Website Photo Contest

[Renee Mattie]

We're looking for a few good photos of Rock Hall Sailing Club members racing, cruising, and socializing together. See your photo featured at the top of the RHSC web page, and win a fabulous prize!

Share your pictures of us doing all the things we love doing. Racing, cruising, or socializing. Showing full sails or lots of bottom paint. At anchor in a lovely setting. At the auction. Kids and pets . New sailors. Experienced sailors. Excitement. Contentment. Relaxation. It's all part of the RHSC experience.
To enter, post a photo to the Spring 2010 Photo Contest Album. Any RHSC member may enter.

Here's what you'll need to do:

• If you are not already signed up at the RHSC website, please follow the instructions at http://rockhallsailingclub.org/smf/index.php?topic=2.0
• Please remember to contact the Administrator to get recognized as a RHSC member
• Go to the Spring 2010 Photo Contest album and click Add an Image to this Album.
  

If you are signing up for a new account, we will confirm your RHSC membership as quickly as we can.

Good Luck!

[Mary Jo Harris]

Have made multiple attempts to test this application over the last seven hours.  No luck.  Error 505 Internal Server Error.

I thought the whole process was pretty complicated.  Unless you are familiar with social websites, you wouldn't figure out how to select a photo and upload it at all.  I'm not sure anyone could find the gallery of entries, either.

The server error doesn't have anything to do with my photo, but when that happened, it really added to the discouragement factor.

[Administrator]

Mary Jo,
I agree that this is discouraging.
I did see that this error was occuring for images much over 100KB in size.

I believe the problem is now resolved. I'm sorry I had not done my testing with larger filed.

Thanks for letting me know about the problem, and for your usability comments.
What do you think would make uploading pictures easier?
Is there too much complicated stuff on the "Add an item to this album" form?

I did notice that the email announcement stripped most of the links right out of the message.
I had forgotten that would happen.

I had delayed sending a message out to the entire email list while I looked into the problem.
I will send it out tomorrow, making sure that all the links from the original website post appear in the general email.

[Mary Jo Harris]

OK....I'm back at the laptop, Renee, and your correction to the photo size seems to have worked perfectly.  I successfully uploaded three pictures from my photo collection and added them to the contest board.  It would appear that so far, I'm the contest winner by default, even though I was just testing the system!

Still think the page is bound to intimidate most visitors, and finding things will challenge all but the most determined members.   

My next challenge will be to try to upload a .pdf flier for the first cruise.  Haven't designed it yet, so get ready for my cries of anguish.

I can tell you now that I can't remember how to add content, but I do remember it was a nightmare to format text or add photos.  I assume the new option to stick in a .pdf file will solve the formatting difficulty.  Also, I'm not sure where to add my files so cruise announcements don't get mixed in with treasurer's reports and party photos, and how will I link cruise announcements to the calendar, and how do I change the calendar when there's an error (for instance, Baltimore Cruise will be THREE days starting on Friday 6/18 for those who can get out of Dodge before the weekend rush).

[Administrator]

Thanks, Mary Jo,

That's a good start to our contest.
I do hope that using the gallery will make it easy for officers and all RHSC members to add documents to share with the club.
I will be happy to set up an area for Cruising Captain's Reports.  You can file any PDF or DOC files there. And I will work on incrementally making the pieces easier to use.

And on using them to make our website more interesting and informative.
I hope the second mailing is more helpful than the first -- I added back in the links that get stripped out when the email is sent, and that we'll get lots of response from club members.

[Alan and Jane Maunus]

Hi, I cant find the link to "add an image"
any help?
alanjane
ajmaunus@hotmail.com

[Administrator]

That's because you hadn't been confirmed as a RHSC member. 
I'll take this post as a request to put you in as a member -- it's not an automatic process, because we don't want any old spammer to become a member.

The links given above will work for members.

Like this one:
http://rockhallsailingclub.org/smf/index.php?action=media;sa=post;album=8