Spring time at the University of South Carolina, Aiken. As I walked toward our campus university library, I had already committed to travel entire "ZMM Route." My plan was to Research and Photograph ZMM Historical Site Locations. To facilitate my data collection, I had decided to purchase (in addition to a digital camera), a handheld GPS receiver. I thought one of these Global Positioning System (GPS) units, really a kind of a radio receiver hooked to an internal computer, would be a great way to determine the precise location of each of my research photographs.

While passing through our “central quadrangle” on the USCA campus, I rehearsed what I would say to Research Librarian Paul Lewis. Paul was a person who was basically unknown to me except for the fact that someone told me Paul was in charge of the USCA Campus Global Information System (GIS). I figured that a GIS expert should know something about a GPS. I hoped Paul's advice would guide purchase of the proper GPS Unit, and how to mesh the GPS data (Deg. North Lat. + Deg. West Long.) with GIS databases.

Revised USCA Central Quadrangle by USCA Library.
Paul was not much help on the GPS "advice," but instead had much bigger and better ideas in a totally different direction! As I explained my overall ZMM Book research project to Paul, he immediately became animated with new webpage ideas! His librarian, book, & English major interests went into gear! He saw (without my telling him) the potential for a new website with my ZMM research findings. He immediately volunteered to set up these: what became these webpages and photo galleries. He has ever since been a great help guiding me in creating its content and cheerfully trouble-shooting when something goes wrong.

Paul had already "brought-up" several php websites and knew exactly what he was talking about. I did not know it, but at that time he was webmaster of the USCA Library website using older software. He had already started formulating plans to use php website for his Library webpages, and was extensively experimenting with php webwites. These were the training ground, much practice, and proof of principal for his emerging plans. His work with me provided just one more proof of principal for his efforts! About a half year later, Paul started the process of gaining university approval for converting the USCA Library to a php website. It took another half year to create the actual pages, so he could show the Library staff his new ideas, and thus gain final approval. They have had rock-solid reliability ever since! Take a look: http://library.usca.sc.edu/ .

That's me (April 2002) during an early planning session for ZMMquality.org. By this time, Paul had obtained our "internet domain name registration", and he was showing me (on his library office computer) how to use the php WebPage text up-loading and editing features on the screen. The books in front of the computer are William Least-Heat Moon’s "Prairie Earth" and "Blue Highways." These two books, are VERY FAMOUS books about traveling the USA, as is also true for the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” Since Paul had been already been reading "Prairie Earth," I brought over my Mother's old copy of "Blue Highways" for him to enjoy. My Mother, may she rest in peace, had really, really enjoyed arm-chair-traveling those Blue Highways with Mr. Least-Heat Moon. aaj.jpg

That’s Paul Lewis at his home computer set-up. Paul is quite professionally dressed while at working at the USCA Library, so you will never see him in the "informal sportswear" seen in this shot! The next three pictures are "screen captures" that show how our "php Gallery Software" photo editing is accomplished to make these photographs you are looking at right now.

This is Paul Lewis with one of the University's storehouse of antiques. The surrounding paneled room is for special USCA formal events. In this case, a reception for Library Staff. More about Paul Lewis’s family can be found at http://www.heniford.net Click on Gallery (upper left) to see some of Paul’s family pictures. The very LAST picture of the very last album “Librarians With Guns,” shows one of my first “photo-stitch” attempts. This 8-picture composite forms a VERY wide panorama (360 degrees full circle). Paul placed this photograph there to see if php Gallery could handle such huge panoramas. Since my ZMM Route photos include some 40 of these panoramas, we wanted to be sure … early … before we spent much time installing the wrong software! Lo and behold it worked just fine! So be sure to see some of the other panoramas at Panoramas

By late April 2002, Paul had obtained our "internet domain name registration," and began showing me how to use the php webpage up-loading and editing features on the screen. The next two pictures show examples of these editing screens.

This is a so-called “screen-capture” of a typical Gallery page during the “edit process.” Notice the small rectangle under the second small photograph, that says “Edit Photo.” When this rectangle is “mouse clicked,” (only under conditions of official log-in), it shows the following choices: 1) Edit Caption, 2) Edit Thumbnail, 3) Rotate Photo 4) Highlight Photo, 5) Move Photo, 6) Hide Photo, and 7) Delete Photo. These are obvious, simple, and easy to use. Using these functions in edit mode, practically anything desired can be accomplished with the Gallery Pages of Photos. For example, the Selected Photo can be moved anywhere within one album or moved to any other album. There are additional edit choices available on the Albums Page, such as editing 5 captions at a time. This screen capture was done by the ACDsee Photo Browser Software shown in the last picture in this album.