The random photos are back. I wrote a quick hack to loop over every photo in every album and read its relevant info into a MySQL table. Now instead of taking a few seconds to get a random photo using the Gallery data stores, it uses a single query and takes a millisecond. Long-time visitors to the site remember that the random image in the corner has always been one of my favorite things about this site, but as the photolog grew to a thousand, two thousand, and then nine thousand images it slowed down more and more. I had to start caching it so it would change once every 15 seconds, then every minute, then every 5 minutes, and then I just manually rotated it for a while. Finally I put the random image out of its misery.
Now it’s fully dynamic, every page you view is completely unique, just like you.
(There goes my bandwidth.)
Matt Mullenweg is one of PC World’s Top 50 People on the Web, Inc.com’s 30 under 30, and Business Week’s 25 Most Influential People on the Web. 
Dale | September 12th, 2004 @ 7:12 am |
hehehehe F5 F5 F5…..
MaThIbUs | September 12th, 2004 @ 7:23 am |
Indeed! Nine thousand photos is a whole lot, I can imagine those take up a lot of server space. (Poor me, I’ve only got 75 MB on my server, with a bandwidth limit of 5 GB…)
Observer | September 12th, 2004 @ 7:24 am |
@Dale:Hehe, nice one!
@Matt: Another big PRO for RSS et. al., don’t you think?
Scott | September 12th, 2004 @ 7:33 am |
Awesome Matt! Bandwidth, Smandwidth!
markku | September 12th, 2004 @ 10:23 am |
Nine thousand photos? Wow. Maybe you should have your randomizer provide a unique photo when a visitor comes back, without serving a photo twice. Until all 9000 photos are delivered for that visitor. Then another shuffle, and the same cycle all over again…
Just another stupid idea.
Indranil | September 12th, 2004 @ 10:53 am |
Hey Matt, ever heard of “limited bandwidth”!!
Rob Mientjes | September 12th, 2004 @ 11:28 am |
Hurrah! I love the random image, and I missed it since it went out of rotation (well duh). Thanks for putting it up again.
Randy Peterman | September 12th, 2004 @ 1:43 pm |
Remember, you’re unique, just like everyone else.
Jonathan Stanley | September 12th, 2004 @ 1:52 pm |
Thought bandwidth was a commodity which one doesn’t have to worry about anymore?
Anyhoo… good to see it back as I’m using Gallery’s native “Random Block” feature on a friend’s site since June-ish, and finally gave in and started using it on my own blog just a couple weeks ago.
F5F5F5F5F5/me feels dirty in misusing <code> when he should have used <kbd>…
Daniel | September 12th, 2004 @ 2:53 pm |
I must say, 9,000 images is alot. It’s very good to see the random images up again. I did miss that space up there in the corner. Yay for photos!
Jesus Vargas | September 12th, 2004 @ 3:09 pm |
And the code? Is it free? LOL. ThX
Matthew Wilcox | September 12th, 2004 @ 3:50 pm |
Wow, so there -is- a reason you’re URL is photomatt.net
Always wondered why the ‘photo’ bit
Matt | September 12th, 2004 @ 3:52 pm |
Reload to your heart’s content, that is what it’s there for. I use a lot of bandwidth, but it’s still a fraction of what’s available. Besides, what is the point of bandwidth if you don’t enjoy it?
Josh Street | September 12th, 2004 @ 5:06 pm |
Wow. That’s a bit kah-razy… I want that kinda bandwidth to throw around!!
Very cool.
Jeremy | September 12th, 2004 @ 6:03 pm |
yay! It’s back!
Thanks Matt! I enjoyed this feature as well.
Matt Read | September 12th, 2004 @ 6:13 pm |
Looks very good Matt. And being on dial-up there nice and small and don’t add much to load time. Nice.
elissa | September 12th, 2004 @ 7:32 pm |
rockin’.
Stephan Segraves | September 13th, 2004 @ 9:04 am |
Very cool. Glad to see it back!
Are you dynamically thumbnailing the photos before they are displayed?
Matt | September 13th, 2004 @ 9:10 am |
Nope the thumbnails are generated when I upload the picture.
Julie | September 13th, 2004 @ 1:09 pm |
Ah, the random photo. Beautiful.
Christine | September 13th, 2004 @ 9:39 pm |
Yeah!!! I’ve missed the random photos. It’s really strange to load up your site and see myself there though!
Carla | November 3rd, 2004 @ 5:40 pm |
Does it ignore Gallery-hidden images and albums, per chance?
Matt | November 3rd, 2004 @ 6:49 pm |
Yes it does.
Carla | November 7th, 2004 @ 2:54 pm |
Groovy. Tunes. Thanks, Matt! I use Gallery to organize as well as to present, and I don’t think anyone wants to be bombarded with random clip art or blobs.