Wednesday, October 29, 2008

I Need Help

When I have no ideas I visit you and steal yours. Have you noticed that? Sometimes I ask, or merely inform you. Sometimes I steal from you without a bye-your-leave. No comment, nada, niente, zip, zero zilch nothin'. Like a thief in the night. But really, it's time I learned some of the tricks of your trade. For instance, where do you find the lovely pictures that illustrate your excellent posts? I know there are sources, but where are they? All the pictures I have access to were taken by me, and I'm not really much of a photographer. And how many photos of my books or dogs or gazebo can I post before you start to scream, "No, stop. I can't take it anymore?"

I have an administrator who worked hard to get me this far and I will be eternally grateful. But it's crunch time for anyone trying to make a living being self employed, or at least so I presume. I'm trying not to bother him. I miss him, but I will survive. I will answer when he calls, but I won't ask him to help me do something as simple as this. Christ I mean, if Randal can do it, so can I. Anyhow, where do the pictures come from? There must be an archive somewhere out there in the tubes. Speaking of tubes, I'm kind of going to miss Ted Stevens. Everyone loves that nugget of him shouting "NO!' in response to some perfectly respectful request for comment. I could use a photo of Ted right in here somewhere with text wrapping around it as if I knew what I was doing. Know what I mean?

Dcup as helped me far too often. She's busy. Dusty is busy but has helped me so much. Randal owes me, but is so into his man things that I doubt he'll tell me how. I want to learn the strike over, the trademark symbol, how to punctuate in French and where do you get those pictures? I can't always delight you with a purloined post. I need to get creative.

17 comments:

L'Adelaide said...

Woman, if I can do it, so can you...an "administrator"? What's that, help?

I only use my own pics because I don't know how to pilfer others and give a nod to them. I have used a site called pic app but didn't like all the pic app garbage on the picture. Stupid, I know....I hear photobucket.com is pretty good. You're a bright woman, just feeling down because all this election stuff is coming to a close but don't worry. Politics never go anywhere, sadly. Now you have a new interest...decorating your blog! Your house is wonderful, you can do it!

Sylvia K said...

I just got into photography when I started my blog and my son saw what I was doing or trying to do and handed me his digital camera and said, "go have fun". And I have! I take pictures of everything and we do have lots of beautiful things to photograph here in the northwest. I'm amazed at how simple it is, point and shoot, download it to my computer and I have tons. My blog is http://www.sylviafromoverthehill.blogspot.com. Come take a look.

LeAnn said...

no computer whiz here, but I can answer this one. if you right click on almost any image you will get a menu... select save picture as and type whatever you would like to call the image. for instance tonight I googled "pictures of dandelions" I looked at several and did what i just told you, names it "dandelions" and upon saving it goes to my pictures (are you on windows?) the image was already in an allowable image format (some are .jpg or .gif so its as easy as that to save to your pictures. Try it and if you need further explanation I will try to help you or someone else will. For younger people this stuff is second nature :) I am 48 and learning much of it just now

susan said...

There are a couple of things you mentioned that I know how to do and those I'm willing to share:

For grabbing pictures the easiest thing is to Google search a person or thing and type 'picture' on the search line. When you find what you want put your cursor on the picture and double click to open it to full size. Then press down on the 'control' and 'alt' buttons and press 'enter'. You'll see a menu pop up with one of the choices being 'save as'. Choose that and save it to your desktop (or your picture files if you want). When you post you can just choose it like you would any other.

So far as foreign language and punctuation is concerned if you don't have one of the programs that allows you to alter your keyboard, the easiest thing is to go to 'babelfish.com' and let them do it for you. Just type in what you want to say and cut and paste it into your text.

I don't know how the crossovers are done or where randal got the copyright stamp he's been using. Maybe we have to go over there and threaten him with shutting off his ESPN sports coverage.

Utah Savage said...

You guys are the best. Phillip, my administrator was kind enough to help me trick out my site a bit. He's so patient.

And hearing a man's voice coming through my computer is a thrill for my old watchdog. He's used to my time at the computer, but when he hears a mans voice talking back to me he moves like a huge ghost to my side, listening and then when he can tell I'm not threatened he goes back to bed. He weighs close to 150 lbs. so how he moves so quietly is a mystery to me and would no doubt scare the crap out of an intruder.

Utah Savage said...

Oh, I forgot to say, I will use the wonderful suggestions and see where it goes. Thanks Linda, Sylvia, Leann and Susan, you are very helpful. Tomorrow I embark on an adventure in photo snatching.

Comrade Kevin said...

Usually a google search or wikipedia, Utah.

Linda-Sama said...

nice new look, sis...like it better than the old one.

and if any of you readers out there do custom blog templates, let me know....the Ageless One needs a face lift.

Randal Graves said...

I can't believe the anti-sportism spewing forth in such torrents of hatred.

The numeric keypad is your friend.
Hold down Alt, type 0174 to get ®
Hold down Alt, type 0224 to get à
Hold down Alt, type 0234 to get ê

As for striking out, click on the HTML tab and type before the stuff you want stricken, the less than sign, the word strike, greater than sign. Afterwards, type the less than sign, slash, the word strike, the greater than sign. Piece o' devil's food.

I was gonna post a poem later on, but now it'll be sports.

Anonymous said...

i agree with linda, definitely a nice new look. cleaner, fresher, all that kind of stuff.

i think the easiest way to get pictures is, as other people here mentioned, is to google the name, subject, whatever, then go to the "images" link at the top of the results page.

also, if you go to flikr, there are loads upon loads of pictures and they, too, are searchable. although, when you snatch a picture from flikr, you really have give a credit (particularly via a link) to the owner of the picture, although i believe the BEST thing to do is to both contact the the owner of the picture and let them know you are going to use AND put credit with a link. if you do that, it's kind of like free advertising for them anyway.

Oh, and here's another source for pictures, the New York Public Library picture gallery:

http://digital.nypl.org/mmpco/

Utah Savage said...

What a generous bunch you are. Even Ramdal.

And Anita, I jump for joy whenever I see you anywhere. We do really miss your voice in this bloggy world.

Anonymous said...

utah, thanks. i'm sorry for being so flaky. i've had a brush with breast cancer, and i'll be having a mastectomy in a few weeks. so, naturally, i've been pretty down. but it WAS caught relatively early and my prospects are good, so nothing to worry about. i just need to recover physically and emotionally. it's been a bad couple of months. and i'll probably remain flaky in terms of my commenting (although, i do try to visit people when i'm feeling ok).

Utah Savage said...

Oh god, I'm so sorry to hear that. I'm glad it was found early, though a mastectomy isn't exactly a lumpectomy. You have my email and anytime you want to talk, I'd be happy to offer whatever I can.

Randal Graves said...

Aw fuck, best of luck to you, anita.

Hale McKay said...

Here's a couple of sites to help you with special HTML codes:

(For umlauts, tildes, cent sign, copyright sign, trademark, in care of, superscripts, etc.)

(the URL first followed by direct link)

http://www.alanwood.net/demos/ent4_frame.html

Alan Wood Special Codes

and

http://www.theworldofstuff.com/characters

World of Stuff

As for striking out words, phrases, sentences or hole paragraphs - I find this method easier and has less key strokes:

(The "<" less than sign and the letter "s" and the ">" greater than sign in front of that you wish to strike -

At the end of material to be stricken, use the less than sign - the forward slash - the letter s - and the greater than sign.

I hope this helps. The two links have lots and lots of the special symbols.

Unknown said...

I didn't know how to do the shit Randal posted instructions for...thanks Dude!!!!

Peg..I will always help you, send me an email cher'.

Naj said...

google your subject; and then narrow yoru search to images. :)