This week, my post is a tutorial - very important as not only has Blogger changed how their photo uploader works, but also it's all about our privacy online.
The new photo uploader
When Blogger first came up with the new template designer in Beta testing, they called it Blogger In Draft... and it had a horrible and difficult to use photo uploader. Then this disappeared, and I thought that was the end of it. Now it's BACK... and it looks like it's set to stay. Boo hoo!
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Annoyingly! You CAN load an image from your computer - but some pictures take FOREVER! I wrote a post on my
weight loss blog, so you can see how things work.
So my conclusion is: you need to resize your images to avoid a slow upload time. Which means more work for us, of course. The tutorial pix uploaded quickly and without any problems - the
image I used on my post took FOREVER to upload, as it was a high resolution.
I also noticed that some images I posted DO NOT open into a larger size. So, although I've said don't mess around with the sizes, for some pix you may need to. I do hope this doesn't mean that Blogger won't keep the thumbnail option - it'll be a royal pain if they do! This will mean checking every photo loads at optimum size - and in the case of tutorials, as large as I can possibly make them.
I'd recommend you look at these tutorials I wrote previously re
resizing images for the web, and also take a look at
LiveWriter - you'll be able to bypass writing your posts in Blogger, and your pix will be exactly as you load them (one size, but at least you'll be able to add drop shadows and frame effects).
Protecting our privacy and copyrights online
I'm furious! With the new picture uploader Blogger has now linked Picasa and PicNik - and made all our blog images public by default! This means that ANYONE can access YOUR private pictures.
Thanks to Stephanie at
Queen of Dreamz, who followed up on a comment I wrote re a post on on my own blog
1stfloorflat and did a little research then emailed me (I'm eternally grateful for this) here's how to change your settings to protect your privacy - which
should be the default setting.
Go to your Settings, either via Google or via Picasa. I've gone there by googling for my Picasa album.
Click on Photo Settings and take a look at those defaults!
Tick or untick as you like - read the options CAREFULLY.
Save, and now you have some peace of mind. Now spamming is even more rife than ever, Google should never ever have linked these albums. In my opinion, this is a dreadful invasion of privacy.
Deleting images from Picasa which are also on your blog
A word of warning... if you posted images on your blog: even if you didn't know you had a Picasa album, you do NOW. So go in and change those settings!
Also, every image you post on your blog (even from old posts) now automically goes into your Picasa album - therefore, if you decide to delete an image, it also gets deleted off your blog! So think carefully before you hit that 'delete' button.
I don't have a Picasa album (I don't think...) so how do I find it?
I
f you have a Blogger blog, you'll have been asked to open a GoogleMail or Gmail account, and this address will most probably be the one you use to access your blog.
Go into your mail account, and you'll see a toolbar right at the very top - click on
more to access the drop-down menu.
The first item you'll see is
Photos - click on this and you'll be able to access your Picasa album(s) showing every pic you have on your blog, and probably a lot more!
Scroll back up this post to see how to adjust your privacy settings.
