We know that you have some fantastic photos that you are just dying to share, but your time is precious and you can't afford to waste any by experiencing any hassles during a photo upload.  No problem!  Here are some tips to make it a smooth, easy, even fun thing to do!

1. Crop your photos.  This makes them smaller to upload and makes the birdie wordies stand out more.
2. Keep your photos small.  How small?  That depends upon your internet access!
•  For technical reasons the photos must be under 2.0 megabytes (2,048 kilobytes).  Even if you have lightning-fast internet access and an incredible 2.1 Mb image, it just won't work.  Keep it under 2 Mb and we can all enjoy it!
•  For dial-up users (this means you Mom!),  keep photos extra small!  Resize them to under 100 kilobytes.  This will only take less than a minute to upload, thus preventing your computer from  timing out and you from needing a time-out.

How to Crop and Resize Your Photos

Google has a free program called Picasa that we recommend.  It's easy to use but still has all the important features, such as basic color correction, cropping, and resizing.  It organizes your photos quite well and makes it easy to order them from your favorite photo site. 

If you already have a photo gallery that you like, see if it has an option to resize and crop.  Most do.  If you are looking for a super-simple way to just click and resize a photo, then you might want to take a look at Photo Gadget.  It's free and only takes two mouse clicks to resize a photo!

Special Tips for Dial-up Users

Take pains to avoid doing anything else at all while uploading your pictures, such as making sure your anti-virus is turned off, window's update is turned off and no checking email at the same time.  Then upload away!

If you still have problems or a more specific question than we answered here, please feel free to post it in the forums and we will do our best to answer it in as timely a fashion as possible!