James Rigg
[Panoguide]
Posts: 289
Location: London, United Kingdom
Registered: 1 Jun 2003
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Panoguide changes focus
Posted: 17 Nov 2004 at 23:52 GMT
updated: 17 Nov 2004 at 23:54 GMT
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Product reviews on panoguide will move to the forums starting this week. The old products database and all its functionality has been removed.
Does this mean no more reviews on panoguide?
Yes and no. It means that anyone can post opinions on products in the forums, as people already do. Often someone looking to find the right product for what they want to do needs a comparison of the suitable products from people in the know. Reading through lots of reviews is not necessarily as helpful as being able to openly discuss pros and cons in a forum.
Why no more products database?
At my last count there were just under 100 software solutions for panoramic and/or object photography including virtual tours, viewers and utilities. And the number of products, tools and utilities is growing all the time. It is simply not possible for me to keep panoguide's products listings up to date.
Not enough time to maintain the database?
Yes, that's right. Panoguide is run by just one person (me), and I have always maintained this site solely in my spare time. I've decided I want to spend more time shooting my own panoramas and less time maintaining a website.
So what happens to previous reviews?
Recent reviews and user reviews will move to the forums, but I will probably have to do some tweaks to the forums first.
Isn't this a step backwards for panoguide?
Well, this does mean that right now there's less functionality in the site, and yes I have disabled a large and significant section of the code behind the site that took me a long time to setup (and believe me I did not decide to do that on a whim). However I am certain that this is the right thing to do for panoguide, and also the right thing to do for me personally.
So what now for panoguide?
Panoguide will now focus on the tutorials. I have many ideas for improving and expanding the tutorials, such as adding information about object movie photography.
There are also many improvements that can be made to the forums, such as adding the search engine that there wasn't time to finish earlier in 2004.
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Elja
Posts: 41
Location: Nijmegen, Netherlands
Registered: 11 Nov 2004
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Re: Panoguide changes focus
Posted: 19 Nov 2004 at 22:33 GMT
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Hi James,
Hmm, I think I'm going to miss the review part.
It was nice to have a list of the available panorama-software. Perhaps you could return the list some day in a less extensive manner.
But thanks for all the effort you put into this nice site!
Keep up the good work!
Elja
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TriggerHappY
Posts: 601
Location: vancouver, Canada
Registered: 21 Jul 2004
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Re: Panoguide changes focus
Posted: 20 Nov 2004 at 1:58 GMT
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I found that the reviews also featured some nice tips n tricks aswell, which comes in handy for us nOobs when we are having problems. Any way of passing the work over to the software developers?
Anyhoos your work has been much appreciated, it seems such a shame to pull it all down.
Do you have a personal site for your panoramas we may visit?
have fun and thanks so much for all the helps
Dylan
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akkadian
Posts: 52
Location: Surrey, United Kingdom
Registered: 20 Jul 2004
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Re: Panoguide changes focus
Posted: 20 Nov 2004 at 9:18 GMT
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Hi James,
I think your plans to change Panoguide seem most sensible. Especially if you can get out and take more panos -from which you could produce tutorials from!
I would be really interested in seeing more content on object movies and look forward to seeing the improvments! With regard to the forums, I think it would be good to be able to see, at least, the last post you reply to in the same page as the reply message. Would this be possible to implement?
Thanks for all your hard work, it does not go unappreciated!
Best regards,
Russell
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James Rigg
[Panoguide]
Posts: 289
Location: London, United Kingdom
Registered: 1 Jun 2003
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Re: Panoguide changes focus
Posted: 20 Nov 2004 at 10:47 GMT
updated: 20 Nov 2004 at 10:49 GMT
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Thanks everyone for your comments. The products/reviews on panoguide have always been the most popular part of the site, but also the part that requires the most work 
Because I've been trying (and failing cough, cough) to get on top of the backlog of reviews for ages, I've neglected the tutorials which is the bit I really like doing and which started this whole site going.
So I am hoping to do exactly what Russell says: get out shooting more of my own pictures and writing tutorials as I go along.
Incidentally I'm quite open to the idea of publishing other people's guides, tutorials, tips and tricks etc. For example, Chris Longhurst contributed a tip on perspective correction in PhotoShop some time ago.
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Ken Warner
Posts: 356
Location: Mammoth Lakes, United States
Registered: 14 Aug 2004
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Re: Panoguide changes focus
Posted: 20 Nov 2004 at 20:32 GMT
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James,
Maybe some of the list users could volunteer to do reviews. It is impossible for one person (you) to spend the time necessary to keep up to date on all the different "solutions" and their updates. Maybe some would find it interesting to track certain products and submit their personal insights.
I would encourage you to limit that participation to those who can turn thoughts into sentences. I mean, "This sucks!" is not much of a review. If you get what I mean.
Your's and subsequent reviews are almost a necessary part of Panoguide. Also, it keeps the same old questions from being asked again and again.
Anyway, I would like to join the chorus of thank you's...
Ken Warner
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GURL
Posts: 41
Location: Grenoble / Isère, France
Registered: 7 May 2004
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Re: Panoguide changes focus
Posted: 24 Nov 2004 at 10:50 GMT
updated: 24 Nov 2004 at 10:58 GMT
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I'm trying to build up a French language site about Panorama Tools "only": a bunch of tests and tutorials for a bunch of software (not only several interface programs but many useful specialized ones like PTlens, Autopano, Enblend, PanoCube, etc, etc, etc)!
As an example: when you are done, some question arises like "and what about the Mac ?" 
The workload for such a restricted set among available programs is a clear proof (for me at last) that James maintaining Panoguide without contributed tests is just an impossible task.
Totally, absolutely, definitely impossible.
Georges Lagarde
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James Rigg
[Panoguide]
Posts: 289
Location: London, United Kingdom
Registered: 1 Jun 2003
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Re: Panoguide changes focus
Posted: 24 Nov 2004 at 13:50 GMT
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Georges,
It would be possible if I did panoguide full time, perhaps, but I don't and it seems extremely unlikely I would ever be able to. Unless I won the lottery or something? (ah, no, if that happened I'd be too busy sailing the world on my yacht!)
I'm hoping to spend some more time on panoguide this week/weekend, and work out what to do with reviews in the forums, etc. And perhaps plan out ideas for the new year.
James.
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GURL
Posts: 41
Location: Grenoble / Isère, France
Registered: 7 May 2004
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Re: Panoguide changes focus
Posted: 1 Dec 2004 at 9:43 GMT
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James,
I'm a "slow guy" who likes to take care of any details (as shown at: slash72.club.fr/gurl/pt.htm) but I believe a single person surveying and reporting the burgeoning field of "digital panorama" those days is actually not possible.
My interest is "limited" to Panorama tools (but this includes Ptassembler, PTgui, Hugin, PTmac, PTlens, LensFix, Autopano, Enblend, PanoCube and the many versions of pano12.dll) and I find this being still too much!
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kirbic
Posts: 1
Location: Wisconsin, United States
Registered: 3 Dec 2004
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Re: Panoguide changes focus
Posted: 3 Dec 2004 at 0:37 GMT
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I certainly found the reviews to be a most valuable part of panoguide. I also certainly understand wanting more time to go shoot! 
I think there may be a good answer to both needs. If a "products" section was re-created, with nothing but a bare-bones listing of the products, users could contribute their thoughs and reviews of the products. This would serve the pourpose of keeping all the product reviews in one place. the big benefit of this is that if someone comes to the site looking for, say, stitching software, they can easily find such software without previous knowledge of software titles. It would also free the site admin from maintaining the database, other than to add products. There could be a "request product addition" form so you could also rely on users to bring new products to your attention.
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Goombah
Posts: 1
Location:
Registered: 17 Dec 2004
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Re: Panoguide changes focus
Posted: 17 Dec 2004 at 22:27 GMT
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James -
Jeepers! -- I missed it by THAT MUCH! 
I just decided to check out panorama shooting, and was looking for recommendations and evaluations from "old hands" as to what software product(s) were worth looking into.
Your site looks just like "My Kind of Place", except you have just -- quite understandably -- decided that shooting takes precedence over website maintenance.
While I certainly can't object to your decision, I do wish my own timing had been a bit better, but be that as it may -- could you , by any chance, RECOMMED a site I could go to to find some kind of comparison/rating of some of the entry-level products available?
Or is there possibly a chance that you could make the review database available (for a year or so) as a static "Archive" for us newbies, requiring (I presume) no further attention from you? Just a thought...
Keep up the good work!
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David Locke
Posts: 283
Location: San Antonio, Texas, United States
Registered: 12 May 2004
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Re: Panoguide changes focus
Posted: 21 Dec 2004 at 1:17 GMT
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James,
I for one totally understand the act of making a website with very little revenue but a lot of love. You've done a fantastic site and I'm grateful for your labor (labour for you Englishmen) of love and I have totally benefited from your tutorials. I say more power to you!
thanks again, as always, for a fantastic site...
Sincerely,
David Locke
www.VirtualBigBend.com
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goob2000
Posts: 1
Location:
Registered: 19 May 2005
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Re: Panoguide changes focus
Posted: 19 May 2005 at 6:07 GMT
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i don't know if anyone is aware but the old panoguide website is still available online, there is a very very interesting website called wayback.com that archives complete websites on certain dates, and panoguide is available with all the old reviews and features.
here is a link if anybody is interested
web.archive.org/web/20031018160317/http://www.panoguide.com/
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redeye
Posts: 192
Location: Barnsley, United Kingdom
Registered: 5 Mar 2005
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Re: Panoguide changes focus
Posted: 19 May 2005 at 7:24 GMT
updated: 21 May 2005 at 10:26 GMT
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Hi James
First many thanks for a fantastic site - without it many wouldn't know where to start!
May I make a suggestion? Why not use a CMS like PHPNuke or similar? A website where the 'pano community' can easily upload articles and reviews themselves would make the chore of providing a valuable resource like this just a bit more manageable?
There are enough of us on here to help - I've done a few mate and would be glad to help..
Kind regards
Lee
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