How to Use Google Drive as a 3rd Party Image Hosting Platform

So back when the horrid surprise of Photobucket’s greedapalooza was still fresh, a lot of people were looking for third party hosting alternatives. Someone out there had a really helpful list of potentials, but for various reasons, none of them suited me. I wondered whether I could make use of Google Photos as a third party platform.

As it happened, I couldn’t. Google had very recently ended its image hosting capabilities — unfortunate timing, that — but I did some poking about and found that there’s a work-around that lets you still use Google Drive as a third party platform. At least one person (hi, azriona !) was interested, so this is my attempt to tell people how to use this process.

I’m including a link to the YouTube video that taught me how to do this, which you might prefer to following my step-by-step. Here 'tis: https://youtu.be/zhwYRPImH9E.

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So you have your Google account and you’re ready to start.

1. Choose an image to upload, possibly from your own newly-created “Fuck Photobucket” file on your hard drive. Upload it to Google Drive. If you’re using Chrome, you’ll do it thusly (and if you’re using Firefox, Safari, or whatever, it will probably be fairly similar.) Click on Google Drive. Once you’re in drive, click on New, which is near the top left. You should get a drop down menu that includes “File Upload.” Hit it, and pretty soon your picture will appear in your drive. I put all my uploaded pics in one Drive folder for ease of access, along with my Permalinks record, so everything’s in the same place.


2. Now you want to adjust the picture’s “share” settings, so that it’s “Public on the Web.” How to do that? Your trusty right click button. Don’t open the picture; just right click on the thumbnail/description in the Drive list. When you do, you’ll see a bunch of options.


3. Open the “Share” option. A window should open up. Pay attention only to “Advanced.” Click “Advanced.”


4. You’ll get a different window. Look for “Who Has Access.” It will probably be set at “Private — Only You Can Access.” You’ll want to change that, so hit “Change.”


5. You’ll get three options. The one you want is “On — Public on the Web.” Make sure that button is the one you hit, then hit “Save.”


6. You’ll then have a “Link to Share.” Copy that sucker, and head on over to gdurl.com.


7. The very first thing you’ll see once you go to that site is a spot that says “Paste a Public Google Drive URL etc.” Put your URL there, and hit “Create Permalink.” Go down a little farther on the page, and there, under “Standard URL” you will have your shiny new permalink. Copy that permalink, along with a description of what the pic/image is, to whatever document you’ll be using to keep the information.


8. Voila! You now have the code you need to embed your photo wherever you want to embed it! (If we’re talking LJ or Dreamwidth, you’ll have be able to insert it via the "insert/edit image" or "insert photo" icons. I do it in the rich text format.)  And, because you’ve saved the permalink and a description in a file somewhere, you can use the same code again and again!

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So there you have my extremely wordy how-to. I hope it might be of help to someone.

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 Scattered Thoughts on Seattle

We're all packed and ready to head home to Chicago; it's been a surprisingly good visit, but I know the two of us are looking forward to sleeping in our own bed, and I suspect Andy and Emily will be happy to get their bedroom back. 

(I said surprisingly good, by the way, because I hadn't expected to be able to do so much, in such a relaxed way, in so short a time.)

The environment in Seattle reminds me a lot of Nova Scotia, except that there are mountains and tall hills instead of short rocky hills, and redwood type conifers instead of scrubby spruce. Seattle and it's surrounding suburbs remind me architecturally and atmospherically of a mix between Halifax, N.S., and Minneapolis; a lot of art, tiny hip neighborhooods cheek by jowl with cruddy neighbor hoods. I'd love to see what the zoning rules and patterns. Are in the city, but that's just the policy wonk in me. 

My birthday went beautifully; I was coddled to within an inch of my life, and ate some of the best sushi I've had in ages. I took more pictures and may post two or three of them when I get home. For now, I'm just enjoying some quiet time with Andy.
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Writing, Chihuly, Temporary Ailments

In reverse order:

1) I finally got something written, a drabble for dw100 . Drabbles are my most difficult challenges, because I write long, not short.
2) The four of us went to the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum, right below the Space Needle. It was wonderful - shapes and colors and textures that were amazing, and a garden where Chihuly's glass art interacted organically with, well, the organic garden around it. I didn't take many pictures, and I was ultimately glad; the place was full of people who seemed to want to do nothing more than take selfies, or have people take pictures of them, in front of the art - but very few of those people seemed interested in actually looking at and experiencing the art. When Andy convinced me that he could send me pictures from one of his earlier trips to the museum, it was very freeing.
3) I appear to have successfully fought off some sort of stomach and gut-based bug that bid fair to make the day miserable for me. Hurrah for medications that kept that at bay!
4) We went to the Ballard Locks tonight, to watch the sunset, see salmon swimming up a ladder around the locks, and see boats sailing out to Puget Sound. And then we found a very nice Tex-Mex place to have a late supper and talk about music (Harry Nilsson, John Lennon, and such, because we're old farts.) Totally enjoyable.

And tomorrow is my 63rd birthday.






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Happy Birthdays

Many happy returns of the day to the much-traveled, hugely talented, very patient azriona , whose lively non-fiction writing takes me across the world, and whose fic writing is a source of joy. I hope to see more of your wonderful posts, and learn more about your remarkable life!

Another birthday wish goes out to the Daughter of My Heart, who once was around LJ as art_tastic, but is here no more. She is wonderful, and most recently introduced me to the joys of the mani-pedi. When I first met her, she was 15, and she is now in her 30s. She has gone through many changes in the years since, some heart-breaking, and she has emerged a strong and wonderful woman. Happy birthday to her! This entry was originally posted at https://kaffyr.dreamwidth.org/707465.html?mode=reply, where there are currently comments. You can comment there or here, but prefer to read over on DW. You can comment there using open ID if you don't have a DW account.

Cats Safely Delivered, Humans Recovering

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Yes, I Said Narwhals.

Because I love them and their strange ways, (which led me to write an S&S fic about them, no, really) and I love that this happened to a lost one.  This entry was originally posted at https://kaffyr.dreamwidth.org/706900.html?mode=reply, where there are currently comments. You can comment there or here, but prefer to read over on DW. You can comment there using open ID if you don't have a DW account.

Good Morning, All ...

... or good afternoon to those of you outside of North America. I hope your Monday, and the rest of your week proceed well, with no untoward surprises, no toes stubbed, no lost keys, no family tension, no water heaters misfiring. Here's to a week with pleasant happenings, even the unforeseen ones, with time spent doing what you want to do, with the people you like and love. 

Here's to a week with some real happiness in it for all of us.  


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Goodbye - You Took the Trailer and the Cowhorns. We Got the Cats.

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Getting Things Done

In less than a week, Andy and Emily will take off for their eight-day trip, u-haul trailer and all, to Seattle. They're in the last crazy days of packing, always in need of more boxes, and terribly behind. Which is absolutely normal for moving, but I feel for them. If I have any evening time this week, I'll go over and offer what help I may. 

I've determined that I have another week of vacation available to take this year, and I'm going to ask to be cleared to take it the third week of September. That will allow Bob and me (wow - that's grammatical, but sounds weird) to fly out to Seattle, with their cats, Tommy and Lily. We'll be babysitting the cats while they drive out and get settled into their new place. Thank god, they found a place they could afford, 20 minutes outside the city. Emily has found a couple of part-time nanny gigs that she can handle on top of her classes, and Andy, who hasn't yet found a job in his field, says he'll Uber until he can. With GPS, one doesn't have to be familiar with where one's driving, I suppose. 

Argh. I'm worried. 

Today, we got rid of some medical records and such that go back mostly to 2014, but a few that go back to 2010. None of them are necessary at this point. It allows us to clear out a section of the office which we've sort of planned to make the visiting kitties' space - we have a cat tree, so the old cat tree, which Bob was able to cut down by one level* has been moved in there for the micro-cats (they're full grown and still only half the size of Phil and Opie.) That's where their litter box will be as well, oh joy. Still, it's only for two weeks.

I got my hair cut, and I'm about to take a shower to get ready for karaoke shenanigans. Why karaoke, you ask? 

Because tonight, we're invited to a goodbye party thrown by some of their close friends. It's at a favorite bar of theirs, where, I am reliably told by my first born, There Will Be Blood Karaoke. The party doesn't start until 9 o'clock, which strikes me as altogether too late to get started on partying of any kind. That undoubtedly marks me as a feeble oldster, to which I willingly cop. Ah, well; that we're invited is a mark of ... I don't know - respect? Andy definitely wanted us there. 
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Giving In And Meming

Specifically, the AO3 meme, just because. It amused me to see how few comments I've gotten over the years since I started posting. One note: I didn't include the nine meta commentaries I wrote because they're not stories. Well, we're all stories in the end, but ....

Account created: Nov. 17, 2009
Total stories: 105 (plus 9 non-fiction metas)
Total word count: 385,527, w/o metas; (186,354 w/o  2 novels)
Average word count:  3,671 (w/novels); 1,809 (w/o novels) 
Longest story: Hearts and Moons, 116,887 (w/novels) or Redeeming the Tree, 8,868 (w/o)
Shortest story: Eternity, 98 words
Total kudos:  1,999
Average kudos per story: 19
Story with most kudos: Doctors and Nurses, 98
Total comments: 178
Comments per story: 1.7 (Go figure - averages ....)
Story with most comments: Timing, As Always, Is Everything
Total author subscriptions: 14
Total story subscriptions: 18 This entry was originally posted at https://kaffyr.dreamwidth.org/704840.html?mode=reply, where there are currently comments. You can comment there or here, but prefer to read over on DW. You can comment there using open ID if you don't have a DW account.

Hurrah! Time Off!

I've come to treasure the weekends even more than I once did, largely because of my boss, but this weekend is particularly sweet as a remedy for the crazy week I had. And I'm about to make good use of it. I'm just about ready to take off and get an oil change for the car, then dash up to get my nails done, and then, with luck, attend an art fair with a friend. 

Lord, it makes me look positively Middle Class White Lady. Try to forgive me for that, eh?
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Title: The Future in Dreams
Author: kaffyr 
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Characters: Jack Harkness, Alonzo Frame
Words:1,585
Summary: Jack knew what would happen. Alonso would miss him terribly at first, but someday he'd call Jack to introduce him to the new person he'd fallen in love with. And that was fine.
Author's note: This is a much delayed 2017fandom_stocking  story written for trobadora . One of the characters she likes is Captain Jack Harkness, who happens to be one of my favorite Whoniverse characters as well. I've always wondered what happened after the Tenth Doctor brought Jack and Alonso together. I like to think that they'd have a great deal of time together, but with the reality of Jack's immortality, I can only hope the end of the relationship would be as positive as possible. I like to think the Tenth Doctor would have been happy with what happened, hoping to heal Jack just a bit. I also believe that, even years after Children of Earth, Jack would not be ready to consciously address every heartbreak that brought to him, hence at least one elision.
Edited by: my beloved dr_whuh
Disclaimer: As much as I wish it were otherwise, nothing in the Whoniverse, save the occasional original character is mind. All others belong to the BBC and their respective creators. I intend no copyright infringement and take no coin. I merely love them, and thank the BBC for letting me play in its sandbox.

********

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Another Wedding

This morning, Bob and I attended the wedding of a young lady whose twin was once the love of Andy's teenage life, and who went on to become his Best Sister, and the daughter of my heart. Her twin is also a lovely young woman, filled with the same light as DoMH, blessed with talents as delightful (she is an oboist, while DoMH is a visual artist. They both dance, they sing, they love with all their hearts; DoMH is far less bound by social expectations than her beloved sister, but her sister is far less confined by those  social expectations than she once was. 

This marriage was in a church; both sisters have a deep Christian faith (one that nonetheless seems to understand that there are as many doors as there are rooms in the celestial mansion.) I put aside my more than occasional irritation with religion, and chose to focus on the joy they took from it.

DoMH walked her sister down the aisle, as their beloved father died last year and their mother is not part of the family. There was much singing. The sermon was a fine one, as those things go. The ceremony, as traditional as it was, also contained laughter, cheers, applause and hoots of support from their friends as they were announced husband and wife.

We don't know the new husband very well, but we saw how happy they were on the dance floor; we know how much his family, from Puerto Rico, has taken Twin Sister to their hearts. It was all very good, especially the dancing. I didn't take part in the latter, because heat - it was 102 when we got home at 2 p.m. - and high heels hit me today as they didn't last month. It was enough to see everyone else dancing. There were young, old, very young, and very old, iced tea for those who couldn't quite deal with mimosas at 11:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and much, much happiness 

It was a very good way to spend that Saturday morning. 

This entry was originally posted at https://kaffyr.dreamwidth.org/703651.html?mode=reply, where there are currently comments. You can comment there or here, but prefer to read over on DW. You can comment there using open ID if you don't have a DW account.

Ack. Or Possibly Gack. 

My back hurts, which is Same Old Same Old. And yesterday, which is when I started this post, suffered as a result. I've been told I really should start my exercises again, which ... tell me something I don't know, you know? I'd just really, really like to know why this happens, rather than "it's the stress." Hell, I had lots of stress when I was 35, and I didn't suffer this kind of back pain. Therefore, I wince, grumble, whinge, and reluctantly decide to go back to at least some of the exercises. As I do every time, and then gradually forget, so I suppose it's my own damn fault.

The only respite I had yesterday watching lost_spook 's lovely S&S videos, and reading an inordinate amount of The Goblin Emperor fic. I'm somewhat bowled over by the sheer amount of pornfic for the fandom, although I shouldn't be; what is it, Rule 34, 36, or 39? At least one piece is pretty darned good and emotionally satisfying. The rest ... not going to look, because The Goblin Emperor is my comfort novel, about a young, honorable, truly good person, and seeing noncon or outright rape fic concerning him ... that has me noping on out of there. YKINMK, I know, but ... nopity-nope-nope for me. 

I know that the back pain wasn't the sole reason for my unhappiness; I simply couldn't get anything done, and that stressed me out enough for my hands to go painfully numb. 

As for thinking? "Brain and brain — what is brain?" This entry was originally posted at https://kaffyr.dreamwidth.org/703307.html?mode=reply, where there are currently comments. You can comment there or here, but prefer to read over on DW. You can comment there using open ID if you don't have a DW account.

Still Here

Just a quick drive-by to say that I'm still here, that I've been reading others' posts and not commenting, which is ... bad me. I have things to say, but right now I'm spending time with my sweetheart on a Saturday night. 

More, later! This entry was originally posted at https://kaffyr.dreamwidth.org/702825.html?mode=reply, where there are currently comments. You can comment there or here, but prefer to read over on DW. You can comment there using open ID if you don't have a DW account.

Wow. Such Inactivity. Much Inarticulate. Wow.

I've been completely AWOL over the past couple of weeks, at least in terms of posting. Getting back to work, dealing with My Boss, The Douche, has taken too much brain power for me to be able to say anything intelligent. 

I've been at creative loose ends since completing "Hearts and Moons." I'm working on the last of my fandom_stocking IOUs, but I find myself thinking, "Oh, I've got to work on -" and then come to a complete stop. Oh. It's done. It's finished. What do i do now? I'm beginning to think that I need to have a novel-length piece to work on constantly, or I'm not happy with my writing.  That's a little weird. More than a little, especially since I don't have much of an idea about what I could make into a full length story. I feel like I want to do something with Twelve, but I don't know what. Or possibly Clara and Me. Again, I don't know what I could do. 

In far more superficial and silly news. I've decided that I like having artificial nails. I got french tip acrylics (Wow! She knows the lingo!) for the wedding, and I loved them, although it's been difficult to type with the length I chose. So Friday, I went to a local nail salon that had been recommended to me; I had the nails "filled" - having the hard acrylic gel ground down and reapplied to cover the section of nail that was freshly grown out - and I had the tips ground down. They aren't quite as elegant now, but it's much more easy to type. And they still look great. The only downside is that the nail technician actually uses a Dremel tool to grind down sections of the extremely hard acrylic finish. And no matter how careful the technician is. the tool also occasionally grinds portions of the actual finger. Yes, it's painful. 

I've spent most of my life biting my nails to the quick. On those occasions where I've let them grow, they've been thin and so sharp that I've actually cut myself with my own nails. And they've split and been pretty ugly. So getting fake nails that look lovely and are hard as, well, nails, without being uncomfortably sharp? It's wonderful. 

(I did think, while the nails were really long. of how much of a class thing having long nails is. It's basically saying to the world, "I don't need to work with my hands, so I can have really unworkabley long nails."

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Title: Kate and the Jo Grant Spinach Strategy
Author: kaffyr 
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, Fiona Lethbridge-Stewart, Kate Lethbridge Stewart, Jo Grant, the Third Doctor
Words: 1,998
Summary: Sometimes it's important to turn something very exciting into very boring spinach. Jo Grant's first meeting with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart
Author's Note: A 2017 fandom_stocking  story written, very belatedly, for liadtbunny . She likes the Third Doctor, and so do I. Apparently Kate Stewart, back when she was little Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. thought that her father had a very unexciting job with UNIT, something she and her mother Fiona (the Brig's first wife) believed, even as they "made up adventures" about him. This story plays with one possible origin of that. 
Edited by: the irreplacable dr_whuh
Disclaimer: Much as I wish it were otherwise, nothing in the Whoniverse, save the occasional original character, is mine. All others belong to the BBC and their respective creators. I intend no copyright infringement and take no coin. I do, however, love them, and thank the BBC for letting me play in its sandbox. 

******
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Happy Canada Day!

Because this is my last vacation day, and I'm trying to expend very little brain power, I don't have much eloquence with which to speak about how much I love my native country. So have this picture of my brother Mac, standing with a very nice employee at the hotel where Bob and I stayed during the wedding weekend. He's wearing his RCMP dress uniform (the version without the jodphurs and the "high browns" - the boots he says are actually quite uncomfortable.) 

He's as Canadian as they come, and that's a good thing for Canada. 



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