Gallarific: does this flexible gallery script make your gallery terrific?

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Over the past few years, I’ve experimented with three different PHP photogalleries: Coppermine, Gallery, and some of the various PHP plugins available for Wordpress. Each of them has strong points, but weakness that make them problematic.

Coppermine is poor at uploads, while Gallery has more features, including an appropriate tool to upload stuff (but it’s a bugger to configure in an attractive way). I don’t like the Wordpress plugins because most of them have very limited features on the other hand, they’re fine for a blog, but nothing more. They certainly can’t handle larger photo websites… Enter a new PHP image and photo gallery script – Gallarific.

I’ve been trying out the demo at their website and it is very snappy by comparison with some of my experiments before. Though there are few themes yet, I suspect that the software will easily manage themes. There is even a simple PHP script to check that your server can run the software.

If you have an existing blog or website, you should find integration relatively straightforward, using the in-built template editor. Given the efficiency of the scripts, any uploaded photos will be resized for three views: thumbnail, medium view and large view. This should ensure that your gallery loads much faster as images will be saved in more appropriate sizes.

Additional features will include zipping larger numbers of photos, tags, search function, gallery stats, slideshows, commenting (a la Wordpress) with approval, visitor albums, and registered accounts, so that other users may share the upload and access of your website.

It is not Opensource, nor free, but if you are looking for an efficient alternative, and you don’t worry so much about the financial side of running your website (perhaps your website revenue supports such a purchase), then this might be an appropriate way to run a larger photo gallery on a shared server.

This post has been brought to you by Gallarific.com.

M$: Digitally Real Mugging: DRM rips off customers…

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I was reading the list of 10 reasons not to buy Vista, I guess there was one for XP, too! I am most concerned about the problems caused by the DRM that Vista installs for videos. It’s odd that in the rebuttal this is one of the few points NOT specifically rebutted. It goes onto to state:

10. The draconian license — somehow, Microsoft has forgotten that it built its business from products that empowered its customers, not hampered them. … Aside from the backward thinking that is licensing, and not actually owning, your software new terms with Vista include being able to transfer the license only once; half the limit compared to XP for Home Basic and Premium on how many machines can connect to yours for sharing, printing and accessing the Internet; limits on the number of devices that can use Vista’s Media Center features; activation and validation governing your ability to upgrade hardware and use Windows itself; and outlawing the use of Home Basic and Premium with virtualisation software, and Ultimate only if DRM enabled content and applications aren’t used…

For more on this M$, have a look at my other blog!

Loans can empower your life: used wisely.

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I don’t generally write about loans, but writing sponsored posts has encouraged me to think about the times in my life when I actually needed and used small personal loans. I could think of two or three times.

A life changing loan

Well, I haven’t borrowed much money in my life, but there was one incident where I borrowed money that actually helped me to change my life. After I graduated from University, I had not a clue about what I was going to do, and then one day the Language Center where I studied in St. Andrews offered a two-day introductory workshop for TEFL, which I now do. But I had no money. So I asked my father if he could help provide loans to me to cover the costs. He was glad to help. In fact, it was the only time in my life that I actually borrowed any money.

With that simple loan, I was able to fund my initial training, apply for courses, get subsequent qualifications, work in good schools, and even build a business! All from that little loan.

A life enhancing loan

Of course, parents are the only ones you can turn to for loans. I also managed to borrow a small personal loan while I was a student to cover the cost of a trip to France. Wow! That was a real loan that helped me to expand my horizons. I had never traveled abroad before, but that trip helped me to understand and experience a culture that I had only studied in textbooks! It really broadened my horizons. I went to my local bank, and managed to get a small secured loan.

This blog was sponsored by Select Loans .