Simple Photo Server?

I have gigabytes of photos on my computer that I would like to make available for my friends and family. What is the best way to do this? I'd like to host the photos on my own home server, not upload them to any particular service. Is there some kind of photo server software available?

I currently use Lightroom 2 for organization if that makes any difference at all. I'd like to show the same organizational structure on a web page that I have in Lightroom. I'd also like to show thumbnail previews. And better yet would be the ability to grant user ID and passwords to individual users and set different permissions. But I'd be happy if I could just set up a relatively simple website my mom could go to to look at pictures of her granddaughter!

Thanks,
Chris

Flickr.com is the best suited to you reckon, it's free and you can make some photos private.
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http://www.ianfisher.info

I've not tried these, but seem to get mentioned quite often (you may need mySQL, PHP etc. installed on your server):

jalbum
coppermine

Regards,
Peter

savaytse66 said:

I have gigabytes of photos on my computer that I would like to make
available for my friends and family. What is the best way to do
this? I'd like to host the photos on my own home server, not upload
them to any particular service. Is there some kind of photo server
software available?

Click to expand...

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Ananda
http://anandasim.blogspot.com/

Use Apache. Take a fixed IP address and/or domain. Make an website that your friends should authenticate to get into et voila.
--
Victor
Bucuresti, Romania
http://s106.photobucket.com/albums/m268/victor_petcu/
http://picasaweb.google.com/teodor.nitica/
http://picasaweb.google.com/vpreallize/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/v_petcu/

What operating system do you want to host the website? At a minimum all you need is just a webserver (e.g. Apache or Tomcat). If you have a webserver all you need is jalbum ( http://www.jalbum.net )

With jalbum you just tell it where the photos are and what skin/theme you want for your website and it will create one for you. Ofcourse you can configure it to do more than just a simple website.

If you are using Linux to host the webserver then chances are you already have apache on the system. Create the website using Jalbum then copy the files onto the Apache web directory.

To access the website you need a domain name. The domain name can either point to your static IP address (if you have one from your ISP). If you dont have a static IP address you can use your dynamic address with DynDNS ( http://www.dyndns.com/ ) who will link a static IP address with your dynamic address.

--
My gallery - Feel free to C&C
http://www.DiniOnline.com

I forgot to add that if you dont want any of the hastle of hosting the site on your own server, there are hundreds of free hosting services such as the one provided by jalbum to host your site.

--
My gallery - Feel free to C&C
http://www.DiniOnline.com

ziggy25 said:

What operating system do you want to host the website? At a minimum
all you need is just a webserver (e.g. Apache or Tomcat). If you have
a webserver all you need is jalbum ( http://www.jalbum.net )

With jalbum you just tell it where the photos are and what skin/theme
you want for your website and it will create one for you. Ofcourse
you can configure it to do more than just a simple website.

If you are using Linux to host the webserver then chances are you
already have apache on the system. Create the website using Jalbum
then copy the files onto the Apache web directory.

To access the website you need a domain name. The domain name can
either point to your static IP address (if you have one from your
ISP). If you dont have a static IP address you can use your dynamic
address with DynDNS ( http://www.dyndns.com/ ) who will link a static
IP address with your dynamic address.

Click to expand...

Well, right now I run Windows Small Business Server 2003 for an internal network for my small business. It's on 24/7, but I do not currently use it to host a website or anything. I also have a Vista x64 PC behind the server that's on 24/7, and it's my workhorse.

I currently pay a very minimal fee to a web hosting service for hosting the few domains I own, as well as my e-mail. Ideally, I'd like to use my web host and just set up a simple website that points to my personal or server PC where the photos are. I'd rather not have to upload gigbytes of photos, especially since I have just a basic hosting package and there is limited storage space available to me. But on my PC I have several Terabytes of free space.

I've since found that my hosting service offers Fantastico, which has available 4Images Gallery, Coppermine Photo Gallery, and Gallery. I know nothing about these "programs", but it sounds like they may do what I'm looking for. If anyone has any experience with them, I'm all ears. And I already own a domain that I don't use right now that would be perfect to set up as a photo site. I guess I could also just install Apache (or maybe there's already a web server built into SBS 2003?) and then install one of the aforementioned programs on my server.

By the way, I'm not very savy when it comes to building websites, so maybe hosting my on on my server PC is beyond me. Even though I maintain my server and have a webpage for my small business, I'm not an expert by any means, so something relatively user friendly would be best. I'm open to something like Flicker, or Smugmug, but I'd really like a solution where I don't have to upload my photos to someone else's site. I'd rather just redirect "visitors" to the files on my PC. But maybe that's not easily doable.

Thanks,
Chris

Check out http://www.homeserver.com . Windows Home Server is in the same family as Small Business Server but is targeted at home users. You can share photos, back up computers... very easily.

savaytse66 said:

would be perfect to set up as a photo site. I guess I could also
just install Apache (or maybe there's already a web server built into
SBS 2003?) and then install one of the aforementioned programs on my
server.

Click to expand...

SBS should have IIS as a standard option. That's Microsoft Internet Information Server. You could install Apache, but production Apache is happier on Linux.

I don't think it's a great idea to mix fun with business esp when you are not a server geek. Installing additional software on a stable business platform and exposing it to the Web when it isn't yet is mixing it. Particularly as with any web server you then have to patch for security vulnerability often compared a server than is not exposed to the web.

--



Ananda
http://anandasim.blogspot.com/

AnandaSim said:

SBS should have IIS as a standard option. That's Microsoft Internet
Information Server. You could install Apache, but production Apache
is happier on Linux.

I don't think it's a great idea to mix fun with business esp when you
are not a server geek. Installing additional software on a stable
business platform and exposing it to the Web when it isn't yet is
mixing it. Particularly as with any web server you then have to patch
for security vulnerability often compared a server than is not
exposed to the web.

Click to expand...

I agree with this, and I've decided to give smugmug a chance. I figure that there's no reason to share 100% of my photos, especially since many of them are a result of exposure bracketing, or continuous shoot; photos that aren't really worth having to anyone else. I'll just be selective and upload what I want. If I like it, $40/year is a lot less expensive than the time I'll have to put in setting up my own web server.

Chris

I have been looking for some photo album software for my website and I found Coppermine in my Control Panel yesterday and thought I would try it.

I love it. Very easy to use. I modified one of the templates which was okay to do.

http://www.robinsphotos.org

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Robin
Pentax K100D
Pentax SMCP-FA 50mm F1.4
Sigma 70-300 F4-5.6 APO DG MACRO
Pentax AF-540 external flash