Hey, I'm a new MT user.  Have really enjoyed tweaking the past week, as It's finally letting a more graphically oriented thinker like me have access to a better way to publish online.

I've been scouring the discussions, looking for tools and techniques to complete the vision i have for my new site.

I have many, many questions about the tool, and how I can get some things done.  i hope you won't mind if i just provide them all in one email.  Thanks in advance for your assistance.

1.  I currently have the stylesheet feeding my page with a banner image.  I'd like for the images to randomly rotate at refresh.  Can this be done in .css?

2.  My host doesn't have image magick installed.  Can someone direct me to another way to create an image blog?  I tried the 5 easy steps system that was posted here previously, but it relies heavily on some tweaking that again relies on image magick

3.  I'm seriously investing time and research into my media design blog.  I'd like to work on eventually syndicating it once it has a good numebr of valuable posts.  Do you have any suggestions as to how to disseminate information regarding my blog once I'm done?

4.  Where do i find more information regarding the use of the filter command in CSS?  I want to add a discreet shadow to my banner titles so that they're not drowned out by the banner images.

5.  Is there a PHP tool or MT extension I can use, whereby an automated tool translates the text from english to another language without leaving the site?

6.  Is there a PHP tool or MT extension that can help me post information about my warehouse WiFi network's status?

7.  I have a live365 radio station.  Is there a way I can create a feed that will allow me to publish what's playing on my live 365 station without me having to play it?

again, thanks

here are my works in progress:

http://www.conscious-shell.com/blog
http://www.conscious-shell.com/poetry

thanks in advance!

Micah

I just created an imageblog without any hard work nor using ImageMagick. What I wanted was a thumbnail index.html where each small picture would link to the .html separate page of the full  picture. I have to say this was the easiest thing ever. You can always have your pictures by entry, date, or category, if you want.

So if I understand correctly you want an image blog outside of your current website? Then:

Create a separate blog on MT, call it Photography or something of the sorts, create a new folder for it, persay, /photo, and have your blog paths pointing to it.

I didn't use an archive folder because I figured that when the pictures would be on the image blog they'd load (since the pictures are located in the main blog folder) and when the entries would go in the archives folder the images would stop loading (the pictures aren't in the archives folder and I didn't want to duplicate them). So I made the archives folder point to my main blog folder, meaning archived posts will go to the same folder, and that's okay with me.

Upload all pictures (with Mt or FTP) to your main weblog folder. Then, create a new entry, and in the main box, put this:



If you want the image to appear centered in your individual or date-based pages, you can just add the tag in front. In your more or extended box you can add a description. And then, you'll need to have this, in your Excerpt box:



And define the width and height as you want it since this will be a thumbnail. Of course you're free to not use the excerpt, but this is in case you'd want a thumbnail main page. I found the code for the thumbnails at Scriptygoddess.com, click here. If you're not using thumbnails you don't need to put anything in the excerpts.

And then you'll need to do some tweaking in your Main Index template to have you Entry body show your entries (the picture) and the extended entry (the description), as you want them to look. You'll probably only use the excerpt if you want thumbnails. And then, the link I gave you explains what you need to have in your Main Index template.

I hope this wasn't too confusing.