General Chat
Q:
Thanks YORGO...I got it.
78 ZT, 83 zx engine, T-5, custom 2.5 DP, glass pack exhaust, EVO IC, 2.5 IC piping, Cobra MAF, JWT 450 HP ECU, 440cc inj, 255lph fuel pump, RRFPR, man. boost cont., T-3 w/ clipped exh. .46 trim comp.
Post Edited (Dec 24, 8:49pm)
A:
it's okay.
[ img]link[/img ]
"The Z's disease won't make anything turn black, wither, and fall off, nor turn cancerous." - Tony D
"Take it to a track where BOTH drivers mean business or it's just one sided mechanical masterbation." - Hybrid77z
A:
Basics about Pictures on the Web
There are some basics about pictures you will have to understand in order to post an image, or better, to link to an image within a forum post.
* Pictures are respresented by a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), e.g.
http://www.6v6gt.com/humor/GayMidgett.jpg
* Pictures or images on the web usually have the extension .JPG or .JPEG or GIF. PNG and WBMP are two other formats to be found for images published on the web. The URL minus the web domain name represents the image file name: from the example above; GayMidgett.JPG. But of course, you will need the complete URL in order to be able to link to an image.
* Pictures need to reside on a public web server in order to be visible to the public (all web users).
* You do not post the image, but rather link to the URL of a picture. More about this will be explained shortly.
*
Pictures are normally embedded in web pages .HTM or HTML, so if you link to a .HTM page, you will not link to the picture but rather to the web page containing that specific picture and normally a lot more text and other information. Linking to an .HTM page instead of a .JPG URL is one of the most popular errors and will normall result in a frame around a little red x displayed (the placeholder for images that fail to display for any reason in your web browser).
Different Ways Pictures are "stored" on the Web
Now that we know about the basics of pictures, let us look at some examples of how pictures are "stored" or published on the web:
* On your personal web space provided by your ISP. Many people do not know about this, but if you have a web account, your ISP will normall give you a web space from 1 MB to 20 MB depending on your ISP. The URL to that web space is normally something like this (this is an example only and different ISPs use different formats):
http://www.myISP.com/personal/~username/
* You will need an FTP program, e.g. WS FTP (freeware, download from www.tucows.com) to upload your images to that personal webspace. Once your images are uploaded to your personal web space and once the access rights of that folder are set to chmod 755 (this is the UNIX Change Mode command, normally this is done already by your ISP) at least. I just mention this, in case you get access right errors when linking to your pictures on your personal web space.
* Free Image Hosts were once very popular, very few of them have survived, because they all live from advertisings and related imaging services. I have been using the Canon USA Image Hosting for years and touch wood, it is still around and for free! Please read this document on how to use this Image Host: TZ Forums Classic 1915
* General Images on web servers: of course you can also use other people's images in your posts, but please be fair and credit the originator and please also respect copyrights and do say where you took your image from. E.g. images from watch manufacturer's web sites, from online watch dealers, from auction sites, from other watch enthusiasts' web sites, images posted on other forums. General images are basically all images on the web your browser can display
Now let us do it! Step by Step ... How to post a Single Image
1.) RIGHT CLICK somewhere in the picture and you will see the following context sensitive menu popping up (this of course also depends on your operating system, I am assuming you use MS Windows):
2.) LEFT CLICK Properties and the following properties box (picture below) will pop-up.
3.) SELECT the whole URL, this is important. URLs can be very long, make sure you have the whole string selected and not just the visible portion in that 2 line display field. Alternatively you could right click somewhere in the URL and then click Select All to highlight the complete URL of the image.
4.) COPY the URL, use Ctrl+C or right click that highlighted URL and choose Copy. Now the URL of your image is in your Windows clipboard and can be pasted into any other open window.
5.) PASTE the URL into the ImageURL field of your watch post window. You can use ALT+TAB to quickly toggle between open windows. Of course I was assuming, that you had already clicked "Post New Topic" or "Reply" in your watch forum window. All watch forums will then typically display a similar CGI-Form, the example below is from the PMWF.
6.) Hit the "Post Message" button and you are DONE! Congratulations! You have just posted your first image :-)
Of course it is always a good idea to use "Preview Message" and to see whether that picture really shows and whether there are any typos in the post. Please remember, that you will need to empty your cache and to reload that image from its web location. Otherwise your browser will correctly display the image (he will just use a chached copy on your hard disk) but other users can not see it. The easiest trick to empty the cache and to test the "Preview Message" screen is to hold down the Ctrl-Key while hitting the Refresh-Key of your broswer. That way the image is read again from its URL and if that displays correctly, then you could use the "Post Message" button with confidence that the picture will show for all visitors.
Note: Different forums use different forum software. TimeZone, EOT, Watch Forum and many other forums use WebBBS, a freeware forum software, WatchUseek uses Nebula, Network 54 uses their proprietary forum software. The good news is, that above method will work on almost any watch forum I know off.
How to Post Multiple Images - The Advanced "Stuff" but not complicated at all!
The main difference is, that you will not use the Image URL field of your open watch post, but use the so called HTML image tag that is represented by <img src="">. Do not worry, that is about as far as we will go with HTML.
The best trick is to create a little text file with those tags and then just copy and paste as many image tags as you need. This is a Notepad file I am using since years to post multiple images:
<center>
<img src="">
</center>
<center>
<img src="">
</center>
<center>
<img src="">
</center>
If you like bold text below the pictures use this, the text will go between the opening <b> (bold tag) and closing </b> tag and appear in bold just below the picture. I like to use bold picture legends because they stand out towards the other post text.
<center>
<img src="">
<b></b>
</center>
<center>
<img src="">
<b></b>
</center>
<center>
<img src="">
<b></b>
</center>
And of course, you could just copy my tags here and paste them in your Notepad file. My Images.txt Notepad is conveniently stored on the Desktop, so I can quickly access it.
1.) Locate your first image you want to post and SELECT and COPY the URL. If you are not sure, see the section above again how to do that.
2.) PASTE the URL into the watch post CGI form. Make sure you paste your URL between the "" quotation marks.
3.) REPEAT Step 1 and 2 for all your images. My multiple pictures post will show the front and the back of my ardvark with Romulan looks.
4.) Hit the "Post Message" button! You are done again! Congratulations, you just manage to post multiple images in a watch forum. That was not difficult right?
Please also read my notes regarding emptying the browser cache when Previewing Posts above. It is always good to test, whether the pictures display and to avoid those red xs. Just hold down the Ctrl-Key when hitting the Refresh-Key, then the browser will reload the pictures from their web location and not used images stored on your hard disk in the browser's cache.
Some words about HTML in CGI Forms
We only used 3 HTML tags so far (<img src="">, <center> and <b>), but of course you could use a lot more HTML in your watch post message fields. Not all HTML tags will work though, remember, this is a watch forum software and not a HTML playground. The administrator of the watch forum and the forum software used will set the limits. And most forums using WebBBS provide a Preview button. Please use it, because on those forums, you can not edit your post afterwards.
The most common Errors when Posting Images
The most popular Error ever
* EMPTY your browser's cache while testing and previewing. CAPITALS for EMPTY because this is really the single most frequent error, that a non-displaying (for other viewers) image is stored in your cache and does display on your PC only when you Preview your post. Because the web browser will not retrieve the image from the web, but from your PC's cache. The easiest way to reload a page and bypassing the cache is to hold down the Ctrl-Key when using the Refresh-Button of your browser or...
* ...if using the Internet Explorer, use the Internet Explorer Properties dialog box and click Delete Files... under the General tab. Note, that the cookies will not be deleted this way. This information was written for IE 6.02.2600 and is of course subject to change with every new release of the MS Internet Explorer.
* Alternatively you can clear your PC's cache by deleting all files in C:\Documents and Settings\YourUsername\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files. This is the standard folder for Windows XP PCs and if you did not change the location of that folder to another drive, you should be able to locate it.
When using Images Hosts:
* Make sure your album is public and not private, otherwise only you can see the image. Others will get an access rights error.
* Use good album names and think of an album notation before you start hosting images. The better your structure, the easier for you to find the pictures
* Do not move your images to other albums after you posted them, they will not display at the new location unless you can edit your post (WebBBS forum software used by most watch forums does not allow that)
* Picture displays too small: you selectedt the URL of a thumbnail and not of the original image size
* An animated GIF picture will not play while hosted on most image hosts and rather display the first frame of the animation only. Interestingly they work when stored in MSN communities.
When I get that famous red little x what is the cause and what can I do?
*
In most cases, the URL of the pictures is wrong, sometimes people put a URL ending with .HTM in the <img scr=""> tag, then a red x is of course displayed because the img tag expects a file name ending in .JPG or .GIF
*
The image is in an album with a password (image hosts allow you to share or not share albums)
*
time out problem, the web server takes to long to "serve" the image, this is especially true for multiple images reports (like my traveling reports from HK:-)) on slow web servers
*
The image has been removed since you linked to it
*
Also frequent: the web server that image is residing on has disabled external links to images. That had been happening a lot on free image hosts recently. Even Sony's imagestation restricted external links to full sized images stored and only allowed links to smaller size images. Some image hosts completely disallowed external links. There are some tricks around those restrictions, but I guess it is only a question of time until the administrators close all those gaps
*
Sometimes it helps if you right click that little red x, copy the URL of the picture and paste it into a new browser window. In many cases you will be able to see that picture. But this is Internet Explorer magic, obviously the browser uses a different TCP/IP pipe when attaching to a single picture rather then to a picture embedded in an .HTM page.
And now go on and post those images, because an image says more then thousands words, well in most cases that is :-) Good Luck!
_____________________
Me YORGO...You Not
Post Edited (Dec 24, 11:48am)
A:
I tried loading the picture from my C drive before. Thanks for the help.
78 ZT, 83 zx engine, T-5, custom 2.5 DP, glass pack exhaust, EVO IC, 2.5 IC piping, Cobra MAF, JWT 450 HP ECU, 440cc inj, 255lph fuel pump, RRFPR, man. boost cont., T-3 w/ clipped exh. .46 trim comp.
Post Edited (Dec 24, 5:55pm)
A:
Thanks for the great picture, I hate all that clicking stuff! NK PS; All that and he was Pam Andersons boss also.
Norman Krell