While not strictly a bike-related tech document enough people have had problems with this to warrant a permanent post about it.

Firstly there's a few restrictions on what pictures you can upload. Obviously they can't be pornographic, immoral, advertising etc. They also need to be in either .jpg or .gif format. If they're in some other format you'll need a graphics program to re-encode them. The pictures also need to be less than 200kB in file size. The easiest ways to reduce large filesize pictures is to reduce their actual size (eg: reduce a 1600x1200 picture to 640x480) and to cut out extraneous background matter. Both of these require a separate graphics program on your own computer. Your digital camera probably came with such a program.

To store pictures on BA.com from your computer or another website:
To send your pictures for storage on BA.com to look waaaay up the top of the page to where the link "PhotoPost Home" is and click on it. You'll see three links to "galleries" and a bunch of random user pics. Now look just below the "PhotoPost Home" link, and over to the right and you'll see a small link titled "Upload Photos". When you've clicked that link it'll show you your upload page.

If the picture's stored on your computer read this paragraph, but if it's stored on another website skip to the next one. If your picture is called something like "A100079B.JPG" now is a good time to rename it to something more useful like "newhandlebars1.jpg". Select the gallery in which you want to place the picture (it defaults to your own gallery) then you need to tell the website where the pic is on your own computer. If you know the path you can just type it into the box marked "photo to upload", but it's easier to click the "Browse" button next to it, then click your way to the picture you want to send.

For pictures stored on other websites firstly select the gallery you wish to store the picture in, the type (or cut & paste) the http address of the picture you wish to store (eg: http://www.mypicturesite.com/username/picture.jpg). Remember that pictures owned by other people may have copyrights that you could be breaching by putting it here, and you may require permission first. Note that you must use a link to the picture itself and not for the webpage it's part of. Size restrictions still apply.

This page will also show you some basic information about your disk space usage on BA.com. Finally click the "Upload/Submit" button. Be a little patient as it may take a little while to update to the next page, especially if you're using a dialup connection to the internet rather than a broadband connection.

The next page is where you describe the picture you've just sent. Check that the "category" is the same as the gallery you sent it to, type in a title (eg: New handlebars!) and an optional description (eg: I bought these gorilla bender type handlebars from abc dealers and they look great!). If you want to you can also enter "keywords" that people can use in the search function to locate your picture (eg: gorilla bender). Then click the "Process Files" button.

Once processing is complete you can view your uploaded picture by clicking on the link marked "Click here to return to main menu." Locate your own member gallery (or the gallery where you posted the pic) and click on the thumbnail picture for it.

Including pics for display within a message
To do this you must first find the real web address of the picture you want to include. I say real because many websites (including this one) attempt to hide the real address with some clever coding, but it's not too hard to discover the hidden address. The methods of doing so differ slightly depending on what browser you're using; I'll describe the methods for Firefox and Internet Explorer because I have those two on my machine, if you use something different you're on your own. These instructions assume you're using MS Windows 95 or better.

Firefox (The better browser)
View the image you want to include by clicking on it's thumbnail. If it says "Click on image to view larger image" then do so. Right-click on the image and select "properties". A window will open up with a bunch of info. Find the line entitled "Location:" (not the one entitled "Address:") then use your mouse to highlight the http address after that and right-click and select copy (or press ctrl-c on your keyboard) to copy the address to your clipboard. Close the properties window.

Internet Explorer (the crappier browser)
View the full-size image and select the picture's properties as for Firefox above. Highlight the http address in the "Address:" line, right click and copy (or press ctrl-c) as above. Close the properties window.

Then write your post as normal (if it's a reply don't use the "quick reply" box, click the "reply" or "quote" link). When you're at the point in your post where you want to include the picture click the "Image" link which will produce a requester box. Right click in the box and select "paste" (or press ctrl-v on your keyboard). When the picture's address has appeared in the box press OK. Finish your post normally, and your picture should be included. If it's not edit your message and check for spelling errors, missing "http://" etc in the picture's address.

You can include pictures from other websites directly using the same method. Just put the address for the picture (not the page) in the box. This saves you downloading it from them and uploading it to BA.com and might avoid certain copyright breaches.

Matt Electronic mods for TBA/SM!