MacMurph.com Frequently Asked Questions

MacMurph.com Frequently Asked Questions

Questions from Visitors

I am just a regular visitor. How can I find a certain picture?

That's easy. Just use the handy search feature and type in what you are looking for on the home page in the search input field, located in the announcement box on the right. If this search string is the name of a location, part of any album or picture comment/title, our hamsters will retrieve it.

The search feature is also integrated into the URL itself, for example you find everything related to the topic 'USA' with this link: www.macmurph.com/USA.

It's all that simple. Everything you type in your browser after www.macmurph.com/ is considered as a search string and will make our hamsters search through the entire database if there is a country, a city, a picture, a journal, a keyword, just anything related to the word you submitted.

It works even with blanks. Are you looking for pictures from Gracie Watson's grave? www.macmurph.com/Gracie Watson. Easy and simple.

Some words are special, though. Like 'poty', 'news', 'forum' etc. These special words will bring you to the Picture of the Year Contest, the News section and so on.

A more advanced search is available on this page: www.macmurph.com/search

How can I find pictures showing Fools from www.fool.com?

Many photographers of macmurph.com have contributed pictures from various Fool gatherings. You will find a picture of a certain Fool if the photographer has also provided the name of the person in the picture comment or title. Just type the handle or the name of that Fool into the search box and odds are good that you will find some pictures. Good luck!

You can also browse through the Foolish pictures with these links:

www.macmurph.com/Foolsbyrecs - or www.macmurph.com/Fools (sorted by picture recommendations)
www.macmurph.com/Foolsbyhits (sorted by picture hits)
www.macmurph.com/Foolsbydate (sorted by upload date, newest pictures first)

I'd like to create a link on my Website to the Picture of the Day™. Am I allowed to do this?

Sure. I'd suggest that you use the following HTML code:

The script www.macmurph.com/photodb/potd.php points to the daily POTD™, a copy of everydays thumbnail of the picture in the size 120x120 is available under www.macmurph.com/photodb/potd/potdsthumb.jpg There is also a copy available in the size 240x160 under www.macmurph.com/photodb/potd/potdthumb.jpg You are free to use these links, however please mention macmurph.com in the link.

Other than that, all pictures are copyright protected and it is unlawful to publish a picture without the written permission of the creator.

How about privacy?

If you are pictured on a photo published on macmurph.com, then you can reserve your right that this photo showing you should be removed for what ever reasons.

Fact is that sometimes only the Photographer likes a certain shot of a person whereas the person who is shown on the Photo is anything else than flattered about it. I don't know about the legal practice in the United States but here in Germany a person who is photographed can reserve the right to decide that a photo should not be published and shown to a broader audience if that person is not a so-called 'Public Person'.

President Bush is a public Person and when somebody takes a Photo of him where he looks like an Idiot then George can't do anything when this picture is published on a Website. Whereas you and I are not public persons, we are free to decide wether or not a certain picture should be shown on a Website.

That's why I created the MacMurph.com Alert. You'll find the link 'report this picture' underneath every picture next to 'nominate this picture'. If you are shown on a picture on my Site than you can reserve your right that this photo showing you should be removed for what ever reasons:

It doesn't matter if you are just not satisfied with a single photo showing you (because you had no make-up that day or suffered from a really worse hang-over when that photo was created) or if you prefer to keep anonymous in general. The reason doesn't matter, I'll remove that picture when you alert me with this new feature.

How can I upload Pictures?

If you are a registered Member, you can upload a set of JPG Pictures as an Album. The album must be uploaded as a compressed ZIP Archive. You'll find a link to upload your ZIP archive inside the Member Area. To enter this area, you have to register.

How do I register?

You have to fill out the form at www.macmurph.com/register

What's up with the stars and cups and crowns?

We give away Stars for contributing with Pictures

	Red star, 100 pictures
	Orange star, 250 pictures
	Gold star, 500 pictures
	Purple star, 1000 pictures
	Green star, 5000 pictures
	A crown for the Top 10 Photographers with the most Recommendations of Pictures, uploaded in the last 90 days.
	The Award for the three Winners of the annual Picture of the Year™ Contest.

I was not able to vote in a poll. Why?

In order to make polls possible, we need to store little pieces of information on your computer disk, this little pieces are called Cookies. If you intended to vote in a poll and found the message "You cannot vote in this poll", just try a reload of the page with the poll. Most likely, it will work at the second time.

But if you configured your browser not to accept cookies from us we cannot let you vote in a poll.

You can learn more about Cookies here on www.cookiecentral.com

Our Cookies won't do any harm to your computer, we promise!

How can I make a donation?

Your donation is very much appreciated , you can donate by a secure online payment with PayPal or Moneybookers, you can also make a payment by regular mail or via direct deposit.
Click www.macmurph.com/donate to learn more.

Member-related Questions

How can I upload pictures?

An Album consists of one or more high resolution (Screen Width greater 800 and Screen Height greater 600 Pixels) JPEG pictures which all have something in common. The first step of the Upload process is to provide the name of your new Album. After the Upload is done and all pictures are converted and inserted into the database, you'll be able to assign geographical information and other keywords.
In this first Step, you just need to assign a Album name and decide whether or not your Album is private. (which means that only you can see the pictures of that album)
The second step of the Upload process is to compress all the JPEG pictures which belong to the Album as one ZIP Archive.
The name of this ZIP file is not important because it won't be used later. However, don't use blanks in the Filename. A name like "tmp.zip" is just fine, a name like "My First Album.ZIP" is not good.
This ZIP Archive must consist of Files with the Extension either .JPEG, .JPG or .jpg. The Filenames of the JPEG Files shouldn't contain any blanks either. "P126XYZ.jpg" is good. "my sweet Cat.jpg" is bad.
Please upload only pictures with a size of at least 800x600 width x height (landscape format) or at least 600x800 height x width (portrait format). JPG files of a greater size are recommended, files of a smaller size are not supported and won't be converted:
Each JPEG picture in any format will be reduced to smaller JPEG pictures during the process of converting them. The reason is that although the high size of let's say 2240x1680 pxiels is best for printing and publishing, it's very bad for presenting it on a webpage. It would require scrolling, takes a long time to download and since the creator eventually wants to find a buyer for that picture, it would also be a little stupid to make this picture downloadable for everybody.
So the original picture is converted into the formats 800x600, 640x480, 240x160 and 120x120. The conversion process starts immediately after the upload, you'll receive an email notification with details about the results of the conversion process and if it was successful or not.
Last not least, you may upload pictures only when you are the Copyright Holder and no third party rights are concerned.

How do I zip my JPG pictures?

If you have a Apple Macintosh with OSX (> 10.3), you can use the built-in ZIP program. Move all the pictures of the album you like to upload in a new folder. With a two-button mouse, right-click this folder and select 'Create Archive of "..."' in the popup menu. With a single button mouse, hold the <ctrl> key while clicking on the folder to get to this popup menu.

If you have a Windows box running Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP you can use WinZip which can be downloaded here: www.download.com/3000-2250-10003164.html

Does it matter how many pictures I upload in an album?

No, it doesn't matter. Although the number of pictures in an album is not limited, albums with just a small number of pictures are more recommended. The only limit which exists is that a ZIP file should not be greater than 100 MByte.

What do you consider as a small number of pictures within an album?

1 to 20 pictures.

Why shouldn't there be more pictures in an album?

For two reasons: First, any visitor will loose interest if an album is too large. The script which displays the thumbnails of an album shows 10 pictures on each page. Many visitors don't have interest to look at the entire album if there is more than one page. A visitor might look at the second page for picture 11 to 20, but the higher the page number is, it is less likely that a visitor will look at these pictures.

Second, small albums are easier to maintain.

As you probably know when you upload Pictures, you have to assign geographical information and keywords to pictures. If you upload all 20 pictures of your recent trip to Berlin (as an example) in one album, you'll probably have pictures showing people, pictures showing buildings, etc. Splitting an album will give you many advantages. It is easier for you to assign keywords to all pictures in an album with the bulk-edit feature than it is to assign keywords picture by picture which takes some time. If you have 20 pictures from Berlin, with 10 pics showing people and 10 pics showing architecture, it is be better that you upload two albums rather than one. One Album with people shots, another album with architecture shots. Then, just assign the keyword 'people' to all pictures of the first album and 'architecture' to all pictures of the second album. I come back to the keyword issue late in this FAQ.

How do I create a new and empty album?

Go to the Member Area and select 'Blank Album'. Give the name of the new album and that's it. After this step, you can move pictures from another album to this newly created one.

What if I have only one Picture I'd like to upload?

You still have to create a ZIP Archive which consists of just one JPG file. It is not supported to upload a JPG file, you always have to put it in a ZIP archive even if it consists just of a single file.

When will I see the album that I have uploaded?

Post-processing of new uploaded albums is scheduled every thirty minutes at the top and the bottom of the hour. You will receive a notification by email immediately after the post-processing (converting your pictures and inserting them into the database) is done. Just log into the member area and you'll find a link which shows the state of your last upload.

After I uploaded the pictures, I see a red link indicating that my upload has the state 'aborted'. What's up with that?

This happens when you upload a JPG file and not a ZIP file for example. It happens also if the size of all of your pictures is to small - a minimum size of 800x600 is required. Just follow the link and you'll see a detailed description of the post processing process and what went wrong.

How can I add (a) new JPG picture(s) to an existing album?

Upload the new picture(s) in a ZIP archive as a new album. After uploading the pictures, you can either select to move one picture of the new album to an already existing album or just move all pictures.

After moving pics from a new album to another, the new album is empty and I cannot delete it. Should I care?

No, don't bother with empty albums, they are deleted automatically one time a day.

I have uploaded an album marked as private. Now I like that everybody is able to see it. How do I make it public?

A: Sorry, this is not possible at the moment. However, I can change your album manually if you want. Just send me an email and I will do this for you. Not a problem.

My password doesn't seem to work.

macmurph.com still lacks of a 'Forgot password' link (Note to self: implement 'Forgot password' link) I can only assign you a new password of your choice manually. Please contact me by email and send me you preferred password.

I've received email from macmurph.com which looks very doubtful and strange to me. Is this spam? Are you a spammer?

No, I am not a spammer but unfortunately, my email address is well known and very likely being used by people who send spam messages. Everybody can always fake the 'From:' address of an email which sucks. I hate that, I really do.

I have to tell you that I will never:

send you an email without calling you by name. If you ever receive a email which starts with 'Dear user of macmurph.com' just delete it. Don't care. When I do mass-mailing I will send the email only to member who agreed to receive the email and I will start with 'Dear >member name<'
I have no information if your computer is safe in regards to viruses or not. Disregard these kinds of messages.
I will never, never ever send you an email with an attached file if you don't ask me to do that by email personally. You won't receive unsolicicated email with attachments from me.

If you ever receive an email which is doubtful, please, pretty please inform me about it. If you don't like to receive email from macmurph.com, please change the settings in your profile.

How do I suggest a picture for Picture of the Day™?

As a member, you'll find a link next to a picture thumbnail to suggest a Picture as Picture of the Day™. If you cannot see this link, then you have to login into the Member Area again because this feature in cookie driven. If you have not logged in for more than a week, the member cookie will expire and the link will not show up.

Questions about keywords

After my upload, I see some links in my member homepage about keyword assignment and adding geographical information: What's up with that?

Glad you asked. Since macmurph.com is considered to be a Photo Database, you have to assign keywords and geographical information to all the pictures of your new album. Frankly, the idea of keywords is simple: They should describe what everybody sees on the picture. If there is a tree, a mountain and a person seen on the picture, you should add the keywords 'tree', 'mountain' and 'people' to the picture. With the bulk editing feature, you can assign keywords to all pictures with a single step. Therefore, like already mentioned, it makes sense to upload small albums.

Please consider twice if you like to add a new keyword - there are already hundreds of them used. Don't assign a plural form if the singular form is already available (for example, don't add the keyword 'cats' even if there is more than one cat on your picture - just use the picture 'cat')

This link will show you a list of all keywords which are currently used: www.macmurph.com/photodb/keywords.php

What does 'Genus term' mean on this list?

Some keywords are related to each other -- for example, a cat is a mammal which is an animal. If you add the keyword cat, the keywords 'mammal' and 'animal' are added automatically. If you add 'Flamingo', then the keyword 'bird' and 'animal' is added later. You see all these relations on the list of keywords. www.macmurph.com/photodb/keywords.php

I'm trying to add a certain keyword but the system won't let me. Why?

Although we encourage and support the adding of new keywords, we must also take care that meaningful and senseful keywords are added.

Remember that keywords should be universally valid and are not only for your own usage. They should describe a certain picture in the most objective way.

Simplicity is the key. Keywords should describe things which everybody does see on the picture. Don't assign keywords that only you might find useful. Other people who use the search feature to seek for a certain picture might find your keyword useless or distracting.

The Administrators of MacMurph.COM always reserve their right to delete a certain keyword if it or its usage appears not to be appropriate.

Please contact the Webmaster or check Merriam Webster online if you are not sure about a certain word. If your keyword can't be found at Merriam Webster's, it is more than likely that it is not appropriate!

Keywords which are encouraged

Common nouns are highly encouraged. They describe one or more exampla of a certain kind (persons, animals, plants, things): man, girl, bird, tree, window are common nouns and their usage as keywords is very much recommended.
Material nouns are highly encouraged, too. Nouns like coffee, lemonade, snow, sugar, water describe material.
Adjectives which describe a color. Adjectives like red, blue, green, yellow, purple are encouraged because they describe what everybody sees on this picture.
Activity verbs. Verbs which describe an activity visible on the picture like going, climbing, driving.

Keywords which are not appropriate and should not be created:

Proper nouns. Keywords which are proper nouns like Cathy, Parker, Britain, New York, Monday are not encouraged. They describe certain persons, countries, places. New York is a City. If you want to add a city to the list please do that with the function add new City. If you want to indicate that a picture shows a person with the name 'Cathy', please use the caption or the picture comment but not a keyword. For a picture showing Cathy, that would be 'woman' or perhaps 'girl' or just 'people'.
Abstract nouns. Nouns like achievement, influence, life, opinion, principle describe abstracts. These words belong in the picture title, but not in the keyword list. The usage of these kind of words can only be subjective. Maybe you think of your picture that it describes the word "opinion" but other might not think so. Please try to be objective.
Collective nouns. Collective nouns describe a group as a whole. Examples for collective nouns are army, class, crew, family.
State verbs. To these group belong verbs which describe what somebody is and how the condition of something is, like be, look, seem, sound, consist, contain.
Verbs expressing the result of a mental process. Verbs of this group express what someone believes, knows, understands: think, know, disagree, believe.
Verbs expressing an emotional state: Verbs of this group express what someone likes, hates, dislikes.
Verbs of perception: hear, smell, taste.
All other adjectives, adverbs and verbs not mentioned above, the usage of the past or future tense, plural forms and articles.

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