Whenever I try to access my profile I get an error message page. At least today I was able to login successfully and upload a Gigapan to my account.

The new site puts up barriers to participation. I can see no link to the Upload software. I don’t think that Gigapan Stitcher should be the only way to upload to the site. Uploader still works but I already had it installed.

I recently bought an Epic 100 and will eventually install the Stitcher software if only to check it out, but given the application’s limitations I probably won’t use it much. I gather that the site’s new commercial focus is designed to drive users to Gigapan products, but it would be extremely shortsighted to put up hurdles to new users who don’t use Gigapan robots or software for whatever reason.

I’ll post a request elsewhere so it doesn’t get lost, but I’d use Gigapan much more if I could set up limited access to images via password protection. I’ve been taking images for scientists who would like to keep the images private until papers related to the images are published. Loading the images with the option to make them accessible only for someone who has the URL isn’t really sufficient protection.

Hi William

The secret URL is very long and not guessable, maybe you could put up a password protection system on your own site and display a link to the secret URL only upon succesfuly entering the password.

Just a thought anyway.

Jason

Thanks for the idea, Jason. I’m more concerned about whether the image might be found by search engine bots that could potentially bypass the need to know a complex URL. I have no idea if that’s a legitimate concern or not.

I’d guess this is a related bug, but my account didn’t automatically upgrade to Plus with image uploads. And although I’m logged in, I can access the page to create a new account. I’d think that page would have a logout requirement for access.

Hi William

The URL would not be find-able by Google on its own, but if you put it on an index-able webpage, then it could definitely be found. Perhaps if Gigapan.org added the ‘noindex’ meta tag to the head of private pages, that would prevent this risk.

William, the Plus membership requires at least one public gigapan. So, in order to upgrade your membership from Free to Plus, your uploaded gigapan has to be Public. Other then that, your member profile page should show ‘plus’ as your membership subscription level. Please let me know if your are still experiencing this issue.

Regarding private gigapans, yes, they are private in the scope of public searches on this website. Since they don’t appear in public searches, they also aren’t available to search engine bots that are looking through gigapan.com or gigapan.org. However, as Jason pointed it out, once a private gigapan’s URL is posted on another website, search engines may find it there.

Thanks, Angelko. At least I know what we need to do to keep links private.