How-To: Put Pix in Your Auction

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How-To: Put Pix in Your Auction

Chapter 3

Put Your Pictures on the Web

In this chapter, we assume that you have one or more pictures in your computer, and that you have adjusted them if necessary so that they are a good size for Web display. In Chapter 3, we will cover how to get your pictures on the Web so that they can be used in an auction.

It is important to understand that using a picture in an online auction requires that you put the picture in an accessible place on the web before you can use it in an auction. Auction sites do not store pictures on their servers. You must first have it stored on somebody else's server, and then you simply refer to the address of the picture on the other server in your listing form.

That's where PixHost.com Comes In: Our service makes it very simple to get your pix up to a server on the Web. You upload images right from a screen in your browser. The image is uploaded within a few seconds, and displayed for confirmation. We also display the exact address you need to enter on the auction listing form.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

Before you start: As we discussed in previous chapters, you need to have one or more images already on your computer, saved in gif or jpg format. (We highly recommend jpg). If large in screen size or file size, the pictures should be reduced, ideally to under 30k. (PixHost will accept images up to 64k in size, but we strongly suggest much smaller images so that your potential buyers with relatively slow modems will see them and not get tired of waiting). Make a note of what directory on your computer the files are saved. Got your images ready? Good, on to step 2:

Login: We assume you've already signed up a trial membership, and confirmed your membership. Click Login on the menu at the top of the screen, and then enter your member id and password in the boxes and click the "Login" button. You will next see a member services page with various links. Click on "Upload Images"

Upload the Image: Once you are on the image uploading page, make sure that you see a browse button next to the box for the file name, as shown in the illustration below:

If you do not see a browse button as shown above, you MUST upgrade your browser, as lack of the browse button indicates that your particular browser does not support file upload. (See our help and faqs for more).

We will now find the file on your computer. Click the Browse button. You will see a "file dialog box" that is similar to the one you see in many other Windows programs when opening a file. An example is shown below:

Tips for Finding Your Files: You will need to navigate through your file structure to find the files. First, take a look at the very bottom of the Choose File window where it says "Files of type:". You will need to click on the small arrow, and select a file type of either "All files" or "Pictures" (in Internet Explorer) so you can see image files. After you have done that, you may need to click on the arrow next to the "Look in:" box at the top of the Choose File window. This will allow you to find the directory your images are stored in.

The Actual Upload: Once you've found the picture you want to upload, just double-click the file name, or click the file name so it appears in the filename box and then click open. The Choose File dialog box will close and you will be back to the PixHost upload form, and the file name will be filled in for you.

Now here's the really easy part . . . Just click the "Upload this file" button. Your file is now being uploaded to our servers. Don't click more than once, just be a little patient while the entire file is uploaded from your hard drive to our servers. You will soon see a confirming screen with your image displayed on it!

All you need now is to make a note of the picture url we display, so you can enter it in your auction form. If you are curious about urls, you can read the part below, if not, just go on to the next chapter.

About the address ("picture url") of your pictures:

All resources on the World Wide Web, whether they are a text file, or a graphic image like a photograph are identified with an address called a "URL", which stands for universal resource locator. You will need to know the url or address of each picture so you can enter that information on the auction form.

A url always starts with "http://" then has the server and company name, then the directory, then the file itself.

With images on PixHost.com, the url will always start with http://www.pixhost.com

The next part will be a master directory of all the members that start with the first letter of your memberid. For example, if your memberid is "neatstuff", your master directory will be "pixn" followed by your memberid, followed by your image name. For example if "neatstuff" uploaded a picture of a figurine that they had named "figurine.jpg", the url would be

http://www.pixhost.com/pixn/neatstuff/figurine.jpg

Another member, "coolstuff" might also have a "figurine.jpg" but their picture url would be

http://www.pixhost.com/pixc/coolstuff/figurine.jpg

Once you know the url of a picture, you can test by typing the url into the address blank at the top of your browser, and pressing enter. Your browser will automatically request the image from the server, and display the image in the browser window.

Well, we're almost there. All you need to do now is enter the proper info in the auction listing form, which is the subject of Chapter 4, the next step..

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