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.)
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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.