How to host a photo blog on your Mac?

[dingdongbubble]

Hi,

I would like to create a simple photo blog using something like iWeb or RapidWeaver and then just host it on my Mac. Web hosting seems too complicated, less private with advertising and what not. Only a couple of people will access the photo blog (something like my private Facebook feed) so I dont even want a domain name, I will just send them my IP address.

I will probably have just one huge long web page with all my latest photos and once my friends have seen my pics I will remove the page and update or make a new one later when I have new photos.

I have Mountain Lion so that personal Web Sharing Option is gone from Sharing Preferences. So is there some guide or app that can make this whole thing very simple?

 

[ElectricSheep]

Even though personal web sharing is no longer offered as an out-of-the-box feature in 10.8 and above, you can still install packages like MAMP (Mac-Apache-MySQL-PHP) which will give you a pretty complete web-application hosting environment.

but

Once you make your Mac public, its public. It doesn't matter how selective you are about handing out your IP address, its public and anyone can access it. There are machines out there that just scan entire networks looking for open ports and probing them for vulnerabilities. I used to sit and watch the incoming blind attempts to access resources coming in from the local segment on Comcast when I was bored. By choosing to host from your own server, the onus is upon you to lock things down; if someone finds a hole your personal machine is at risk.

 

[dingdongbubble]

Well how it would work is, say, I went for a trip to some cool place and took a bunch of photos. I would speak to my friends and tell them I've got photos to share and then turn on the web server and once they've finished viewing the photos the same day, I would switch it off. The next time I do the same thing I would be on a different IP address since I would reconnect my router to the internet. Would it still be unsafe? And how about if I put a password lock on the page that only my friends knew?

 

[robbieduncan]

Use something like Flickr and non-public photos. Easier, safer...

 

[r0k]

Well how it would work is, say, I went for a trip to some cool place and took a bunch of photos. I would speak to my friends and tell them I've got photos to share and then turn on the web server and once they've finished viewing the photos the same day, I would switch it off. The next time I do the same thing I would be on a different IP address since I would reconnect my router to the internet. Would it still be unsafe? And how about if I put a password lock on the page that only my friends knew?

I must recommend against hosting web space on your Mac. You could do this by setting you your router to put your Mac in a "DMZ" so it gets raw internet traffic or by port forwarding. I have another suggestion. Why not consider a more dedicated hosting option. There are many options...

Google+:
First there is google. Through google, you get a small web space you can post just about anything you want. You can also use google+ to host your photos and make them visible only to people in certain circles. You can add your friends to a circle called "photos" and only allow people in the photos circle to see your pictures and you are done.

Flickr:
Then there is flickr. Flickr offers 1 TB of free photo hosting. You can mark photos private and dole out access to photos and collections to users of your own choosing. The only down side is you and people who view your photos will need a yahoo account.

Use a NAS:
If you really really want to host the photos in your own basement, why not consider a Synology DS111J. It is the least expensive disk station and comes with built in (but not enabled by default) apache based web hosting. I would much rather point my router's "DMZ" to a NAS drive than to my Mac.

MAMP (for testing):
I suggest you install MAMP which runs a full apache based web server on your Mac as an application. You can set up your galleries and test things to your heart's content. Only stop there. You can then mirror everything over to a dedicated host of your choice rather than opening your Mac up to the raw internet.

Password protection:
If you want to password protect a directory on the web (of an Apache-based server), this is done by creating a file called .htaccess and another file called (for example) .htpassword. You create a user (ie "photos" and store their password (encrypted using the htpasswd unix command) in the .htpassword file and then in your .htaccess file you add a line something like "require user photos".

Free/Cheap hosting:
Most cheap or free web hosting will not support "advanced" features like password protected pages but it's worth checking into before you go to the trouble of setting everything up yourself.

Photostream:
Another option is to use photostream. You can create a shared photostream in iPhoto on your Mac and make it private. This requires all your friends to have an icloud account to see your stuff.

 

[robbieduncan]

...
Flickr:
Then there is flickr. Flickr offers 1 TB of free photo hosting. You can mark photos private and dole out access to photos and collections to users of your own choosing. The only down side is you and people who view your photos will need a yahoo account.
...

The viewers don't need a Yahoo account if you use Guest Passes.

 

[sahnert]

Photostream:
Another option is to use photostream. You can create a shared photostream in iPhoto on your Mac and make it private. This requires all your friends to have an icloud account to see your stuff.

Actually, you can turn your photostream into a web page that anyone can view, sounds exactly like what the OP is looking for.

1. Create shared photostream but do not ener any addresses into the "to:" field.
2. Check the box to make a public website
3. Share the address of the site with anyone you want.

Bonus: any one who does have icloud can be invited to subscribe, so the photos show up directly on their device.

 

[r0k]

Actually, you can turn your photostream into a web page that anyone can view, sounds exactly like what the OP is looking for.

1. Create shared photostream but do not ener any addresses into the "to:" field.
2. Check the box to make a public website
3. Share the address of the site with anyone you want.

Bonus: any one who does have icloud can be invited to subscribe, so the photos show up directly on their device.

I already do this. I often have photos of an event shared before leaving the event.

The OP asked about making the photos "private" and the only way to do that in Photostream/iCloud is for anyone who wishes to see the photos to log in using their iCloud account.

 

[dingdongbubble]

I dont want to upload anything to the cloud like on Google+ or elsewhere.