Posting photos and images

Photos and other images can easily be included when posting or editing a message by clicking on the button to the right of the text field that says "image", then select "default" referring to the placement of the image. You can use the "Preview" option to see the appearance of your message before actually posting it. If you want the image to be located to the right or left of your text choose one of those options. Since I don't allow images to be uploaded to my website, the "thumbnail" options don't work.

TIP - You can also paste the image URL into your message first, highlight it (select it by holding down your mouse button down while dragging the cursor over the URL so that it turns blue) and THEN click the "image" button to the right and it will automatically insert the correct code to make an image from your URL.

You can include multiple images in your message by simply repeating the process.

Image files used on the internet will usually end in one of the following file types: .jpg (most common for photos), .png, .gif, or .bmp.

To include a photo or other image file in your message the image file must be already on the internet and accessible to the general public. You cannot link to an image file in your computer. There are many free photo sharing services where you can upload your image files for sharing with the public. Even Facebook and some cloud services will work. The photo just needs an online URL.

Be sure you link to the image file itself and not the webpage if you want a particular image to show in your message. If you want to link to the webpage where a photo or image is located then use the "link" option, not the "image" option.

To see the full URL (web address and file name) for any image file (except Shockwave/Flash and other video/movie files) on a PC you can usually right-click on the image in your browser and "Open image in new tab". On a Mac it depends on the browser, but usually you can open up a new tab and drag the image into the new tab and its URL will appear in the address bar, or else press Ctrl and click the image and select "View Image", then copy the URL from your browser). Highlight and copy the URL and paste it into the field for the "Optional Image Link". If it's a photo and the URL you have does not end in one of the file types mentioned above then it probably isn't the correct URL (unless the file type ".jpg" or similar precedes a question mark "?" followed by some other characters, in which case it will probably work). Some web services don't allow hot-linking (linking to photos from their websites) in which case you have to use the "link" option to link to the page itself where the photo is in order to share it.

Besides Twitter and Facebook, three good free photosharing services where you can upload and share your photos from are:

• http://imgur.com/
  
• http://imageshack.com/
  
• http://photobucket.com/