SITE CONSTRUCTION

Photography:

The majority of the pictures on here at this point were taken with a Canon Digital Rebel, a digital SLR. I've been happy with it, though at this point it's starting to show its age (2 years old is ancient, these days). I've used a number of different lenses, including:

* The Digital Rebel's kit lens, a 18-55mm f5.6 or so zoom lens. For its price (cheap) this is a pretty capable lens. However, it's a slow lens that gives poor resolution towards the corners under many circumstances and will sometimes give color fringing.
* Sigma 105mm f2.8 EF macro lens. This is the lens I use the most, and I've been very happy with it. The finish on mine is flaking off, but that doesn't really matter. It takes good pictures and is cheaper (though possibly slightly better optically) than the Canon equivalent. I had a Sigma 50mm f2.8 EF macro lens earlier, but the shorter focal length made it much less useful.
* Canon 28mm f2.8 lens. I used this on a lot of landscape stuff until I dropped it down a lava crack at the Grants Malpais. Oops. It was a good lens and I might end up getting another.
* Canon 24mm f2.8 lens. I got this as a replacement for the Canon 28mm, figuring the slightly wider field of view was worth a little more money. I've been quite happy with it.
* Canon 50mm f1.8 lens. I got this because I figured I ought to have a good 50mm lens. I haven't had it long, but it seems like an excellent lens for the price and I've been happy with pictures from it so far.

Some other things I use include:

* Canon 420EX Speedlite. A good all-purpose flash. It doesn't do some of the fancier things for using multiple flashes and so forth that more expensive flashes can do, but I haven't found this to be a limitation. I usually use it with a hotshoe cord so I can move it around. I've thought about getting some sort of nifty bracket to hold it where I want it, but so far the weight and expense haven't seemed worth it.
* Slik Sprint tripod. A small, lightweight tripod. I got this model because it seemed to be the only one that would allow very low pictures (the head resting practically on the ground) as well as moderately high pictures, without being prohibitively expensive or complicated. It could use a stronger ball head and it lost one of its feet (lava and camera equipment don't really get along), but other than that I've been happy with it.
* Adobe Photoshop CS2. I've also used several other versions. This is the program I use for all of my digital photo editing. It took a while to learn how to use it to its full potential (I learned by the "let's try buttons and see what happens" approach), but it does pretty much everything I'd want.

Web Hosting:

This site has always been hosted on Macintosh computers running OS X, using the Apache web hosting software that comes with OS X.

The primary stable domain for the site is polyploid.net. The site was originally hosted from two servers at Indiana University (bee.bio.indiana.edu and lucerne.bio.indiana.edu), since moved or defunct. The current computer was previously reachable at boechera.nmsu.edu, but due to various technical problems ended up moving to boechera2.nmsu.edu. I also own the domain names hexaploid.com, newmexicoflora.com, indianaflora.com, and organmountainsflora.com. The first takes you to the main site, the next two take you to the plant pages indicated, and the last is the future home of an interactive online flora for the Organ Mountains to be created at some indefinite point in the future.
Site Construction:

Most portions of this web site were constructed by hand using pico or emacs under Mac OS X. I mostly use pico, but sometimes emacs is more convenient. Web galleries are constructed in Adobe Photoshop and then modified by hand and with batch modifications.
HTML by hand:

Basic html tags for images, links, etc., are easy to memorize. If I want to do something more complicated I'll look for a web page that does what I want to do and then figure out what html it's using to accomplish this, or look for useful html information through Indiana University's Knowledge Base, a compendium of technical support documents. For instance, the Knowledge Base is how I know how to create client-side image maps for the scenery maps (e.g., this one for Lincoln Co., New Mexico) on the site.
Adobe Photoshop:

Photoshop was used to create all of the galleries on this site. For this, I use Photoshop's "simple" gallery style and have it insert an image file's title or caption to provide information about the individual images. After construction in Photoshop I modify the galleries by hand (e.g., to insert the links to other pages of the gallery and to higher levels of the website that you can see at the top of each gallery page) and with batch modification using this method (for instance, in order to modify the color-based southwestern plant galleries so that the links direct you to the species' page rather than to the page Photoshop created for that image).

Errors:

As some of you may have noticed, there are a number of broken links, missing images, or other errors scattered throughout the site. If you notice any of these, please email me (paalexan@nmsu.edu) and let me know. Obviously I want the site to be in good shape, but I also don't generally have time to sit around clicking on things to make sure everything works.

HTML CODES

HTML, which stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists etc as well as for links, quotes, and other items. It allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms. It is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of "tags" surrounded by angle brackets within the web page content. It can include or can load scripts in languages such as JavaScript which affect the behavior of HTML processors like Web browsers; and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to define the appearance and layout of text and other material. The W3C, maintainer of both HTML and CSS standards, encourages the use of CSS over explicit presentational markup.[1]

Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is the encoding scheme used to create and format a web document. A user need not be an expert programmer to make use of HTML for creating hypertext documents that can be put on the internet.

SERVICE SCOPE

The scope of hosting services varies widely. The most basic is web page and small-scale file hosting, where files can be uploaded via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a Web interface. The files are usually delivered to the Web "as is" or with little processing. Many Internet service providers (ISPs) offer this service free to their subscribers. People can also obtain Web page hosting from other, alternative service providers. Personal web site hosting is typically free, advertisement-sponsored, or cheap. Business web site hosting often has a higher expense.

Single page hosting is generally sufficient only for personal web pages. A complex site calls for a more comprehensive package that provides database support and application development platforms (e.g. PHP, Java, Ruby on Rails, ColdFusion, and ASP.NET). These facilities allow the customers to write or install scripts for applications like forums and content management. For e-commerce, SSL is also highly recommended.

The host may also provide an interface or control panel for managing the Web server and installing scripts as well as other services like e-mail. Some hosts specialize in certain software or services (e.g. e-commerce). They are commonly used by larger companies to outsource network infrastructure to a hosting company.

OBTAINING HOSTING

Web hosting is often provided as part of a general Internet access plan; there are many free and paid providers offering these services.

A customer needs to evaluate the requirements of the application to choose what kind of hosting to use. Such considerations include database server software, scripting software, and operating system. Most hosting providers provide Linux-based web hosting which offers a wide range of different software. A typical configuration for a Linux server is the LAMP platform: Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python. The webhosting client may want to have other services, such as email for their business domain, databases or multi-media services for streaming media. A customer may also choose Windows as the hosting platform. The customer still can choose from PHP, Perl, and Python but may also use ASP .Net or Classic ASP.

Web hosting packages often include a Web Content Management System, so the end-user doesn't have to worry about the more technical aspects. These Web Content Management systems are great for the average user, but for those who want more control over their website design, this feature may not be adequate.

Most modern desktop operating systems (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) are also capable of running web server software, and thus can be used to host basic websites.

One may also search the Internet to find active webhosting message boards and forums that may provide feedback on what type of webhosting company may suit his/her needs.

Hosting reliability and uptime

Hosting uptime refers to the percentage of time the host is accessible via the internet. Many providers state that they aim for at least 99.9% uptime (roughly equivalent to 45 minutes of downtime a month, or less), but there may be server restarts and planned (or unplanned) maintenance in any hosting environment, which may or may not be considered part of the official uptime promise.

Many providers tie uptime and accessibility into their own service level agreement (SLA). SLAs sometimes include refunds or reduced costs if performance goals are not met.