This page has
Help for :
Moving in to a MSN House
Uploading images to your
house
Posting images
and linking to them in forum messages.
Please
note that I create these mini-tuts as an aide or help
for
my fellow PCCrafter Hugster's & that I am only
a
HugClub
member.
I
am not employed or affiliated with PCCrafter.com.
Any
PCCrafter information, screen saves, graphics,
MSN
Group site images, and/or excerpts quoted from the PCCrafter.com
site or its forums, is for Informational purposes only.
The
following link is to the PCCrafter Instruction Junction forum topic for
How
to get a HOUSE and add Pics. and SigTags
http://messageboard.pccrafter.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17503
Update:
February 16, 2005 message in Cafe Diva
from
Diva Lori - Re: SigTags in your forum postings
important
information to know about.
Visit
and Read:
http://pccrafter.com/community/cafediva.aspx
I
have also created a separate page with information
about
posting pictures in forum messages
it
repeats much of the how-tos mentioned, and
shown
below on this page.
But
if you need further help, beyond what I provide here,
see:
http://www.teas2dine4.com/2addpics.html
This
page information offered below is HOW I DO IT.
The following screen saves
are the "How I Do It" pictorial:
Join
a group at MSN, You'll need
to create a user name profile, provide an email
address and then create
a password.
Below are some current
MSN Groups set up for PCCrafters, that have openings
(Note: these are currently
open as of January 2005) :
click
on the Join Now
link from left hand screen menu - you'll need
to wait for an acceptance email from the group owner and/or/moderator before
you can begin to upload pictures. And once a member, you must be
sure you are logged in to upload images to your houses.
Then once you're approved
for membership,
go to the main website
for the group, (sign in if necessary)
You must be logged in
to perform any task at the MSN group site.
If this is your first
time at your new group site -
You'll want to create
your House - or - Album
Then to move in, and
start uploading photos,
sig tag images, graphics,
etc.
Click on Create
a new album
The
following screen should appear
Now go back to main page
of your group and find your Album
**Note- they may not
be in any particular order
You may have to click
through a few pages of albums to find your own, '
be sure to note the Name
you created for your MSN Group "Album"
Once you are at your album,
you can now upload pictures to the album
Click on the "Add Photos"
link
The next screen should
appear, this is where you will browse to where the
pictures that you want
to upload to your MSN house.
IMPORTANT REMINDER:
If you are uploading
an "animated" sigtag, or animated graphic
check the circle
"Don't resize" . Animated images may lose their
animation properties
if resized.
**NOTE to stay organized:
it is a good idea to put all of your pictures, graphics, sigtags, etc.
that you may want to
upload to your MSN house in one folder on your computer
or cd,or jump drive,
a floppy disk, etc. Name it something that you would associate
with the MSN house. Example
- create a folder on your C drive named:
4MSNhousepics, and store
all of those images within that folder.
This next screen shows
the folder on my computer where I have an
image that I want to
upload to my MSN house
I mouse over the image
to highlight it, then click on the "Open" button
Depending on your connection
speed, if you are on Dial up -
and your image is a large
file - it may take a while to upload
to the MSN house.
(I have links on my sigtagimages
tutorial page
for help with making
images smaller before uploading, etc.)
Now
the image is in "My House", Note this is the thumbnail image
and to see it full size,
you would click on link, below picture or
directly on the picture.
If I would like to post
this image within a forum message, or if I want to
link to it - I have to
find the "Properties" of just "this image"
To do that - I must right
mouse click on the "image"
and it brings up a menu,
Click on the Properties to find the
web address that leads
to this particular image.
The web url of this image
is very long as most MSN house image properties are.
These long web urls tend
to "break" within most forum messages boards, and result in
error messages, and the
images do not show up. So the best thing to do is
find an internet site
where you can take that long web url and make it shorter.
The most popular place
to do that is TinyUrl.com
http://tinyurl.com
*but there are others
such as http://www.6url.com and
http://metamark.net/
Be sure to run your mouse
over the entire long url to the very end of it,
then press
your control key and the letter "C" to copy that web url
to your clipboard.
Then in your webaddress
bar at top of your internet browser,
type in:
tinyurl.com
press your enter key
and go to that website
(your long url will be
on your clipboard) so that you can then "paste" it at
the Tinyurl site to shorten
it.
Now at TinyURL, place
your cursor in the box where arrow is pointing
and
Press your Control key and the letter "v" to paste that long url
from
your clipboard. Then
press "Make TinyURL"
The next screen shows
that the url is now converted to a tiny one
and you can click on
"open in new window" to test if it leads to your
image.
Copy that tiny url, highlight
it, press your Control key and letter C
and it will be copied
to your clipboard. *if you are using Interent Explorer
as your browser, it
is automatically copied to your clipboard. I tend to copy it
myself just to be
sure I have it .
Now if you would like
to insert that image in a forum message, this tiny url that
you just copied is what
will allow it to be seen.
To post a message at
the pccrafter forums, you must be logged in
and then click on New
Topic, to put your image within a message
click on the icon button
that looks like a mountain and sun.
That will automatically
insert the image tags which will be one open one
and one closed one -
[img] and [/img]
you will paste your copied to your clipboard url
between those tags -
with no spaces:
example: [img]http://tinyurl.com3jc2l[/img]
I
have also created a separate page with information
about
posting pictures in forum messages
it
repeats much of the how-tos mentioned,
shown
on this page.
But
if you need further help, beyond what I provide here,
see:
http://www.teas2dine4.com/2addpics.html
If you want to post a
link to your "MSN House" so that any one can visit it
and see all of your pictures
- you must find the url for your main album page
Go to your MSN house,
be sure to be logged in, go to your album,
click on it to open it.
At the top of your internet browser is the url web address that
leads to that album main
page. Copy that (it isn't usually as long as the images, but
some people do prefer
to take that url to tinyurl.com and make it tiny as well)
Then you'll need to go
to the PCCrafter Main Forum home page, and edit your
profile and put the website
url to that album in your profile information. Once that is
done, whenever anyone
reads a message posted by you, they will see a little icon
at top of your message
that looks like a house.
And if they click on
it it will take them to your MSN house.
Main Fourm page, http://messageboard.pccrafter.com/default.asp
then login
( **you may already be logged in** at the forum board)
Once at profile screen,
paste or type in the website url to your "Homepage"
in the line where green
arrow is pointing.
If you have a sigtag posted
at your MSN house, then you would follow the above
steps
and find the image properties
for just that "image"
(be sure you don't click
on "thumbnail" of image to find
properties of just the
thumbnail, click on thumbnail and bring up full image, and then find properties
of that image)
Then take that web url
- that you should be sure to shorten at a site such as tinyurl,
and write in the signature
section of your profile (red arrow in above screen image)
[img]then paste url here[/img]
Image tags must be written
as [img] and [/img]
using these brackets [ ]
NOT: ( ) or { }
Then when you press the
"Submit" button your information will be updated. When you post messages,
there is a check box at bottom of your message, to include your signature
in the forum message, this will make your sigtag image appear along with
each of your messages as long as it is checked.
NOTE:
If
you upload a new sig tag or image to your MSN house, you must once again
go
through
all
the above steps, find the properties and url web address that leads
to that
particular
image, and shorten it, then update your profile at the PCCrafter forums.
Note:
even if you delete an old sigtag and replace with a new one - the previous
web
url address WILL NOT WORK with the NEW IMAGE. Each image on the
internet has
its own unique properties, and url web address.
You
must link to the "image" itself, NOT to the webpage it is on.
Other
Notes:
MSN
groups may at times have problems with their servers and
traffic,
so there may be occassions when your images do not appear, or when you
may
have problems accessing your web home at the group site. And you must always
be
logged in to access, and perform any functions on your album, such as upload
or
delete pictures.
**Some
groups require that members be logged in to view their images within forum
messages, and some images are not viewable to some pccrafter hugster's
if they are not members of the particular MSN group. All MSN groups are
not created equal. Please note all rules and news information that is posted
for each groups members.
The
following link is to the PCCrafter Instruction Junction forum topic for
How
to get a HOUSE and add Pics. and SigTags
http://messageboard.pccrafter.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17503
For
more on posting sigtags within forum messages, or finding info where you
can
have
one made, or make your own, see this pictorial I made
http://www.marynpauln.com/sigtagimages.html
Other notes:
I have images posted
at a MSN group house, but I do not use that
as my homepage in Forum
messages.
I own several websites,
and prefer to store images at different ones,
I have created several
pictorials and choose to store them
at some of the various
sites as well, depending on space
and traffic the site
may have or recieve.
