What in tarnations happened to this board?

[texas&pacific]

Other than aging membership, picture posting collapse, name calling and political infighting?
Been gone for a while, and I came back to see whazzup. Used to be a great place to talk and share 2-rail shop.
Dang. is it too late, doc...?

[healey36]

It could still be a great place to talk and share 2-rail shop, but you gotta talk and share.

What are you workin' on?

[texas&pacific]

Me...? Just put in plugs and coils in my 'old' 2015 6-banger. Sold my 2004 to pay for this newer car.

[sarge]

You're just in time as there is an effort ongoing to rejuvenate the board; get rid of the politics and signs of aging and get back to modelling.

As far as photos, the old software this runs on doesn't have the capacity, apparently. Most of us showing models are using off-site third-party photo hosting services to get around it.

[texas&pacific]

Thanks, Sarge.
I have witnessed the passing of several (other) model groups lately, and it was a sad realization of hobbies (scale modelbuilding in general) overall health.
Other than that, I do have a 1/4 scale Millenium Facon strewn all over my workshop bench and floor. Does that count...?
I've been wanting to build something two rail again, my preference is passenger cars. Have not touched an O kit or bash in years.
Is there a archived post on how to post fotos...? I sure as heck cannot recall, and would likely have to find somewhere else to host the actual pics.
A good refresher, nevertheless, and when figured out I will likely have something to share.

[up148]

Yes, we need activity and I believe more activity will draw more participants.

Next project: Converting a USH FEF3 to either a FEF2 or FEF1. I say either, because it depends on what parts I can acquire that are correct for this build or would be modifiable to correct parts. I'm getting a good stash of parts and also finding parts I put back decades ago to do this project. And, it looks like I will be able to one of each if I want to.

Lot's of research to do and I've learned more about the FEF's than I ever knew before.....but I enjoy that aspect of the hobby.

Parts are definitely more difficult to find these days, but so far any PSC parts that would work shown in their catalog I've found in stock. And, you can now complete your purchase transaction online, instead of phoning your CC information or mailing a check............as I used to do.

I'm converting the stock oil tender to coal and still stumbling around finding the internal coal bay parts or even parts that could be removed and modified from other tenders to be elusive. But, I'll find them or fabricate them.....or find my limitations.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

As far as photos, the old software this runs on doesn't have the capacity, apparently. Most of us showing models are using off-site third-party photo hosting services to get around it.

Yes. I use an off-site third-party photo hosting service; not free, but it functions as I needed it to do so for other activities and have just kept it.

[sarge]

I'm using these people:

https://imgbb.com/upload

Here is a sample photo using imgbb taken through the process.

Going to the address above, you get this:




Tap the blue bit that says "browse from your computer" and you get this block of choices:


Hit "photo library" and you'll get shown your photo files stored on your computer/tablet/phone. Select one or more (in this demo I'm doing only one), then hit the green "upload" button.




Once it says "upload complete", you'll see these two things, one a list of code types and the second what the chosen type looks like in code. I choose "bbcode medium linked" using the little blue up and down arrows (first field) then tap in the second grey field where that code is displayed...


...and the field will offer me the word "copy". Tap copy and you will have copied that code to paste to you message field in MTJ:


Go there now and paste it in with your usual pasting process:



Add your text and post as usual...


...and you should see this.

[sarge]

Other folks are using different hosts and whichever one you choose there probably is someone here using it that can walk you through the first go or two. From then on it becomes pretty automatic.

[texas&pacific]

I am going to look into GooglePhotos/GoogleDrive, which looks like it has the ability to tag and share photos to public.

[healey36]

I'm still using Flickr, but just about out of "free" space...probably go over to one of their plans.

Someone said you can post pics in an account on Shutterfly and link to them. You just gotta buy something from them every few months to keep your account active. I've not tried it, but I pass it along.

[texas&pacific]

I have a Shutterfly account and keep it active. Will look into it. Fiddled with GooglePhotos/Drive but they did not load either as url or img (broken image pic). Has worked fine on other sharing platforms.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

https://imgbb.com/upload

This and your outline on "how to" works for posting w/o an account, etc.

Do you have an account and if so how does that perform for you?

I have yet to get Google photos to post here and wonder if that's a consequence of some level of software incompatibility.

Flickr is still out there as is Shutterfly. I have an paid account with Smugmug which works for me functionally.

[up148]

I have a Shutterfly account and keep it active. Will look into it. Fiddled with GooglePhotos/Drive but they did not load either as url or img (broken image pic). Has worked fine on other sharing platforms.

I have a Shutterfly account and recently realized I was making it "much" harder than it had to be. Shutterfly used to be free, but now they make you buy one of their products every year. I bought a coffee cup for $18 last year. Hopefully they hold the price line and $$$ requirement.

But, once up upload the photo to Shutterfly's website, which is as easy as falling out of bed with the choices they give you, you just click on the saved photo to enlarge it. Then right click for options and go with "copy photo address". Then toggle back to MTJ (I leave sites both open), click the image (IMG) box on the tool bar above and put the copied image/photo address between the image brackets provided by MTJ. Easy Peasy and I'm no computer guru for sure.

Others can comment who know more, but I believe you could actually follow the same procedure and copy the image address from a photo on your computer and bypass a host site, but then you're inviting Hackers to come into your computer.

[sarge]

https://imgbb.com/upload

This and your outline on "how to" works for posting w/o an account, etc.

Do you have an account and if so how does that perform for you?

I have yet to get Google photos to post here and wonder if that's a consequence of some level of software incompatibility.

Flickr is still out there as is Shutterfly. I have an paid account with Smugmug which works for me functionally.

I do have an account and it works just fine. Mine is free.

I do not use it for archiving my photos; another forum I frequent has Imgbb as its linked photo host. Photos I post there are on Imgbb but not filed into my account though I have the option. They might either be under that forum's own account registry or in the host's library; I don't know.

For my needs in both cases, it is a reliable platform so-far. Still, after my experiences with Photobucket, everything I have is archived in my iCloud account for the short term, then dumped periodically onto external memory blocks when iCloud gets close to my allowance.