Include quota status on Dashboard
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I tried to upload a photo and got a message that I reached my quota on images. I didn’t know about this somehow. On checking the FAQs, no information found under “Images” or on a search for “quota”. So:
1. It would be useful to know—say, on the dashboard—how close one is to reaching the quota limit; and
2. Can I, say, purchase more room for photos that I upload? Or get the quota somehow increased?
Thanks.
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Yes, It would be a good thing to have a space limit reminder on the dashboard. I support this idea too.
*Aside*
(1) The FAQs pink sticky at the head of the forum and the FAQs blog both say 50 megs for images. That’s a lot of space so I’m surprised you’ve used it all.
(2) You can reduce the space each image you have now in your blog takes by optimising the photos and replacing the original ones you have posted with the optimised images. Instructions are here http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/05/08/optimise-your-images/
(3) WordPress doesn’t have storage space for rent at this point. But you can also use a free off-line 3rd party host like flickr or photobucket, reduce the blog images to thumbnail size and link them to the originals at the host.
(4) Have you considered starting a second blog and linking it to the first one? This would give you 50 megs more space, right? -
Thanks, timethief. I’ll look into the options you mention.
Obviously, I wasn’t able to find the information in the FAQs, so perhaps it could be included in such a way that it’s visible if you go to FAQs and look under “images” and/or search on “quota”. Those seem to me to be the most obvious access points.
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By your command *lol*
pink sticky FAQs http://wordpress.com/forums/topic.php?id=467&replies=2
FAQ blog http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/06/16/free-online-space/
forum search box http://wordpress.com/forums/search.php?q=bandwidth -
Well, I’ve downloaded and installed Picasa, and searched the help for optimizing (and opitimising) images. Nada. I’ve looked through the Help under likely topics, like Editing, and Emailing, and Blogging. Nothing I can find is helpful. So I’m now going to uninstall and try another of the programs that’s recommended as being good for optimising images.
Just a lack-of-progress note.
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Okay, uninstalled Picasa 2 and have installed Irfanview—with considerable optimism, since it says right on the home page it will “optimize” photos. But, once installed, the word “optimize” does not appear in any of the help text or FAQs. They do have some information about resizing the the photo, and indeed, if I used a smaller photo, the file size would also drop. But (naturally) I don’t want a *smaller* photo, I want an *optimized* photo: same size, but with a smaller file, just as illustrated at http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/05/08/optimise-your-images/.
So uninstall IrfanView and on to the next.
If I were the kind of person who became frustrated, I’d probably be feeling frustrated now. But I’m hopeful that, if the guy provides a list of programs that will optimise and photo, at least one of them should do it.
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GIMP looks too intimidating. Photofiltre is 25 euros ($32).
I’m sort of burned out on this for today. I’ll try again later, and also see if there’s anything in Adobe Photoshop Elements v. 4.0 on “optimizing/optimising” photos… I do have that package already.
Is this one of those things that’s perfectly clear if you already know it?
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I think nosysnoop uses FastStone and her blog is a celebrity entertainment blog full of photos. I’ve seen in a thread somewhere on the forum theGimp recommended for a Mac user … hmmm … off to look
Edit: yup here it is
http://wordpress.com/forums/search.php?q=TheGimpEdit2: It seems really geeky for a non technical gal like me. *lol* I don’t even own a camera.
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Aha. Adobe Photoshop Elements ver 4.0 does have entries for optimizing photos, along with clear instructions. I’m on my way. I pity the poor souls who have to use the programs WordPress recommends, though. YMMV.
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Hey! Mark gives good advice. You should simply ask him to update the FAQs to reflect this Adobe Photoshop 4 choice as an option too, is all.
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Well, I did look at the programs Mark said would optimize the photos, and you see the results above. So I’m hesitant to agree. Also, I think he was wanting to recommend free programs.
But, now that I have used Adobe Photo Elements to optimize the photo, chopping down the filesize considerably, I run into another problem:
I delete the old (large) photo file. So it’s gone now. And I go to upload the new (small) photo file. But I can’t upload because of my quota. But I thought (based on advice received above) that deleting the file would make more room, so I that I could upload the smaller file and work through my blog, deleting large files and replacing them with small files.
Why am I still stuck not being able to upload an image? Any idea?
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Well, I went to the post that listed the packages that would optimize photos to leave a comment for the (unnamed) author. No way to comment, no way to send feedback. So while I do appreciate the idea of telling the Mark person of my difficulties and findings, there really is not any way I found to communicate with him, save through this thread.
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I think free sources are always important to draw attention to. In our case many wordpress bloggers are not from North America or Europe. Some are located in countries where there is no paypal and the transfer of funds out of country via banks is a very costly expense that they can’t take on. Many are also students, pensioners and folks on low incomes so I expect that’s part of the reason these free sources were listed.
I don’t own a camera and I don’t even know what Adobe Photoshop 4.0 costs but I do know that purchasing anything extra would exceed my modest cash on hand budget.
All I know is dashboard -> manage -> uploads gets me to where I can delete the images which are actually in a separate file from the blog. If deleting them here doesn’t work for you then I haven’t a clue what to do aside from waiting for staff for help. Mark lives in the UK in a timezone that is 9 hours different from my own out here on the west coast.
Hopefully you can iron this out tomorrow.:) -
leisureguy, everything you wrote here is really good feedback. With limited space it would be best if WordPress helped “optimize” the images for the web, and also provided clear information about the space used and available. Michael has made some good improvements in this area and we know we still have improvements to make.
I checked and Barry tells me you still have 51 MB of images. 13MB uploaded this month and 10MB last. As timethief suggests dashboard -> manage -> uploads is where you will have to delete your images if you want to upload more.
Another option is using a third party for image hosting such as PhotoBucket or ImageShack.
Please let me know if this helps or not,
Lloyd -
That does help. Since I didn’t know how much space was being used, it was impossible to know how much to delete. Somehow, I thought it had blocked me the instant I tried to upload past the 50 MB limit, so that deleting one large file would give me enough room to load a small file. Apparently I’ll have to delete several of them to get the room.
Yes, free packages are best, but only if they in fact do the job you want—i.e., optimize the images. The ones I tested said nothing about that, at least using the word “optimize,” and I didn’t know what else to look for. Adobe Photoshop Elements, OTOH, was quite clear about it, and the steps needed to do it.
Did I miss something that told me who Mark was and where he lives and how to comment on his advice? Or is it assumed that users already know that stuff?
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I’m sorry I didn’t explain better. I apologize. :( I assumed Mark was in bed and that your request for support might have to wait until tomorrow depending on how busy other staff members were. Mark (Podz) is the KeyMaster (green lightbulb) who works for Automattic and works tirelessly (sometimes it seems around the clock) to provide wordpress support. But foolswisdom who is also on staff stepped in. :)
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room: Trying after deleting several seems like a great approach.
mark: No, I don’t think so. I think timethief presumed you would know who Mark (aka Podz) the “Support Maven” is. He really is amazing ;-)
It would be good if the FAQ entries made it easy to ask a question if not answered, but it is tricky to get the write balance between submitting to support and to the forums. Anything that can go to the forums, allows others to be benefit as well.
Mark is currently looking at some support software packages / services to see how to compliment the amazing job he does.
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It’s going smoothly now: open photo as it now exists, copy it to special folder on my hard drive, delete photo from post and then delete photo file from WordPress, use Adobe Photoshop Elements to save for Web, which cuts size to 10% of original, then upload that back to WordPress and put it back in the post. Obviously, I’m regaining storage space at a good clip.
Thanks for the pointers and the help.
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