Category Archives: All About Using Images

How To NOT Have Problems Uploading Photos And Using Up Storage Space

Modified on by
21

Digital CameraPhotos from digital cameras should always be resized to optimize their file size before uploading them to your blog.

Why?  Our digital cameras are designed to produce good quality photos for printing but aren’t optimal size for the web.

Reasons To Optimize Photo Size

Optimizing the file size of your photos before uploading to a post does three things:

  1. It means your photos upload quicker (and easier).
  2. Your pages load faster for visitors to your blog.
  3. You can upload more photo — lots of photo uploaded without resizing can quickly use up storage space before you know it!

Making an image smaller once you’ve uploaded it to a post doesn’t make the file size smaller.

If you don’t believe me — right click on both of the photos below and select Properties (for Internet Explorer) or View Image Info (for FireFox) to check their image size.

Here’s the original photo

Around 2.6 MB in size!

Original photo without resizing it

Below is the same photo resized to 450 pixels wide

Now 162 KB!

Photo of crocodile resized to 450 pixels before uploading

There’s no real difference!

But the bottom photo still looks good online and is 16% of the original size.

How To Optimize Image Size

The simplest option is to resize your photo to a width that works well with your theme using either:

1.  On A Mac use Preview and save as a JPEG with quality at or below middle (tip courtesy of Alan Levine).

2.  Picture Manager (PC) – Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Tools

How to re-size photographs in Picture Manager
View more presentations from Chris Swift.

Ideal image size for common themes is 450 pixels wide.

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider feed-icon32x32 Finding and Adding Creative Commons Images To Your Blog PostsSubscribing For Free!

Here’s My CHEATS Method For Adding Images to Blog Sidebars

Modified on by
41

I’m frequently asked how to add images to blog sidebars — so I thought it would help to share my quick and easy cheats method.

So what do you need to know to do this?

To start with you need to understand that you need to:

  1. Write HTML code which links to the location of your image
  2. Add your HTML code to a text widget in your sidebar

Now that I’ve said blah blah HTML code twice…you’re probably thinking that I’ve made it too hard already.

It’s not but I first need to explain what is HTML code and then show you it’s really easy when you know my trick 8-)

What is HTML?

HTML is short for “Hyper Text Markup Language” which is a language used to tell a browser how to organise the layout of a web page it has downloaded from the Internet.  It influences if text is bold, italics, a heading, bullet points.

When you write a post or page inside your blog dashboard you don’t worry about how to write HTML because the Visual Editor does it for you. If you click on the HTML tab it shows the HTML code in your text.

Here’s the Trick!

As I said you need to use HTML but that doesn’t mean you can’t cheat with writing the HTML code.

Instead use your Visual Editor to do the work for you!

Cheating is as simple as:

1.  Open up a draft post in your blog dashboard
2.  Click on Add an Image to upload your image to the post

  • Ideally resize your image before uploading to 170 pixels wide because this generally the best width for most blog sidebars

Add an image icon

3.  Insert the title for your image (this displays when a reader hovers their mouse over the image)

4.  Change the link URL — if you want to link your image to a website

Uploading the image and adding the required info

5.  Click on Insert into Post

6.  If you want to add any text below your image — just write it!

Adding text below your image

7.  Now click on the HTML tab and copy all the HTML code.

Code the HTML code from the HTML tab

8.  Go to Appearance > Widgets in your blog dashboard

9.  Click on the desired Sidebar to expand (so you can add the widgets)

Please note: In new blogs sidebars in your dashboard are empty and adding widgets automatically removes the default Edublogs widgets

Expand your sidebar area

10.  Add a text widget to the desired sidebar by dragging it from the Available Widgets on the left into the Sidebar area on the right.

Adding a text widget to your sidebar

11.  The widget will automatically open — add a title to your widget, paste the HTML code and click Save

  • If you want to insert lines for better text spacing you need to add the HTML code <br/ > (means insert line break)

12.  When you check your blog you should now see it nicely displayed in your sidebar!

Image in blog sidebar

Enjoy!

P.S. Don’t share this tip with Larry Ferlazzo as he pays me in chocolate for each image I add to his blog sidebar 8-)

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider feed-icon32x32 Finding and Adding Creative Commons Images To Your Blog PostsSubscribing For Free!

Want A Comment Avatar That’s Globally Recognised By Most Blog Platforms? Here’s How!

Modified on by
11

Default comment avatarI confess!  I hate default avatars next to my comments on other bloggers posts.

It makes me feel both naked and like a newblie :(

I’m know I’m not the only one.  The solution is simple — set up a Gravatar account!

About Gravatar

Gravatar is a service that provides globally unique avatars.

Most standard blogging platforms support Gravatar.  So when you go from site to site leaving comments your gravatar image automatically displays –provided the email address associated with your Gravatar’s account is used.

Here’s how simple it is:

  1. Go to Gravatar and click on Get your Gravatar today!
  2. Enter your email address and click Signup  Signing up for a Gravatar
  3. Go to your email account and click on the link in your gravatar confirmation email to activate your account. Email sent from gravatar
  4. Now follow the instructions to set your username and password. Setting up your gravatar username and password
  5. Next upload your image by clicking on Add one by clicking here! Uploading an image to Gravatar
  6. Choose where you’d like to get the image from – for best results ideal image size for upload is 80 x 80 pixels
  7. Once uploaded click on Crop and Finish Cropping avatar image
  8. Click on G Rated as many sites only support displaying avatars with a rating of G. gravatar4

Presto!

Now whenever you leave a comment on a blog that supports gravatar (such as Edublogs.org, any Edublogs Campus site, WordPress.com, WordPress.org) your avatar image will automatically display next to your comment!

FINAL THOUGHTS

  • If you are changing your avatar, it can take a few hours for caches to clear. Try clearing your browser’s cache by holding the Ctrl key and pressing F5, which will help.
  • Check out Creating And Uploading Your Comment Avatar – for online tools you can use for creating your avatar image

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider Subscribing For Free!

Is a picture always worth a thousand words?

Modified on by
32

What’s wrong with this picture?

Spotted it yet?

Yes, I know we’ve had similar conversations but some conversations NEED to be continuing for new educators starting their online journey.

What are your thoughts on:

  1. Student photos and how much information is appropriate to use with photos?
  2. What else do educators need to consider when starting to blog with their students?

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider feed-icon32x32 Finding and Adding Creative Commons Images To Your Blog PostsSubscribing For Free!

The Edublogger’s Student Competition!

Modified on by
174

The 2009 Student Blogging Challenge is now nearly half way through and the students have been working REALLY hard on the weekly challenges!  Currently 52 class blogs and 150 individual students blogs from 13 different countries are participating.

To celebrate the success of the challenge while also creating an opportunity to collect examples of student work we’re giving away twelve Edublogs supporter 12 month subscriptions which you can use on your own blog or give away to a reader.

Just write a post based on any of the topics themes listed below:

  1. Your own choice of topic but must include embedded media, created by the student or class, such as a SlideShare, video, comic strip, podcast, quiz, poll.  Here’s the chance to demonstrate how creative you can be!
  2. Your story of how blogging has helped you connect to a global audience and what this connection has meant to you.  e.g. the friends you have made, what you have learnt about other cultures, how you are able to share your passions with others, how you are able to use blogging to share your views on topics
  3. What difference has blogging made to your life at school and home e.g. how has it changed how you learn, the challenges of blogging and how teachers might make the process easier

Any class or student blogger can enter, including bloggers not currently participating in the 2009 Student Blogging Challenge, but you must:

  1. Leave a comment on this post letting me know you have entered, with a link to your post plus your Grade/year level.
  2. Explain in your post which topic you are writing about and link back to this post so that we receive a pingback advising us that you have written the post (read this to understand What’s A Pingback? And How To Write Links).

For example you might copy the following into the bottom of your post and just change the topic enclosed in the qutoation marks:

This post has been written on “my story of how blogging has connected me to a global audience” as part of The Edublogger’s Student Competition!

The four best post for each topic will win and you can submit posts for as many topics you like.  And off course all winners will get a badge they can add to their blogs :)

Remember we’re looking for the best — so here is your chance to demonstrate your blogging and creative skills!  You have until April 30 to enter.

If you are enjoying reading this blog, please consider feed-icon32x32 Finding and Adding Creative Commons Images To Your Blog PostsSubscribing For Free!