Reckless in charge of bandwidth.

Setting up this blog from a remote location, where there are heavy restrictions on net access, has highlighted the issue of bandwidth. It can be a very precious resource. Further there are hidden internet and website police that will stop you doing all sorts of useful things. Like having a link that points to and displays a photo on a different site. For some reason these self appointed law enforcers seem to think you might be pirating their bandwidth. I don’t know all the ins and outs I just know I keep getting pulled over.


“Yes officer, I was sending a photo, but I like to think I am a photographer”

Digital Photos can be real bandwidth hogs, particularly when you don’t have a broadband connection, or your email site is finicky about attachment size, or your best friends anti virus software just trashes anything with an attachment. Yet there is no great need for all that detail if all you want to do is view the image on a computer (or TV) screen.

• Most computers are only set to 800 by 600 pixels, and granny will he very happy with a 640 by 480 image of new baby Bradley. So find out how to resize and store your photos in .jpeg format. Its easy, you can even compress the file a lot before noticing any difference in the quality of the image.
  
• Photo can be embedded in HTML format emails, so they don’t have to be attached and run the gauntlet of the attachment and anti-virus patrol. You just make sure you are setting up the email in HTML format, then look for the insert picture button (it normally has a framed picture icon, well thats what I think it is supposed to be). It is just like an insert you would do in a microsoft word document. If you are emailing with outlook, it is word! But don’t embedded massive files. 800 by 600 is probably the biggest you need to go. And only send one or two photos at a time
  
• Finally there ate lots of on-line photo album sites where you can upload your images and then just email a link to aunt mable. One such service I like is Ofoto, which is now run by Kodak.
  

You probably will want all the detail when it comes to printing but that can wait for another day.