In The Net Contests and Forum 101 pt2

In The Net
Contests and Forum 101 pt2

Contests:
Don't you just love a contest? This month we had two contests which wrapped up just as this column went to print.

The first was a draw among members who could answer the skill testing question; How long has BC Outdoors been in publication? Proving that the only skill necessary to win was to look at the top of the page, nobody had any trouble finding the answer which was: “over 65 years” The prize was a 5wt Cortland Endurance rod with a Cortland 444 line and the lucky winner was xxxxxxxx

The second contest required a little more participation. We were looking for your funniest outdoor image. Flyfishingcouple posted a picture of Tunkwa personality Richard in an outfit that made his dog Buck hide his head at the front of the boat. Kettlefisher and CU-Wader both posted pictures of their inflatables where they shouldn't be and Morris posted an interesting rendering of a lonely deer hunter.

The prizes we gave away were a Dragonfly 7wt full sink flyline and a Rio Outbound wf6f Coldwater. Congratulations (and the lines) go to xxxxxxxxxx

Forum 101 pt2
There is one question that gets asked by new forum participants more than any other. “How do I add pictures to my posts?” Posting pictures requires learning a few simple procedures that once you've mastered them will cause you no trouble at all from that point forward.

Step one:
Start your own BCO photo album. Why? Because in order to attach a picture to your forum post, that picture must be hosted somewhere else. It doesn't have to go far, the BCO forum has it's own gallery where you can place all your outdoors pictures for online sharing. You can also post videos to your gallery which you can then share by simply sending somebody the address instead of having to mail the whole bulky file.

To get started, go to the black menu bar near the top of the BCO Forum page and click on “Trophy Wall”. After the page opens, click on “Members Gallery” and when that page loads you will see on the far right a menu item called “New Album”, click on that.

Give your album a name, usually your username, and follow instructions to finish creating your personal album and start filling it with pictures. Don't be shy about loading it up, a photo album with no photos is kind of pointless after all.

Step two:
Step one was all the heavy lifting, step two is a piece of cake. It's time to attach your photo to a post.

Go to your album and click on the picture you wish to post. It is very important that you bring up the full sized picture. One of the most common mistakes is performing the following actions to the thumbnail instead of the large picture.

Right click on the picture and when the little menu box pops up, select “properties” and look for the “image address” or “image url” On some browsers such as Google Chrome, you don't have to go to properties, you can just click on “copy image url” What you are trying to achieve is to get the address of the picture itself and not the address of the page the picture is on. Once you get it the first time you will never have a problem finding it again. Copy that address to your clipboard. (right click then copy or just press ctrl C on a windows computer)

Start a post in the usual way, either by starting a new thread or replying in an existing one. When your workspace for the new post pops up, place your cursor where you want your picture to be and look for the “Insert Image” icon. It looks like a little framed picture and sits just above the text entry box. If you are like me and the tiny icons look like little fuzzy blobs, just hover your mouse over them and the label will pop up. Click on the icon.

When the dialog box pops up, paste the address of your picture in the box that says “http//”, then click “insert image” and that's it, your picture is posted. If it doesn't work after a few tries, send me a message and I'll help you figure it out.

So there you go, Join the BCO Forums, make yourself an album and show us what you caught!