EXAMPLES OF
ONLINE INSECT COLLECTIONS
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Nowadays
anyone can join a photo sharing website or have a website for free, and if you're
interested in insects, making an online insect collection for the whole world to see is
something you can do! And if you can post at least ten sharp, properly identified
insect pictures on your site, I'll put a link to it on this page.
Here are the steps for making an online insect collection:
- sign up for a free website or join a
photo sharing website
- scan or photograph an insect
(scanning is easiest for small things)
- identify the insect at least to
family, but better to genus or even species
- post your images on your new website
OK, here's more info on the above steps:
SETTING UP
YOUR OWN
ONLINE INSECT COLLECTION
STEP ONE:
A) JOIN A PHOTO
SHARING WEBSITE
Photo sharing websites offer online
software tools that allow you to upload, store, organize and share your digital photos and
some sites even allow you to edit your pictures. Some limit storage and photo size so
check the site's terms and conditions. To find a free photo sharing website use a search
engine such as Google and do a search
on "free photo sharing websites". Some of the most popular are Webshots, Yahoo's Flickr, or Google's Picasa Web Albums. Once
you've found one you like, it's easy to join.
OR
B) GET YOUR OWN SITE
One way to find a free site is to use a
search engine such as Google and do a
search on "free websites". One place offering free websites is bravenet.com. This
company also offers sites with no ads, but can cost from $4.99/month, up. For-free sites
may require setup fees. Some other free sites are yola.com or webs.com
where your pages will bear their ads. Sites with fewer ads require membership fees. While
affordable web hosting services are easy to come by, costs and services can vary
considerably, so it's important to compare reliability, reputation and customer support
features, the amount of multimedia storage each provider offers and also find out what the
limitations are on file sharing, uploading and downloading.
STEP TWO: SCAN OR PHOTOGRAPH YOUR INSECTS
If you have a digital camera you may want
to look over our notes on how to use it here.
For info on scanning, visit our Scanning
Page.
STEP THREE: IDENTIFY YOUR CRITTER
USING BUGGUIDE.NET
FOR IDENTIFICATIONS
If you own a digital camera you can have your digital
pictures of insects identified online at BugGuide.Net.
At the above page register for free, then log in and
click on "ID Request." On the resulting page click on "add
image," and fill in the information boxes. When you come to the box called
"Image" you need to tell BugGuide.Net where your picture is found in your own
computer. Click on "Choose" at the right of that box, then navigate the
subdirectories or folders of your computer until you find file holding your file.
When you finish all the boxes and click on "Submit," in a few
seconds your photo will appear at the head of the line of photos needing to be identified,
and probably someone, someplace in the world, will let you know your bug's name. |
Our Backyard
Insects Section introduces the world of backyard insects and shows how to get started
identifying them. There we explain how to use a field
guide and how to do a search using the internet. If you are still having trouble IDing
your critter you can always post your image on What's That Bug
or on Bugguide.net.
STEP FOUR: POST YOUR IMAGES
AT PHOTO-SHARING SITES: If
you're using a photo sharing website, simply follow their instructions to upload your
pictures.
AT YOUR FREE WEBSITE: Some
free websites enable you to post your text and images without having to know anything
about HTML code and without having to use a special FTP program. Other free websites may
require you to learn some very simple HTML code, which is no big deal. A good place to
learn the basics is Mike
Smith's Basic HTML formatting tags page. Notice the "Insertion
of in-line images" link, which you'll use for placing your insect image on a web
page.
Once you have your page made with your
pictures on it, send it to your new website. Each site provider has its own way of
uploading your pages from your computer into their computer, so they can put them onto the
internet. When you get your site, just follow your company's instructions. If your company
requires you to FTP your work, that's not a problem because you can download a free FTP
program. Just use a search engine and the keywords "WSFTP free download."
WSFTP is freeware and comes with instructions on how to FTP files from your computer to
your website host.
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