Forum update

**gavin** · 29-04-2012, 04:05 PM

I suspect that anyone trying to do anything was getting a 'Database error'. I'm just back from checking the bees and my inbox was full (>200 messages) from the software warning me of a database error. It was like that for about an hour this afternoon and also for a period this morning.

It is due to the database that contains all the data in the forum being offline but the other server, the one that runs the forum software, still being active. Fasthosts, the company hosting the site, used to provide a dreadful service but these breakdowns have become infrequent in recent months.

**gavin** · 18-01-2013, 09:19 PM

Following a suggestion we're going with making the pictures loaded onto the site visible all and sundry. Even non-logged in members. If anyone would rather not, do let us know and we'll reconsider. Being an old fartie, I resisted at first but may grow to like it.

G.

**gavin** · 18-01-2013, 10:57 PM

I've already tracked a whole pile of them to suburban Belfast, a dodgy area if ever there was one. Presumably that was an urban myth, but maybe young (ish!) Neil can put us right.

Sent from my BlackBerry 8520 using Tapatalk

**Neils** · 19-01-2013, 04:11 PM

Certainly possible, the photo management software I use has a feature where it overlays on a map where you've taken photos.

**gavin** · 19-01-2013, 04:36 PM

Do you have a camera that would allow you to try it out on images uploaded into vB?

On this vBulletin forum I came across a post regretting the apparent inability to preserve image metadata in vBulletin 4 whereas it is preserved on Facebook, Google, Flickr and Wordpress:

https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/show...from-Lightroom

G.

**Bridget** · 19-01-2013, 07:08 PM

I don't think you need to worry too much about this Gavin. People who post images to a forum already know they are going to be seen by lots of people. I have checked an upload I made to the forum from my mobile phone and checked it in Adobe Photoshop (where you can see alot of info about a photo, and also you can add a lot of info as well - this is part of the embedded metadata) and there is no information given about the image apart from the actual time I screen grabbed it. I am going to upload another image in a minute from my digital camera to see how much information that retains and will let you know ( so please ignore a non relevant post to this thread). It maybe that the forum software strips all the infomation out so as to keep the image size tiny and not overload the system. The guy on the vbulletin forum who is complaining about headlines/descriptions being stripped out has used the Adobe software to put this information with the image and when its uploaded its no longer there. I don't think our guys will be adding lengthy descriptions, etc, more like a headline below the image and a few pithy remarks.

As Neils says its possible to add a location via GPS and I can add default locations, times and dates on my digital camera, but never see the point of it really. Might be useful for a professional news photographer though.
I know some of this because I have a small photo library and still sell images through an online portal so adding information and keywording is something I'm often, and hate, doing.

**Bridget** · 19-01-2013, 07:28 PM

As I thought all the information from my digital camera has been stripped out. The images I uploaded have been reduced in size and I expect part of this reduction included the stripping out of the metadata. You will need to find out whether your forum software can be modified if you want to retain this information but imho I don't think you really need to.
Gavin perhaps you want to delete the above images etc

**gavin** · 19-01-2013, 09:28 PM

Excellent, thanks Bridget. If anyone wants pithy remarks to be visible as well as location data they'll just have to tell us in the usual way.

PS Nice pictures that are no longer there. I could tell that the skiing images weren't in Scotland!