Frequently Asked Questions

Site History
This site was started in late 2002 by Nick Pappas, a freshman at Covenant College who was looking for a convienient way to put pictures from his digital camera on the Internet. Several other large sites existed, but charged money. Prebuilt sites were also avaliable, but were not what Nick was looking for. So, using the technologies of PHP, PEAR, Apache, and MySQL; this site was born. On average, a new version of the site is released every year. The last major update was on 4/1/06. Nick is the sole developer of the site, but has great input from friends, family and other regular users.

How Do I Contact The Site Owners?
Please use help@katanapg.com for anything questions, concerns, or inquiries related to this site.

Why the name "Katana"?
Katana was the development name for the site before I released it. Programmers tend to come up with names for projects before deciding on something better. For instance, the upcoming Windows Vista was codenamed "Longhorn." I chose Katana and never thought of anything better, so it stuck. I'm open to new ideas though.

Disclaimer
We take your photos very seriously. All photos are backed-up nightly to an offsite location and programming updates are done on test-sites prior to being deployed as live updates. However, just to cover ourselves, we can not guarantee that this will always be good enough. Photos are currently backed up once per day, so if our primary server dies, all photos uploaded since the last backup will be lost. Additionally, an update may happen that was not tested well enough that results in the accidental deletion of photos. We can not forsee these situations and disclaim any liability. In fact, we disclaim our backups working as well. We don't write this to scare you. Please understand that this service is provided free and we literally can not afford for anyone to bring charges against us in the event of a loss of photos. You have been warned.

Design Philosophy
Katana looks and acts differently than many other photo-sharing sites on the web today. Our primary design philosophy has and will always revolve around photos. We want to maximize the space on each page for what you want it for: viewing a photo or a set of photos. We also keep one advertisement at the bottom of every page- out of your way, but still there in case you find something of interest. Our top bar has useful links that take you around the site, and we don't display a logo that takes up a good amount of screen space either. We aim to be clean.

Our secondary goal is to be intiutive. This means you should never feel frustrated at any particular point. If you do, hit the "argh!" link at the top and complain about it to us. We value your feedback and will address any shortcomings you find. If you have suggestions as well, feel free to use the same link.

Creating an account
To sign up, simply click the link at the top of the page labeled 'signup now', or click here. After filling in the necessary information and finishing the form, you will recieve a temporary password. You may change this password once you log in to the site.

Leaving a comment
You can leave comments for groups of photos or individual photos. You must have an account and be logged in to leave a comment. This is to discourage spam and promote the community feel of the site.

Web Browser Requirements
Because web technology is constantly evolving, it is impossible to support all browsers and still have a decent site. Therefore, the maintainers have decided to use some web technologies to provide for a clean experience to this site. Specifically, if your browser does not support Cookies or JavaScript; you will not be able to realize the site to it's fullest extent. In fact, without Cookies enabled, you will not be able to log in. The site is tested and works 100% under Internet Explorer 6 and FireFox, the two most popular browsers on the web.

Getting your photos on the site
You must be logged in to the site before you can upload any photos. Once you are logged in, go to the control panel. From here, you can then go to the Upload Photos link. From there, select up to 7 photos in jpg format (most digital cameras) and click upload. Depending on the speed of your upload connection, it may take a long time. You can also upload up to 100MB at a time using a zip file. You can then launch the Photo Manager to sort and rename your photos.

Trouble Logging In
If you can not stay logged in, then your browser likely has Cookies or Sessions disabled. Please make sure that these options are enabled for your browser. If you are certain that these are enabled and are still having issues, then please send an email using the help-desk link above.

About Information Security
Your password is encrypted in the site database so not even the maintainers can discover it. If you ask us for your password, we have no way of knowing it, though we can reset it to something else. Also as with most things, we will never ask for your password, ever. We don't need it to get into your account. :)

What Is GO! Technology?
GO! is an experimental feature of the site. Most new phones have cameras built into them, but you typically have to pay for this service from your phone provider. GO! Technology is a free extension to the site that allows you to take and store photos from your camera phone directly onto your site account.

What Do I Need To Know About GO! Technology?
Before you enable GO! Technology, you must read this FAQ entry. Although the GO! Technology usage is free on this site, most providers monitor and charge you for Internet usage on your phone. However, if you have a "Picture Mail" package or something similar on your account, then you will experience no charges. In fact, you probably won't be able to use the feature at all without the relevant "pictures" package from your cell provider.

Enabling GO! On Your Account
After you are sure you can enable GO! (cost-wise), use your Information Control Panel to enable GO! on your account. Doing so will enable a special "text-to" email address that you will enter into your phone whenever you want a photo to go to Katana. Photos taken will be uploaded into a special "On The GO!" group.

Terms and Conditions
By using GO! Technology you agree not to hold this site, nor anyone involved with programming, uploading, testing, hosting, or in any way whatsoever (explicit or implicit) associated with this site responsible for any charges that your mobile service provider may assess for your Internet usage related to this site. This service is used at your own risk and is offered as a public service. You are to treat it as such in legal terms. You have thus been warned that usage may create service surcharges and may violate your contract with your service provider. Any clarification to these terms may be received by emailing the helpdesk (link above).