadn't thought of habitat before.  In many cases you could cross-reference the specific location with a habitat, but some locations have multiple habitats.  The other choice would just be to tag the photo with habitat as well.

I've only started this scheme (still just at the basic stage, not on the web yet), but I think it's promising and scalable.  The major down side is the two or so years worth of photos that I didn't tag.  Still, if you're disciplined and just enter data for one or two shooting sessions a night, it seems to go pretty quickly.

[cabirds]

Thanks, Lyceel!

One better to consider:  Each of my birds going forward starting this weekend will have an interactive embedded Google map in the description.  Driving directions at the tip of your fingers, and I'll add the ability to send it to a Garmin device from the site itself.  (All geotagging-based, of course, with some fancy wrapper code).

I built my own geotagging unit that fits my flash hotshoe.

There are tools in PHP certainly to extract your meta-data into a relational database with really no additional work.

[lyceel]

cabirds:

[FAO Doug]

org  0x100 
mov  dx, msg_geek
mov  ah, 9       
int  0x21        
mov  ah, 0x4c    
int  0x21        
msg_geek  db '[Geek]', 0x0d, 0x0a, '$'
--------------------

Hmm, I seem to be preaching to the choir  

I didn't pick up that you were only talking about the UI.  I've actually used Gallery 2 in the past.  I thought it was OK, but the upstream speed on my data connection at home isn't good enough for people to browse my pictures.  So, now I'm using picasaweb, which is nice and fast, but not nearly as flexible.

Incidentally, how exactly do you folks get your stuff online, and if you don't mind me asking, how much does it cost you?

[lyceel]

cabirds:

Thanks, Lyceel!

One better to consider:  Each of my birds going forward starting this weekend will have an interactive embedded Google map in the description.  Driving directions at the tip of your fingers, and I'll add the ability to send it to a Garmin device from the site itself.  (All geotagging-based, of course, with some fancy wrapper code).

I built my own geotagging unit that fits my flash hotshoe.

I looked at that (saw some plans online), but then I found one at Amazon that works with Nikon cameras for $50:

http://www.amazon.co...28298777&sr=8-4

It works pretty well, and I have lat/long in most of my recent shots, too.  Lightroom 4 (beta is available now) has some really sweet new features for geodata, too.

[Doug Herr]

cabirds:

[FAO Doug]

org  0x100 
mov  dx, msg_geek
mov  ah, 9       
int  0x21        
mov  ah, 0x4c    
int  0x21        
msg_geek  db '[Geek]', 0x0d, 0x0a, '$'

 

LOL

 

lyceel:

Incidentally, how exactly do you folks get your stuff online, and if you don't mind me asking, how much does it cost you?

westhost.com basic plan.

[cabirds]

24 geographically dispersed datacenters full of servers on redundant OC12 minimum fiber backhaul with multiple OC192 typical.  I'm "kinda spoiled".  In this case, cabirds.com runs on some "garbage hardware" in three DC's with round-robin failover.  At home I'm "on-net" with fiber-to-the-home, about 100mbit/sec average full duplex, and my backup is shotgunned Comcast at 16mbit/3mbit and uVerse 16/1.5mbit.

Big changes from Gallery 2 to Gallery 3.  And I'll pm you, Lyceel.  

I didn't go with anything currently out there for GPS - I do both hardware and software engineering for a living, so as an EE, I had to reinvent any current wheels. It's an honor-thang ;-)

We have a surveillance tracking product, so it was pretty easy for me to get my hands on a chipset and proto out my own boards.

Is yours just running from the tracklog and time-sync'd to the camera, or is it flash-triggered?

 

[edit]  Oh - sorry - I just checked out the link.  That's interesting - yours is driven from the remote shutter release.  That's clever!

 

[cabirds]

You have PM, Lyceel

[lyceel]

cabirds:

24 geographically dispersed datacenters full of servers on redundant OC12 minimum fiber backhaul with multiple OC192 typical.  I'm "kinda spoiled".  In this case, cabirds.com runs on some "garbage hardware" in three DC's with round-robin failover.  At home I'm "on-net" with fiber-to-the-home, about 100mbit/sec average full duplex, and my backup is shotgunned Comcast at 16mbit/3mbit and uVerse 16/1.5mbit.

Ok, I hate you now 

 

cabirds:

[edit]  Oh - sorry - I just checked out the link.  That's interesting - yours is driven from the remote shutter release.  That's clever!

Well, sort of.  It uses the 10-pin interface on the nicer Nikon cameras, which has a data port for GPS data (intended for the hugely overpriced Nikon GP-1), as well as a wired remote release.  The camera accepts the GPS data and writes it to the EXIF on each image directly.  The Opteka unit does everything that the GP-1 does, plus it comes with a remote trigger cable.  Quite a deal, considering what Nikon charges for those two things separately.

And yes, I completely understand having to engineer your own solution.  It's a matter of pride 

[guy_incognito]

For organizing my photos I just use Picasa.  In general I will download the pictures to folders based on location.  I add the species name under the comments section, which Picasa can search for.  In Picasa you can also create galleries, so that I have one example of each species under my ABA list, world list, etc.

I also geo-tag my photos, but it is done after the fact.  I use a gps tracking program on my phone, then use a program to sync up the photos with location.  Just have to make sure that your camera timestamp and phone are in sync.  Works pretty well, and it is completely free.