The+story+behind+the+slideshow

This page is exactly what its name says.
====It's the story of how my Photopeach slideshow came to be. It may not have too much to do with the website, but I think it holds some important lessons for everyone who uses web 2.0 products, or any kind of technology. So here it is... my nostalgic ramblings that make up the long story of __Original Backgrounds__.==== To refresh your memory, here it is again. media type="custom" key="11979249"

In sixth grade, I loved playing around with the settings on my school's Macbooks. I grew up with PCs, so I had tons of fun discovering all the cool things those computers could do (although some people weren't nearly as amused by my tinkering. My social studies teacher in particular wasn't thrilled when my computer suddenly announced, in a voice like a robot, that IT IS ONE FIFTEEN!). So of course, I played with the desktop wallpaper on almost every computer I logged into. Eventually, I discovered the feature that allows you to make the wallpaper change every 5 seconds. This was the year after I went crazy for reptiles, amphibians, and birds of prey. So pretty soon, my computer screens were filled with rotating pictures of pretty much anything that crawled, slithered, hopped, or flew. I also added pictures of my favorite book covers, as well as any images I came across that I just liked. I didn't sort the pictures at all- I just kept them all jumbled together in a desktop folder on each computer labeled BACKGROUNDS. I'm still not sure why, but my habit annoyed some teachers.

And that was the only year I ever played with the computer settings.

In seventh grade, I heard that it was against the Acceptable Use Policy rules to change the desktop background. I didn't think it was true, but I didn't want to risk it. So I went home, transferred the pictures to my home desktop, and deleted them from my thumb drive. I had just gotten my own account set up on our home computer. Now, this computer didn't have auto-rotating wallpaper. What it did have was a nifty little program called Windows Sidebar. And Windows Sidebar had a gadget program called Slideshow. My parents thought the Sidebar was annoying and always kept it closed, so I did, too. Until now. When I first saw Sidebar, the slideshow playing was a bunch of preloaded pictures of pretty scenery, which I ignored. When I took a closer look, though, I saw a little wrench in the corner. I clicked it. Success! The settings allowed me to have the slideshow cycle through my own collections. I linked the gadget to BACKGROUNDS. Now the Slideshow was showing my pictures, which I had originally used as desktop backgrounds. And that's the way it stayed all through seventh grade. At some point during that year, I got tired of the way the pictures were sorted- alphabetically, by title- which is to say, not really sorted at all. So I started organizing them. I made folders by class, genus, and species for the animals. For the books, I made folders sorted by author and by series. I had different ways of sorting each group of pictures, but they were all the same in one way. It was all neat and organized.

Towards the end of seventh grade, the computer started having problems. It got slow and sometimes my slideshow wouldn't play. The space around the keyboard got super hot. The battery stopped working, and the computer had to be plugged in literally all the time, or it didn't work. I realized that if the computer crashed, and my desktop files were lost, (or if my parents decided the pictures were taking up too much room on the hard drive and removed them, or if my sister made good on her threat to delete the folder, or anything else happened) that was it. All my pictures would be gone. So I backed up all my pictures to an external hard drive. Now, whenever I added a new picture, I had to find the same place in both the folders- the desktop and external hard drive versions. A pain, but they were all safe from the whims of the ever more glitchy computer desktop.

At the beginning of eighth grade, I got tired of copying pictures to both locations in ones and twos. So I made a new folder on the desktop. It was called TRANSFER ORGANIZER. It was a storage place for my pictures until I got enough that it was worthwhile to take the time to store them properly on the hard drive and insert them into the slideshow.

Fast forward to the day this website is due for a midterm grade. I have just booted up a brand new laptop for the first time- my Christmas present. I have copied the Backgrounds folder from the new external hard drive- the old one wore out at least six months ago, maybe longer. I just opened my new Windows Sidebar-after I adjusted all the appearance and personalization settings, of course. And with them was a surprise- this computer has rotating wallpaper. The folder, which had only a few dozen pictures at most the day I deleted it from my thumb drive, now has over a thousand. My pictures have come almost full circle. "Backgrounds" really are backgrounds once again.

But I didn't boot this computer up just to play with it- I have work to do. I open the web browser. I browse the incomplete website, deciding what needs to be done first. Photopeach.com needs a sample slideshow. I'll start with that. I already have an account, but now I need pictures. I'm looking through my neatly organized folders on the hard drive, trying to find something I can use, when I spot it. It's a folder labeled 'Backgrounds". But that shouldn't be here. And anyway, I changed the icon on that folder to a star a long, long time ago- probably when I first brought the file home. The folder I'm looking at has the generic file folder icon. I open it. It's my pictures. The original. The 66 pictures I started with, so long ago. Not sorted at all. All jumbled together, just like I remember them. This is the perfect set of pictures to use. But I still need music to put with my Photopeach.com slideshow. Since this is meant to showcase the best features of the website, I'll use something off of Youtube. Suddenly, it hits me. The perfect song for these pictures. And the perfect story to go with it.

When I first saw these pictures and heard this song, about growing up and looking back at when you were young, it made me think back to those days in sixth grade. I was so much younger. I wasn't worried about organizing or backing up my files. It just wasn't that important. Everything would work itself out. It made me wonder, when did life get so complicated, with homework every night until bedtime, and places to go and things to do every second of the day? Doesn't everyone have a bit of nostalgia for our uncomplicated, carefree childhood? I see my neatly sorted files as representing that need to find everything quickly, easily- too easily? I'm not sure anymore whether having the world at our fingertips is a good thing. In a way, I miss searching through seemingly endless picures- not so much the search itself, but the joy and the satisfaction at it's conclusion, when I finally have exactly what I'm looking for. I believe there's a lesson in that-not just for me, but for all of us. Yes, we can have everything RIGHT NOW, at lightning speed. But should we? We gain, but we also lose. I think we should all learn a little patience for once and let everyone be happy with the knowledge that they have finally found exactly what they're looking for.

= = =Almost exactly 2 weeks later...=

I go online to do a really-fast-because-I don't-know-when-this-is-due style Glogster poster- a couple photos and some clip art, with a little text thrown in. I'm searching "reptiles". I'm in way too much of a hurry to ID the species. But I put the photos on my flash drive to add to TRANSFER ORGANIZER, then eventually to BACKGROUNDS. Later that night, I have some free time, so I sort the pictures from my Transfer Organizer. Making full use of the new Google feature that allows you to upload your own image and use it in a search, I manage to ID every picture. Except one. It's a lizard, that much I can tell. And a really cool one. The head shape alone should make it easily identifiable. But nothing comes up. I try for at least an hour to find that lizard. No luck. I finally give up in disgust. But I just can't bear the idea that I found this beautiful picture of an awesome lizard and I'll never know what it's called. So the next day, I give it one last try, using different keywords than I did yesterday in the hopes that I might get lucky. Scrolling down pages of images that aren't even close, I consider throwing in the towel, but I decide to look at one last page. Scanning the rows. Not it, not it, nope, that's a snake... wait. What was that? I click the picture. It's pretty darn close- same markings, and the head looks right. And this picture was taken by a photographer who actually knew what he was taking a picture of. It's labeled. I place the images side by side. Finally, after about an hour and a half of fruitless web searches, they match. And I can add the Borneo Angle Headed Lizard to my Backgrounds. It was exactly what I was looking for.

The picture that started the search....

and the one that ended it.

Screenshots of the obscure little website I found this photo on, with the picture I used circled (which I bookmarked to commemorate the search)...



And finally, my two pictures side by side.

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