Wednesday, September 19, 2012

STORY TIME

Anyone who follows this here blog knows I occasionally throw photos on it.
The photo-files are actually at PhotoBucket®, an Internet image-host.
My photos aren’t at BlogSpot, but BlogSpot cranks HTML.
My blogs are written in HTML, but only to embolden, underline, or italicize text.
Or add photos.
An HTML-tag will do it; for example <span style="font-weight:bold;">??????</span> (That’s the bold-tag.)
I’d display my picture-tag here, but it’s so long it would befuddle my readers.
The image-source is PhotoBucket. My image-tag has an http address to the actual picture at PhotoBucket.
Which explains why the blog-post fires up almost immediately, then a second or two later the pictures fire up.
BlogSpot has to go to PhotoBucket to get my pictures. All my picture-files are 72 pixels-per-inch, 5.597 inches wide. That’s BlogSpot column-width (actually six inches in pixel-dimensions).
Exceed 5.597 inches and the picture exceeds BlogSpot’s column-width.
I steps on my blurb at right.
I also had to write my own HTML tag for my full column-width picture (usually at the top of a blog, but not always). (<img src="http://i900.photobucket.com/albums/ac207/RobertJHughes/MCR/2010/MCR1010/Shoebax.jpg"><span style="font-weight:bold;">caption. <span style="font-style:italic;">(Photo by BobbaLew.)</span></span>)
This was because Microsoft’s Internet-Explorer browser goofed things up.
Use a regular HTML picture-tag, and IE would cram slivers of text to the right of the picture.
I don’t know if IE still does that, but most computer-users use Internet-Explorer, the Granny browser.
I had to write my own column-width HTML tag to avoid that.
I’ve noticed that if pictures aren’t full column-width, IE doesn’t make the mistake.
(I resize the pictures in the HTML-tag; not four inches [for example] to PhotoBucket.)
I just hope it doesn’t goof up! —Who knows what mistakes go on out there in ‘pyooter-land?
I only saw the full column-width mistake because my dearly departed wife was using Internet-Explorer.
The other night (probably Friday, September 14, 2012) I attempted to upload a photo to PhotoBucket.
It crashed! I got the error-message in red.
I tried again. Again the red error message.
I tried at least five more times over two hours.
I tried renaming the image-file, taking out spaces and non-letter characters.
Still the red image-message.
I tried one more time before shutting off and going to bed.
Still the error-message. Maybe it’ll work the next morning.
It didn’t! Uh-oh........
Looks like perhaps PhotoBucket wants me to renew my account.
I fired up their home-page, and looked for a “contact-us.”
Nothing!
Was anyone else getting this problem? Cue Google-search.
Will this be the computer-problem I’ve dreaded since my wife died?
I had a computer-problem in 2011 when my wife was in the hospital.
With Google I solved it myself. I forget what it was. Usually my wife was the computer-problem solver.
Now I have no confidence at all. It seems to have vaporized with my wife’s death.
It was Saturday, a day I planned to work out at the YMCA.
I shut my computer off. I’d pursue the PhotoBucket upload problem after the YMCA, about four hours later.
I fired up my computer that afternoon after the YMCA.
I’d try a different tack: upload to my general file instead of a “ Monthly-Calendar-Report ” folder.
Holy mackerel! It crunched!
So I tried my October “Monthly-Calendar-Report” folder next.
It crunched there too.
Back in business. PhotoBucket must have fixed the problem.
The problem was apparently at PhotoBucket’s end, not my end.
The challenge to my psyche was avoided.
Obviously people contacted them, but I have no idea how.

• “HTML” is Hyper-Text Markup language, a background instruction system made invisible by surrounding carets (< and >). I use it only to embolden, underline and italicize text, although it can do other things. My picture-inserts are also via HTML-tag.
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17, 2012. I miss her dearly. (She had been a computer-programmer.)
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named their “Wellness-Center,” usually two-three days per week, about two-three hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where I live in western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles away. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home