TIP: Print this help guide out for future reference while you are using the site. [Choose PRINT from the FILE menu, above]

We have made every effort to provide as much help and direction in this site as we can within the pages themselves. You will find detailed instruction at the top of each section of each page. If you are still struggling, hovering your mouse over text fields, buttons, or pictures for 2 seconds or more should produce pop-up advice that will tell you what the relevant field, button, image is for.

If the pop-up help is not showing at-all, when hovering over any text field, picture, or button; you may need to upgrade your browser. This site has been optimized for Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 or better. You may download the latest version form Microsoft's web site for free.

Please see below for a guide to the 5 basic steps involved in building and maintaining your gallery.

If you are still stuck, please email us by clicking here. We also welcome observations, comments and suggestions that will help improve the site.

• The 5 Step Gallery gives details of the 5 simple steps involved in creating and editing your gallery from start to finish.
  • Step 1 Introduction/Create Album
  • Step 2 Album Titles/Shop (advanced users only)
  • Step 3 Upload/Name Pictures
  • Step 4 Add details
  • Step 5 Tell your friends
• View Your Site
• Edit Your Profile
  • Rebuild/Update Layout
• Prepare Your Pictures
  • Format
  • File Size
  • Transfer
  • Edit
  • Scale
  • Save
  • Small Version
• Add Sound Allows you to attach a sound file (music, effect, voice annotation, etc.) to an image.
• Technical issues and trouble shooting

Your gallery can be built, edited, and maintained by following five simple steps. Each step is a page. When you log in you will be directed to step 1, and from there on until you reach step 5. You need not use all of the functions or features in each step. Below you will find a guide to the features and functions of each step.

TIP: Be sure that you click the indicated button before proceeding to the next step.

STEP1: Here you will be asked to enter introductory text and choose a picture that will appear on the first page of your gallery. If you have not added any pictures to your gallery the default image will be selected.

Below the introduction you will find an area which allows you to create a new album. You can have many different albums for different sets of pictures. To create a new album, enter a name for it in the text area and click 'Create'. Note, you must create an album before you can add images to you gallery.

Finally in this step, at the bottom of this page you will find a list of current albums. From here you can delete selected albums completely, or choose an album to edit or add pictures to by clicking on the album name in the list. Clicking an album name will allow you to proceed to STEP 2

STEP2: Here you will enter titles for any data you may wish to add about each image. When you gallery is displayed you can add text in up to 5 categories about the image. In step 2 enter up to 5 title that will describe the text you will enter about a picture later. For example, I may choose to have the following titles: 'Title', 'Date', 'Location', 'Description', and 'People'. Try these your self if you are unsure.

This step will also allow you to change the name of this album if you wish. Just enter a new name in the field provided and click 'Re Name'

Finally in this step, advanced users may wish to turn on the 'buy button' As part of a Nimbiz.com web site, members are able to set up a shop facility that can be used in conjunction with the gallery. If you are a qualified Nimbiz member just tick the box and click update to enable this feature. NOTE: This function will not effect stand-alone gallery sites.

Click 'Proceed to STEP 3 >>>' to move on to STEP 3

STEP3: This step works in the same way as STEP1. It will display a list of current images in your album and allow you to add new ones.

You can add up to 10 pictures at a time provided they fit the file type (GIF or JPEG) and file size (<25k)criteria. Use the browse button to find stored images on your computer and name your images for easy reference later by entering a title in the text area next to each browse box. Click 'Upload' to publish your current set.

Pictures currently in your album, or those you have just uploaded, will appear in the picture list at the top of STEP3. To edit an image simply click on its name in the Title column. This will lead you to STEP 4

Finally, you may choose to delete certain pictures from this album in this step by selecting the tick boxes next to images you wish to remove and then clicking the 'Delete' button beneath.

STEP4: In this step you provide specific information about each image. Often this will be related to the title you provided in STEP2. Following on from our example there, you can now enter data for the titles, 'Title', 'Date', 'Location', 'Description', and 'People'.

In the lower part of this window you may wish to rename the image itself. This will effect the title of the picture that is displayed in STEP3. From here you can also upload a new version of this image using the browse function as before.

There is also the opportunity to provide an even larger version of an image provided it still meets the image criteria of GIF or JPEG file types and no larger than 50k (<50k). Large version will be available when an image is clicked on from you gallery site, and only for images with an associated large version. We recommend large images have a width of no more than 750 pixels.

Finally, you can add a sound file to annotate your image. Use the browse button to locate a sound file stored on your computer. This file must meet certain criteria also; it must be in either MP3, WAV, or AIFF format and no larger that 500k. More on sound formats can be found below.

When you have completed editing a particular image be sure to click 'Save Changes' before moving on. This step allows you to edit images in order by using the 'Next Image' and 'Previous Image' buttons provided. However, you may wish to return to STEP3 to select a specific image for editing by clicking the 'Back To List' button.

When you have edited all your images, you can click the 'Proceed to STEP 5 when ready >>>' link to move on.

STEP5: This step is only available to GALLERY ONLY members. Other members may use there built-in mailing list feature to achieve the same effect.

Step 5 allows you to send an email message to friends or colleagues to inform them of the Internet Web Site address of you gallery.

You can add a personalised message in the upper of the 2 boxes. Then add up to 12 recipients at one time separating their address by semi-colons (;) in the lower box. The address box is restricted to 150 characters, so the number of recipients will depend on the length of each email address.

When you have completed both your personal greeting and entered all mail addresses click 'Send' to send the email. We will add the address of your site to the mail automatically.

NOTE: This feature may not be available to those who have not upgraded or registered a domain name with us.

View Your Site: You can now look at your completed site by entering the address (URL) in the address bar of your Web Browser and clicking 'GO' or pressing Return on the computer keyboard.

You will also find links at the bottom of each page, one of which is entitled. 'View My Site' . Clicking this link will open your current site in a new window so you can see how you are doing.

Edit Profile: (GALLERY ONLY MEMBERS) At the left of each page in the menu you will see an 'Edit Profile' link. This will allow you to update personal information about your self and registration details.

Site rebuild: This can be achieved from the edit profile section. When you click 'Save Changes' on this page a new version of your selected template (or, for that matter, a new template if one is available) will replace your current site. This will not effect any data (images or text) stored for you, but may alter the layout significantly. Perform this action once in a while or when indicated.

Note. With so many different applications, digital cameras, and scanners out there it would be impossible for us to give a definitive guide to preparing your image. So the following information is fairly generic. Once you have found out how your system works you should find it fairly simple to prepare all your pictures......

Format: Your pictures must be in either GIF or JPEG format to be displayed correctly in the site. We will describe what tools you need and how to convert images later.....

File Size: Each image must be no greater than 50k (equivalent to 50,000 bytes) in file size. If your image is too large it will be rejected by the system. Details on reducing the file size are detailed below.

Transfer your images to your computer. If you are using a digital camera or scanner, please follow the instructions accompanying the device and software. As a tip, we recommend you transfer your image at the best possible quality. It is always better to reduce quality through editing as you can add quality to an image if it wasn't there in the first place.

Edit your images. You may need to rotate the transferred image, and you will certainly need to scale it. To do this you will need an image editing software package. Most modern day digital cameras and scanners come with basic packages capable of performing all the actions required. (E.g. Adobe Photo Deluxe, Photoshop Elements, Image Ready, etc)

Scale You may edit and crop your images to suit you. The important thing is their size for use on the Internet. The gallery allows 2 picture sizes, large and small. Firstly reduce your image for the large image. Each application will have its own method of performing this task. If you are in doubt consult the help file or manual for that program. We recommend that it is no larger than 700 pixels in width. If you have the option to do so, reduce the image resolution to 72 or 96 dpi. This will help you achieve the desired file size.

Save Many applications have the option to 'Save for Web' (or email). If it is available choose this option. Otherwise choose 'Save As...' (or Save if no Save As...) from the File menu. Give your picture a name and look for a 'Format' option. This will allow you to select JPEG or GIF (For photographs JPEG is probably the best format). Lastly, if you are given the option, set the JPEG quality to between 3 and 5 to further reduce the file size. Make sure you pick a convenient location on your computer to save your image as you will need to find it later to add it to the system.

Small Version The small version is used to show your image data, that is the information you enter next to each picture. This picture should be no larger than 250 pixels in width. Repeat the previous two steps above, giving your image a different name so as not to erase the large version.

The gallery allows you to add a sound file to each image provided it meets the specified criteria (below). This can be used to voice annotate each image, play a quote from recorded at the time the image was shot, play a sound effect or music.

Criteria:

• Less than 500k per sound file (<500k)
• Take the on of the following formats:
  • AIFF
  • WAV
  • MP3
• Comply with acceptable use.
• Have an upgraded Gallerymagic or Nimbiz web site

Record. Firstly you will need to get the sound on to your computer. There are a number of ways in which this can be achieved. Most commonly you can use a microphone or other input source (CD, tape, MD, etc) connected to your sound input card on your computer.

Secondly you will need software capable of recording the incoming sound file on the computer. (See below for link to sites with free sound recording tools).

Follow instructions accompanying sound recording software to learn how to create your sound file. You should end up with a file stored on your computer that, when opened, will replay your recording.

When recording you may be offered options that apply to quality. You may wish to experiment with these options to get the best quality/file size. More below....

Edit. As with pictures (above) , file size is an important factor here. To achieve optimum file size you may want to trim away or edit any unwanted sound material.

Again, to do this you will require some software are a little know-how. You should consult the software documentation for further instructions.

NB. Editing may not be necessary for precise recordings.

Compress or Convert. There are many factors that can effect the size of a sound file. But as a general rule, the poorer the audible quality the smaller the file.

File size is important here for two reasons, firstly to remain inside your limit (which we have set to 500k) and secondly to provide quick access to visitors to your site wishing to hear the sound.

To optimize your sound file you can use third party software. Many modern programs contain all of the features you may need to prepare your sound (record, edit, compress). You will need to refer to your software's documentation for exact methods of compression.

Compressions reduces the file size while attempting to maintain hi qualtiy. The file often retains its original format.

Conversion changes the files format to achieve better size/quality.

As a guide, though, a good format to use is MP3. This format is supported by most modern computers and provides the best (almost CD) quality for file size. See below for a comparison.

Format	Quality	Duration	File Size	Listen
MP3	Hi	20s	330KB
AIFF	Hi	20s	3500KB
WAV	Hi	20s	3500KB
MP3	Lo	20s	64KB
AIFF	Lo	20s	164KB
WAV	Lo	20s	164KB

This table illustrates roughly how size and quality are effected accross the three allowed sound file formats. You may find that you can achieve better results and that different levels of optomization suit different typs of recording. For instance you may not need to use stereo for just a voice, etc. This may also illustrate your computer's native ability to play sound files in this format. To test click hte arrow in the listen column. (Some files may take some time to load)

What does this mean? Well if you make your final sound in low quality MP3 format you can have over 2minutes, 30seconds of audio per image.

Filename. Lastly your file must indicate its format by its extension. So lets take a sound file called 'dog', if it is an AIFF sound the file should be called 'dog.aiff', if it is a wav the filename should be 'dog.wav', and if it is an MP3 the filename will be 'dog/mp3'

Save and upload. Once you have fully optimized your sound file you can add it to your picture in Step4. Follow the browse procedure (detailed above) as you would if you were uploading an image.

Downloads. Below you will find link to sites where you can download audio software cpable of performaing the saks required.

www.download.com lists thousands of software titles. you can search this site for appropriate audio software although we have found a couple of suggestions already:

We also suggest that all users install Quicktime (version6 or better) from Apple and the Macromedia Flash Plugin (version6 or better)

In this section of the help we will outline and update and technical problems we are experiencing with the service and give a guide to what to do if things do not appear to work as they should.

Technical issues