WebSpawner.com Blog

With Memorial Day weekend upon us and summer just around the corner, experts say that record-high gasoline prices are likely to continue through the summer season. However, by utilizing some great online resources, you can reduce the impact of these increases on your budget.

GasBuddy.com provides comprehensive listings of gas prices by geographic area… simply plug in your zip code and see up-to-date prices for stations in your area and save several cents per gallon with each fill-up.

GasPriceWatch.com is another source of price comparison by area. Its display of gas station locations on a customizable Google Map is especially handy for travelers.

Automotive.com reports current gas prices by state, county, and city, as well as providing an easy way to display national or local gas prices on your website.

MapQuest Gas Prices displays lowest current pricing with locations on a customizable map.

While saving a few cents per gallon can really add up to substantial savings, some people will undoubtedly want to make bigger changes such as buying a new car to improve gas mileage. The internet can be a great tool for comparison of gas-electric hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius, the Honda Civic Hybrid, and the Smart ForTwo which is scheduled to be available in the US in early 2008. Those with deeper pockets may want to line up for the all-electric Tesla Roadster, a very sharp-looking sports car that does not sacrifice performance and does not require stops at any gas pump.

In this age of reasonably-priced digital cameras it seems that just about everyone has one, as well as a computer hard drive full of digital photos.

While traditional photographic prints are usually shared by flipping through photo albums with friends or family, digital photos present new opportunities for sharing images across long distances online. This is likely the reason for the popularity of WebSpawner’s Image Gallery tool among Enhanced account members; the tool makes it quick and easy to build numerous galleries with slide-show viewing which can be enjoyed online by friends or family far away.

In today’s post we’ll discuss how you can add online image galleries to your own WebSpawner website in a few simple steps.

You can find the Image Gallery tool under the orange ‘Add-Ons’ tab in the Member Menu for your WebSpawner account, as shown in the image below.

Click the Image Gallery icon to begin. A new browser window titled “Image Gallery” will open; click the ‘New’ button. You will then be prompted to enter your Title and Description text for your gallery as shown in the image below; enter text as you wish in the two fields and then click the ‘Continue’ button.

The screen will refresh, showing your Title and Description above a series of 12 empty boxes, which are the locations for 12 images which you can place in your gallery. Note that while there is a limit of 12 images per gallery, there is NO limit to the number of galleries you can create as an Enhanced account member. Click in one of the 12 boxes; next, click the ‘Transfer New Image’ button. The following form will appear:

Under Step 1, click the Browse button to navigate to the pictures on your computer’s hard drive and select the desired image. Steps 2 and 3 are optional, allowing you to add Caption and Description text to display with the image. After completing all 3 steps as you wish, click the ‘Add image to Gallery’ button to begin uploading the image to your gallery.

When the image upload completes, the Image Gallery Edit page displays again, showing your newly-uploaded image in position. Fill as many of the 12 boxes with images as you like in the same manner, clicking the desired box and following the same steps to upload each image. Note that you may remove or replace an existing image by clicking on its box and following the simple prompts provided.

At any time, you can click the ‘Preview’ button at the bottom to see what your gallery page will look like; the ‘Return’ button will take you back to the gallery edit form. The ‘Done’ button at the bottom will save your new gallery page and return you to the Image Gallery tool window, where you can create another gallery by clicking the ‘New’ button.

Gallery pages you have created will appear in the drop-down ‘Galleries’ list; you can select a gallery and then ‘Edit’ it, ‘Preview’ it, or ‘Delete’ it at any time.

When you are finished working with the Image Gallery tool, simply close the window and return to your Member Menu.

To make sure that your galleries are accessible to viewers of your website, select the desired webpage under ‘Step 1′ in the Member Menu and click ‘Modify’ under Step 2. Scroll down through the modification form to the ‘Image Gallery’ step as shown below:

Select the ‘Yes’ button to make your galleries accessible from your webpage. Select “All Image Galleries” from the drop-down menu, unless you want only a specific gallery to be available in which case you should select that gallery. Scroll to the bottom of the modification form and click ‘Continue’ and then click the ‘I Like it’ button at the page preview to save your changes.

Now your website will display a ‘Gallery’ button which visitors can click to view your image galleries! Viewers can select from available galleries and view individual images by clicking on each small thumbnail image, which will expand to a larger image; or, they may select the slide-show viewing option which will automatically rotate through all 12 images for the selected gallery page, while allowing the viewer to adjust the length of time for display of each image.

Spice up your website and share your images by adding image galleries to your WebSpawner Enhanced account today!