We have just added a new feature to the site that I am very excited about. It's called the
bonsaiTALK Museum
This is an exhibition area where you can share your favorite bonsai, suiseki and watergardens, and other people can comment on and even rate your postings. You can also send e-cards and use the search utility to find bonsai of a particular species or style.
Here are some common searches
HOW IT WORKS
Every forum member is already enabled to use the system. All you have to do is click over to the
bonsaiTALK Museum select the Members folder and upload your photos. The system takes care of resizing and generating thumbnails.
You can even include some descriptive comments and keywords: In the description area, please let us know the tree's common name, Latin name (if you know it) height, age and how many years in training. You can include some info about how you acquired the tree or stone, and anything you think is interesting about it.
The administrator will help out with the latin names and keywords to make everything work smoothly.
LET'S MAKE THIS GREAT!
Post only your best pictures of the trees you're proudest of. They needn't be your own trees so long as you have permission to post the photo. Remember, as Bill Valavanis used to say, "we don't want bad photos of good bonsai or good photos of bad bonsai."
Please keep your postings to one photo per tree. This isn't a help-me page or a how-to page or a what-is-this tree page, and it's certainly not a for-sale site. This is the bonsaiTALK museum!
HOW TO GET to the bonsaiTALK Museum
1. Right from here
Anytime you're browsing the forum, you can just click on a user's "My Bonsai Exhibit" link under their names over at the left and you'll be transported to THEIR bonsai page. Is this cool or what?
2. from the Main index page
I added a bonsaiTALK museum link right beneath the General directory on the forum index page.
HOW TO UPLOAD YOUR PHOTOS
Once you're in the Museum, Just click on the upload link and upload your photos right into your own member directory. If you want you could create a subdirectory there like My Bonsai and My Suiseki, but I don't see the need. You can always move the photos later if your pages become too crowded.
When you upload a photo you can include your own details, and select whether or not you want notification when someone comments on your tree.
WHAT'S AN E-CARD?
An E-card is an electronic picture postcard that the system sends off to your intended recipient together with your message. The card Sender needs to be a forum member, but the recipient does not. You may send an e-card with ANY image in the gallery by clicking the E-card link when you are viewing the image.
CAN I CREATE MY OWN ALBUMS?
Each user has his own album reserved, but if you'd like, you can also create subfolders within your own album. You might want to put your trees in one and suiseki in another for example. This is entirely optional.
If you would like to post photos of a club show, just drop me an email and I will create a folder for you in the Shows area, or you can upload the photos to your own space and I will move them for you.
HOW MUCH SPACE DO I GET?
Members start out with a 2MB allocation, which is enough for dozens of photos. Regular contributors can get more space on a discretionary basis. If you start to run short on space, drop me a line.
HOW BIG SHOULD MY PHOTOS BE?
The system automatically creates thumbnails and one or two different size images. We recommend that your image be at least 600 pixels on the horizontal axis. Images larger than 640 pixels wide will have two sizes available: Medium and small. The maximum image size is 800 pixels wide by 640 pixels tall. If you upload anything larger than that, it will be resized to those dimensions.
CAN I SHARE MY PAGE WITH OTHERS?
If you'd like, there is an easy link to for your page that you can use in your signature files on other websites or share with friends:
http://pictures.bonsaitalk.com/user/name
where name is your username on this forum. For example
http://pictures.bonsaitalk.com/user/TreeBay is mine.
Questions? Just click my pm button (below) and drop me an email.
Regards,
Matt.