Depending on how fast you wish to place your ads, and the amount of money you wish to spend doing it will dictate how you place your initial pictures, as there are a few different ways. Obviously the more time you spend, the happier you will be in the end, but you may also need to spend a few dollars more than you would like. I will explain the various methods available first.

The most popular way of adding a little visual excitement to your ads is the easiest way, not to mention the cheapest (free). This involves just saving images off of the internet, off of clipart, or any other resource. The internet has virtually thousands of sites dedicated to giving you artwork to use that is free; all you do is save the image, and it is yours to use in near any way you wish. A quick note here is that not every image on the Internet, the WWW, etc. is yours for the picking. It is usually quite easy to tell if an image is off limits, though. Any artwork that is a trademark for a company is usually protected, as well as any other picture which includes such trademarks in them. Do not chance using such artwork. You need to get permission to use them, and the answer is usually no. You can avoid a nice deal of hassle and even legal fees by just staying away from company trademarks, etc. You be the judge; if something seems as if it may be legally protected, it probably is. You would be better off looking for some other unprotected art, as there are millions available on the Internet.

To use any particular picture, you first need to get it onto your computer, then you can do what you want with it. To do this on the Internet, just right-click (if using a Windows mouse) on the image you want, then select "Save Image," and your computer will ask you for a name for the image. Give it any title you want, but just make sure that you put the correct extension on the end of it. You can use either .GIF, or .JPG/.JPEG. The .GIF extension is the extension you should use if speed is at all important to you. Such files only use up to 256 colors, while .JPG files can use up to 16.7 million. Saving a .JPG file as .GIF usually won't take much away from the picture, either, as 256 colors is still a very nice palette. For example, say you find an image of a stop sign that you wish to use. First you right-click on it, then "Save Image," then name it something like stopsign.gif, and you are set. Just make sure you remember exactly what directory you saved it in. I save all my images in my "C" drive, and the advantage of that is explained later. For future reference, take your browser to the following address, right-click on the stop sign, and name it "stopsign.gif" save it in your c:\ drive, so we can reference it later on in examples. (http://members.primary.net/~mikes300/stopsign.gif)

Another way to acquire pictures is to scan them. Scanners are usually available for use at your local copy shop, and may cost $1-$2 per picture scanned. That isn't bad considering you can have any picture you wish right away (of course you need to have a photgraph, etc. of the picture to scan first!). Depending on how detailed the image is you are scanning, the format under which you save them may be different. JPG files use many more colors, so if there is more detail, as in a photograph, you may consider using it; just make sure your file size is not too large. You may want to use a guideline of 200 kilobytes as a total size of your web page, to ensure that it won't take a long time to load, because many people don't have access to extremely quick Internet connections. You can use the graphic editor LViewPro, which I have included in this package, to edit your images.

Finally, my favorite method, and consequently the most expensive, is using a digital camera. Digital cameras usually come with software for getting the pictures on your computer, so just follow the instructions that came with the camera. This method is very nice to use, as you can take a picture, and have it on your computer in minutes; no developing, no film, etc. There are, of course, drawbacks. Digital cameras can cost from $200 to $1,000 each, so you may stick to the 35mm or polaroid that you have, and just spend the $5 to develop the film and just scan it.

What do I do with the pictures once they are on my computer?

Once you have the pictures on your computer, you will need to take advantage of another computer, a server computer. Most ISPs will allot you a few megabytes of server space for your web pages and images. Just call them and ask if they do. In my case, I was provided a number to call when I wanted to use the server space; I called them, they activated it, and here I am! If your ISP doesn't allow you server space, there are free image hosting services on the Internet that can host your web page and images for you.

Now that you have access to a server computer, you will need to upload your images, web pages, etc. to that computer. Have you ever downloaded anything from the Internet to your computer? Uploading is the exact opposite. To do this, you will need to do a few things. First, I suggest using a program like WS_FTP_LE, an FTP (file transfer protocol) client, or in other words, software. This is included on the free software disk in this package. Next, you will need to find out things like your host name/address, initial remote host directory, etc. This is either given to you when you signed up with your ISP, or you will need to call them to find out. They will tell you exactly what to place into the fields of the FTP client to get it going. This is what customer service is for, and it is a great resource.

After you have gotten your FTP client set up, you can transfer your images onto the server computer very easily. In WS_FTP_LE, just find the file in the directory you saved it in the left box, and just move it over to the public directory in the right box. If you find your file "stopsign.gif," and place it in the right window of the client, your image is now on the Internet, ready to be referred to by your web page or ebay auction, in this case.

OK, I have the image I want on the server computer-how do I get it in my ads?

This is the easiest part of your adventure. When you add your item to Ebay's listings, just include your picture's URL (Internet address) in the Optional Picture URL box, which is located midway through Ebay's Adding Your Item page. Your image will appear between whatever text you type in the description, and the current bid/minimum bid increment information on your item's page. Make sure that when you place the URL of the image in the Optional Picture URL box, it is the entire URL, and not just the name and directory off of your own computer. The title of the image we mentioned before was "stopsign.gif," and this is what we type in when we look for it on OUR hard drive. On the Internet, however, you must give the URL of your server computer, then your own individual directory, and the title of the actual image, all in one line. For example, open your browser, and type in this URL in the Location window and press <Enter>:

http://members.primary.net/~mikes300/stopsign.gif

You will find my "stopsign.gif" image in my directory (mikes300) of my server space (http://members.primary.net). That is all there is to it.

If you would like to reference your image(s) from the item description, and include more than one image, this is nearly as easy, except that you need to know a few things about HTML (hypertext markup language). HTML is the language your browser uses to read web pages, and to display them properly. Any HTML document is made up of "tags," which are the formatting elements that make your web page unique. I will just discuss a few important tags here to get your image up and running. There are hundreds more explained in the HTML reference library which is included in this package. I began making my web pages and auction descriptions with less than the tags I have listed below. It just took experimentation with different tags, and then some research to make an ad like the one you saw for this package.

The first thing you need to do is open up a simple text editor. Notepad works great, as does Simpletext, or MS Word, etc. I use Notepad for the simplicity; just make sure that no matter what you name your file, it has the ".html" extension on it. For example, if you create an ad on Notepad, you could save it as myauction.html. When you are finished creating your ad on your text editor, just copy and paste EVERYTHING into the item description field of the Adding Item Page. You will have a chance to preview it on the next screen.

All HTML tags include the figures < and >. Many tags have opening and closing tags as well. The tag for bold text is <b>, and the corresponding closing tag is </b>. If you want something to appear in your auction in bold type, then use the following example as a guide.

<html>

this text is not bold

<b>

this text is bold (NOTEPAD doesn't support bold text, so just copy/paste this into your Notepad document, save it as myboldtext.html, and open the document (myboldtext.html, for example) with your browser.

</b>

this text is not bold again

</html>

You probably noticed that I included the <html> and </html> tags here. If you omit these tags, most browsers will recognize html documents as such, but I like to include <html> at the beginning, and </html> at the end just to be sure. Some more popular formatting tags that work like the bold tag above are listed below, with brief descriptions and some examples.

<b>, </b> bold text

<br> line break (no closing tag)

<I>, <I> italic text

<p> line space (no closing tag)

<center>.</center> horizontal centering

<font face=arial>,</font> text displayed in Arial (most one-word fonts)

<font face=arial size=7>,</font> text displayed in Arial, with a size of 7

<font face=arial size=7 color=red>,</font> " Arial, size 7, in color red

<img src=URLADDRESS> the picture located at the URLADDRESS is

shown

These tags can all be used again and again in your document, just be sure you close the ones that have close tags, etc. You might also note that Ebay only supports font sizes 1-7 in their item descriptions.

When you place an image in your HTML document, just use the image source tag above (<img src=>), and place the Internet Address, or URL of your image directly following the equal (=) sign, then close the tag with a >. Just look at the example of the stop sign below for a reference. As with anything, working with HTML tags takes some experimentation, but once you get the basics down, which doesn't take long, the rewards are well worth it.

Type or Copy/Paste the following into a blank Notepad document, and save it as stoppage.html. After you save it, then open your browser, and click on File/Open, and there should be a dialog box, or a way to browse to this file, stoppage.html on your c:\ drive, then open it, and there should be your image!! Just be sure to do two things before you place your ad. First, change the address/location of the image stopsign.gif to its internet address shown in the second example, because web pages won't have access to your harddrive when it is on the Web. Also, remember to upload any images you use to your server computer, otherwise your ad has nothing to display when it references your image address.

Example one, when working on your ad, before you place it, when your image

Is only on your hard drive.

<html><center><img src=stopsign.gif></center></html>

Example two, once you are done, and need to reference the image on your server

Computer (remember to upload your image first!!!)

<html><center><img src=members.primary.net/~mikes300/stopsign.gif></center></html>