Setting Up a New Online Gallery

[badgerdad]

I have been using inexpensive sites like Photo.net and Betterphoto.com to display my photos, mainly to galleries, although it is a lot of fun too. Am I right is saying that to have a site of your own, the following are needed: domain name, web designer and programmer and server? Looks like I can buy a domain name for $30 more or less. It's the rest of the stuff that looks really expensive. For those of you who have your own site, can you give me an idea of who did what and what it cost? Thanks much.

[SoCal69]

I also use fotopic.net for my photos. However, I do have my own domain as well. I do my own html, and if you are somewhat familiar with it, you don't really need a designer. Also, there are several different gallery creation programs you can use, including the one built into photoshop (or JAlbum, which is free). Just create your gallery and upload it. You will need someone to host your space, but the cost can range from free (like 0catch.com - but they include popup ads) to very expensive, depending on what you need. There are options available for just about every budget.

[UrbanScribe]

I'm a webdesigner/photographer (owner of Urban Scribe Multimedia) http://www.urbanscribe.com. My suggestion would be this (cheap and easy):

Domainname: buy from http://www.godaddy.com. you can purchase it for around $7 a year.

Hosting: If your looking for reliable but inexpensive hosting, I'd suggest http://www.cyberpixels.com.

That'll set you up with the foundation to build your site. Then, you just need to decide how your going to put your site together. I great way is to use the resource provided right around here, The Exhibit Engine : http://photography-on-the.net/ee/. It's fairly easy to set up, and once it's set, you'll be able to easily update and add new catagories...along with dozens of other features.

Or, you can pay a designer to set you up with a custom site to fit your needs. This is what I do ;-). Don't want to sit here and advertise my business here but if your interest check out http://www.urbanscribe.com and contact me from there.

Hope I've helped you a bit.

[badgerdad]

Thanks, guys. This is very helpful.

[evilenglishman]

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[Bobman]

Well, I run a hosting business and currently I am designing my own photo gallery. Maybe I had completed, you may wanna try it out.....

[plarson]

badgerdad

take look at this gallery app and if you like it i can set you up in your domain hosted on our server

www.trevorlarson.com

[phuocle]

I do my own stuff too. Here's what I do:

1. Register a domain. I use www.discountdomainregistry.com and have never had a problem with them. I have about 15 domains with them and it costs $15 a year. All of the standard features are easily controlled via a web interface (change name servers, forward your domain to any web site for free, etc.) and the ability to lock down your domain so that people can't change your DNS, transfer it, etc.

2. For hosting, I use www.ntrackspace.net which gives me 600 MB of storage, unmetered data transfers, unlimited DSN's for databases, unlimited email addresses, 25 MB of SQL Server database, full web interface site controller where you can tweak the IIS settings just as if you're running your own server. All this for $79 a year. Yep, that's less than $6.59 a month!

I haven't really programmed a full gallery per se and the site is not just for photos... it's also my personal web log. But everything is in a database with a full web interface for updates anywhere around the world and I do mean anywhere - once I took shots in London, editted them on the laptop, upload them to the site from the hotel's high speed connection and posted them on the site in minutes.

Designed with style sheets so I can change the overall look at will... the current layout is kind of crappy, but I haven't had time to really design it to look cool.

Maybe in another 5 years or so. :)

[MichaelE]

OR...

If you want to go the cheap route:

Prerequisites:

- Broadband always on connection
- a Firewall (cheap D-Link or Linksys would do) $40-90
- A low end intel box and a good sized drive (You can build one of these for under $600USD)
- Some elbow grease

Assuming you can meet the above:

1. Go to a dynamic dns host (like dyndns) and register a subdomain for free.

2. Take the cheapo intel box and install your favorite Linux distro on it (I'd opt for Red Hat as there are plentiful resources for help). Get some good guidance on places like http://www.linuxquestions.org on the install and config. You'll need Apache and PHP for it for sure. Also to help out with the Admin of the box grab Webmin.

3. Download Gallery (http://gallery.sourceforge.net). Yeah, I've seen others but I like gallery the best. Especially for the publishing agent it has for XP. Verrry easy to upload.

4. Read the pre-reqs for Gallery and grab them from the net and install those.

5. Now unpack Gallery and follow the quick setup instructions and you'll have your own gallery server up in short order.

6. The next step is to download a refresh script for dyndyns and have it run as a cron job on the box. This script will publish your external address to the dynamic dns host even when your ISP rotates it.

7. Now configure the Firewall to forward all port 80 requests to the new box and voila! You now have an externally accessible Webserver and Gallery server!

I know there are some over simplifications here but I cannot express just how satisfying it is when you can control the box.

[badgerdad]

Looks like there are dozens of options. Thanks, everyone.