At the moment our photo gallery is powered by SlideShow Pro Director which feeds the photographs and data to either SlideShow Pro Flash or jSlideShow dependant upon how you access the site.

Soon though this is going to change as SlideShow Pro have announced they’re working on a HTML5 powered front end which as soon as it’s available we will be adopting as it will mean we only have to maintain one gallery rather than two.

I’ve added the ability to quickly deploy HTML5 videos into the website, we support both Theora and H.264 video playback so every HTML5 compliant browser user should be able to experience our video output from now on.

For those without HTML5 support I’m going to look at building Flash in as a backup plan, it’s not the best backup plan in the world but at least it means people shouldn’t miss our videos.

Those of you who have spent time looking around out site will know that one of the tools I use to put the site together is Rapidweaver for Mac OS X, well it’s now been updated to versions 4.4 which adds some new features such as a new commenting system that I may implement rather than using JS-Kit as we do now; but I need to see how much work would be involved as all articles are linked back to their main news story comments.

I’ve added all the presently running June 2010 Air Shows within the USA onto the USA Air Shows 2010 calendar.

I apologise for the lack of updates to the website in recent weeks, I have been working on a project for work in the evenings and James has been in Germany for a fortnight photographing Phantoms at Wittmund, well he was until the Icelandic ash cloud grounded them. But hopefully I’ll be able to do some real work on the website in the coming weeks.

Today I’ve been made aware that some of our photographs have appeared in Google Images search, and as such I’ve added a watermark to all images listed within the search, this isn’t to try and be awkward it’s just so we receive credit for images either myself or James have taken.

I’ve added profiles for people at www.Mil-Air.co.uk, before we had one page with everyone listed but now I’ve added a personal page for everyone with a contact sheet attached and also links to that persons own personal blog.

I’ve just added details of Air Shows in the USA for May 2010, if you know of any I’ve missed, please leave a comment below and I’ll make sure it gets added to the calendar.

I’ve implemented a website search facility which is “powered by Google” and as such can only see what Google see’s so hopefully with our website automatically submitting a new sitemap when ever we update it should mean our site search is accurate.

I’m contemplating building an iPhone/iPod Touch version of the www.Mil-Air.co.uk website reason being I find our website a little bit fiddly to use on the iPhone I have already done work to make sure our gallery is viewable via an iPhone/iPod Touch but I just wonder what everyone else views on an iPhone/iPod touch specific version of the website would be?

I’ve made a few changes to the Mil-Air Logo, and it’s only a minor change but if you don’t see the updated logo you may have to reset your web browser cache, this can be done via the settings / preferences window in most browsers.

Here at www.Mil-Air.co.uk we host our website with webhostingpad.com and last month they changed the way they handle file uploads to their servers, from standard FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to FTPeS which uses the same encryption technology as HTTPS which is called SSL and is used by pretty much every secure website on the internet.

The software we use to produce the website did not support this method of uploading, so I have spent a while trying to get FTPeS to work to no avail but having emailed the support team at webhostingpad.com they’ve enabled SFTP for me which is SSH over FTP, another secure form of file upload which they do not enable by default.

This means I will be able to work on the site more regular again as it is no longer an issue to get the pages onto the website.

I’ve just posted my next part of the Photography Workflow series: Transferring & Storing Files it covers transferring photographs, file formats, storage options and backup options.

“Introduction

Once you've chosen your camera the next important choice is how are you going to transfer and store those precious photographs? Things to consider are budget, file type and backup options.

Transferring Files.... 10%.... 20%....

When transferring photograph's there are 3 ways this can be done dependant upon your camera and computer, theres Direct-Connection, which is connecting your camera to your computer using the supplied lead (usually Mini USB to USB), the only draw back to this is that it drains the camera battery as the camera has to be on while the transfer is taking place, and isn't always the quickest option due to some cameras having below average I/O Data controllers (Input/Output Data Controllers).”

Camera Selection is the second instalment of my “Photography Workflow” series, looking at different models of cameras and looking at some of the basic’s of choosing a camera.

“The first thing to consider when thinking about photography is what sort of camera will I need for what I want to photograph? I personally own a Nikon D60, why did I buy an entry level camera?...”

I’ve begun work on a series of articles under the name of “Photography Workflow” where I’ll talk through various photography techniques and photo-manipulation techniques and provide step by step guides along the way, I’ve started the series with just a basic short introduction:

“When we talk about photography workflow what do we actually mean? some of us may think I point the camera, I click the button and the camera takes care of the rest, well to some degree this is true, but how many photograph's do you take that you are truly 100% happy with? If you are anything like me...

Today I’ve noticed an error in the way the website builds it’s links within the RSS feed, and I’ve been working on rectifying that issue, I believe I’ve rectified the issue, if you do get any “404 Page Not Found” errors please email me: andrew.youll@mil-air.co.uk

I’ve spent the evening working on improving website loading times, and have implemented GZip and Deflate support on the entire site, and it is reducing general load times by up to 45% on average, so hopefully the website is a bit more Dial-Up friendly now. If anyone has any issues with load times on the site please leave a comment or sent me an email, and I’ll try and work through the issues.

Both problems around the Forum and the Blogs are now rectified, the blogs are working as expected so I think it was either an intermittent fault with our data-fetching system or a fault with the blogging system we use. On the forum front, the categories are now correctly setup, after some playing with the Database as the AJAX frontend is still not working for category management.

Also in the forum we’ve implemented Community-Moderation meaning you can vote up or vote down discussion based on your opinion / views of that persons comment within the forum.

Okay, today and yesterday I spent a fair amount of time working on the Forum which up until now has lived inside a HTML iFrame which wasn’t the cleanest of solutions to integrate a forum into the site, and as such I’ve now changed the forum from phpBB to VanillaBB which I’ve managed to fully integrate into the site now.

On a hopefully unrelated note, the blogs seem to be playing up at the moment, the integrated website frontend doesn’t seem to be communicating with the remote backend of system, hopefully my playing the forum hasn’t caused this but I am investigated the issue at the moment, and hopefully within the next 24hrs all will be well again.

I’ve spent a few hours working with automating the iPhone/iPod Touch gallery and have now got a working system, utilising JavaScript; on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, etc you will see the Flash based gallery, and with an iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad you will see the JavaScript based gallery. I will be working over the next few days at updating the JavaScript gallery appearance so it matches the website better.

I’ve added a calendar for USA Air Shows for 2010 to the website, it’s not complete at the moment but it does take us up to the end of April 2010.

Right I’ve done a bit of work on the RAF Air Traffic Control Frequencies page, primarily building it through Google Maps opposed to a raw *.kml datafile, this will lead to two things, quicker load times as the data is held on the google systems rather than it being loaded by google from our servers, and will also lead to easier updating in future.

I’ve put together an online store for Mil-Air using printfection.com as a back end, all prices are in USD but they do ship worldwide, I’m hoping to increase the selection of products as we go along introducing new designs but for the moment, it’s only the Mil-Air logo on the products. Click here to go to our store.

I’ve started setting up blogs for both myself and James, there maybe a bugs in the system at the moment as it’s the integration into the website that is taking more time than I originally thought. So hopefully we’ll be able to update you more regular via the blogs when we’re out and about.

I appologise about the delay in posting, but having a few teething problems with a few things in my new home at the moment, but as promised I’ve re-published James’ article talking about the A Nations Aviation in One that was originally published by Airscene UK in 2007:

"Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada; a place that has forty million visitors every year, and last November that number was increased by the additional draw to Nellis Air Force Base for 'Aviation Nation', a celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the formation of the independent United States Air Force. It was 18 September 1947 when Harry Truman signed the document that freed the Air Force from the clutches of the Army.”

As promised I’ve re-published James’ article talking about the RAF Waddington Internation Airshow that was originally published by Airscene UK in 2007:

"Whilst I can't say I've attended every single show, due to holiday and other commitments, I've certainly attended the vast majority over that period, and I thought it would be interesting to turn back the pages and recall just a few of the memorable visitors we have enjoyed over the years. During the weekend of the 16/17 September 1994 RAF Finningley held its last 'Battle of Britain At Home' event, the station being scheduled for closure the following year. Indeed, in April 1995 a formal closing event took place, the aircraft being dispersed to their new homes; RAF Cranwell for the Jetstreams and Dominies, and RAF..."

I’ve put up a list of UK Air Shows for 2010 including both Military and Civil air shows, as with everything the dates are subject to cancelation and change, so we’ll be updating the list as and when we hear about date changes.

Right, the website hasn’t been updated for over a month as I moved house in December, and have only just got Broadband again, I’m going to be republishing some articles James has written for Airscene UK over the years, and Gary Parsons who owns Airscene UK is ok with this, I just need to rework the layouts and remove any photographs that aren’t owned by James.

Okay today I’ve integrated the comments on this page with their respective articles, what that means is that, if a comment is posted on the article it also appears here on the frontpage articles for the respective news item, and vice versa.

Today I’ve added an interactive google map which contains the data for various RAF airfields around the UK, it’s not exhaustive by any means but its a start, it uses a Google Earth *.kml data file in order to render the information, and lists all available frequencies for the Air Traffic Control Towers at the airfields provided, just click on the coloured pin.

RAF Air Traffic Control Frequencies

I've now added comments to the "Test Nation Edwards AFB Open House 2009" article, and all future articles will have comment support, for your feedback.

I've integrated a forum into the website now, the posts that are on the forum were posted before I adjusted the server clock so they show up as 2008. but feel free to join the forum and discuss anything you'd like.

I've added an iPhone / iPod compatible Gallery to the website, which is accessible via an HTML link that appears when the gallery page is viewed from either an iPhone or an iPod as these devices don't support Flash, I was going to use an automatev re-direct but thought people would probably prefer the choice rather than being forced to use a mobile version of the gallery.

Got the Photogallery up and running, it uses Slideshow Pro as it's back end, all images are cropped to fit so some parts of images may be missing, if it does cut off parts of any aircraft send me an email and let me know so I can adjust the settings.

Ok so I've spent the last week, recoding the website, I've tried Word press, iWeb, and finally Rapidweaver. Finally settling on Rapidweaver, it has taken alot of work to get our page layout to work with it mind.