Jump to content
  • Join the online East Midlands astronomy club today!

    With active forums, two dark sites and a knowledgeable membership, East Midlands Stargazers has something for everyone.

Change of web host and changes to the forum


Craig

Recommended Posts

The renewal for the forum hosting has come up and we've decided to change hosts.

The main benefits of moving are:

  • Improved reliability
  • Servers optimised for our forum software
  • Regular backups (in addition to mine)
In order to allow the move with as little impact to the running costs of the website, we'll need to reduce our storage requirements. Currently we're using close to 1GB of disk space, due largely to the gallery and attachments. With so many image hosting solutions available for free now, it no longer makes sense to pay for this storage ourselves. Flickr, for example, provides an entire 1TB (terabyte) of hosting space for free.

This means we'll look to make the following changes ready for the move ovet the next few days:

  • The removal of the gallery
  • The removal of the attachment feature
  • The removal of all stored gallery and attachment images
The following image hosting services can be used instead, for free, and allow you to share your images on the forum:I would personally recommend Flickr. It's got the largest free disk space allowance and provides you with the exact code you need to share images on the forum, making it super easy to share images. Here is a guide I wrote for the photography forum:

 

To show your photographs on the forum you need to host them online somewhere. Some services are designed with image sharing in mind, so they'll even give you the code you need to link to your images.

Here are some options:

I personally recommend Flickr above the others. You now get a whopping 1 terabyte of storage, more than enough for most amateur photographers, and it's completely free. You can create your own portfolio and share your images, both on Flickr and external sites.

Once you've uploaded a photo to Flickr, you can share it by clicking on the Share icon and copying the code it gives you. Just make sure you select BBCode (the little "pin" button in the below screenshot). :)

Sharing.png

There will be a short downtime for the migration to take place, up to 48 hours depending how quickly the server changes update across the internet. I'll post up when the date and time of the downtime is confirmed. If you have anything in the gallery that you would like to save, please do so ASAP.

If you have any questions, please let me or any of the mods know. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are gallery items going to vanish permanently, or reappear once the switch over has happened?


 


James

Link to comment
Share on other sites

*cough* astrobin *cough* :D

 

Good point!

 

I''ll add a link. :)

 

Are gallery items going to vanish permanently, or reappear once the switch over has happened?

 

James

 

They'll be gone permanently. We're effectively diverting the cost of storage into paying for more premium space.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have used photo bucket for every photo I have ever put up here, meaning that when Craig does the swap, all my photos will still display in full size and quality without ever effecting EMS's space requirements.

I have often wondered why people have never used this method before, so I think it is a cracking idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have used photo bucket for every photo I have ever put up here, meaning that when Craig does the swap, all my photos will still display in full size and quality without ever effecting EMS's space requirements.

I have often wondered why people have never used this method before, so I think it is a cracking idea.

 

:thumbsup:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

By the way, I'm not saying photo bucket is the best, it's just the one I use, any on Craig's list will do the job, down to each personnel preference.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yep Daz, I use Photobucket too. I don't think this change of approach is anything special to EMS, other forums handle images this way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Worth pointing out that Tapatalk has a built in hosting option. Just remember to click on the tapatalk hosted button on the right :)

be6uguqy.jpg

Edited by Teslar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tapatalk does do that, but I personally prefer a purpose built image hosting solution. You get more control. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just a heads up that I will be looking to kick the move off this weekend.


 


I'll be removing the gallery and attachments first, this Saturday/Sunday and then, hopefully, kicking off the migration to the new webhost on Monday/Tuesday. Expect downtime around then. (we'll be online all weekend)


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Craig, not a bug more of a question, was any of the gallery pictures backed up anywhere?

I only ask as one of my guides has lost it's pictures! I thought I used Photo-bucket to host all my pictures but I think the guide is that old it was before you set a size limit on files so I used the gallery on EMS!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have them stored on a disk but I would have to sift through them.


 


What were they?


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pictures of a dob based ground board and fitting a lazy Susan bearing, if its any bother don't worry, I can just take it to bits, photo them and apply via Photo-bucket.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Be careful craig, you might start getting hundreds of requests!

Thanks for sorting out the switch over; i'm so non technical i have absolutely no idea what has happened, and it all looks the same to me, but i suspect it has been a lot of work for you whatever it is you have done. Many thanks.

James

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cheers James - about 8 hours work all in all, working through some bugs. Not quite finished as I need to sort some email problems!


 


I don't mind snooping for images if it's urgent, but I can't do it for everybody. :)


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ignorance is bliss each James?....

Cheers Craig, currently on the IPad so will boot up the laptop tomorrow.

Thanks once again Craig for all the effort you put in.

Edited by Daz Type-R
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wish i could reward you for your hard work, but i don't have anything useful to give you; i can make you a cuppa and offer you some ginger nuts if you are ever in west bridgford!

All of my pictures were crap anyway! I'm pleased they've been sent into cyber space :)

Once i've fixed my cone error, i'll try and start taking some more; i'll miss it when it's gone as i'll have nothing to blame all my inadequacies on!

James

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No worries - hope those are the correct images!


 


(the images are just album folders now, with no owner details so these might be somebody elses images for all I know!)


Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wish i could reward you for your hard work, but i don't have anything useful to give you; i can make you a cuppa and offer you some ginger nuts if you are ever in west bridgford!

All of my pictures were crap anyway! I'm pleased they've been sent into cyber space :)

Once i've fixed my cone error, i'll try and start taking some more; i'll miss it when it's gone as i'll have nothing to blame all my inadequacies on!

James

 

:lol: I can send them in cyber space for sure, that's as close as I'll ever get to sending something into space.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great job Craig, thanks.


 


Don't lose any sleep over my THREE pics. I won't, and probably still have them somewhere deep in my filing system :D .


 


Cheers.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.