How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing images in Collarchat message

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How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing imag... - 11/18/2015 6:03:29 AM

crumpets

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Joined: 11/5/2014
From: South Bay (SF & Silicon Valley)
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How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing images in a Collarchat message.

Pictures often make collarchat more interesting, and informative.
However, the "direct" collarchat picture embedding mechanism has never worked for me.
Up until now, I have been either referencing external images inside of image tags, or, I have been uploading to picture-hosting sites the pictures to reference.

A key problem with pointing to external images is that you can't control the size of the image (where anything greater than about 640 pixels is too wide), nor can you annotate the image nor crop or edit it in any way; plus, some external sites don't allow hotlinking anyway (and some URls contain funky characters, such as %, some of which the collarchat include mechanism barfs at).

A key problem with uploading your images to image-hosting sites is that some of our images are, um, well, shall we just say our images may be misunderstood by the vanilla crowd (and you almost always need to manually resize them to 640x480 pixels or less).

Hence, there is a need for an internal-only mechanism for enhancing collarchat with images.

With that being the goal, here is one way you can attach a perfectly sized image for viewing inside your collarchat posts without ever leaving the collarspace/collarchat domain.

1. View your own profile and press the [Send Pictures] button:

2. This will check the bottom "Attachment" checkbox & it will shrink the pictures to a good size:

3. When you read your own message, you can right click to copy the attachment URL:

4. In Collarchat, you can surround that URL with "image" tags:

5. This will display the picture in the collarchat forum, without the need for an external URL:

Many thanks to DreamLady for patiently explaining this neat trick to me!
Hope this helps others,
jay

< Message edited by crumpets -- 11/18/2015 6:24:08 AM >

Post #: 1

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/18/2015 3:04:16 PM

dreamlady

Posts: 737
Joined: 9/13/2007
From: Western MD
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Actually, you noted a step which streamlined the way I was doing it. I've never used that Send Pictures function before and had overlooked that it's even there.

Btw, once you View Full Profile, and have sent yourself a message, you just need to pull it up and reply with new pc picture attachments in the future (no need to retain thumbnail).

You're right about the sizing. CS message attachments will automatically reduce image size so that it won't appear huge within a forum post.

I haven't tried to post any gif images; those get converted to .jsp format (any type of image does, jpeg, or an otherwise incompatible image for CC forum posting) on the CS message side.
Gifs were uploadable as an embedded pic in posts, when that feature used to work on here.

DreamLady

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Love is born with the pleasure of looking at each other, it is fed with the necessity of seeing each other, it is concluded with the impossibility of separation. ~José Marti

(in reply to crumpets)

Post #: 2

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/18/2015 3:06:45 PM

littleclip

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thank you for the helpful info it will help with posting pics

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Post #: 3

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/18/2015 4:40:15 PM

Missokyst

Posts: 6041
Joined: 9/9/2006
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testing it
[image] http://cdn.collarspace.com/attachments/111815/5CF415B6-072C-4C93-97FF-0589D6307CB81.jpg [/image]

well that didn't seem to do what I thought it would. bummer

< Message edited by Missokyst -- 11/18/2015 4:42:42 PM >

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Post #: 4

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/18/2015 4:58:08 PM

Lucylastic

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If you take out the spaces straight after and before the [image] boxes, it will work
I just did it
it cant have any spaces:)

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RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/18/2015 5:04:21 PM

Lucylastic

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_____________________________

(•_•)
<) )╯SUCH
/ \

\(•_•)
( (> A NASTY
/ \

(•_•)
<) )> WOMAN
/ \

Duchess Of Dissent
Dont Hate Love

(in reply to Lucylastic)

Post #: 6

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/18/2015 8:09:36 PM

crumpets

Posts: 1614
Joined: 11/5/2014
From: South Bay (SF & Silicon Valley)
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucylastich
it cant have any spaces:)

This is correct. No spaces.

I shouldn't have put spaces in the blue annotation.
You can see, above the blue annotation that the image URL has no spaces in it).

Thanks for catching that detail.

(in reply to Lucylastic)

Post #: 7

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/18/2015 8:53:33 PM

crumpets

Posts: 1614
Joined: 11/5/2014
From: South Bay (SF & Silicon Valley)
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quote:

ORIGINAL: dreamlady
Actually, you noted a step which streamlined the way I was doing it. I've never used that Send Pictures function before and had overlooked that it's even there.

I do thank you very much for turning me on to this neat trick.
Every computer trick is useful to keep in your back pocket, when you need it.

If anyone needs the steps to view your profile to get to that "Send Pictures" button in a single step, there are multiple methods, but the quickest is just to type your case-insensitive profile name after collarspace.

Like this:
http://collarspace.com/crumpets (for me)
http://collarspace.com/dreamlady (for DreamLady)
http://collarspace.com/missokyst (for Missokyst)
etc.

Another way to get to that "Send Pictures" button without typing is to:
1. Go to your CollarSpace home page
2. Press Edit Profile
3. Press View Profile

quote:

ORIGINAL: dreamlady
You're right about the sizing. CS message attachments will automatically reduce image size so that it won't appear huge within a forum post.

I ran a quick test by oversizing an image to 1280x960 and then attaching it via this method you turned me on to, in my CS mail.

The resulting picture I received was automatically resized down to 600x521 pixels, which is a great Goldilocks size for forum postings.

quote:

ORIGINAL: dreamlady
I haven't tried to post any gif images; those get converted to .jpg format

In Linux, it's easy to convert any image format to any other, so, I took a picture and converted it to three different formats (jpg, gif, and png), and then sent them to myself.
$ convert image.bmp image.jpg
$ convert image.bmp image.gif
$ convert image.bmp image.png

All three images were (resized and) converted to jpg.
From a practical standpoint, a JPG is essentially the same as a GIF and PNG; however, if the GIF were an animated gif, then you will lose the animations with this method.

I just tested the following arbitrary animated GIF, and, as expected, it lost its animations when I sent it to myself, because it was converted from an animated GIF to a static JPG file.

For animated GIFs, the only way I know you can include them in forum posts is to reference them from an external site (such as imgur.com or tinypic.com or many others).

(in reply to dreamlady)

Post #: 8

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/18/2015 9:06:40 PM

crumpets

Posts: 1614
Joined: 11/5/2014
From: South Bay (SF & Silicon Valley)
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I just realized a potential problem.

I don't know if the attachments remain, AFTER we delete the emails that we send to ourselves.

So, to test that out, I just deleted all the mails that I sent to myself containing the attachments for the screenshots in the original post.

If the screenshots remain in the original post of this thread, then the attachments we send to ourselves are saved, even if/when we delete them from our CS mail.

Time will tell ...

(in reply to crumpets)

Post #: 9

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/18/2015 9:39:35 PM

dreamlady

Posts: 737
Joined: 9/13/2007
From: Western MD
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: crumpets

I don't know if the attachments remain, AFTER we delete the emails that we send to ourselves.

That thought had occurred to me also, but there must be a separate cache (?) which gets set up once a graphic gets reassigned/converted to its new location-specific URL that isn't much different than on other sites.

In other words, once I delete an image from my pc, it doesn't disappear from other site locations where the original image was uploaded, like on eBay for example.

Typo mix-up my earlier post where I meant .jpg not .jsp, and png not jpeg -- your reference to png jogged my mind.

I suppose the reason why gif animation gets lost over on the profile message side is due to taking up excessive file space, in addition to the obscenity factor.
Definitely don't want to open a potentially offensive message from pervy dudes with graphic depictions of kinky sex acts taking place that I'll never be able to unsee.

DreamLady

_____________________________

Love is born with the pleasure of looking at each other, it is fed with the necessity of seeing each other, it is concluded with the impossibility of separation. ~José Marti

(in reply to crumpets)

Post #: 10

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/19/2015 3:36:18 AM

crumpets

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From: South Bay (SF & Silicon Valley)
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quote:

ORIGINAL: dreamlady
there must be a separate cache (?) which gets set up once a graphic gets reassigned/converted

Well, the original screenshots remained, and they were "deleted" from my CS mail; so you must be correct!
Time will tell though, but that just goes to show that nothing is really deleted on the Internet! :)

quote:

ORIGINAL: dreamlady
Typo mix-up my earlier post where I meant .jpg not .jsp, and png not jpeg -- your reference to png jogged my mind.

Yes. I had realized that. I know graphic formats rather well, and didn't know the one you had referenced, so, I corrected it when I rewrote your quote above.

quote:

ORIGINAL: dreamlady
I suppose the reason why gif animation gets lost over on the profile message side is due to taking up excessive file space, in addition to the obscenity factor.
Definitely don't want to open a potentially offensive message from pervy dudes with graphic depictions of kinky sex acts taking place that I'll never be able to unsee.

I don't know if the reason is focused on eliminating obscene animations (although, I had trouble finding a somewhat-related external GIF animation that was both small and still relatively PG myself) so much as the fact that the CS attachment software simply converts everything to JPG, and there are no animations in JPEG files that I know of.

I do very much appreciate that you described this method, because it allows us to show an image without having to store that image on an external web site, which is useful, for the kind of images we might choose to illustrate our points.

(in reply to dreamlady)

Post #: 11

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/22/2015 9:51:46 AM

LadyPact

Posts: 32566
Status: offline

Congratulations! Crumpets and DreamLady, you two are the only folks who have ever been able to teach me how to post a photo to the forums. That's a rather big accomplishment considering how horrible I am with these kinds of things. Bravo!

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Post #: 12

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/22/2015 10:10:40 AM

Bunnicula

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I DID IT!!!!!!!

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Post #: 13

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/22/2015 11:50:08 AM

LadyConstanze

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Bunnicula

I DID IT!!!!!!!

I can't see your lactating pic though ;)

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RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/22/2015 11:57:23 AM

JanahX

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Okay Crumpets, this I shall try this!!. As soon as the other side is operational again. This is probably my holdup/difficulty in posting pics here. Damn, I dont remember it being so difficult - I dont think it was!! Since Ive only been back less than a week - is the other side down like this a lot? Whats the deal? Anyone know?

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RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/22/2015 12:01:21 PM

LadyConstanze

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You can also try tinypic.com and upload there, copy the link and paste it between the [image][/image] (image) brackets you get when you press image on the menue bar

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Those who do and those who don't!

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Post #: 16

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/22/2015 9:19:40 PM

crumpets

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From: South Bay (SF & Silicon Valley)
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quote:

ORIGINAL: JanahX
Okay Crumpets, this I shall try this!!. As soon as the other side is operational again. This is probably my holdup/difficulty in posting pics here. Damn, I dont remember it being so difficult - I dont think it was!! Since Ive only been back less than a week - is the other side down like this a lot? Whats the deal? Anyone know?

All day the other side (collarspace) has been extremely flaky, and certainly non operational far more than operational!
I'm not sure what's up, but even the picture attachment mechanism has been failing all day.
I wish they would just post an "Administrative Announcement" so we won't waste so much time and get so frustrated.

I tried to answer a mail and it died in the middle, and I couldn't finish the mail for hours (maybe two or three hours later) because the collarspace site wouldn't even ping. Normally I log into collarspace and then just press the "Message Board" button, but, for the first time, I had to log into "collarchat.com", to get here.

I don't know what most of you do, but that's a first for me having to explicitly log into collarchat instead of collarspace.
If any of you know the mods or admins, maybe a friendly ping to them to just let us know what's going on would be helpful.

(in reply to JanahX)

Post #: 17

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/22/2015 9:20:59 PM

JanahX

Posts: 3443
Joined: 8/21/2010
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I dunno, but it looks like it's fucked up again. Lol!!

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Post #: 18

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/22/2015 9:35:54 PM

crumpets

Posts: 1614
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From: South Bay (SF & Silicon Valley)
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quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyConstanze
You can also try tinypic.com and upload there, copy the link and paste it between the [image][/image] (image) brackets you get when you press image on the menue bar

Today, since the collarspace domain is royally screwed up, I had to take your advice to use an external web site like tinypic.
So, today is not a good day to try this mechanism (because NO attachments are working inside the collarspace domain today!).

The problem with tinypic (or other image-hosting sites) depend on the site, but, for one, you have to remember to manually SHRINK your pictures to 640pixels wide (at the most) as I did below.

Also, some image-hosting sites require registration, which, for the topics we discuss, may be a privacy issue for us (even if the picture is PG, the fact that people are pulling it up from collarchat shows up on the image-hosting site's server logs).

In addition, your IP address is also handed to the image-hosting sites, so, if you upload a picture (such as the ones below), you might not want your real IP address associated with the profile (in the case below) for example.

There is also the PITA issue that I block javascript, cookies, and I obfuscate my User Agent, etc., which the image-hosting sites hate, so, if they work at all, they give a series of captcha challenge questions which even I, an avowed human, can't sometimes comprehend.

So, all in all, it's not a good idea, IMHO, to use external image-hosting sites.
However, today, with the collarspace domain in deep doo doo, it's necessary to post these pictures.

Someone wrote to me to mention that I skipped a couple of steps which happen in the process of sending yourself an attachment.

The first step I skipped was this one, where you have to type "something" into the text box, and then you have to hit the "Send Message" button, even though that seems premature since you haven't yet attached any pictures (although you checked the checkbox to attach them).

The second step I had skipped was the actual attachment dialog, which allows you to attach up to 10 images:

Once you do those steps, the images will be uploaded, shrunk, converted to JPG, and sent to yourself.

(in reply to LadyConstanze)

Post #: 19

RE: How to (slightly) improve privacy when referencing ... - 11/23/2015 4:47:30 AM

LadyPact

Posts: 32566
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucylastic

Awwww. What fun is that?

_____________________________

The crowned Diva of Destruction. ~ ExT

Beach Ball Sized Lady Nuts. ~ TWD

Happily dating a new submissive. It's official. I've named him engie.

Please do not send me email here. Unless I know you, I will delete the email unread

(in reply to Lucylastic)

Post #: 20

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