Distributed Photo Album

[PJ]

Hi All,

 

I have drafted an architecture/design for sharing server space and allowing everyone to upload their photos.

 

My hope is that this document is simple so that everyone with a personal homepage would be able to volunteer server space, and help out, and at the same time technically-structured so that ambitious webmasters such as KandY could create a full-blown photo album application for visadelays if they wish. I am posting this document as a reply to this one.

 

Please review and let me know what you think.

 

Thanks,

 

P.J.

[PJ]

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DISTRIBUTED PHOTO ALBUM

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INTRODUCTION:

 

In order to offer photo hosting capabilities to all families separated from their loved ones due to to the visa delay, we are developing a Distributed Photo Album Application. The distributed nature of this application will allow for sharing the burden of hosting these photos amongst volunteers who own/rent server space.

 

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LIST OF SERVERS:

 

A master list of all servers will be maintained in a read-only post "Distributed Photo Album servers" on Candle under the forum "General Website Information -> Information/tutorials for using this site". The list will have the following format:

 

Server root: http://candleforlove.com

Server prefix: CANDLE

 

Server root: http://www.visadelays.com

Server prefix: VISA

 

If you do not have a domain, and are hosting the pictures off your personal account, your "Server root" would be the path to your base directory where you could publish web content. For example, I will also volunteer my personal space on my Road Runner account (only 5 MB there). The entry for that will be:

 

Server root: http://web.tampabay.rr.com/ptenn

Server prefix: RR_PJ

 

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STANDARD DIRECTORY/FILE NAMING:

 

Each server will create a subdirectory under the "Server root":

 

/photos/families/

 

for storing the photos.

 

For the example using my personal Road Runner account, the photos would be stored under:

 

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/ptenn/photos/families/

 

All photos will be renamed by the webmaster/owner of a particular server space to have a naming convention of "Server prefix" + "couple index" + "photo index".

 

Couple index will begin at 001 (must have leading zeros to be a 3-digit number)

Photo index will begin at 01 (must have leading zeros to be a 2-digit number)

 

For example, if Jim was the 11th person to upload 4 JPEG images to my Road Runner account, his photos would have the address:

 

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/ptenn/photos/fa...R_PJ_011_01.jpg

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/ptenn/photos/fa...R_PJ_011_02.jpg

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/ptenn/photos/fa...R_PJ_011_03.jpg

http://web.tampabay.rr.com/ptenn/photos/fa...R_PJ_011_04.jpg

 

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PHOTO DESCRIPTOR:

 

Additionally, a file should exist under /photos/families/ called descriptor.txt with the following format:

 

OWNER_001=Jane and John

PHOTO_01=Meeting at the airport

PHOTO_02=Dinner together

PHOTO_03=Trip to Great Wall

PHOTO_ALBUM=YES

 

OWNER_002=Sue and Mike

PHOTO_01=First date

PHOTO_02=Frozen streets

PHOTO_03=Dinner with the family

PHOTO_04=Trip to Hong Kong

PHOTO_ALBUM=NO

 

This file will be useful for any "Photo Album applications" that are written so it can automatically describe photos it is displaying.

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UPLOADING PHOTOS:

 

This is completely at the discretion of webmaster/owner providing server space. He or she may accept photos through email and manually rename and upload them. Or s/he may write an application that allows people to upload photos via a web submission form.

 

After the webmaster/owner has uploaded the pictures, s/he should send an email to the person who submitted the photos providing the address of the photos.

 

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DISPLAYING PHOTOS:

 

Since the photo owner will have the address of his/her photos, he or she may add links to them from any webpage he or she chooses. Also, s/he may post on Candle's forums and display the photos using the IMG button and entering the URL of the image.

 

Any site volunteering to help host photos may create a gallery or photo album displaying not only photos hosted on their site, but also photos on all other participating servers for couples that elect to have their photos included in the albums (where PHOTO_ALBUM=YES).

 

This distributed system will both share server space and create a "Web ring" between numerous sites dedicated to raising awareness about the visa delays in China.

 

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Author: P.J. Tenn

Original: 12/16/02

[KandY]

ok, i will write the photo album for visadelays.com right now

[PJ]

KandY,

 

You are definitely very technically capable and talented, I am very impressed with your visadelays site.

 

In terms of writing the actual photo album applications, I was thinking maybe we should start by gauging interest from people and wait until some people send us photos. I would feel bad if you wrote a full application and we did not have enough people interested in uploading their photos. I was thinking we could start simple, by hosting photos for people and compliling a list, and later move toward the full-blown photo album apps.

 

Would you mind if I posted asking people to send photos to you and to myself? Could you please send me your email address? May I post that and my own in a secure forum visible to members only where we could post our email addresses so that the spambots can't get ahold of them? We could tell members to go there to get our addresses and send us photos.

 

Thanks,

 

P.J.

[PJ]

P.S.

 

How does the technical architecture/design look? Any thoughts or suggestions?

[KandY]

I don't mind writing the code, as it keeps me busy and my mind off being so mad at our government.

 

I am going to put an upload feature where people can upload their photos and the server makes thumbnails automatically for quick display. The thumbnails will be clickable for a larger photo.

 

If many of us use it, great!!! If not .... well at least I kept busy......

[PJ]

KandY,

 

Sounds great! I often write code also when I wish to be distracted from other problems.

 

Oh ... it occurred to me that we should give people the option of specifying whether or not they would like to have their pictures in the "photo album" when they send the photos to us. I will modify that in the architecture/design.

 

I am going to publish my email and tell people they can send photos to me ... I will forward 1/2 to you per the "distributed hosting burden" concept and to other volunteers in the future.

 

Thanks,

 

P.J.