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User Meeting 09.-11.07.2010 in Terneuzen / Antwerp 2010

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Ship spotters at work in Antwerp! Our esteemed Digital Seas member Stevo kindly organized and hosted a ship spotters’ weekend and Digital Seas user meeting during the Tall Ship Race from July 9th to 10th. 24 people met on board the MONTIS 10 in Terneuzen to pursue their love for ships.

Shipspotters at work.

Ship spotters at work.

After a 10-hour trip from Rostock to Terneuzen and a much too warm night at the hotel Lars and I were excited about the things to come. Saturday was a pleasantly warm and sunny day. The ship spotters joining us on board came from Britain, Holland, Belgium and Germany. Cold drinks, sunscreen, good conversation and an incredible close-up view of the large and small vessels passing the MONTIS made for a relaxed and enjoyable trip where new friendships grew. In the evening we had ribs and tasted some Belgian beer specialties with Stevo and Ian. Rob joined us the next day for breakfast and we talked about future plans for Digital Seas. Lars and I returned with many good photos, new friends and a decent sunburn.

Thanks you very much Stevo! It was a great time. See you next year – at the latest!

Some photos and videos from the weekend:

Steven Oppeel
Fred Vloo (YouTube Video)

Update: Friday, 2010-06-04

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[+] added new AIS antenna: UK, Strait of Dover
[+] added new AIS antenna: UK, around Ramsgate, (mobile)
[+] added new AIS antenna: NL, Terschelling
[+] added new AIS antenna: SP, Tenerife Island
[+] added new AIS antenna network: DK, North Sea, west of Denmark

[+] added search box for browser integration (get it from the start page)
[+] added color coding and list style for vessel search (cool, we think: got copied by VT in only a week :-) )
[+] added last Tracking, Vessels, Ports, Images list for logged in user, faster changing of section
[+] added thumbs up function, replacing image voting with stars
[+] added master image flag for vessel (available to ImageAdmins, 3min update time), representing image is shown with ‘star’
[-] removed pager on VesselDetailPage

[*] cleared up site structure
[*] fixed mobile api, still showing deleted images
[*] started coding on vessel data editor

Check out the new search layout

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dsnew_search_layout_20100524
We thought it was a good idea when Stevo wished for a better markup of search results.
So please find the new layout enabled for the search field and give us some feedback. Hope this will make your daily lookup a bit faster and more fun :-)

Update, 2010-06-04:
- new colorcoding system to distinct searchresults even better :-)
- checkout the search vessel browser integration

digital-seas_search_box-new_20100602

digital-seas_search_colorcoding_20100602

THANKS to all commenters!

ps. we really enjoy pushing the development of all vessel tracking sites :-) let’s see how fast we get copied this time

Server downtime this Sunday resolved

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A major DOS (denial of service) attack happened this morning around eight a clock and made the DS server unavailable for almost the complete day.
Whoever brought our servers on to its knees, it wasn’t appreciated at all and killed Thomas and Andres sunday.  Attacks happened over the last week in a regular matter, but today they where quiet hard.
Now we are back and will still have to spend some time with analyzing logs and checking the system.

We will anyway release  the long awaited user-message system tommorrow, so you all can get in touch with each other via Digital-Seas. We lost some time with this and a sunny day here in Rostock, but…

Who killed the voting star…?

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…Youtube did it and we’ve done it also.

be_a_fan_of_vessel_image_201005031
Using the rainy day here in Rostock for some programming I decided to get rid of the two years of voting on our great images. People and their beloved photos are a very emotional and personell subject.
I always disliked the idea of taking images and getting in some kind of contest, due to the rating system. So why not simplify our lives and transform it into a way of still having the chance to express my “Favs” and leave all other images alone.

Almost 30.000 votes got converted to a more simplier system of: “like it, or leave it”. The vessels image thumbnail now has only one star left to honor the photographer. Show, that you are a fan of the photo. Thanks to the help of our friend Marcus and a little bit of AJAX you can also decide later on about your decision :-)
It will take another day of hacking to count the results and display them inside the stats icon, so hang on.

Let us know, if you like the new way here:

UPDATE: we replaced the STAR with a THUMBS UP icon (Stevos suggestion)

Vessel database now with more then 100.000 entries

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flying_high_to_the_sky_over_the_ocean
When started three years ago, we had a couple hundred ships listed, mainly tracked in the Southern Baltic. Our effort to build a good designed vessel list, which could constantly grow, has been a success.
With the great help of our members here at Digital-Seas, we’ve created one of the best free resources on the web, today crossing the mark of 100.000 vessels listed. Thanks for that! Continue reading →

new feature: watermarking your images

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we added a new way to secure your images against being published on the web by third parties, without beeing asked first. After some discussion in our forum and members asking for a solution, we came up with an automatic watermarking of images.

http://forum.digital-seas.com/topic/deleted-photos

http://www.digital-seas.com/vessel_search/vessel_photo/detail/b70792e_louise_marie_q2007778.html#comment-1718

Since we do not accept uploaded images with interference of the vessels image, there is now an automatic way to secure your images with a switch, if you want to do so.

how to add a watermark to your image

how to add a watermark to your image






This will give people a chance to secure their images (possibly only part-time, when the newspapers are done with the next pirated vessel :-)
Everybody, who does not like a watermark on own images, check your profile page and unmark the option. We still prefer vessel images without extra watermarks in high resolution on this site. Willing to respect every copyright and listening to you, this is another step towards handling the copyright issues…


Effects, when text is given in your profile and switch is ON:
- no watermarks on small thumbnails in lists and preview thumb inside Fleetmon
- watermark is automatically rendered on vessel images in lightbox and preview mode
- your own preview of the uploaded image in full size will not be affected by the watermark, so you can happily continue using DS as your full size image store

Update: Friday, 2010-04-09

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statistics:
- more then 35.000 users are registered
- more then 11.000 vessels in permanent AIS coverage
- more then 99.000 vessels in database
- more then 1.000 Fleetmon :mobile users

new AIS receptions:
[+] added new AIS antenna: Denmark: Fredericia
[+] added new AIS antenna: Sweden: Vänersborg
[+] added new AIS antennas: Belgium: Antwerp, Brussel, Zeebrugge
[+] added new AIS antenna: Netherland: Terschelling, Leeuwarden
[+] added new AIS antennas: Brazil: Sao Vicente, Salvador, Sao Lois
[+] added new AIS antenna: China: Tianjin Xin Gang
[+] added new AIS antenna: Indonesia: Kota Surabaya
[+] added new AIS antennas: Singapur: Johor, Kota Kinabalu Kuching Melaka Miri Port Dickson Port Kelang Tanjung Pelepas Singapore Jurong Island Keppel – (East Singapore) Pulau Bukum Pulau Sebarok Serangoon Harbor

Site changes:
[+] new image watermarking option in user profiles
[+] added vessel history to vessel-detail page
[*] added ETA in port arrival lists

[*] improved algorithm to determine vessel location (verbal)
[+] added inland rivers/ports in Europe for location detection
[*] much extended Fleetmon :mobile Version 1.2 released
[+] new Fleetmon :mobile page
[*] still working on vessel detail edit extension


We are always looking for new AIS coverage. If you could share a signal or establish a new antenna in your port of interest, let us know via: Contact

Fleetmon mobile v1.2 is online in Appstore

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Version 1.2 is online in the store today, Port Section and many new functions added. Check it out!
http://www.digital-seas.com/iphone

Changes from v1.1 to 1.2:

[*] new exclusive “pinch to fetch” feature (get updates on map move)
[+] improved spotter mode (store last position, new callout buttons with flag and type icon, better performance)
[*] faster listings for all vessels in area
[*] rewrote the listing tab, faster, better info overview
[+] new detail view of vessel, with ship images and last position map
[*] much improved vessel-search, starts now with your last search

[+] new port listing, lists all vessels in a port, select regions, countrys and ports
[+] configuration settings now inside the app

[*] new shiny app icon :-)

for our AIS coverage please research at http://www.digital-seas.com/ports

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