Calendar - volunteer(s) wanted.

[Nick]

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I don't know if I can keep the calendar up any longer - it's been over ten years, and other things in life are needing prioritised right now.

It's not rocket science - eight or nine different sizes to be created from a suitable photo, then a suitable calenedar graphic edited and pasted into the photo as a transparent gif or png. Basic search and replace editing of the relevant html files, upload using FTP (Filezilla) and that's it. It usually takes me about an hour, though a new hand would take a bit longer at first.

I can provide detailed instructions if anyone thinks they would be able to take this over.

[claymore]

I would love to do this. However the results would be complete ratshit so best I don't. However, there are a number of testically minded faloriumites whom I am sure would find this a piece of duff,so in order to maintain the wonderfulness of this great place in cyberspace - dip yer bread.

[Rowana]

I have the time now that I'm retired, although my knowledge of anything to do with graphics is zero, zilch, nada.

I worked with databases for maintenance management systems - Maximo, Engarde Etc., and also planning tools - Artemis, Primevera, Open Plan Etc. I also did a bit with Business Objects reporting tool.

With this background, your instructions would need to be in words of one syllable, and you'd have to be open to a few fcuk-ups while I learned.


If you think I could manage, I'm willing to give it a go.

Jim

[Nick]

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Jim,

I'm sure you could manage it, but my first choice would be someone who already uses some form of graphics software for photo manipulation and understands the basics of cropping, sharpening etc.

The rest is pretty easy to teach.

Do you tweak your digital photos?

This task could also be split among two or more calendarians doing it alternate months.

[Rowana]

The only tweaks I do to my digital photos is get rid of any red-eye, and that's about it. I don't have any specific graphic tweaking software other than that which came with the computer and the camera.

Not a lot of help, am I?

[DaveS]

I would volunteer, but I'm afraid my photo manipulating skills are a bit limited. I can do some things, like set picture sizes in pixels, and have done the occasional crop - which sometimes even gave me what I wanted - but much of the time I'm asking questions like "Why the feck did it do that when I asked it to do this?".

[Nick]

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I guess I am looking for a Photoshop, Corel or PaintShopPro user who is familiar with the basics, has an eye for a good crop and can tell when judicious use of the 'sharpen' tool, gamma correction or some other simple tweak will improve things.

Loads of amateur digital photographers do this sort of thing . . . surely there must be someone out there who can rise to this challenge? Do it for a year, say, then we look for someone else if you are fed up with it.

[lady_stormrider]

Unless you can supply the latest cobol compiler I would struggle. Most of my computing was done in Pascal

[MrMcP]

OK, I just gave this a quick whirl. Took about 15mins to figure out what to do without any artistic merit whatsoever (i.e. get the table of calendar dates onto an image as a transparent layer using a quick-and-dirty combination of Word, Gimp and some old photos). The time consuming bit is I suppose what follows each month for uploading if it's changing HTML files etc. If there were a few contributions already available now then I would be happy to get maybe 6 months done in one go and shove them in a photobox account for people to download at will. If it's finding the time and sourcing photos each month then I'd be less capable of producing something on time.

See terrible example 1 here http://s163.photobucket.com/user/andymc ... 6.jpg.html or for a wider screen here http://s163.photobucket.com/user/andymc ... 6.jpg.html Obviously suggestions for preferred fonts, placement (I understand leaving a left border for app icons works better) etc and I'd probably be able to brush up a bit.

Let me know either way. I have a bit of time this weekend and a large screen monitor at my disposal so happy to invest a few hours in return for the months of calendars I've downloaded over the years. After this weekend it's all a bit frantic until November.

[Nick]

OK, I just gave this a quick whirl. Took about 15mins to figure out what to do without any artistic merit whatsoever (i.e. get the table of calendar dates onto an image as a transparent layer using a quick-and-dirty combination of Word, Gimp and some old photos). The time consuming bit is I suppose what follows each month for uploading if it's changing HTML files etc. If there were a few contributions already available now then I would be happy to get maybe 6 months done in one go and shove them in a photobox account for people to download at will. If it's finding the time and sourcing photos each month then I'd be less capable of producing something on time.

See terrible example 1 here http://s163.photobucket.com/user/andymc ... 6.jpg.html or for a wider screen here http://s163.photobucket.com/user/andymc ... 6.jpg.html Obviously suggestions for preferred fonts, placement (I understand leaving a left border for app icons works better) etc and I'd probably be able to brush up a bit.

Let me know either way. I have a bit of time this weekend and a large screen monitor at my disposal so happy to invest a few hours in return for the months of calendars I've downloaded over the years. After this weekend it's all a bit frantic until November.

OK, you've got the gig - many thanks. If you just send me all the calendars at the necessary sizes/resolutions I will find time to do the html bit each month - it is actually the quickest bit provided the photos are all names according to the same convention.

The calendar is currently provided at 1024 x 600 1024x768 1280x1024 1366x768 1280x800 1680x1050 and 1920x1080 and I use a 300x225 thumbnail as the teaser each month, so eight shots in all. Naming convention is

Peeps, send this man any suitable photos and let him choose.

[MrMcP]

Hi Nick, I've not received any photos at full original to use, and I head off abroad tomorrow morning for a week, so I've thrown a quick batch together for October and will look to do the next few months when I get back. The naming convention part of your message was missing, so I've named them with the resolutions and hopefully they'll all make sense to you.

In case you don't get time to make the page up before the start of the month, here's the direct links:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/673 ... 24-600.JPG 1024 x 600
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/673 ... 24-768.JPG 1024 x 768
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/673 ... 80-800.JPG 1280 x 600
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/673 ... 0-1024.JPG 1280 x 1024
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/673 ... 66-768.JPG 1366 x 768
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/673 ... 0-1050.JPG 1680 x 1050
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/673 ... 0-1080.JPG 1920 x 1080
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/673 ... mbnail.JPG Thumbnail

Apologies for the relatively dull image, just wanted to get one with actual boats sailing out for the first month and I've not been blessed with sunshine on trips this year.

Cheers,

Andy

[Rowana]

I did try and send you a copy of a photo, but perhaps you didn't get it. Either that or it wasn't in the right format or something.

I'm not sure of the best way to sent you photos, so perhaps if you could send me an idiots guide . . .

Jim (prize idiot!)

[Nick]

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I don't know why, but I found a photo and wanted to calendarise it - so November's is done and will go up in th usual way. If you want to skip straight to December for the next one - or alternatively people can have a choice.

[marisca]

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I don't know why, but I found a photo and wanted to calendarise it - so November's is done and will go up in th usual way.

Oh, bugger, it was so nice to have the calendar available on the 1st of the month for a change.