photo forum

Hi Dave,
I've always used the Opera browser ever since I've been visiting Dave's Garden and never a problem. Today, I tried to see the photos, but none of them came up. I even tried the ones I'd seen yesterday.

So, I cranked up the slow, slow Internet Explorer and the pics are showing up. Does this mean that I have to use IE on the site now? I surely hope not, 'cause it's so slow I forget what I'm trying to see. I have cable so it's not that.

thanks,
hatch

hatch,

One of the long-standing problems on my TODO is to handle the problem of "bandwidth theft", whereby people put up webpages and embed images directly off the DG server onto there page.

This causes severe slowdowns on DG, as well as costing us money to pay for the bandwidth to serve these images for their webpages.

There is only one way to solve it: restrict image viewing so that images may only be viewed while on Dave's Garden, rather than on other sites.

How do I do that? I check the "Referer" field and ensure that they are indeed on a Dave's Garden page when they try to load a picture.

Now, here is the problem. Opera has a configuration setting that allows you to hide or disable to Referer field. When that option is enabled, then when you hit the Dave's Garden site, the server does not know you are seeing an image via a DG page, and thus presumes that you are viewing the image from someone else's page, and then he won't show it.

The solution: Simply enable Referers in your browser. Let me know if you are able to do this, and if it solves the problem.

Thanks,
Dave

Dave, I was recently invited to another garden site and though I enjoy it I was concerned about their way of showing pics on it. I need to know if this is what you refer to as band width theft? Here are their instructions (edited for brevity}

How to put pics in your post--a simple primer for new members

{1} first step is aquiring an image of some sort. You can scan a photo, use a digital camera, or copy an image off of the web (Be sure the image is not copyrighted.)



{2) Your ISP should provide you with some webspace in your contract, so you could upload to them. There are also lots of free sites out there that will let you load images to them, and not charge you anything. Select the image, and upload it to one of these websites.

{3} Every image or page on the web has an "address" called an URL. The image that you uploaded another site also has an URL, Your browser displays an address bar near the top of the screen that shows the address of the site or image that is on your screen. The address that it is showing when you see your image is what you need to copy. Use the cursor and highlight the address bar, and then right click and choose "Copy".

{4}Open a browser window to this site now. You can put the pic in a reply or a new topic, it doesn't matter. You still have the image location stored in the memory of your clipboard, right? So now all you have to do in a post is to use UBB code to let others see the image on the server where you posted it. Take a look at your keyboard, right next to the "P" key. See those little [ symbols? Well, those are the key to putting your pic in a post. You start your post, and "blah blah blah. Blah Blah. Look at this pic of XYZ, it proves my point." Using the [ symbols, you need to enclose the tag "img" in a pair of the brackets, both the left and the right, like {img} this. (I used the Shift key to use the parenthesis, but you use the lower case and put in the img. Then you right click the mouse, and choose the "paste" option to paste the image location that is stored on the Windows's clipboard into the space. After your image address is pasted into the line, then you need to use the {/img} tag to close the loop. Don't forget the / symbol, it's important! If you have done everything correctly, then your pic should show up withing the post after you submit it.

Is this a legitimate way of posting or is it theft?

Zanymuse,

What you are describing is the exact process by which one can "steal bandwidth".

Having said that, we must examine what is theft and what is not. If you have an ISP (whether it is a free website company or a server that you pay for service) where you host your own images, then (unless their terms of service specifically prohibit) you may embed these images on pages across the web.

It becomes theft, however, when you use a picture on someone else's server, without their knowledge or permission.

The other site you are referring to apparantly understands this, because in Section 2 they specifically address the notion that you should be using images that you, yourself, have uploaded to an ISP or free-website (presumably Geocities and such).

Additionally, in Section 1, they specifically warn their members to make sure they are not breaking copyright laws.

If everyone in the world was responsible and didn't steal bandwidth in this manner, then there would be no problem. Fortunately, we (at DG, at least) have the technology to prevent it from affecting us.

Dave

Thanks Dave. I would hate to have my friends stealing bandwidth and not understand what they were doing!

As for me I think I'll just post my pics here. Much simpler and no chance I am doing it wrong!

Yes, and hopefully easier than uploading your image elsewhere and using HTML tags to embed it. :)

OK, Dave,
Enabled referrer logging and can now get the photos. So easy when ya know how, huh?

Thanks,
hatch

That's great news, hatch! Would you mind giving me the steps you took, so that I have the information in case any other members E-mail me with the same problem (and with Opera)?

Dave

Anyone here used the stand-alone Mozilla browser? It's what Netscape is built on, but smaller and faster. I've been reading about it and wondered what people who use it have experienced.

Hi Dave,

Just go into File>Preferences>Privacy and then check Enable referrer logging. Then click apply and ok. I must tell you, I remove the check mark when I leave this site for privacy reasons.

Gardenwife: don't know anything about the Mozilla browser, but Opera is based on mozilla. I know it's 10 times faster than IE and you don't get hangups waiting for pages to load.Every now and then you run into a site that gives Opera problems, but I just dust off IE if I really want to see it. Lots of times I just forget it and move on.

hatch

Thanks for the opera instructions, hatch. I've saved them away for future reference.

By the way, I am using Mozilla 0.9.4 as my only web browser, and I love it! I made the switch to it a couple weeks ago, and it's worked out well.

Dave