I'm back!

It's been so long since I lasted posted here that some of you must have thought I was lost in the Amazon jungle! Well I am back, not from the Amazon, but from a crazily busy time with too many projects filling my life. But it's been a lot of fun! In any case, I found time to add some content to the website, such as the information on caiman natural history and a new Amazon plant quiz. It's been hard to keep up with the news updates. I'd really like to hire someone to do that (any takers?!). I've been steadily adding amazon.com ads to the pages, and revenue is creeping up there. Google ads have been doing really well. Time spent on that has been a really good investment. If I had ten websites each providing me the same monthly income, I could retire! For now it's not enough to live off, but it's a pretty steady source of income. And it's so easy! If you're interested in making money, there's a lot harder ways than Google Adsense!

News experiments

I am experimenting with news delivery systems.

Right now I am using the Mambo CMS to manage the news.

It works well and seems stable, but it's fairly basic and a bear to update regularly. I am wondering if there is a way to link directly to Google's news search page and have it appear on my page as a series of links...

My current model is to use the email updates and cull those for the best information, reformat each item and repost to my page (for example, click Latest News/Latest Amazon News).

Another issue is how to syndicate each page's content. Right now only the main page can be syndicated. Maybe it's just a Mambo thing!

My solution so far is simply to have the user take the Google news link and add it to their aggregator.

For example, for Amazon rainforest news take this link and drag it to your aggregator.
Google Amazon rainforest news
With some browsers such as Safari it will load automatically as a feed into the browser window. I like that!

As proof of concept you can also take the following links for news feeds on different subjects and put those into your aggregator:
Google Africa news
Google Galapagos news

For developers this is a useful tool because it allows them to provide a service on a relevant topic without having to edit any news content. However, it does mean the user may not revisit your site for news but will just check the feed you have conveniently provided!

On the other hand, an important caveat is that Google News is not 100% reliable and sometimes has irrelevant or repetitive content. The advantage with manually editing the CMS pages is that the quality of news delivery is higher. Again the key here is to provide content that will keep visitors coming back.

Woeful

Woefully long it is... That I've not contributed here. But today I am aiming to change that. Among my interests is science education. A group that I have belonged to for several years called MEGA, based at North Carolina State University, helps nurture this interest and keep me in touch with new and emerging ideas. The relevance for Jungle Photos is to fold these ideas into the content and functionality of the website to enhance the visitor experience. Today I went to a MEGA meeting, where one of the guest speakers was David Warlick who is at the forefront of implementing educational solutions in the classroom. He spoke of a new pardigm in information, describing the interaction of blogging and wikis as a way of creating content and communicating. This is Web 2.0, as he described. Such a scenario is consistent with business model and vision of Jungle Photos, so I am going to make further efforts to figure how to integrate the technology into Jungle Photos.

One idea I have is to use Google news to feed RSS content directly into my CMS news pages. At the moment this is a time-consuming effort involving cutting and pasting, formatting and so on. Quite an ordeal!

Some progress has been made with my other web site, SciEdge which features a BBS and a wiki. I am still figuring out how to leverage this web site!

Commiserate

With me! The sad fact is that I have been having technical "issues" so have been focused on those. Fixing a sick computer is one of those things that is a necessity, but one that's horribly time-consuming! Hence the relative lack of activity on this blog...

Aside from these latest challenges, I have been busy exporing options that are consistent with my mission in life: viz. an outlet for my love of writing and of science. Well, hope rests eternal!

So... so life goes on! Added to that our house has been half demolished from the inside out in search of elusive colonies of mold that may be hiding behind walls, under floors, and in other nooks and crannies that otherwise escape our daily (yearly!) attention.

But... but life goes on! I am thoroughly occupied with its slings and arrows, working on some great projects, meeting great people, so it's just a matter of plugging away to get things off the checklist!

More IS better!

You know, I had a lot of trouble deciding how/if to advertise on Jungle Photos. The fact is that it is getting to the point where I need to get something tangible back. Yes, thank you everyone who sends nice emails and does the survey, etc. but I really need to take care of the bottom line here. Ah, the economics of survival. Anyway, I have been adding ads (see previous post) to the website's pages, starting with the most popular and working my way down the list. And so far, it seems to be paying off, literally! Well, it's not a huge jump, but what I am seeing is an increase in book sales. It doesn't mean I can retire just yet, but it's going to add up, slowly but surely. Once the ads are set up, I can turn to content development and promotion. Hey, it's all about marketing... Capitalism works!

Adding ads—sell out?!

Okay, I confess! I have been busy adding content to the site. But most of it in recent days has been ads for useful products such as relevant books. I signed up to some affiliate programs which is a way to make money from the site without actually selling anything. So maybe it's a sell out since I always wanted the site to be free of charge. But the fact is in a year, I received barely $50 in donations and $30 of that was from my sister. I get money from Google Adsense, which is nice and covers the cost of hosting, but I don't get any compensation for my time so it is still a labor of love. Hence adding ads. But I have added new pages, some related to products and others being routine updates:
Latest Amazon, Africa and Galapagos news
Ideas Shop: Great gifts for the holiday season
Product of the Week
Technical Notes

All right, all ready!

Yes, yes, yes. I know. I've been neglectful, AGAIN! But it's only been a couple of weeks, if that. And I've been busy, busy. Check out the Jungle Photos home page, and you will see what's going on. Major new stuff! Such as a concerted effort to put amazon.com ads on each page. (Sellout! Oh well... I guess I feel like it's about time I cashed in on all my hard work since donations have been rather thin—non-existent, actually.) To supplement this I made a Product of the Week page, since the home page will have a new product featured weekly, and the Product of the Week will be an archive for those. I also made a page for technical notes so people can see how I built the site. It's been a slog! However, as I say "If you're looking for trade secrets, we're not giving anything away!"

Um, what else? I upgraded the search engine, since my software supplier (APB Systems) have a new version. It's cool, featuring more search customization choices and the ability to format the results page. I am also working on a cleaner home page design. The ads make things noisier, so I want a cleaner look and also some bells and whistles to keep things looking up to date. Watch this space for announcements!

Every time...

Yes, every time I start one thing, like providing new natural history content (sloth is next) I get distracted by another! But I hope it's worthwhile. The next project is to incorporate a payment system to use photos. I get lots of requests to use photos, and while a few kinds of personal usage are free, I do charge for other uses. It's a bit cumbersome to do all this just through emails. Sooo, I am getting systematic, baby. Yeah! I am incorporating a photo gallery function into the website. It looks great, and will be really easy to use. I have just complete running a beta version, which has all the functions but testing with only a few photos. The tough part will be to rescan all my photos to have a consistent resolution and photo naming protocol. That's what takes the time is having to go back to my originals and rescan to specifications. So watch this space! If you want to see a the beta version go here: http://www.junglephotos.com/pixstore/main.php Let me know what you think!

It's here!

Yes! As promised here and elsewhere (believe me!) the upgraded news delivery system is finally done! Well, I shouldn't say done, as it is constantly being updated. A labor of love it is—day after day, trawling the news to find articles, blogs, features and other delights and snippets to keep you informed and up-to-date about our favorite places. So, dear reader, please go visit the new pages, and let me know what you think!

http://www.junglephotos.com/cms/

New news soon!

Okay, okay, it's been ages since I penned anything here. But I have been busy! Working on developing content for the site (or would you rather I spent time writing this blog!) The big new development is a new delivery system for news related to Jungle Photos topics. No, not news about the website! You can get that here or through the Jungle Photos User's Group. The new news system is a CMS portal built with Mambo, a free software plug-in. It provides lots of cool features that will make it easier for users to get to relevant news (and easier for me to update it!). It should be online in the next few days. Watch this space for the launch announcement!

Back at Last...

Okay, so here I am, looking over my posts and noticing that almost an entire month has passed since my last entry! Ow! How did that happen? Well, I have been busy (euphemism for watching too many movies courtesy of Netflix!). No, really. My new science education site, SciEdge, is now up and running. It offers a range of features for science educators, such as a forum and a Wiki devoted to science education issues. I am now thinking about how to best implement these on Jungle Photos. Another idea is to have a competition to get feedback or ideas on various improvements I have in mind.

Image is everything!

Okay so now Blogger let's me include images with the post. Here's a nice one. Let us know what you think!

(Caption: Trunks of the cercropia tree. These trees are early colonizers of riverside sand bars and newly eroded banks. They are among the commonest Amazonian tree species.)

Rant over!

Okay, now I have said my bit, on to business. Things have been a bit slow, but not completely static. I've had some commitments to meet (what, my whole life isn't devoted to Jungle Photos!?) but those are mostly behind me so I'll do some catching up in the next week or so. A couple of days ago I finished updating the Zambia news pages. I am waiting on some help to finally put the Galapagos database online. The big deal with the Amazon part of the website was finishing up the large monkey natural history section, which took a lot of time because there is so much information available — see the list of links on that page! Upcoming is information on captive animals, whereas aforementioned pages on ethics of nature photography, definitions of endangered species and more are also in development. One exciting feature we're adding will be a model of the effects of city growth on biodiversity. It is being developed with the help of a group of students and staff of the Shodor Education Foundation, marking the first partnership of this kind for Jungle Photos. We're honored to be working with people from such a prestigious organization. The biodiversity model is based on Netlogo, a freeware program that enables users to develop their own models from scratch. The model will feature interactive variables that students can experiment with to see how a growing city affects biodiversity. Watch this space for the announcement of its "official" launch!

Comment on London

Recent events in London compel me to have my 2 cents worth, or in England, my ha'pennies worth. I was born in England, and now live in the United States. Obviously it is very painful to see what is happening over there. I was in England in March visiting my Dad who was ill at the time. Back then, it seemed that Britain was immune from the terrorists, perhaps because over the years it has been a free and open society and has offered asylum to people from more repressive parts of the world. It is a cruel irony that that very policy has made possible in some ways what we are seeing unfold. Nothing is more reprehensible and wicked than killing innocent people to achieve political ends. Yet, some would argue, that is exactly what the US and UK and other developed countries have done in Iraq. Then again, terrorist acts took place before the Iraq war. Whatever the truth of the various arguments, I can only do what is within my power, and that is to lead my life with the core belief in the ultimate value of peace; to love the people around me and to have faith in the human spirit. As my Dad once said, "Humanity's instinct to survive is stronger the instinct to destroy."

Guilt

Now I am feeling really bad! It's almost a month since I posted anything to this blog. I wonder if it's worth it, as no one has written me about it or made comments to any of the entries, but I feel it is a good record (well, the only record!) of what I am doing with the website.

It's hard work keeping up with all the stuff that needs doing, especially when I have to make a living besides! But I just finished the Malawi news page which is now up to date. Next I will carry on updating news pages and add the other content I am working on. This is listed on the home page to give people an idea of what to expect. But the big news is that I have almost finished the beta version of the Galapagos islands database. This is very exciting as it provides users a way to access statistics and information about each island through a user-selected interface. Check out the test version (it's still got bugs!).

Neglect

Yes, I have been very neglectful of keeping up here. Just too many things to do! I added a couple of new pages and have made some updates to various others. The main thing I am working on right now is to develop a Galapagos Islands database that stores information on the islands and can be queried by users. It is using a MySQL database and PHP script for the browser interface, but this stuff is hard! Even one typo can make the whole thing fail, and the error messages are quite obtuse. So I struggle on. It's getting there, one line of code at a time! But I think it will be worth it as I can then apply this knowledge to other applications, such as a database of Amazon rivers or whatever.

Quizzes!

Well, it's not "Who wants to be a millionaire?" but we think our quizzes are really cool! We've just added three self-graded quizzes about the Amazon rainforest; one is a geography quiz and there are two animal quizzes. They're a lot of fun to do! The aim is to provide teachers and students an engaging way to test their knowledge about what's on the Jungle Photos website and to learn about the Amazon rainforest. Want to test your skills? Check out the quizzes here: Amazon rainforest quizzes

Breaking news! (It's bad)

Amazon deforestation is up. About 10,000 square miles were lost in 2004, or an area the size of Maryland. Chopped down, hauled off to sawmills, burned, etc. It's gone. Instead we have fields of soybeans. That's it, I am off tofu and edamame. What's really needed is to consume responsibly. We should be eating soy products that are locally grown. Buying local produce supports local farmers, reduces fossil fuel use and, you never know, might even save an acre or two of rainforest. You can read a collection of news reports about the Brazilian government survey posted on the website.

It's late...

But work proceeds apace. Now that the spiffy new home page is done, and the sections sport a consistent look, I can shift gears to developing content. Today I added a quiz to the Amazon section, and will shortly be adding new quizzes transferred from the old site. So this is not new content as such but revamped content. What is new is a jigsaw! Check it outI found a site that will make a jigsaw from an image, so I promptly made a page. I think I need a new section, Games or something, considering
I also have a crossword to go in there. It's fun developing that stuff, but I also need to focus on the bread and butter, or what I hope will be bread and butter, lesson plans, publications and the like... Watch this space!

It's in the can!

Wow! It was a rush to the finish there, but the main work is done for now, the upgrade is complete. The Amazon section was finished off quickly, so then it was just a matter of completing the portal pages. Now all three sections can be accessed from the home page so that navigation is consistent throughout. No more frames! I made a long list of improvements and added some pages, so I am hoping that this will be reflected in increased traffic. I am developing a longer-term strategy with a view to commercializing the website to enhance its value to users. All the details can be found on the new About and FAQ pages from the portal (Home) page.