R
RonEggers
Guest
I use MSN communities to store photos. This is a free service, and there are many others that are similar, possibly better. Yahoo has one and your internet provider may have one included in your service fee.
This first step is to create your "community." You'll need a "passport," which is free but requires some steps to sign up. If you use Hotmail or MS Instant Messenger, you already have a passport. Go to this page to sign in with your existing passport or to create a new one.
http://communities.msn.com/login_info.msnw?ref erer=create&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fcommunities%2Emsn%2Ecom%2Fcreatecomm%5Fpage1%2Emsnw%3F
The next several screens will walk you through the process of creating your community. When you get to the page that asks you to choose your "Membership Policy," choose "public," otherwise you will be the only one who is able to view the pictures, even when you have posted them to The Grumble. You'll probably choose to have your community unlisted in the directory, since it isn't going to be of much interest to most people. The answers to the rest of the questions are not real critical, though you must accept the "code of conduct."
I have created a community called Photos for Framers which you can access and use
http://communities.msn.com/PhotosforFramers/_whatsnew.msnw
If you only want to post a few photos, feel free to use this community. You'll still need a "passport" and you'll have to "join" the community the first time you use it, but you won't have to go throught all the steps of creating a new community. If you want to go crazy, go ahead and create your own. Either way, you'll see an option to go to "photo albums." The default photo album is called "shoebox" and you can create additional photo albums needed. If you decide to upload to "Photos for Framers" you can create your own photo album to simplify things. There is quite a bit of storage space for small jpg files and a little gauge that tells you how much is left. On the community I've been using for Grumble posting, I have about 40 pictures and I've used about 5% of the available storage. If you fill up your community, you can delete photos or start another community. (Though I've just discovered that the total available storage is not per community but for all the communities created by one user or one sign-in name.)
Once you're in your photo album, you can "add photos." The first time you do this, you'll be invited to download and install a small utility. It only has to be done once on each computer you use, and it greatly simplfies the process of uploading and editing photos. When you're ready to "add photos," you'll need to "browse" for the folder where you've stored your photos. (You do remember where that is, don't you?) The next time you add photos, this directory will usually open by default, so be consistant.
I always choose the option, in the lower left, to "resize photo" and I choose "smaller" size. This will result in a nice size for Grumble posting and may eliminate the need to resize your photos ahead of time with a graphics editor. I'm not sure about this yet. Some of these steps are probably redundant. (I've now discovered, through trail-and-error, that if you try to bypass the graphics utilities and just bring an unedited photo into your community, you get unpredictable sizes of images. For an example, see "Bedroom Color" on the Warped forum. The small picture was not edited in PhotoDeluxe. The larger one was.)
You can add photos one-at-a-time or do a bunch at once. It doesn't take long and, once it's successful, you'll be taken back to a page of thumbnails showing the picures that are in your album. If you see a goofy-looking icon, instead of an actual thumbnail, it seems to mean that the photo is not yet available on the server and you may have to come back later for the next step.
And the next step is Step 3: Getting the picture(s) from your community onto The Grumble. This is usually pretty easy; step 2 is the tedious part. Watch for the 3rd and final step in the next day or so. If you've gotten this far, congratulations. You're practically there!
Whether you set up your own community to store photos online or use the one I've set up for that purpose at
http://communities.msn.com/PhotosforFramers/_whatsnew.msnw
you should add the site to your Favorites or Bookmarks so you can get to it easily. The addresses are typically long and awkward.
[This message has been edited by RonEggers (edited October 11, 2001).]
This first step is to create your "community." You'll need a "passport," which is free but requires some steps to sign up. If you use Hotmail or MS Instant Messenger, you already have a passport. Go to this page to sign in with your existing passport or to create a new one.
http://communities.msn.com/login_info.msnw?ref erer=create&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fcommunities%2Emsn%2Ecom%2Fcreatecomm%5Fpage1%2Emsnw%3F
The next several screens will walk you through the process of creating your community. When you get to the page that asks you to choose your "Membership Policy," choose "public," otherwise you will be the only one who is able to view the pictures, even when you have posted them to The Grumble. You'll probably choose to have your community unlisted in the directory, since it isn't going to be of much interest to most people. The answers to the rest of the questions are not real critical, though you must accept the "code of conduct."
I have created a community called Photos for Framers which you can access and use
http://communities.msn.com/PhotosforFramers/_whatsnew.msnw
If you only want to post a few photos, feel free to use this community. You'll still need a "passport" and you'll have to "join" the community the first time you use it, but you won't have to go throught all the steps of creating a new community. If you want to go crazy, go ahead and create your own. Either way, you'll see an option to go to "photo albums." The default photo album is called "shoebox" and you can create additional photo albums needed. If you decide to upload to "Photos for Framers" you can create your own photo album to simplify things. There is quite a bit of storage space for small jpg files and a little gauge that tells you how much is left. On the community I've been using for Grumble posting, I have about 40 pictures and I've used about 5% of the available storage. If you fill up your community, you can delete photos or start another community. (Though I've just discovered that the total available storage is not per community but for all the communities created by one user or one sign-in name.)
Once you're in your photo album, you can "add photos." The first time you do this, you'll be invited to download and install a small utility. It only has to be done once on each computer you use, and it greatly simplfies the process of uploading and editing photos. When you're ready to "add photos," you'll need to "browse" for the folder where you've stored your photos. (You do remember where that is, don't you?) The next time you add photos, this directory will usually open by default, so be consistant.
I always choose the option, in the lower left, to "resize photo" and I choose "smaller" size. This will result in a nice size for Grumble posting and may eliminate the need to resize your photos ahead of time with a graphics editor. I'm not sure about this yet. Some of these steps are probably redundant. (I've now discovered, through trail-and-error, that if you try to bypass the graphics utilities and just bring an unedited photo into your community, you get unpredictable sizes of images. For an example, see "Bedroom Color" on the Warped forum. The small picture was not edited in PhotoDeluxe. The larger one was.)
You can add photos one-at-a-time or do a bunch at once. It doesn't take long and, once it's successful, you'll be taken back to a page of thumbnails showing the picures that are in your album. If you see a goofy-looking icon, instead of an actual thumbnail, it seems to mean that the photo is not yet available on the server and you may have to come back later for the next step.
And the next step is Step 3: Getting the picture(s) from your community onto The Grumble. This is usually pretty easy; step 2 is the tedious part. Watch for the 3rd and final step in the next day or so. If you've gotten this far, congratulations. You're practically there!
Whether you set up your own community to store photos online or use the one I've set up for that purpose at
http://communities.msn.com/PhotosforFramers/_whatsnew.msnw
you should add the site to your Favorites or Bookmarks so you can get to it easily. The addresses are typically long and awkward.
[This message has been edited by RonEggers (edited October 11, 2001).]