OK, I'll do a little basic web introduction and you can tell me if it helps:

If your internet service provider supports personal web pages, you have some disc space on his server that you can use however you want. You can build a 'home page' if you want, but you can also use the disc space to store images that you scan yourself. You need to do this if you want anybody else to see them, because unless you have a direct, permanent connection to the internet (only Greg can afford to do that [g]), nobody can get to the disc on your PC.

So... the first step is to scan your image using one of the cheap new scanners (I use the HP ScanJet 5p) or take a picture with a digital camera that you then load to your disc. You will want to create you image in a format that most users' browsers will be able to open and view. I recommend JPG, although lots of people use GIF (that's the one that gives you three views of increasing clarity as the picture opens on your PC). JPG files are generally a little smaller than GIF. Smaller means faster in the on line world.

Next step depends on what kind of internet service provider you use. If it's one of the user friendly type like AOL or Prodigy, they have something on-line that will walk you through transferring an image from your disc to their server (your little piece of their disc). If you use one of the grown-up providers, like AT&T or Concentric, you will have to get what's called an FTP program (File Transfer Protocol, to techies). There are lots of them available; you can buy one, or you can download a free one from the web. The one lots of people use is called WS-FTP. You can download this at a lot of sites on the web. I don't have a reference to one right now. You can do a web search or let me know and I'll find it for you. Anyway, this little program, when configured with the magic words your ISP gives you to upload stuff to their disc, will basically let you click on a file name on one of your discs, click on a 'right arrow' and watch the file move from your disc to theirs.

Once your file is on the server, it has a URL, and that's what you type in the box called 'Optional Image URL' on this board. For my provider, the URL looks like this:

www.concentric.net/~lueders/scannedimages/FILENAME.JPG

The 'scannedimages' portion is because I created a subdirectory to keep my scanned pictures separate from other stuff on the disc. You don't have to do this.

Your disc space is not unlimited, so you have to manage your disc on the web server the way you used to on your PC when you had a 20 MBy hard drive {g}. My ISP only gives me 5 MBy which is enough for maybe 50 pictures. Your FTP program has a facility to allow you to rename or delete files so you get rid of things you no longer need to make room for new pictures.

By the way, this is also the way you get pictures into auction sites like eBay. They do not store the pictures with your auction on their server; they just reference the URL of your picture, wherever it's stored.

I know it sounds complicated, and it took me a couple of days to get everything sorted out when I first got my scanner. It's worth it though to be able to SHOW rather than DESCRIBE when someone wants to know what your old chip really looks like.

Let me know if I can help any further.

And if anyone else reading this has some hints on how to do it easier or better, please jump in. That's why I did this reply in the open rather than in email to Steve.

DonL