Rodger Kingston has a nice collection of snapshots – The Snapshot Century
Richard Woodward’s review of Looking In: Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans’
Techmeme adds 6 editors; human aided algorithms are more effective than just software.
James Pomerantz is blogging his days in photo MFA Land. Here’s a recommended photography related reading list from his program
Image Journal - faith and art. I just subscribed to their feed and am looking into picking up a subscription to their quarterly journal. They have also just released Bearing the Mystery: Twenty Years of Image.
I noticed my feeds stopped updating after I installed the Drupal update. After a bit of searching I read that I needed to patch the core files because of an issue with updating and cron. So in hope of remembering how to insall a patch to the core the next time I have to do this I am writing the command down. I downloaded the patch with wget into the main directory. I then ran patch -p0 < filename.patch. It sucessfully updated the errant code and all is now well. This issue was related to the FeedAPI module and cron not updating my feeds.
Twelve rolls of film processed over the weekend and I’m almost done editing. Then on to scanning. I have a little work to do to clean up my file management structure. I’m trying to get things organized before they get too far out of control. I’m thinking about utilizing Adobe Bridge to manage metadata.
I have a book problem and the photo-eye bookstore is a dangerous place. By the way, they have done a nice job of incorporating their affiliation with Amazon into the site.
Scoble on Twitter lists – changing the way he consumes news.
War Is Personal, by Eugene Richards – from The Nation.
“A good photojournalist is also someone who reads a lot and understands the world at more than a superficial level. And who is sceptical about what’s going on” – Eugene Richards.
Lieca’s obsesson with special editons – I have never understood this – Hermes M7.
Film Developing – processed 8 rolls yesterday; 4 Kodak Tri-x and 4 rolls of Fuji Neopan 1600. 4 left for today, then on to editing and scanning. Right now I’m using HC-110 for everyting. I’m trying to keep things consistent and simple, but I fail often and end up trying new developers. So far I’ve used Xtol, Diafine and HC-110. The Massive Dev Chart is a great reference for developing times.
I needed to update my Drupal installation for The Nonprofit News Network site so I decided to tackle that this morning. I was in a bit of a hurry (first mistake) and so I backed up my sites/ directory first then ran the Fantastico update script (I did the original install with this tool so figured I should use it for the upgrade as well). It backs up your installation then runs the update. I copied the text message that gave me instructions on how to use the backup if things did not go so well. Well, they did not go so well. I hit my home page and pretty much nothing. I was able to get to the admin page so I started trying to figure out what went wrong. I took a peek in the sites directory and noticed that my modules and theme was missing. I untarred that directory to restore those files but I was still getting errors. A quick Google of the error (warning: array_map() [function.array-map]: Argument #2 should be an array) led me to the solution.
I needed to enable my theme and all of the modules I used for the site. After I did that the error went away and most of the site functioned. The next step was to reset the permissioning for certain content views. I just logged out and went through the site to see what was missing and then changed those permissions. The last step involved a few theme tweaks. So far it looks pretty good.
Lessons learned:
| 1. Don’t do this if you are in a hurry; also best done early on a Sunday morning or other low traffic time for your site. Put you site in maintenance mode first then get to work. |
| 2. If I had it to do over I don’t think I would have installed with Fantastico or other automated script. Probably would have been a bit easier or at least I would have had more control over the upgrade. |
| 3. Read the upgrade instructions and make sure you back up directories and files that you have customized. If you install your modules and themes in the sites/all directory it makes this process much easier. |
| 4. Check to make sure your modules and theme is enable after the upgrade. You might want to document what modules you have enabled, especially if you have a complex installation. |
From the Business Insider, “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late“.
I need to create a nonprofit Twitter list for npnewsnetwork.
Insert photo test.
I know it is not ready for primetime yet, but I can’t get Lifeliner to “save”. I keep getting this error, “Can’t find a sub-table named “textRouter”". I think I am going to like this if I can get it to work. Post to the blog and send selected entries to twitter.
dpBestflow is the new guide for every aspect of digital imaging technology from ASMP, the leader in education for the professional photographer.
Great photoshop tutorial on curves.
Various printing methods using Ultratone B&W inks.
This is a test post using the OPML editor. I’m interested in using this to post to Twitter and my blog. Mostly links and some longer pieces every once in awhile.
The OPML editor is an outliner at heart – with several interesting new features. This is a second level.
I just recently launched the Nonprofit News Network, a news aggregation site focused on the world of nonprofits. Why you might ask? Well, first of all I have an interest in the business of nonprofits. I was also looking for a technical project that would allow me to develop a news aggregation site using open source tools. In this case I chose Drupal.
Why Drupal?
I chose Drupal because of its robust open source community and secondly for the FeedAPI module that allowed me to easily setup feeds and bring content into the system.
While I was familiar with Drupal as an open source content management framework I had never worked with it before. I quickly realized after researching it at drupal.org, that there is a robust and well developed community of open source developers that contribute modules to the Drupal core that extend its functionality. I would guess that if there is something you are trying to accomplish, there is a developer out there who has probably created a module to help solve that problem.
I am also not a programmer, so I needed a content managment system that would allow me to develop a site based on my needs with a minimum of php or other code hacking. The FeedAPI module is a great example of meeting my needs. I knew that I wanted to bring in feeds of content that pertained to the nonprofit sector and I also needed to be able to do this quickly with a minimum amount (or none ideally) code tweaking. By using the FeedAPI module I was able to do just that.
A few thoughts on what version to use, 5.x or 6.x. Drupal offers you the ability to install two different versions of the system, the 5.x or the latest 6.x release. Initially I thought I was going to have to use the 5.x version because the server specs of my hosting provider, Hosting Matters, did not match the 6.x requirements. I dropped them a note and they were able to move me to a different system that would support the 6.x version.
I would recommend going with the 6.x version if you are developing a new site. The most popular modules all have 6.x support and at some point (I am guessing) the 5.x version will no longer be actively supported.
There is a new, 7.x version in the works. At some point in the future I am sure I will have to weigh the advantages of migrating my site over. Luckily for me, I think I have some time before I have to make that decision.
My approach
The basic goal of the site it to provide a single web destination that aggregates the best of news, blogs and other content as it relates to nonprofits. I wanted to manually edit the site instead of just letting the content flow through, so I also needed a way to bring the content in, categorize it and then stage it, ready to be edited.
I created my “taxonomy” for the site by breaking the content down into the following categories: Nonprofit news, marketing, fundraising, technology, management and jobs.
Currently I have over 80 feeds coming into the system and I review and edit the content each morning prior to heading into work (I called this project my 5 a.m. job, although I usually don’t make it out of bed until 5:30). I have also created a content type that allows me to manually post content I find interesting from other sources on the web such as newspaper, magazine and blogs that have articles relating to the subject of nonprofits.
I also wanted to post items to Twitter (there’s a module for that).
The details
Once I had Drupal setup and installed at my domain, I began the task of identifying the core modules I thought I would need to build out the site. I spent a lot of time at drupal.org and also doing some web searches to discover how people were approaching various web development problems with Drupal. Here are my del.iciou.us Drupal links.
I found Sean Effel’s Drupaltherapy.com site particularly helpful. In the beginning I watched this screencast on the FeedAPI over and over.
I determined that I needed the following modules to start:
Once I had those modules setup, I began the task of creating some feeds and bringing content into the site. I initially thought I would make more use of the Feed Element Mapper and CCK fields, but I found that for my use (primarily inbound RSS feeds) I was able to do little to no mapping to custom fields and still get the display I needed.
Initially I chose one feed that I thought would be the least problematic, included full-text and other RSS metadata. Once I had that setup and content was flowing into the system, I started working on how to display it on the site.
I knew that I wanted content to be available on the site in four areas or methods: at the “article” level, within a category level (for example, all marketing stories), on the home page and in an archive (by date).
I started at the article or “node” level in Drupal’s vocabulary. Given that this is an aggregation site, I wanted to display only a certain number of characters, the source of the article and a link to the original article.
This probably took me the longest to get it just the way I wanted it to display. I went through several iterations before settling on my final approach. First of all I would recommend doing as much of this work as possible in the Views module. It will take you awhile to get your head around this powerful module, but it is worth the effort. I ended up using views and made a small customization to the node template in order to link the source to the original article url.
I won’t go into the details in this post, but I’m slow, and it took me awhile to figure this out. Views will often get you 90% of the way, but for that final push, you may need to use some php and tweak the template files. But this really all depends on what you are trying to accomplish.
I used the Taxonomy module to create the sections of the site. I also assign feeds to a category as I create them in the system. That way I can edit or view all content based on the category.
I still am struggling a bit with the display of content on the site. I chose the Newswire theme as it seemed to offer the basic framework for what I was trying to build out-of-the-box. I have not customized it at all at this point. I have some tweaks that I would like to make, but for now I’m pretty happy (well, at least for version 1) with the layout and look of the site.
Theming is another aspect of Drupal that is going to take me some time to learn. I’m not that solid with CSS, but I know enough to hack around and make changes when needed. Again, there are a lot of themes out there and depending on your needs, you could probably get a site up and running without ever learning the ins and outs of theming.
Once I had the site up and running I added a few more modules. The Twitter module offers several features, but I am using it to post content to the npnewsnetwork handle I setup on Twitter. There is a check box in the content admin area and once that is selected and I hit publish, the post is created at my Twitter account. This module provides me with a simple, automated way to post content to Twitter.
Overall it took me about three weeks (on a part-time basis) to get the site up and running. To date I have been very happy with my technology choice and I know I’ll continue to improve and add features as I move forward with the development of the site.
If you have any questions regarding the specifics on how something was implemented post a comment or drop me a note. I would be happy to share what I have learned. It might not be the “best” way to get it done, but it works for me.
I need to pay more attention to this place and less to twitter. I’ll post some new content soon. I’m thinking about a piece on purchasing a rangefinder camera. I have learned a lot along the way and someone out there might find it useful. I’m also thinking about an aggregation project with an implementation in Drupal. We’ll see…
I learned this morning that Bill Jay died. When I was attending Arizona State University and majoring in photojournalism, I had to take Jay’s photo history classes as part of my schedule. If I remember correctly, the class met once a week for 2 or three hours. I have to confess it was probably the only class that I never missed.
His knowledge of early photographic processes and history was infectious. His second class also exposed me to photographers like Robert Frank, Josef Koudelka, David Hurn, Bernard Plossu and others. From Jay I discovered the world of Magnum and european reportage photography.
He and his close friend David Hurn wrote a book called “On Being A Photographer“. If you are a photo student, no matter your age, go out and buy it now. It is the one book I wish I had when I was in college. I bought it last year and I read it over and over trying to get the lessons to sink in.
I also recommend you read this essay, one of many, that is collected at Bill’s site. It is called “Life/Work. Here are two quotes that mean a great deal to me. I reflect on them often to keep me focused on what is important.
“A photograph is the end product of someone caring about something ‘out there. ’ The best photographs exude this caring attitude in a manner which is not definable but which is very evident.”
A unique style emerges in photography by ignoring it, concentrating on the subject, and allowing care, passion and knowledge to bubble to the surface through a lot of hard work over a long period of time. That is why the best photographs are truly reflective of the photographers. The pictures become extensions of the person and it is evident that a personal style has emerged, which cannot be confused with the works of any other photographer.
I also have a signed copy of his, “Photographers Photographed“. When I lived in Arizona, his daughter Juliet worked at a photo lab that I used. I brought the book in and asked her if she could get her dad to sign it. Thanks.
More obits here:
Marketing photos with Mary Virginia Swanson
The Online Photographer
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