Computer Bytes - No. 23 The holidays are a time of traveling, visiting and sharing. Along with this goes a lot of picture taking to preserve those special moments. With all of the new digital and video cameras, gone are the days of having to wait a week or more to get your pictures developed. We now have instant access to our photos for both viewing and printing. There are also other ways to share these instant memories. A few easy ways to share holiday pictures is to email them as attachments (Computer Bytes No. 14), display them on your own web space or upload them to one of the many on line sites that offer photo sharing. If you have an Internet connection you most likely are provided 'personal' space on your Internet Service Provider's (ISP) servers. This means that you can use this space for hosting personal pictures, displaying family information, or anything else you might care to share. In order to use this space for uploading pictures you will need to contact your ISP to verify the amount of space you are allocated, get your site's IP address, Username, Password, and then use a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program to upload your pictures to the Internet. There are some free FTP programs on the Net but as always, download with caution. An easier way to share photos and video is by using one of the many photo sharing sites available. A few of the more recognized ones are Snapfish, My Photo Album, Flickr and Shutterfly. Snapfish.com offers a free account giving you online digital photo printing, free online albums, free sharing service and photo gifts. Myphotoalbum.com is also free and basically offers the same services and Snapfish. Flickr is Yahoo Photos revamped and you can access Flickr by using your existing Yahoo account information. If you don't have a Yahoo account it's easy and free to set one up. Flickr appears to be well policed by the members and allows you to share and organize photos with the option to 'make stuff'. I could not find any costs associated with this site while reviewing it. The last site in my list is Shutterfly.com. You can join for free however, there are costs associated with getting prints. Shutterfly claims to be No. 1 online photo service while offering free unlimited picture storage, instant online picture sharing and if you so choose you can pick up prints at your local Target store. Across the country or across the street, the on line sharing of photos is not limited to the holidays so use these on line photo services for sharing vacation shots, birthday parties, baby's first step, or any other photo you think your family and friends might enjoy. Moncrief Web2 Home Page Moncrief Web Design Computer Bytes Index Web Design | Search Engine Optimization | Site Maintenance & Management | Request Information | About Us ~ Sample Sites Send Us an Email | Home Page Copyright 2007-2008. All rights reserved. Computer Bytes articles may not be reprinted, published, quoted, copied, or used in any manner whatsoever without the expressed written permission of David Moncrief.