Posted in Mopar Style

NEW Photo Upload Feature

   March 26, 2017
You now have the ability to upload photos in your posts. BUT PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE MESSAGE to understand the limitations of doing so. I personally don't upload photos on this site, and instead host elsewhere.

In the past, I've hesitated giving members the ability to upload photos for Three Reasons
  1. I have a file limitation on number of files on the server and each photo constitutes a file
  2. I frequently back up the site and keep multiples of backups. Each backup is a virtual mirror of site and takes a lot of disk space. Likewise, my offloading of these backups to my computer are already long and time consuming, and adding the ability virtually double the size of the site with photos complicates this even more. Further, should I have to restore the site from a backup, it will be more complicated and take me longer.
  3. I have limited resources (CPU and Memory) on a shared server. Loading and displaying photos on the same server is very resource intensive. If resources are maxed, others wait until resources become available to process their request. A much better way, and the way I use with www.oldhippiesphotos.com) is to have photos hosted on a different server, such as a free photo hosting service.
All of that said, there has been major resistance to using the incredibly simple process of an image hosting service, and many complaints of not being given the costly (to me) privilege of uploading photos on this server. As such I doubled my monthly costs by upgrading to next level of shared hosting. This has increased the number of files and doubled resources to process and serve up information on this site. This now allows me to offer Limited photo uploading to members as follows:
  • Registered Members can upload a total of 50 photos, with a maximum size of 600X600px, with a total amount of 50MB
  • Premium Members can upload a total of 75 photos, with a maximum size of 600X800px, with a total amount of 100MB
  • Lifers Members can upload a total of 100 photos, with a maximum size of 600X800px, with a total amount of 500MB
So there you are. If you want to upload photos and don't want to use a free photo hosting service, you can with the above limitations. Use it wisely.

My concern is that this may create a resource issue where there will be occasional long waits or Server Busy errors if too many people are on the site at same time. If that occurs, there is one more share hosting option with will again double resources, and also again doubling my month server costs (prepaid for 36 months for best price) which I'll try if needed.

If you are having issues posting photos, post the detail circumstances here so I can fix. There are a lot of settings I had to change for each group of members, and I may need to tweak to get it right.

If you see a thread where someone is bringing up the topic of photo posting, please refer them to this topic. For more information on how to post photos, see the Help Me link in Navbar.

If you see a question posted on this topic that you know the answer to, roll me a bone and help the person asking the question.

Thank you
Author: BK