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Our Lady of the Snows Stormy Knights Jr. Drum and Bugle Corps Alumni
The Knightly News Letter
August 25, 2000

Hi Stormy Knights:

I'll be writing about the following subjects in this first issue of
The Knightly News Letter.

1) The creation/maintenance of the newsletter.
2) The new Stormy Knights web address.
3) Webshots/Ofoto: ordering photo prints online.

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1) I created this mail list from my personel address book from e-mails
submitted to the Stormy Knights site. When I get some time I may 
create a public online mail list from "listserv" or "e-groups".

If you don't want to be on any future mail lists please reply with
the word "Remove" in the "Subject".

If anyone wants to be the moderator/editor for this newsletter,
please step forward (or the rest of you take one step back!).
I don't think this would need to go out more than once a month,
quarterly may even be OK. We can define this newsletter to be
anything we want it to be regarding content and schedule.

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2) The "new" Stormy Knights web address is:

http://www.stormyknights.org/

Please use this link when letting other alumni know about the site.
This new address is a "virtual link" that will be redirected to whatever
address the "real" server/host site may be placed on in the future.

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3) You may be interested in checking out the following web site.

   "www.webshots.com"

Please visit the site thru the link on the Stormy Knights affiliate page:
    http://www.stormyknights.org/affilates.htm

They have some cool photos that you can add to your desktop for free.
You have to download software to your PC, and they make daily updates
which you can also download. Their pictures are all copyrighted so you can't
display (copy) the photos without using their software. You can however
import your own photos into an "album" on your PC, and do some cool
things with them.

Here's how they make money. Through their affiliation with an
on-line photo developer (Ofoto), they allow you to buy prints from
on-line photos that have been submitted to their site. Anyone can submit
a picture (within reason, see their Terms of Service) and anyone can
order it. You need to pay shipping. You can share a photo album with
anyone, anywhere.

Please note the only affiliation the Stormy Knights site has with either
Webshots or Ofoto is from downloading or "clicking through" to their
site, NOT from ordering prints.

I submitted the '72 corps photo at a much higher resolution than posted
on the Stormy Knights site. This way anyone can order it online.
You should get better results than trying to print the pictures from the
Stormy Knight site. The resolutions on the site are not high enough,
and most people don't have a photo quality printer (including me).
If enough of you want, I can post the high-resolution picture, but then you
are on your own in downloading and printing them. They would also take
up a lot of disk space on the web site.

There's white space at the top and bottom where I cropped off a lot of
blue sky and green grass. This way it would be shorter to download or
view when viewing the photo from the Stormy Knights site.
In an 8x10 frame you would see this white space unless it was matted.
There's an option when selecting a print: "Zoom and Trim".
If you want the white space gone, keep it selected. The picture will
be zoomed in a bit, but the sides may be cropped off.
If you DON'T want the sides cropped out, UNCHECK this box.

I can scan the original again and not crop anything out, but only if I get
enough feedback that people want this.

I'm not positive, but you may have to download their software and
install their "desktop" before you get access to the main "Webshots"
page. When you get to the main page: "www.webshots.com", type in
"Stormy Knights" into the "Photo Search" box. I'll let you guys figure
out the rest of the details when ordering the picture. The picture I
submitted is over 1 megabyte. So if you want to view it on line, get a
cup of coffee and get ready to scroll as it won't fit on your screen.

Do a search for "Drum Corps" and you'll also find a lot more pictures!

I think that because I opened an account with them (downloaded their
software) they gave me a 50 free photo credit (4x6 only). I'm not
completely sure how this works. I think needed to download the
software to view the photo's, so if you're not a member, you may not
get the 50 free 4x6 pictures.

I did a test run and ordered a free 4x6 and an 8x10 since I wanted to
see if the resolution was high enough for an 8x10. It was. The color was
a bit off from my original picture, but it was off on my screen as well.
There are many variables in determining photo quality. My scanner,
my monitor, my eyes, the photo developer. Overall I would say the
picture was good. In some respects it actually looked better than the
original. And then consider that the original is so fragile I don't like
to handle it. (The picture IS 28 years old you know.)
I'm glad to have a copy. The final cost for the 8x10 was about $4.50.

The 4x6 looks good too, but is obviously too small considering the
amount of detail.

This is a neat way to share photos with family and friends. Make sure
that any pictures you submit are at least 640x480 or else they won't be
printable (viewable yes).

Whenever you visit the Webshots site please do so from the Affiliate page
on the Stormy Knight site.

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