Banks Family Website Re-launched | Joe Banks

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In a frenzy of tinkering glee, I have re-launched the Banks Family website, which now uses the current versions of open-source Wordpress (web-based publishing platform) and Gallery2 (web-based photo album organizer), and integrated with the WPG2 Wordpress plug-in (embeds Gallery2 within Wordpress to share photos, videos and other media into the Wordpress sidebar and journal entries).

Whether or not this option will be easier or more efficient than one of these recommended combinations remains to be seen:

1. Blogger with Picasa Web Albums: If I were using a Windows-based computer and had no free time to devote to customizing a website with open-source tools, I’d simply set up a Google account, start a Blogger journal, and then start uploading photos to my Picasa Web Album with the free Picasa desktop photo managing software. When you post photos to Blogger, they get added automatically to your Picasa Web account; uploading (and editing) photos with the Picasa desktop tool is a snap; and making prints to a variety of online photo services is also easy. Google will charge you a yearly fee for photo storage, but I’m looking forward to seeing how Google further integrates these two packages.
2. Wordpress with Flickr: If you currently have a Wordpress journal, there are plug-ins available that will integrate your Flickr photos into Wordpress. Sure, Flickr charges an annual fee for their Pro version, but it’s well worth it. If Flickr had a simple way of embedding your photo album into your own site, perhaps I’d reconsider my use of Gallery2. But it took so long to make prints and print products with Flickr, I never went back and followed through on using the service further.
3. Apple iPhoto 2008 with a .mac Account: My next computer will likely be an Apple, since I could run 3 different operation systems on one computer, plus I could still use all the current Windows software into which I’ve invested a great deal of money. Plus #2, the whole family could use one system that isn’t Vista. Plus #3, I’ve seen Steve Jobs’ demonstration of the new iLife 2008 software on the new iMacs. Huzzah! After the many late nights I spent learning DVD authoring software last year to get a family DVD out to relatives in time for the holidaze, watching Stevie demonstrate the photo and movie editing and sharing capabilities of the iLife 2008 was impressive. If I were to start from scratch, I’d go this route and rid myself of hours of pesky configuration, even though I masochistically enjoy that sort of thing. (Don’t get me started on how I once tried, and nearly succeeded, configuring MythTV in order to set-up a home PVR (personal video recorder) on an old home PC with Ubuntu Linux.*) Plus, it seems you’ll be able to use your personal domain name with your .mac account, so a long, pointless .mac web address would be a thing of the past.

However, my intent for our family site included the following ambitions:

1. Storage Control and Fees: Use only our existing and already-paid-for web space to store photos.
2. One Custom Site Design: Customize and integrate the journal and photo gallery with one overall sleek and straightforward web design.
3. Easy Photo Printing and Sharing: Allow family and friends to view our photos without any limits on downloading and where to print them, though we do recommend and encourage printing to Shutterfly. So, for example, if Auntie wants to download a photo of David to her desktop, great; if grandparents want to download and make prints at their local mart, go for it.

Since I’m a Tool Hound, I use both Picasa and Shutterfly desktop software to quickly edit and organize our photos (preferring Shutterfly Desktop at the current moment, especially if I’m making photo collages), but then I still upload the photos to the family website via the Gallery Remote tool (multiple OS versions).

I do not recommend Shutterfly’s photo web sharing; they make their money via prints and print products, so it seems the photo quality suffers for online viewing, supposedly so that you won’t go using the online photo somewhere else to make prints. Also see reason #2 above.

Photo Back-up: I also automatically back up all our family media to 1) a local network attached storage device, 2) Shutterfly, and 3) our webhosting account, all through Memeo back-up software. Auto backing up to Shutterfly makes it really easy for my wife to go online and make prints, since Shutterfly has unlimited photo storage, so all the photos I download from our camera to our main computer automatically end up there.

*Eventually, I just eBayed for cheap a low-profile HP running Vista Media Center. Good for now. Subject of another post.