….. I want more space!
Last month when I wrote the When to Dotcom post, my main issue was space. Given, I am only using about 18% of the free 3gb that WordPress offers, but big pictures eat away at that pretty quickly and I’m always looking to the future.
In the comments section people talked about various ways to deal with the space issue and Andreas gave a list of several options. I’m a prime member and a google member, so I tried out both amazon photo and google drive. Unfortunately, I have not been able to make either of them work the way I was hoping. For those of you who saw the original August ’20 Roundup & Rambling post, you might have noticed the big pix I usually put at the top that has all my book covers in a collage picture was missing or saying you needed permissions etc. That was me trying to use google drive.
Both google drive and amazon don’t seem to simply let you give out an url to a picture you’ve uploaded. It is all complicated “share this with these email people” etc. Or “set these permissions, blah, blah, blah”.
Then I remembered I had an old dropbox account floating around. So I opened that account back up and voila, I had another 3gb’s of space available. However, and this is what made the difference for me, I was able to use the dropbox links to host pictures here on WP.
I found several websites that showed me how to do it. Instead of linking to them, I’ll just post the info here so you don’t have to go chasing links down (and as we all know, links die on a regular basis). The following assumes that you have a dropbox account and have downloaded the dropbox app to your computer.
Dropbox
Right clicking a file in a drop box folder will give the option to “Copy Dropbox Link”. This will not link directly to the file, but it can be changed to link directly, which can then be used in the above import.
In order to get a direct link, replace http://www.dropbox.com with dl.dropboxusercontent.com and remove the ?dl=0.
For instance:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/72vf8e2f0qx6vw8/Milan4.jpg?dl=0
would become: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/72vf8e2f0qx6vw8/Milan4.jpg.
(Personally, I just leave the dl=0 myself. I don’t know the reason for removing it.)
Now, doing all of this means there are extra steps in adding pictures to your wordpress posts. But since I’m already creating a whole new process to write posts here on wordpress, another couple really aren’t going to make a difference especially if it means my space limitations are removed.
The other nice thing about dropbox is that you can get additional space for getting referrals. This is known as free advertising for dropbox. Whenever someone joins up for a free account (and the 2gb space), if they signed up using a referral link, they get an extra 500mb of space and I get an extra 500mb of space. Up to 16 gigs worth. And if they sucker convince someone else to join up with THEIR referral, then they both get 500mb. It’s just your classic “get rewarded for working for us” kind of scheme. I’ve used it twice, hence why I have 3gb instead of just 2. If you have any interest in joining up, shoot me an email and I’ll email you a referral.
I’m just glad I seem to have found a way that works for me to host pictures and increase my storage without having to pay. If you have found alternates that work well, let me know in the comments, would you? I’m always glad to learn things (well, ok, lets be honest, I am NOT, as my reaction to the forsaken block editor has shown) and if I can find a better way than dropbox, then I will. Personally, I would love to use google drive, as that has 15gb of free space.
Now, something to be aware of. Should dropbox ever cancel/close your account or go belly up or change or be taken over by aliens, or be ruled to be racist and full of hate speech by the EU, then there is the potential for the pictures you host there to become dead links on your wordpress site. That is right: D-E-A-D-L-I-N-K-S
Ok, this post has gone on long enough. Have a great rest of your day.
Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road 
I’m a fan of Dropbox too, very handy. Do you think it might be taken over by aliens?
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I’ve been making my way through the Outer Limits on prime and I’ve come to the realization that aliens will pretty much do anything if they can.
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You do realise that The Outer Limits is not actually a documentary? I wouldn’t have thought Dropbox would be their first port of call, although if it gives them access to your collection of SF book covers, maybe that does make some kind of sense.
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That is what they want you to think! It’s all explained in season 2 or 3 at the end.
I wouldn’t think taking over dropbox would be a high priority either, but considering some the hijinks aliens seem to get up to, nothing would surprise me.
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What else do you think aliens are up to? Just a couple of examples…
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Well, let’s see.
I’m pretty sure Ronald McDonald is an alien. So they’re messing around in the fast food franchise.
Windows10 HAS to be an alien invention meant to drive us all insane. I don’t think Bill Gates is an alien though, just in cahoots with them.
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So they’re going stealth, with fast food and operating systems the first step? Wasn’t your wife worried about pod people taking over?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54046154
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Nope.
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I think the Alien take over is a definite possibility, so I’m skipping this advice…..😂😂😂
Seriously, this is quite a coincidence! I am at about 31% now of the free 3 Gb space, and I was wondering yesterday what if this runs out. So honestly this post is very helpful!
Besides…if they ever do get taken over by Aliens, we can always call in Ellen Ripley. She will get the job done in no time😂😂 Thanks for sharing this!😀
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Once you run out of space you simply can’t add any more pictures. Probably some other issues as well though.
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Well, I have now been blogging for almost five years, and have still got almost 70% left, so that’s a good thing. That said, it’s nice to know there are other alternatives as well…so really thanks again for this post! I have bookmarked it for easy reference😊
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I’d say you’re set for quite some time then 😀
Most of my space goes to my monthly roundup pix and then posts like this where I randomly add pictures for the fun of it….
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Informative, thanks!
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Glad to have helped.
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It won’t be for the immediate future, I’m at 3% last time I checked. When I hit 100, aliens will probably be everyone’s Overlord.
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😀
I’m probably going to use dropbox for the rest of the year and then go back to using wordpress until I fill things up. Right now is just a testing period to see what works and what doesn’t.
Plus, if something does go wrong with dropbox, I only have a couple of months to deal with in terms of editing posts.
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I’m glad you were able to get a storage solution! It does at least give you some leeway which is good.
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Exactly, now I have options….
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When I posted on message boards that did not allow for image hosting, I used free hosting sites, like Imgur and they worked quite well. I found a list of free image hosting sites here: https://www.guru99.com/free-photo-hosting.html
Happy exploring! 😉
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Man, akismet has been throwing so many comments all over wordpress into the spam folder. Bleeding thing!
Thanks for the link. since dropbox “seems” be working for me I’ll probably stick with it for now.
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Regarding Google files, I think if you change the share settings to “link sharing on” or something, everyone should be able to view it but I do like your neat solution more! 🙂
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I will check out that at some point. I really want to know my options at this point. I’ll definitely be going back to wordpress storage at new years, so that way I only have 3’ish months worth of posts to fix if something ever goes wrong. And that way I can play around with google some more.
15gb is a LOT and really should take care of my needs for the the rest of my blogging career.
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It’s pretty interesting to know this. I never really looked into alternatives but it’s good to know that Dropbox works for this since I have an account there myself.
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considering you are a dotcom, it will probably be awhile before you have to worry about space 🙂
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I am not tech savvy enough to know what half of this post means🙈. When using oictures for my posts i just save one i found of google in a folder and insert them into a post and readjust their size to on more fitting for me… have i been doing it wrong all along??
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One thing you might want to start doing is to resize the pictures before uploading them to WP. That will slow down your rate of eating into your 3gb from WP.
I don’t know what operating system you use, but if you have a version of windows, the free program Paint has an option to resize pictures in it.
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This is useful! Thanks!
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I’m going back to using WP in november but I’m really glad to know that dropbox works and I’ve got a system. I like “systems” 🙂
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