OrchidTalk now Mobile...

[orchidsal]

Bruce; I remember when 'going mobile' meant a cellular phone only, and before that a walkie-talkie, and before that two tin cans attached by string, and before that throwing rocks at each other to get their attention. Sorry, that is as far back as I go! AL

[ajamarie]

can you post photos from a mobile phone here? i have not figured out how to do so....

[Brutal_Dreamer]

can you post photos from a mobile phone here? i have not figured out how to do so....

Not unless they are uploaded to a computer first. I am still looking for a way to do this also. Eventually, we should be able to do it, Aja.

Cheers,
BD

[emeraude1484]

Great idea!!! Is there a way to post pics directly from your phone yet? I can't seem to find it...

Thanks!
Stef

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Great idea!!! Is there a way to post pics directly from your phone yet? I can't seem to find it...

Thanks!
Stef

Hi Stef,

The only way to post photos from your phone is to upload them to another site (like facebook or photobucket, etc) and then use the [Img] [/img ] (image codes) to post your image. I have found software to allow our members to post photos from their iphone or android powered phones, but the cost is 299.00 up front and a subscription of 99.00 per year. At this point, I cannot afford to buy that software without a sponsor to cover the extra costs. For now, upload to a photo hosting site and use the bbcode for images: [img]your image link here[/img].

Cheers,
BD

[emeraude1484]

Hi Stef,

The only way to post photos from your phone is to upload them to another site (like facebook or photobucket, etc) and then use the [Img] [/img ] (image codes) to post your image. I have found software to allow our members to post photos from their iphone or android powered phones, but the cost is 299.00 up front and a subscription of 99.00 per year. At this point, I cannot afford to buy that software without a sponsor to cover the extra costs. For now, upload to a photo hosting site and use the bbcode for images: [img]your image link here[/img].

Cheers,
BD

I don't blame you Great idea though! I ended up just posting my question/ link to facebook with photos of the plants I need help with in the beginners forum.

Thanks!

[TwoStems]

Forgive me for not reading back all the way, but has anyone considered using Tapatalk? I think it's either free or $.99 and works on all smartphones. It's an excellent app for forums and solves the image upload issue.

[raybark]

Forgive me for not reading back all the way, but has anyone considered using Tapatalk? I think it's either free or $.99 and works on all smartphones. It's an excellent app for forums and solves the image upload issue.

BUMP

Bruce, Tapatalk is available for the vBulletin platform, is very easy to implement, and costs you nothing. I access all of the other forums I joined with it, and while it's good with the smartphone, it's great on a tablet.

Please consider it.

[Brutal_Dreamer]

BUMP

Bruce, Tapatalk is available for the vBulletin platform, is very easy to implement, and costs you nothing. I access all of the other forums I joined with it, and while it's good with the smartphone, it's great on a tablet.

Please consider it.

Thank you Ray, I am aware of it and have considered it, but choose not to use it since members would be required to pay to actually use it to post. (Free to read the forum with Tapatalk, but our members would have to buy it to use it to post to the site.)

I maintain a free mobile version of this site that works well and is very light-weight (low band-width) for smart phones and 16.81% of our visits come from mobile devices according to our analytic page in google (December 2012). 40.64% of those visits come from users on I-pads, 28.7% from I-phones. The I-pad visitors all use the standard forum, the I-phone users use the mobile site. The remaining breakdown is fairly spread out among Samsung,Motorola, etc... phones and tablet devices. And the bounce rate (the number of users who attempt to use the site and then leave without navigating to additional pages) is under 3% - extremely low.

In a coming update that we have been working on for the past few months, the mobile OrchidTalk site is getting a bit of a face lift with more added features and a mobile home page that is easier to navigate. I'm not sure when we will go into live production with that update as I'm still not completely satisfied a number of items that were pre-coded into the software. Once I am able to thin those out to keep the light-weight and fast load time we currently enjoy with our mobile site, we can go live with it. For now, the mobile version of our site seems to work very well for the users who visit using mobile devices.

I know that is probably way more information than you need, but I wanted you to know that I have considered that software option (a few times) and have decided to keep maintaining a private mobile version of the site instead.

cheers,
BD

[raybark]

Actually Bruce, I think you're missing something. Yes, the mobile site is free, and apparently works pretty well, but it seems to me that adding Tapatalk might actually broaden the appeal.

It costs you nothing to implement, folks who don't already have it are not required you purchase it, and folks that do have it have the opportunity to use it or not.

By not offering it, you are forcing folks like me - who frequent several different forums - to switch applications in order to read the posts here, making it less appealing.

It is obviously your choice, but unless it interferes with your current script, I cannot see why you'd pass up the opportunity.