Hey dicktater or whom ever

gulu,

Start a reply to this message now. Look below the comment box for your reply and you will see this message. You can experiment with the comment box, preview your experiments, and scroll down to look at what I have to say below all on one page.

One way to insert images when you have the URL is to enable "rich text" for the comment box editor (see below bottom left corner of comment box when creating a comment, content, or reply. It will enable a WYSIWYG editor. Hover the mouse pointer over the buttons for a ballon tip telling you what each button is for.

This is the button for bringing up the insert image dialog box.

 It has a lot of click and fill attributes for the image and associated text that you can define. I should probably try working with the WYSIWYG editor more. It drove me nuts early on so, I started applying my own code. The editor looks better than I remember. (tinymce?) Knowing how to insert your own is often handy. And even if you use any WYSIWYG editor, editing the source can be frequently necessary.

Posting an image is very simple if you have "rich-text" disabled. You can enable or disable "rich-text" by clicking the link between the bottom left corner of the comment box and the preview/submit comment buttons. Also, you should open the "Input format" drop down and choose Full HTML, as filtered HTML doesn't seem to include the necessary "img" tag.
Here is a sample of the code to insert an image:

<img src="http://www.blah.com/images/picture.jpg">

"img" means image and "src" means source.

Click the Preview button to check and see if your image displays. If it doesn't, look for typos or missing components in your tags.

If you need an image to be scaled down to respect the space limitations imposed by the blog format for the center column, you need simply to define the reduced dimensions. Include the desired dimensions with the image URL to define a dimension for the image different from the actual image.

Let's say that the source image is 410 X 288 and you need to reduce the target to fit here. You could try the following:

 original size 410 X 288

<img src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080928/capt.3fee17782cf646acb0090e418e36995f.financial_meltdown_dclb101.jpg">

<img src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080928/capt.3fee17782cf646acb0090e418e36995f.financial_meltdown_dclb101.jpg" width="205 height="144">

or

<img src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080928/capt.3fee17782cf646acb0090e418e36995f.financial_meltdown_dclb101.jpg" width="102" height="72">

Each reduction is just half the preceeding image and maintains the aspect ratio of the original. What happens if the aspect ratio isn't maintained or just whacked out?

<img src="http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080928/capt.3fee17782cf646acb0090e418e36995f.financial_meltdown_dclb101.jpg" width="405 height="144">

So, when reducing the image dimensions, be sure to maintain aspect ratio, i.e.

1024 X 768 ----> 800 X 600 ----> 640 X 480 ----> 400 X 300 ----> 320 X 240

Each dimension above mainatins the 4:3 ratio of the original. For any given image, a quick way to reduce an image size is by dividing each dimension by a common denominator (halving each side usually does a good enough job). Being close is good enough. Don't worry about not being able to divide without a remainder. So, an image with dimensions 867 X 528 could be redefined as 434 X 264.

Embedding a video when code is not readily available from the video source can be a real pain in the arse. Sometimes, it isn't possible at all due to java crap and streaming media protocols. I will look at the source code for the web page and copy/paste the code if it can be found. Sometimes trying to find it amongst all the other gibberish isn't worth the effort. It should use the "object" and "embed" tags plus maybe some other junk. Use your source code viewer's Find/Search function and look for the words "embed", "video", "player", title of the video, or words/phrase immediately before or after the player, etc. When you copy/paste the code, make sure that you get all that is necessary to open and close the tags properly. Also, check the URLs in the embed code and make sure they are complete. Sometimes, a URL may be relative to the web page where you find it and you have to figure out what is missing to form a complete URL.