On 2008-06-15, Daz wrote:
Hi All

Is if ok to post images inside newsgroups post or is that bad form?

It is only acceptable in newsgroups which have "binaries" in
their names. This is not one.

And some ISPs and news servers automatically clip binaries
(images, programs, and the like) and just discard news articles which
have them. So if you want people to see your articles, you won't put
binaries in them.

FWIW: I need to explain a tech question with maybe some pics or text that
represents a table of info.

The proper way to go is to place the images on a web server, and
just post the URL here so those who care can go look at the images.

If you have a web space as part of your account, you can use
that. If not, there is the dropbox http://www.metalworking.com --
check the "About the Dropbox" click bar to find out how to post the
images to the dropbox. Things like Word documents are automatically
rejected, because they can have macro viruses in them.

Once you have sent them to the dropbox, hold of on posting until
you are sure that the images show up, and make sure that the names are
what you expect. As an example, spaces in filenames are a pain on some
systems, so they are automatically changed to '_' to avoid those
problems.

And your images *should* have an accompanying ".txt" file
describing what the images are and why they are posted. Please make
sure that the lines are hard folded in the file (editors will usually
let you hard fold lines, word processors will fold them on your screen
without bothering to fold them in the actual file.) Un-folded lines
in .txt files wind up really hard to read with a browser.

All of the images and the the .txt file should start with the
same mix of letters and numbers -- so they will sort together in the
listing.

Note that these files will be there forever (or at least for as
long as Steve manages to keep the server running). They will eventually
move from the current files to the past years directories, but they will
still be there.

When you post the file names, also post the URL to the dropbox:

http://www.metalworking.com

so those who don't know what the dropbox is, or remember where it is can
find it without cluttering the discussion with "where are the images"
questions. :-)

Good Luck,
DoN.

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