I now have over 300 pictures on the site. While keeping track of these pictures in the database is easy, coming up with unique filenames were not.  I refrain from using filenames that are too long -- I like filenames that are around 8 characters long, save for the extension.  (This probably stems from my DOS days, when all filenames were of the 8.3 format.)  I began adopting a naming method that included an abbreviation of the topic that described the picture, followed by an ordinal number.  Thus, a picture for The Bomber Spur tour was named "bomber05.jpg".  While it's obvious what the picture is by just looking at its filename, some others were not so easy to determine.  I had a file named "tp_br_bells_02.jpg". Good luck deciphering that file to be the 2nd picture of the Texas & Pacific bridge in Bells, TX.  Never mind what a naming convention like this does for promoting uniformity and unambiguity in filenames (it doesn't).

So I have come up with an entirely new approach.  Instead of trying to name files in a creative manner and keeping up with previous filenames while being restricted by the unnecessary and archaic 8.3 DOS format and for my own sanity, I decided that I would no longer name the picture files I put on my website.

How do I accomplish this?  Simple.  My programming skills allow me to write all sorts of software applications (not to mention my website), so I wrote a random filename generator.  Basically, it takes all the files in a given local directory, and renames them using a completely random filename.  The renamed pictures are then transferred to the website, and added to the pictures database.  The database doesn't care what the filename is, and hence forth, neither do I.  Kind of like the tale of how Albert Einstein would have a closet full of suits all exactly the same, so that he didn't have to waste brain energy in determining what he was going to wear for the day. He would just grab the next suit on the rack.  I'm no Einstein of course, but I think we can all take something away from that.

The funny thing is, all the filenames still adhere to the 8.3 format.

Otherwise, I haven't devoted much time to the site over the past month, what with the holidays upon us. I have at least 90 more Kodachromes to scan in, which I hope to do sometime next year with my new/used slide scanner.

If I don't say it later, I hope that everybody has a Merry Christmas!