Do not forget to return to this page frequently to follow up
on constant updates!
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| July 6, 2010 |
It has been quite a while since we came up with some news. That does
not mean that we are not working on the site to improve its presentation
and functions constantly. There are two major changes to happen very soon.
One is the Premium account to allow members to go beyond 120 posts as well as all
the other additional features that are part of this account. One of these
Premium features is almost ready to get started – we are talking about the
Favorites so you can mark your favorite photographers and favorite photographs.
You might have already noticed that the logo of the site underwent a small
change. The old one was nice, but several members expressed real concerns
with its proximity to another photographic site that gave the origins to
Photofolia. We are curious to hear from you how you identify yourself with
the new logo. Shoot us an email with your thoughts!
P.B.
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| May 27, 2010 |
…. and here we are again with the latest news! FINALLY,
the much anticipated forum where members can exchange impressions,
ideas, thoughts, etc. with each other, besides the notes, critiques
and replies that are exclusively bound to a specific post.
In the forum you can write about travels, cultural events, photographic
gear and so much more. Instead of telling you all about it we recommend
you to just skip this bla-bla-bla and go straight to the forum and find
out what it is all about … but WAIT!!!!!
There is one more little thing that needs to be said before you go there.
The forum is the first place of this site that has ads. We believe that
we do not have to give long explanations of why we have ads at our site.
The admin team paid for the entire site out of their own pocket and at
some point the site needs to find its own sustain, otherwise the admin
will go broke :-(
So, the ads are there to be used and not only to be perceived as nuisance.
They should help to sustain the site’s existence!
The ads will slowly but surely show up on all pages of the site. We promise
that we will keep them discrete and as little intrusive as possible. If
you don’t like them at all you will soon have the possibility to sign up
for a Premium Account and there you will never ever see them again. This
account will be our next feature to be implemented. Wait and you will see!
OK, now it is time to dive into the Forum -->
click here!
P.B.
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| May 24, 2010 |
You might have noticed or not, but since today the site has a “green
site” seal at the right bottom of every single page. This means that our
site is 100% powered by Certified Green Renewable Energy Sources. For more
details on the issue we recommend you to click on the seal and read about
it.
We are extremely proud of this new feature, if I may say so; and we hope that you
can share this feeling with us!
P.B.
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| May 23, 2010 |
We are back with News! ;-)
... and this time it is a little bit better than the one of yesterday.
We have from now one a backup plan in case the server goes banana and
corrupts all our archives again. This is great!!! The less good thing
is that the backup goes back up to 24 hours, so depending on when such
major serverquake (I guess I just created a new word) might happen the
worst case scenario would be all data lost up to 24 hours back. With luck it
will be less, somewhere between 1 minute to 24 hours.
We hope that this gives you enough comfort, confidence and trust in our site. We
really try to care most to what you post and do here at Photofolia.
We again apologize for the loss of your valuable account openning, posted
images, written critiques and replies!
P.B.
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| May 22, 2010 |
This is the kind of news that we would like not to have to place here,
but unfortunately it is a reality that we had to face today. Our server
had some quite worrisome technical problems. It corrupted all our archives
and we had to put the site out of air for about 3 hours. Once things were
solved and restored we were shocked to find out that all posts, critiques,
replies of the last 72 hours were lost.
We are still debating with the server what protective measures we can do
to avoid any similar happening in the future. Just the fact that we are
having that kind of discussion is bothersome and we might need to do some
major changes regarding our server if this continues to be an issue.
Nevertheless, we really apologize to all of you that posted images, wrote notes,
critiques and/or replies over the last 72 hours and don’t see their images
and writing here anymore; and we particularly apologize to those that opened
a new account here at PF and can’t find their account here anymore. We certainly
will work hard to prevent or even better avoid such meltdowns in the future.
We honestly hope that our next news here will be of much better nature compared
to this actual one!
P.B.
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| April 7, 2010
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It is time to celebrate! Two months ago, on February 7, PF went from beta
to public. The site got since than a very supportive, enthusiastic and
addicted community. The images that are posted daily here are of excellent
quality and representing almost the entire spectrum of photography. Photofolia’s
image databank has already almost 1,000 images posted by 136 members. The
administrators of this site want to thank every single member for their
participation. The existence of this site turned only possible due to your
support.
Thank you!
Moments of celebration are at the same time also moments of introspection.
One of our major concerns right now is the site’s financial viability. You
probably already noticed the bars with the phrasing (Google ads here). The
phrasing is absolutely right. Very soon our site will get “dirty”. Ads will
compete with our shots and to make it possible that we won’t have that kind
of intromission we very soon will also have the Premium account with a yearly
fee of US$ 25 (7 cents/day). Signing up for this account will give you back
a site without any ads as well some additional very valuable features. We
hope for your understanding on this difficult and sensitive issue.
Our further future plans just around the corner include as next features a
forum, the workshop capability as well as favorite image and favorite photographer.
We obviously have many more features to be created in future and we receive
almost daily emails from members with additional great suggestions. We take them
all very seriously.
Guys, we are just starting. Don’t forget that we are celebrating 2 months of
existence and not 2 years :-).
P.B.
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| March 28, 2010 |
Of the 5 new items promised 3 weeks ago we got one done - the threaded
replies. It works wonderfully, although some details will need some
improvement, but hey it works and it is a step forward to make this site
better and better. This new feature will allow the members a better
exchange in their discussions regarding the posts and critiques!
The other 4 items (forum, members pic in the intro, location of the
post and minor change in the graphical appearance of the main image page
are almost ready too.
As next we will have a critical step for the further existence of this site.
Yes, we're talking about MONEY and we are talking about ads and the Premium
account. Remember that the regular account is free, but with some restrictions
and to have the full advantages of the site you will have to sign up for an
annual fee of US$ 25. In other words 7 cents/ day. We hope for your understanding,
but it can't be that the administrators of this site carry the sole financial
responsibility of the fun.
P.B.
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| March 23, 2010 |
A little bit more than 2 weeks ago we commented here that one of
the many things that needs to be taken care of urgently is the
sharpness of the posted images. Several members were complaining
that their work was not as sharp as their original images on their
PC's. Those guys were hard core - they didn't want to post anything
until the sharpness issue was solved.
The issue was taken care of!!! You can familiarize yourself with
the new instructions at the
upload page or at the
FAQs page.
We kindly request you to report us if you have the impression that
there is still some problem with the sharpness of your posts!
P.B.
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| March 6, 2010 |
We have now roughly 1 month of activity here at PF. More
than 100 members already joined the site and posted close to
550 images. The many BIG bugs that we faced at the beginning
are resolved. The critique and reply system is working without
any major flaws. Finally! There are minimal things that are
being corrected, like the backslashes whenever you use
quotations.
There are many other details that are being re-studied and will
have a solution ready in very short period. These items are the
loss of sharpness at the moment of uploading the image; breaking
the given and received critique pages into a total of 20
thumbnails and notes to provide an easier browsing through all
the comments; changing the fonts of the title and author for the
thumbnails; and other small graphical aspects of the site.
The next big steps in improving our site are 5 new features to
be implemented over the upcoming weeks: forum, threaded replies
that will allow a third person to participate at a discussion,
the member’s picture in their intro page, a data bank to enter
the exact location of where the posting photograph was shot, and
finally some graphical improvements of the page that shows the
posted image with its EXIF and your note.
Once this is done the next big project will include advertisement
and the premium account to alleviate the administrators from the
heavy expenses that were necessary to make the whole Photofolia
project take off and will be necessary to keep it going and improving
the site over the months and years to come.
If you have any suggestions or critiques concerning any of
these topics mentioned above we beg you to let us know by contacting
us at contact@photofolia.net.
We will always be listening very closely to what you have to say.
P.B.
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| February 18, 2010 |
Through messages we get from members it is clear that there are
issues with the usability of the critique system. It isn't intuitive
enough and sometimes bugs still appear. So we are are revamping the
system now (including the capability to have a multi stage discussion)
and examining the code to permanently root out the last bugs. We will
of course keep you posted!
B.H.
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| February 8, 2010 |
........and the last major bug is done away with also!! When you
write your critique you should not use “Enter” to switch
to a new line. Instead use "Shift + Enter" and you will be able to
always see your text once submitted and you also will be able to
re-edit your text at any given moment. The same goes for writing the
text that goes with your photo. It might sound a tad complicated,
but once you understood it you will see how easy it actually is! This
is obviously a work-around, so we're working on a solution that enables
you to use "Enter" again without complications.
We did the move of the site that we talked about yesterday - it is on
its permanent location now: wwww.photofolia.net!!
B.H.
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| February 7, 2010 |
Our bug extermination bonanza has paid off! Helped by the detailed
fault reports we got from you guys, two nasty problems have been solved.
The site accepts both comments and replies without a glitch now.
The only remaining major bug is that critiques can only be read under
the image via My Critiques > Given. And of course we’re still working
on that and keep you posted.
After reaching this milestone we feel confident about the operational
usability of the site and in a few days move it from its beta server address
(www.photofolia.net/index.php) to its permanent address (www.photofolia.net).
This will be transparent for you – we’ll use a redirect.
Some members reported a slight drop in the sharpness of the posted images.
We’re looking into that. For the time being it’s advisable to post as close
as possible to the 800 pixel limit (width) and sharpen the image
(again) after resizing.
B.H.
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| February 3, 2010 |
We are still battling some bugs! Mainly the unknown factor that makes
some critiques disappear once they are written and send. The same applies
to the replies of critiques. The webmaster is working on it but still to
find the reason for this flaw.
Roughly one week after going live we
already have more than 50 members signed in and many are quite regular
in their posting with outstanding images, writing notes and critiques.
We have a pretty good feeling where this site is heading and its
potential.
All these members are not only taking ownership of this site by posting,
but also by writing us frequent mails with suggestions, critiques or just
to thank for the existence of the site.
Guys, we are taking all your
input very seriously. The list of suggestions is growing daily and we will
work to implement these as we come along. Just remember, it will take time.
The administrators of this site are very dedicated to what we are doing
here,
but we all have our real life professions. This site is being done in our
time off.
P.B.
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| January 31, 2010 |
One of our members (Wandering Dan) a real savvy computer programmer found
the error in the script that was responsible for the sign-in bug. After
correction in the script we got one bug less to care off.
This isn’t just a great step into the right direction but also shows
what this site is all about. Photofolia is our site and
it will get step by step a better place by its pro-active members. Dan,
thank you very much!!!
P.B.
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| January 25, 2010 |
Photofolia went live with its Beta 2.0 version. Some members joined right
away, but we also realized very soon that we were dealing with some
serious bugs. The biggest is during the sign in process.
P.B.
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