3 November 2025

I updated the Pocket Instamatic and 126 Resources page. The products I mention appear and disappear, and the links to them tend to change frequently; but there has been an unusually large number of changes since the last update in February. I’ve also updated the article on Adobe’s DNG standard for camera raw files. The ISO standard for it seems to be very close to final publication, 18 years after Adobe submitted it. The wheels of ISO bureaucracy turn slowly indeed. And I’ve updated the Bestiary of File Formats to reflect the latest usage statistics for the various image file formats, and to clarify the licensing situation of the HEIC format that has been the default standard for Apple’s iPhone since 2017.

20 October 2025

From the “better late than never” department: I just learned that the picture of the “highlands railway bridge” in the Europe Through the Front Door gallery is actually the Glenfinnan Viaduct, made famous when the Hogwarts Express crossed it in four of the Harry Potter films. Per my mother’s diary of of our trip to the UK with a BritRail Pass, I took the picture from the train to Fort William from Mallaig in the Scottish Highlands on 11 September 1975. So now, 50 years later, I finally have a proper caption for this picture.

8 August 2025

I added a picture to the Grand Teton travel photo essay. It’s an autumn morning view from the Snake River Overlook, near where Ansel Adams took his iconic black and white Tetons and the Snake River. While I don’t claim that my picture can compete with Ansel Adams’ masterpiece (which I didn’t even know about when I visited Grand Teton in 1990), it’s nonetheless a nice image with some intense autumn color. I have no idea why I chose not to include it in either the first version of the travel photo essay in 1999 or its overhaul in 2011.

28 May 2025

I’ve updated the Downtown Los Angeles Victorian Landmarks travel photo essay with the current status of Angels Flight. I’ve updated the article on Adobe’s proposed DNG standard for camera raw files, which is finally inching close to adoption as an ISO standard 18 years after Adobe submitted it. Also updated the review of Take Command, the indispensable enhanced Windows command line interpreter. And, of course, a whole bunch of little fixes to keep up with the moving targets of links that have died, moved, or been locked behind a paywall.

14 February 2025

It’s been one year since I moved the hosting of this site to MDDHosting, and I’ve been quite happy with them. I’ve accordingly updated the article about the jungle of shopping for Web hosting.

I’ve updated three Travel Photo Essays about Downtown Los Angeles— the Central Library, Superlatives, and Downtown Public Art— to remove the link to Ruth Wallach’s very informative “Public Art in Los Angeles” Web site, which now inexplicably redirects to a Vietnamese site. The Downtown Public Art page now discusses Los Angeles’ public art programs after the California Legislature eliminated the state’s redevelopment agencies to address a budget shortfall. That included the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, which had long funded Downtown revitalization and extensive public art.

I’ve also updated the Bestiary of File Formats, and revised the notes on the Europe Through the Front Door gallery after the death of travel guru Arthur Frommer in November.

12 November 2024

I have updated Some Pocket Instamatic and 126 Resources to reflect a number of changes over the last year. The most notable changes are the discontinuation of the Lomography Peacock Color Slide X-Pro film and the addition of two new special-purpose color negative films; and the newly-available film rolls custom-perforated for the 126 format, to load in FAKMATIC 126 cartridges.

I have also updated the Bestiary of File Formats and DNG articles to reflect some changes since April. And finally, a minor update to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels Travel Photo Essay to include the latest (and final?) financial settlement in the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s long-running chapter of the worldwide pedophile priest scandal.

18 April 2024

Ted Marcus’ Virtual Light Table is 25 years old today! In honor of this momentous(?) occasion, I have written about my 25 years on the Web. You might also celebrate the anniversary by exploring the Web site using the site map or the index of pictures, or see how my digital technique has improved over the years.

I have updated the Wayfarers Chapel Travel Photo Essay to reflect the unfortunate permanent closure of the renowned glass church due to damage from land movement accelerated by two consecutive wet winters. The plan is to dismantle and move the Chapel to a more stable location, but that will take time and money to accomplish. I have also updated the Bestiary of File Formats to reflect the latest status of several new alternatives to the venerable JPEG format, and the Los Angeles Travel Notes to include the most recent data about mass transit riders.

23 February 2024

I’ve moved this Web site (and its sibling, Ted Marcus Music) to a new hosting company, which provides the hardware, software, and Internet connection that puts it online. I wrote a new Commentary article to inform and assist others who might be looking for a new or better host for their Web sites, and to guide them through the jungle of shopping for Web hosting.

As the article discusses, this site had been hosted at HostGator for nearly 17 years. I moved it there in 2006, after Endurance International Group (EIG) bought PowWeb, where I had hosted the site since 2001. The difficulties this buyout caused convinced me to move. I found the process of shopping for hosting rather like hacking my way through a jungle of confusion. I chose HostGator because it was then a respected company, owned and operated by its founder.

EIG bought HostGator in 2012. While I wasn’t happy about that, the site worked well enough that I didn’t feel compelled to re-enter the jungle of shopping for a new hosting company. At the end of 2021, a private equity company bought EIG, merged it with another large hosting company also owned by private equity, and renamed the combined operation Newfold Digital. (The article details the reasons for avoiding any Newfold Digital hosting.) Soon after the merger, HostGator’s reliability deteriorated. I spent too much time with their overworked technical support agents in India and the Philippines, and even more time waiting to reach them via live chat or phone. The situation eventually stabilized.

The hosting I had paid for in 2021 was due to expire in July. I discovered that HostGator had not only significantly raised its renewal pricing, but had not informed anyone in advance. Continuing with HostGator would have cost me at least 50% more than I paid in 2021. Some customers got surprise increases of as much as 70%. I suppose the private equity partners decided their hosting customers needed to contribute more to help pay for the merger.

I started looking for new hosting Last month. Mostly thanks to Web Hosting Talk, a forum site that was also very helpful during my 2006 jungle expedition, I found MDDHosting and moved my Web sites there last week. Their Web site promises “Spectacular support” as one of their “Hosting Features.” That seems to be truthful advertising.

After they migrated my account from HostGator, the company’s owner himself responded almost immediately to my ticket reporting a problem that turned out to be related to the way I had configured this 25-year-old Web site. He then delved into my site’s files and recommended other changes to my server configuration file that fixed the problem. When I mentioned that I would need to change 27 files, he offered to make the changes for me; and soon thereafter another employee sent me a list of the files that needed to change. This is a level of support above and beyond anything I’ve ever seen, certainly light years beyond the overwhelmed offshore support I got from HostGator! It’s too soon to say whether I can recommend MDDHosting, but what I’ve experienced so far augurs well.

1 December 2023

I’ve made new and improved versions of two pictures on the Europe Through the Front Door gallery: Stonehenge Megalith and Highlands Railway Bridge. The latter is such a substantial improvement that I’ve added it to the descriptive collection of images I’ve reworked as my digital tools and techniques improved over the years. I’ve also added a “new” picture of a Loch and Cloud-Crowned Hill in the Scottish Highlands, taken in 1975.

I’ve also updated Some Pocket Instamatic and 126 Resources.

Archives of Older Entries

Ted Marcus’ Virtual Light Table made its Web debut on 18 April 1999.