To Scottychaos

[Bill Baker]

Scott,

Where did you download your Lehigh Valley shield?

[scottychaos]

Bill,
I made it myself..
drew it from scratch in photoshop.

Lots of different logos can be find by searching around the internet..
try the "photo search" feature of yahoo or google..

Scot

[Bill Baker]

Scot,

I must ask for your help again.  I've found the hearld I would like to download in my Bachmann profile, and after putting the URL in all I get is a red X.  I'm trying to download the Rock Island Hearld found at http://geocities.com/heartland/prairie/5726/rock.gif.  I apologize for being so analog, but I grew up in the era of vacuum tubes and crystal radios. 

[Bill Baker]

Ok, ok,  now I can't even seem to put in the correct direct link.  I just clicked on it and it popped up that the page cannot be found.  So, hold off until I can figure out what's going on.

[scottychaos]

Bill,
you have three different problems going on.

1. You cant just link directly to someone else's photo.
that is called "hotlinking" and its illegal and immoral.
(I know you didnt know that..many people dont)
hotlinking to some websites can cost the site owner real money, because suddenly the amount of traffic on his site will increase, and his ISP might charge him more..or his site might be cancelled if it exceeds its bandwidth limit. hotlinking is a real problem..

2. That geocities page has been temporalily taken down, for exceeding its bandwitdh, probably because you tried to hotlink to it.
Geocities sucks as a webpage host, exceeding bandwidth will happen if more than two people a day try to look at a geocities site!
It will come back up in a few hours, no permamant damage done, (and that sites owner doesnt pay anything anyway, since geocities sites are free)

3. even if you wanted to, you cant hotlink to an image on a geocities page anyway, because they (geocities) dont allow it.so even if the site wasnt down, you would STILL get the Red-X.

what you have to do is find a logo you like, resize it to 65 X 65 pixels, then upload it to YOUR own webspace..either webspace provided by your ISP,
or you can create an account on www.photobucket.com and then upload the image there...photobucket is one of the very few free hosting sites that allow hotlinking into forums.

yes, technically one could argue that copying the logo and uploading to your space is ALSO immoral..and it could be... but for the most part, railroad logos on-line are public domain and available for anyone to use..
I have created a few logos from scratch, and I dont mind if people "take" them for use elsewhere, (as long as they dont hotlink directly to my actual logos!)...since I didnt invent the logo in the first place I cant really claim its "mine"....
(the exception would be a logo for someone's freelance railroad..)
and in the case of my LV diamond, I would prefer no one uses it on *this* forum, only because its part of my profile identity..even though I personally didnt invent the LV diamond logo..
Its always best to ask if you can copy and use a logo, try to find a email contact for the webmaster of the page you find the logo on.
99 times out of 100 THAT person copied the logo from somewhere else anyway! and they wont mind if you take it. but finding the ACTUAL owner of a logo is next to impossible anyway...when it comes to historic railroad logos, most of them (except for existing railroads) are in the public domain and can be used by anyone...

If that geocities page comes back on-line soon I will grab the logo and resize it for you, then you can create a photobucket account and upload there..THEN your new avatar will work! 

Scot

[scottychaos]

Bill,
here are two Rock Island avatars you can use,
I just whipped these up:






If you want to use one, save it to your computer by right-clicking on the logo, then choose "save picture as"..this will download the image to your computer..
then create a photobucket account and upload it there..
then can use the address of the image in your photobucket account as your avatar.

Scot

[Bill Baker]

Jeez!  I feel like the Federal Computer Police are going to knock on my door at any time.  Nope, sure didn't know all that.  All I wanted was a stupid, little Rock Island logo....and now I'm heading for San Quinton.

Thanks Scot, I'll just pass.  It would be my luck that I would get the Photo Bucket people angry at me too.

[scottychaos]

Bill,
just use the ones I made!
photobucket wont get mad at you..
their hosting is meant to be used for foums like this! 

and..you are only one of countless millions of internet users..
no one will notice or care if you use a rock island logo as your avatar! 

All you did was try to link to a geocities site and that killed the logo..
not a big deal at all, happens all the time.
people shouldnt even use geocities at all, for anything, ever..
and probably the guy who made the geocities site wont even notice it is down, because he checks it once a year or less..
there are SOOOOO many dead webpages on the internet, that their owners just abandon..

I happen to have one myself...my very first ever webpage,
created in 1997 using...geocities! 
before I knew better..
I dont update it anymore, because I have moved on to better hosting, but my geocities page just sits there doing nothing..gets an average of zero hits a year. most geocities pages end up this way...abandoned and forgotten..eventually deleted.

this is very embarrassing..but here it is..a time capsule from a decade ago:

http://www.geocities.com/scottychaos/

If the link above doesnt work, its because two of you tried to look at it at the same time and geocities locked it for "exceeding bandwidth"..
nevermind that those two viewers were the first two viewers in probably 5 years...like I said..geocities sucks..

Scot

[John C]

Just seeing if I could follow your directions

[HOplasserem80c]

cool hers a pic and like i said UNION PACICIFIC RULES!!!!!!!