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Urban Distinction Portal FAQs
I get quite a lot of people asking me stuff about my portal, so
made a Frequently Asked Questions :) If something is not answered here, then
just email me at the bottom of the page or go to the
contact me page.Q. What is a 'Cam Portal'?
A. It's a page where there is many different pictures of people's webcams at
once. I am currently in different portals who are linked on my main website
links page. It also helps attract a lot of links to your website, cos someone
sees your image and thinks "that must be a cool site" and goes to look.
Q. What is your 'Urban Distinctive Cam Portal'?
A. Finally I made my own portal a few years ago now. It started off tiny and
empty, and now is up to 8 pages of different working cam pictures. The question of 'what is a portal?'
is answered above. My portal is part of my website. You're really welcome to
join it, by clicking the "join" on the pages, and meeting the requirements on
the form. Or just peak though it! I really made it to view all my friends current pics at once hehe, but you are welcome to join! I have met loads of cool new
people and friends though it.
Q. Why the rules?
A. Without rules the entire world would self-destruct! It would be mayhem and
anarchy, I tell you, mayhem and anarchy!
The rules (pretty standard for most portals) are there just so that it keeps
a standard format for each person and keeps the portal running smoothly!
Q. What are the rules?
A. The rules and explanations of them are below....
o You need to have a webcam or digital camera or any form of camera,
which is set up to take still live pictures and upload them via ftp to a web
address.
This is a pretty obvious rule. The idea of a portal is that it has fairly regular
updated images. It's not a place for banners to advertise your site, that never
update! Some people use their digital camera as their webcam and others take
a picture and edit it, but have a regular "still image" on their website. See
my webcam faq about how to set up your own webcam online
o The picture has got to be .jpeg or .gif format, and 320 pixels width with 240 pixels
height in size (standard format).
This is the standard webcam size format! Nearly all portals have the same
sizes. Each box on my portal is spaced for 320 x 240 and if your picture is
a lot smaller or larger than this, then it will stretch or shrink and you
will look awful :( .jpg is a standard format on portals as well, as well as
.gif. The only problem with allowing .gif files on your portal is that its
possibly to make and use animated .gif files. They look really pretty and
move, but can take AGES to load up.
Apart from the size and format rule, the actual size of the picture in kb
does not matter. However you cannot make that huge file sizes with the standard
format width and height sizes. Remember the larger the picture, the longer it
takes to download more / bigger chance of it breaking and showing a red x or
using up all the bandwidth of your server space!
My portal is quite popular and does get quite a lot of visitors. Some
people find there is a load on their cam pic, and increased bandwidth.
Remember you are welcome to join or ask to be removed at any time!
o You've got to update sometimes, and not just leave the same piccie for 6 months
argh , at least every week-ish if you can!
Seeing the same picture after months gets boring! Sometimes I take ages
to update but I always update at least once every 7 days! You need to keep
it fresh baby, I like to get fresh ;)
o you can have whatever you want on your webcam, nudity or anything
within reason EXCEPT anything that promotes hatred. Racism, Homophobia and
any Bigoted text or imagery is not allowed. I am all about love baby
You can say whatever you want on the internet and the internet gives great
opportunities for freedom of speech! But you know what, I don't want to associate
or have people on my personal area of the net who breed hatred towards anyone.
Write whatever you want on your personal homepage/website but I don't want my
site linking with anyone who has a problem with other people. It's your problem,
not mine baybee
Nudity is different. My web hoster allows nudity and porn now, but not
illegal stuff, like nakked animals, children, dead naked bodies etc ;)
People pretty much put everything and anything on their webcam! I don't
mind and this is not a young children's site, but constant nudity can get
boring after a while.
o Please link to my homepage or portal, there is link buttons on the button
page right
here. (Please download them to your own server, cheers!) or just use a text
link to me.
I have added you to my portal and people get quite a lot of hits from people
surfing though! All I ask in return is that you have some sort of link to my
portal, somewhere on your pages. Someone might find my portal from your pages
and enjoy it /bookmark it / join it!
o you must host your picture in a place that allows remote linking. Must free
servers do not allow this and will now show on my portal at all!
This was not on my original rules list, but have added it recently! Quite a
few people have tried to join my portal with their picture hosted at angelfire
and other free hosting! I am sorry it won't work :( The problem is that nearly
all the free server companies don't allow remote linking, so if you have a picture
from your free area, it just looks broken to everyone else (or angelfire has
a message saying "we do not allow remote linking"). This completely messes up
my portal. What's the point in joining with no working image?
o Some hosts do not allow people from different countries to load or view
html and images, outside of their own country. Particularly the Brazilian
host "kit.net". Only Brazilian people inside the country can see images
and pages hosted on that free domain.
I get a lot of people joining from around the world. I love it! I would
love to have every single country represented :) I used to get a whole
influx of people joining from Brazil. In Brazil there is a national free
hosting provider called kit.net
- this lead to a whole saga for me. People kept joining with their websites
and cameras hosted there, and I couldn't see anything, it just looked
broken. Then oneday I looked into it, and only people from Brazil can
actually see kit.net. If you don't believe me, click on that link above. You
can only see their pages, if you are in Brazil, and connected on a Brazilian
internet provider. I think its to reduce load on their servers and
bandwidth. Please make sure that your cam is visible to the world if you
join. If you join and your cam and homepage are broken already, I won't add
you.
Everyone should be able to see your camera pictures and homepage, or
what's the point of the portal?
That is all the rules explained. I own and make all the coding for my own
portal. Its my decision in the end, to remove or add you. I have never
refused anyone to join yet. My decisions are final (ooh I saw that
on someone's portal "terms and conditions" and it sound sooo good! lol)
Q. you removed me from your portal, you #&%^%$^$!!
A. Every few months I get bored and go though and clear out people's images
that have been dead for ages! People seem to let their website/ domain hosting
die and then I just have a broken image/site link on my portal! If you have
not contacted me and said what's going on, then I will clean you up in the tidy
ups!
I don't remove broken images, which look like a "broken red x" that often,
but after a while they become boring!
I have not removed anyone for any personal reasons, its usually either you broke
the rules or your image is now broken! If you want, you are totally welcome
to re-join! Just please make sure you now have a working image and site!
Q. I want to edit/ change my cam picture url or homepage or other details...
A. You're welcome to change anything at any time! Just either use the join form
from the portal or email me directly at the bottom of this faq page. I much
prefer for you to say that your cam is broken at the moment or your site is
down, but will be back in a few weeks than just a broken image permanently!
Q. I have more than one camera, that I wish to add...
A. sure just sign them up! As long as they abide by the rules and are
updated.
If you can think of anything else for here, please write to me! Do you
have any questions? If you want to rejoin or change anything, use the join
form on the main portal pages or email me below!
Also if you cannot get your details to send and the form seems to be broken,
or have any errors on the portal, just email or contact me...
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