Question & PSA: Blog Photos

I've had a couple of comments about problems seeing the photos on my blog. For one person, I know the cause. For the other, I don't. Because of this, I wanted to pose the question to all of you... is anyone having trouble viewing the photos on my blog, particularly over the past month or so?

If the answer is yes, I have to ask: Are you checking my blog at work? If so, is Flickr a blocked website? Because if it is, that's your cause. Unfortunately (but soooo fortunate for me), I'm now hosting my photos on Flickr.

With that, I'll move on to the PSA portion of this post.

I've heard many people complain about Blogger and it's horrendous photo uploading process. First of all, no mass uploader. Secondly, once uploaded, photos all end up at the top of the post, regardless of what you do. Third, it displaces text and makes the post spacing all wonky. In other words, IT SUCKS. That's right, Google... something you do actually SUCKS. Shocking, I know.

Anyway, last month, it was brought to my attention that there is a new, totally easy way to insert photos into your browser. This not only applies to blogs, but also to message boards, e-mails, etc. Want to insert a photo? It's as easy as dragging and dropping. Quite frankly, this discovery rocks my world. It is so awesome that I feel the need to share it with all of you. I'm actually sorry I've held out on you for this long. That's how great this is.

So, let's get started, shall we?

First, you have to host all of your photos somewhere. I know a bunch of bloggers that use Flickr, so I chose to go with that. But it's my understanding that this will work using Photobucket, Picasa, and other services, as well.

Once your photos are uploaded to Flickr, open a new browser window (or tab), and go to your blog (or message board, or whatever). Start a new post.

The nice thing about this method is that you can start typing, and insert a photo whenever you want. No more worrying about it messing up your text formatting. So write as little or as much as you want to. Ready to post photos?

Click back over to your open Flickr window. Go through your photostream, and "open" the photo you want to include in your post. By "open," I mean make sure you go to the page that actually displays the photo. Don't use the thumbnail from your main photostream page, as that will show up really small on your blog.

Then, click on the photo and hold down the mouse button. Drag the photo to your blog window or tab. Here's the thing, though... don't let the button go yet. Hover over the blog window or tab until the browser window opens, then continue to drag your photo until you are actually IN the text editor box. Then, let go. And... your photo will appear!

It's as simple as that. Drag and drop, people. Drag and drop.

You're welcome.

*curtsy*

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Down for the Count

As if I wasn't already a slacker blogger this week... (I'm sorry.)

Our laptop died tonight. Or rather, it got very sick.

When I got home from work, I turned on the computer as normal. Had a couple of Internet Explorer windows open, just doin' my thang. And then, it froze up. I couldn't get it to do anything, so I had no choice but to do a hard restart (pressing and holding down the power button).

I tried to reboot it to no avail. We kept getting some error screen about how it couldn't restart properly, and we were asked to do a bunch of "repair scans" and such. No luck with those, either.

Called technical support, and I'll spare you all the details (it was such a pain in the ass), but the bottom line is: We have to send in our computer for repair. Apparently, our model is one of a few that were made with defective motherboards. The technical supervisor guy told us that the problems we're experiencing are most certainly a motherboard issue. LOVELY.

Oh, AND... when we send the computer in to get the motherboard replaced? Well, we're going to lose everything we have loaded on the computer. Programs, files, everything.

I'm feeling a pain in my ass, and its name is HEWLETT PACKARD.

Thankfully, though, HP is fixing it for free, so I am trying not to whine too much. Also, we've been pretty good about backing up our files to our external hard drive and DVDs, so losing all the files and stuff? Not the end of the world. Plus, Michael is going to take the laptop into work tomorrow and have his IT guys help transfer the files off of the hard drive before we send it in.

My biggest complaint is the obvious: We're going to be without our laptop for ~2 weeks. So this begs the question: What the hell am I going to do with myself? Luckily, I'm going to be pretty busy these next couple of weeks. But still!

I'm in mourning. Or withdrawls.

Or worse--mourning AND withdrawls.

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