Download a printable version of this ENTIRE Guide Here.

Printable Quick COMMAND REFERENCE

NOTE: This ENTIRE Guide, including information and instructions on how to SELL YOUR IMAGES on our Image Gallery can be found in the Sellers Guide, a printable Adobe Acrobat Reader document. Selling prints of your images is made simple through our Image Gallery. Simply click on any button and the customer is automatically taken to a PayPal payment page containing payment information YOU establish and control through our image submission process. It's simple, fast, and is a great way to turn an income. But BEFORE you can begin to use this service, you must obtain authorization from Solar Terrestrial Dispatch.

Solar Terrestrial Dispatch is pleased to provide this image publishing service to the public and professional communities. It is designed to be as simple to use as possible. Although we have tried hard to consider almost every environment that might be used to submit material to our gallery, there may be some instances we haven't considered. If any of you have difficulties using this server, we hope you will contact us (STD@Spacew.Com) and help work with us to resolve the problem.

Before you can begin publishing images in near real-time using our image publishing server, you need to obtain an access code from the server. Having an access code guarantees that you are who you say you are. It also helps prevent abuse of the service, prevents SPAM from making it onto the service, and gives us an avenue to persue abusers and/or ban them from our web site.

Anyone having an access code is authorized to publish as many images as they'd like, provided each published image differs from all others published by the individual.

We reserve the right to delete any image that is published on our system, without warning, and for any reason. By including imagery on our server, you grant to Solar Terrestrial Dispatch permission to store your image(s) off-line and copy them onto backup media (for backup purposes only as part of our normal server backup procedures), permission to automatically scale-down your images to fit the prescribe sizes for our web pages, and permission to display copies of your image on our main web page (www.spacew.com) in several prominent locations.

We will not redistribute the images shared in our image gallery in any form except through the www-based image gallery. In addition, we will not resell or redistribute any image contained in the image gallery. The textual content (title and subject) of your image (which you provided at the time you submitted your image) will always be kept with your image, regardless of whether the image is moved off-line or placed on a backup medium. As a result, any explicit copyright notices you attach to your image will remain with your image.

This guide is divided into several sections. Click on the section you need help with, or scroll down.

Obtaining an Access Code
Publishing Images in the Gallery - Setting Themes
Deleting Images in the Gallery
Replacing Images in the Gallery
Replacing ONLY Image Descriptions
Obtaining Hit Statistics for Your Images
ADVANCED: Setting up Your Own Homepage Name
ADVANCED: Selling Prints of Your Images On-Line
Rules of the Road

 

Obtaining an Access Code

IMPORTANT: Your access code MUST BE KEPT SECRET. Your access code not only allows you to store images on the image gallery - it also allows you to delete images from the image gallery. If you allow your access code to become public knowledge, others will be able to delete your images! If you suspect someone else may have obtained your access code, contact: STD@Spacew.Com immediately so a new code may be generated for you.

To obtain your access code, send an e-mail to: Images@Spacew.Com and include, as the SUBJECT of the message, this command (all in UPPER-CASE):

REQUEST CODE

The body of the message will be ignored by the server. Remember, case is important. Your request will be ignored altogether if the subject of the message does not contain the phrase "REQUEST CODE" (excluding the quotation marks).

Within a couple of minutes, the server should respond to your request and e-mail you back your access code. This 7-digit code is yours and provides you (and only you) with access to publish imagery in the gallery at http://www.spacew.com/gallery.

(Image above shows how to send a request for an access code.)

 

Publishing Images in the Gallery

Please Note: Sending images via e-mail may trigger some virus scanners into deleting the image (without your knowledge). You may need to disable your virus scanner from scanning outgoing e-mail if your attempts to publish images fails.

To publish images in the gallery at http://www.spacew.com/gallery, follow these steps:

1. Obtain an access code (read the instructions above). Keep in mind that the access code you choose will only work from the same e-mail address that was used to obtain it. For example, if you request an access code by sending a request from your an e-mail account named john@doe.com, then submitting images from any other location except doe.com will not work. Only images submitted from john@doe.com will work.

2. Using your e-mail program, send an e-mail to: Images@Spacew.Com.

3. The SUBJECT of your message is the TITLE of your image that others will read when they look at the gallery.

!!!VERY IMPORTANT!!!
4. The FIRST LINE of the body of the message *MUST* contain your access code (and only your access code) on the line by itself.

How to Set a Theme to your Image

If you know the Theme or Category that you image falls in (ex. aurora, comets, lightning, etc.), you can specify the theme that your image belongs in by appending a semicolon to the access code followed by the name of the theme. For example, if your access code is 1234567 and you wanted to publish an image of comet Hale-Bopp, the first line of your e-mail message would be: 1234567;comets

When specifying the theme or category, case is not important, but spelling is. Please check the gallery for existing themes. If one matches the theme of your image use that theme (including the exact spelling).

If none of the themes present fit your image, you can create your own theme by typing in a new theme name after the semicolon. For example, if your image was of the planet Mars, you might want to create a new theme by the name of "Planets" by typing in the first line as follows: 1234567;planets

You do not have to specify a theme. If you choose not to, your image will automatically be placed within a "General" theme category.

5. The SECOND LINE of the body of the message marks the BEGINNING of the description for your gallery image. This is the description (below your title) that others will read when they view your image in the gallery. Describe your image or the conditions that led to you obtaining your image. Also please make sure you include the type of photographic equipment you used to take the picture, as well as the equipment settings (type of film, exposure settings, etc) as a courtesy to those who are interested in your image(s). You may also want to consider placing some sort of copyright notice in your image description if you don't want others to make use of your images without your permission. Our web page contains a standard disclaimer at the bottom that is intended to inform all visitors that all images are copyrighted by their respective owners. But a more explicit copyright notice in the image description may be worth considering.

6. Attach *ONE* image to the e-mail message as a FILE ATTACHMENT. !!! IMPORTANT !!! Only GIF, JPEG and PNG type images may be submitted to the gallery. Make sure your image is in one of these three formats before sending it to us, or our server may ignore your submission. ALSO, please try to keep your image sizes in the neighborhood of less than 800 to 1000 pixels in horizontal width. Larger images are fine if you feel the aesthetic quality of the image would be compromised by shrinking it. It is simply easier to display in the gallery if the image size is constrained to horizontal sizes less than 600 to 800 pixels.

7. Double-check to be certain you have entered your access code correctly on the first line of the body of your e-mail message. When you are sure the title of your image (in the subject of the message) and the content of your image description is accurate, send the e-mail message. It is IMPORTANT to make sure everything is correct, because once you send your message, there is no way to modify or delete the content of your image. Your only recourse would be to republish your image if you make a mistake. This not only wastes bandwidth, but it places unnecessary loads on our server. So please try your best to make sure your image and the content of your e-mail message are correct. In the future, we may provide better controls for modifying the image content.

8. Within a few minutes, if all goes well, your image will appear in the gallery. Go to: http://www.spacew.com/gallery and see if it is there. If it isn't, wait another minute and then click on the Refresh button in your web browser. If, after some time, your image still won't appear, check to make certain the format of your e-mail is correct. Re-read these instructions. If it still fails to work, contact: STD@Spacew.Com.

Before publishing images on our web site, please note that the following information will appear on our web site, attributing the image to you:

1. Your name (as it appears in the "From:" header of your e-mails) will be included. Your e-mail address will NOT be displayed in the gallery.

2. The time our server received your submission will be included (in UTC time).

3. The subject of your e-mail message will be converted (verbatim) into a TITLE for your image.

4. The SECOND and subsequent lines of the body of your message will be converted into text that describes your image. If your e-mail software normally includes a signature at the end of your message, please be aware that the signature will also appear as part of your image description. Check your signature to make certain no sensitive information is included there (ex. phone numbers, FAX numbers, your home address, etc), or make certain the message you submit to our server does not contain a signature.

A SAMPLE SCREEN-CAPTURE showing how to send an image using Microsoft's Outlook Express is included below:


(Everything is ready - sending to: image@spacew.com; subject contains the image title, and the body of the message describes the image. All that is left to do is attach the image. This sample shows which menu item to use to attach the image. Note that this submission does NOT include a Theme (there is no semicolon or theme definition following the access code). As a result, this image would be placed within the General theme category.)


(This sample image shows the completed message all ready to send. Notice that the first line of the body of the message contains the access code that we received in the first step above. After sending this message)

ONE FINAL NOTE: Our server will only accept e-mails that are encoded with plain/text. Most e-mail software allow you to send e-mail containing both plain/text portions as well as HTML encoded portions for the body of the message. They also allow you to turn off the plain/text portion so that only pure HTML code is sent as the body of the message. Our server requires that you have plain/text portions included in your e-mail. Otherwise, your image will be stripped of a title and/or descriptive text. You may want to check your e-mailer's settings before submitting images.

Please try to avoid sending special ASCII characters that might be in a different character set or language. Only pure ASCII text is accepted. Strange characters will usually appear as an equal sign followed by some type of code that represents the special character (ex. =A9). To avoid seeing this, please use standard ASCII text in all submissions.

 

Deleting Images from the Gallery

The process for deleting images from the gallery is almost identical to the procedure for obtaining an access code, except some additional information must be supplied in the e-mail that you send to images@spacew.com. Here is how to delete an image:

1. Send an e-mail to: images@spacew.com

2. Set the SUBJECT to: DELETE IMAGE
(NOTE: Case *IS* sensitive, so the subject MUST be in all upper-case or your request will be ignored.)

3. The FIRST line of the BODY of the message must be your personal access code that you received earlier. The SECOND line of the body of the message must be the name of the image you want to delete. You can determine the name of the image from the gallery by using your web browser and RIGHT-CLICKing on the image you want to delete, then select the Properties option when the drop-down menu appears:

This is the menu that appears under Internet Explorer if you right click on an image in the gallery. By selecting the Properties option, the name of the image and other relevant information appears:

The name of the image is circled in red above. Insert this name as the SECOND line in the body of the message you send.

3. Click the SEND button to send your request to the images@spacew.com server.

If you are the owner of the image (as defined by your access code), then the server will delete the image from the gallery and send you a notice via e-mail that the operation was completed successfully. If you are not the owner of the image, if you mistyped the name of the file, or if you mistyped your access code, the server will send you an e-mail complaining that it was unable to fulfill your request.

A sample ficticious e-mail message sent to the server to delete the above image would appear something like this in Outlook Express:

 

Replacing Images in the Gallery

To replace an image in the image gallery, follow these steps:

1. Find the name of the image you want to replace. Browse through the gallery until you find the image. Then click on it. When the non-thumbnail image appears, right-click your mouse button on the full-sized image and select the Properties option from the drop-down menu. The name of the image file will appear (ex. "image000789.jpg").

2. Send an e-mail message to: images@spacew.com

3. The SUBJECT of the message should be: REPLACE IMAGE

4. The FIRST LINE of the BODY of the message must be your access code. To change the THEME of the image you are replacing, append a semicolon to your access code and type in the name of the new theme. For example: 1234567;Flares

5. The SECOND LINE of the body of the message must be the name of the image you are replacing (as you determined from step 1 above).

6. The THIRD LINE of the body of the message must be the NEW TITLE for your the image you are replacing.

7. The FOURTH AND SUBSEQUENT LINES of the body of the message describe the image.

SEND this image to: Images@Spacew.Com. If all goes well, the server will automatically replace the image in the gallery with the image you submitted, provided you own the image you are replacing, the image you named actually exists, and your access code was given correctly.

A sample screen-capture of an Outlook Express e-mail message ready to send to the image server is shown below. This example shows how to replace the image named: image001234.jpg with the image attached.

Replacing images retains all of the hit statistics for the image being replaced. It is better to replace images than it is to delete and then resubmit images because the image being replaced maintains its current position.

 

Replacing ONLY Image Descriptions

If you make a mistake in the text of an image and want to replace the text WIHTOUT replacing the image itself, follow this procedure:

For example, the following e-mail would replace the text of the image known on our server as "image001252.jpg" with alternate text as follows:

To: images@spacew.com
Subject: REPLACE TEXT

1234567 ; My Theme
image001252.jpg
My Replacement Title For This Image
This is the description for the image. The theme, title and text associated with this e-mail will overwrite any theme, title or text associated with the image on the server.

This method of replacing the image descriptions should be used instead of the REPLACE IMAGE command if all you want to do is replace the text of the image with something different.

Within a few minutes of submitting this command, the server will alter your image description (and/or theme) information and update the material on the web server.

 

Obtaining Hit Statistics for Your Images

During the course of time, a considerable number of people may visit the Image Gallery and look at your images. Our server tracks and counts each time someone views your images. Every 15 minutes, the image server updates the number of hits each image in the gallery receives. This is valuable information for the owners of the photographs that are placed on our server (and it's fun to know that your images are being viewed).

There are TWO ways to obtain statistics for images you post on the Image Gallery:

To determine how many times your images have been hit (viewed) by people on the Internet, follow this procedure:

1. Send an e-mail to: images@spacew.com

2. Set the SUBJECT of the message to: IMAGE STATS

3. As the FIRST LINE of the BODY of the message, type in your access code, including any leading zero's. As the SECOND line of the body of the message, include one of the two commands:

where 'imageXXXXXX' is the name of the image (as described above in the section on Deleting images - review that section now if you don't understand how to find out what the name of your image is) and XXXXXX is a unique 6-digit number that is part of your image name.

The first command "all images" will cause the server to send you an e-mail containing the hit statistics for ALL of your images. The second command variant will return statistics only for the image you indicate.

A sample e-mail message requesting the server to return statistics on all of the images owned by STD@Spacew.com is shown below:

 

Setting up Your Own Homepage Name

When someone clicks on an image you have submitted to the image gallery, the server automatically displays your image along with thumbnail images of every other photograph you have submitted to the gallery. This web page contains ONLY images that you have submitted to the gallery. As a result, it represents your own personal web page. However, the URL used to access your web page may not be that easy to remember (ex. it may be something like: http://www.spacew.com/gallery/image000114.html).

It is possible to set a unique name for your web page that will be easier for remember and to share. For example, it is possible to instruct the server to set up a web page named "JohnDoe" that points to http://www.spacew.com/gallery/image000114.html. In other words, instead of typing: http://www.spacew.com/gallery/image000114.html to access your personal web page, you can instruct the server to change this so that you can access this same web page by going to: http://www.spacew.com/gallery/JohnDoe.

In addition, you can set any of your images as the main lead-image for your web page. Simply determine the name of the image in the gallery (ex. "image000114.jpg") and reference that name when you submit your command to the image server. Instructions on how to do this will follow below.

The only requirements for establishing your own customized homepage name are:

a) possess an access code (see above for details),

b) have an image in the gallery that you can use to set as your main lead image,

c) own the image that you request to set as the main lead-in image.

To set up or change your homepage name, follow these instructions:

1. Send an e-mail to: images@spacew.com

2. Set the SUBJECT of the message to: SET HOMEPAGE
(the subject must be entirely in upper-case)

3. As the FIRST LINE of the BODY of the message, type in your access code and nothing else.

4. As the SECOND LINE of the body of the message, type in the name you want assigned as your homepage name. There are some rules with respect to this second line that MUST be followed, or your request will be rejected:

a. The FIRST character of this line MUST be an upper-case letter (not a number, or a lower-case letter, etc).

b. The SECOND and subsequent characters of this line may be upper or lower case letters, or digits.

c. No spaces or punctuation marks are permitted in the homepage name. Including spaces or other non-alphanumeric characters will cause your request to be rejected.

The following names are NOT appropriate:

*MyPage*
myPage
My-Page
My Page
My.Page

The following names ARE OK:

MyPage
MyPage123

5. The THIRD and final line of your e-mail message MUST contain the name of the image you want to assign as the primary lead image for your web page. Scan through the gallery and find one of your images that you think is perhaps the nicest to lead off your web page. Left-click your mouse button on the image to display it full size. Then RIGHT-CLICK your mouse button on the full size image and select the Properties option from the drop-down menu. The name of the image will appear in the window as something like "image012032.gif". This is the name you type onto the third line of your e-mail message (excluding any quotation marks, of course). You can drop the extension of the image if you so desire (ex. instead of typing: image012032.gif it is ok to simply type: image012032).

6. Send your image.

When the server receives your request, it will check to make sure that you own the image you want to use. It will also check to make sure that no one else has made use of the same homepage name that you are requesting to use. When it does this check, it disregards case. As a result, if someone else is using the name "MyPage" and you are requesting to use the name "MYPAGE", your request will be rejected as having already been used by someone else. If this happens, simply change your homepage name and resend your email.

The following screen-captured image shows how Outlook Express would be set up to set the homepage name for John Doe to: DoePhotography.

Acessing the DoePhotography homepage would then be as simple as typing: http://www.spacew.com/gallery/DoePhotography at your web browsers prompt.

If the server succeeds in setting up your homepage name, it will send you an e-mail indicating that it was successful. If it has problems, it will return e-mail to you indicating why it had problems and what you should do to fix the problem.

If you have problems getting this service to function, please contact: STD@Spacew.Com.

 

Selling Prints of Your Images On-Line

Our Image Gallery is now able to provide you with the ability to sell prints of your images on-line through the PayPal system. The process of submitting an image containing seller information is almost as simple as submitting an image.

Selling prints of your images is made simple through our Image Gallery. Simply click on any button and the customer is automatically taken to a PayPal payment page containing payment information YOU establish and control through our image submission process. It's simple, fast, and is a great way to turn an income.

Complete details of how this is done may be found in our Sellers Guide, which is also a general User's Guide. PLEASE DOWNLOAD THIS GUIDE to learn how to submit images to the Image Gallery containing Seller information.

Prior to selling your images, you will require authorization from Solar Terrestrial Dispatch. Information on how to obtain this authorization may be found at by clicking here.

 

Rules of the Road (READ ENTIRELY)

1. Thou shalt not publish obsene or offensive material.

2. Thou shalt not include foul or profane language in any comments used to describe your imagery.

3. Thou shalt only publish images of an astronomical or atmospheric genre on our site. Solar imagery, aurora imagery, star imagery, meteor imagery, night imagery of skyscapes or other "spacey" type imagery as well as imagery of sun/moon dogs, lightning or other storm-related images are all acceptable. Nature images of your favorite hairless dog, leafless tree, or mutant frog are not permitted here. Please keep all image content at least somewhat astronomically or atmospherically oriented.

Anyone found not abiding by these simple rules may see their imagery permanently removed from the gallery. Abusers of these rules may also find themselves suddenly unable to reach the Solar Terrestrial Dispatch web site (ex. they may be banned from accessing any portion of our web site). We will not hesitate to contact your local law enforcement officials if laws are broken or your Internet Service Provider if abuse persists.

If any images are placed on our web site that are known to be stolen/pirated, obsene or in any way offensive, the sender of the image grants to Solar Terrestrial Dispatch the unrestricted right to persue the individual for payment of a base amount (lower limit) of $8,000 United States Dollars (USD), which is hereby accepted by the responsible individual as a fair base payment for the additional time and effort required to: a) find the home address of the individual responsible which we can determine through our log records, b) implement banning measures on our web server, c) restore public confidence and rebuild our clientele which may be adversely impacted by the responsible individuals actions. The responsible individual also agrees to pay for any legal fee's which may be required to secure payment or persue possible additional legal actions. Furthermore, if the individual responsible has stolen or pirated the image(s) placed on our gallery, the individual responsible agrees to allow us to share any and all information gathered by our system (log records, e-mail material, name, address, etc.) with the true owner of the photograph and possibly even law enforcement officials. The responsible individual also agrees to allow us to persue their internet service termination by informing their Internet Service Provider (ISP) of their activities by sharing any necessary collected data about the individual with their ISP. The foregoing also applies to any individual who attempts to thwart the proper operation of our Image Gallery or server in general. All individuals who make use of this service automatically agree to these terms and conditions (and any future ammendments which may be required) and the associated Rules of the Road at the time our server sends them an access code.

We take these rules very seriously.

If anyone notices abusive behavior or obsene/offensive imagery and/or text in the gallery, we urge you to immediately contact: STD@Spacew.Com so that the offending material can be removed and the offending individual prosecuted.