How to Host Your Own Images

[maintenanceguy]

I host my own images on my own server and it's easy and cheap to do. I want to show you how I do that.

Photobucket has decided not to let 3rd parties (like this discussion board) see images hosted on it's servers. There is a lot of really great, older information here that is now missing the photos. You can use a different hosting site but someday, that might go away too. I prefer to control my own images and keep my own library of everything I host.

Here's how I do that:

1. Rent server space from a company (cost: $10 - $20 per year)
2. Install software that lets you move photos to your server space (free)
3. Upload photos to your server

And yes, that's all there is to it. Let's look at each step:

1. Rent Server Space
You want a "hosting plan". I use 1and1.com but GoDaddy and lots of other companies offer "hosting plans". When you purchase a hosting plan, you're just renting space on their server which is connected to the internet. It's just a place where you can put files that are now available on the internet for others to see. Normally, those files would be a web site and they "host" the website. But it doesn't have to be a website. It can be anything, including photos.

You only need the cheapest hosting plan they offer. Typically this will be listed as a "shared" hosting plan, which means a bunch of customers share that server. But, server is partitioned so you can't see anybody else's files and they can't see your files. Shared hosting saves you a lot of money over renting the whole server.

Domains
These plans usually come with one free or very inexpensive domain name. You want a plan with a domain. Without having a domain, there is no place to go on the internet to see your photos. You get to pick your own domain name and it can be anything you want, as long as nobody else is using it. So choose MyName.com or bananahat.com or your_momma_is_ugly.com. Whatever you want. This domain will be where people will go on the internet to see your photos.

When you upload photos on your site, those photos will be visible to others at MyDomain.com/name_of_my_image_file.com.jpg.

2. Install the Software on Your Computer.
You need special software to move files from your computer to your newly rented server space on the internet. This software is called an "FTP Client". FTP means "file transfer protocol" and "Client" is the fancy word IT people use for software. I use FileZilla but there are others. FileZilla is simple, works well, and it's free. Google "FileZilla", download the software version that matches your computer, and follow the installation instructions. In 5 minutes you'll be up and running.

Setting Up The Software
You will need to "configure" the software - a fancy IT word for filling in the "configuration" form. The website where you purchased your hosting plan will have great instructions on how to do this. They are tired of getting phone calls from customers who can't get their FTP clients to work so they made a beautiful, detailed tutorial with color photos. It's in their FAQ or Help tab on their web site. You will need to know the hostname, account name, and several other things but your hosting company will have all those details available for you.

3. Upload Your Photos to the Server
Run your FTP software and connect to your server following the instructions your hosting company provided. Once your software is configured, you just click one button and it connects to the server automatically.

You will see this:



Everthing on the left is your computer (called the local machine). everything on the right is what's on the server (the somewhere on the internet machine).



How Do You Move Files?
There will be a folder on the server where you put your stuff. This is the folder where your domain is hosted. If I go to YourDomain.com, the internet takes me to that folder. I will get an error message because I won't have permission to look inside that folder to see what's in it. But, if you put a file (in this case, a photo) there, I will be able to see that one file if I know the name of the file. If you upload a photo to your domain called PhotoName.jpg, and I type in YourDomain.com/PhotoName.jpg, I'll see the photo that you put there.

All you do to move files is drag them from the left side (your computer)to the right side (the server). Wait a few seconds for the green bar at the bottom to say it's done and it's done. The file has been moved. By the way, you can move files from the server to your computer by dragging them the other way. When you move files, it makes a copy of the file, it doesn't remove the file from your computer to put it on the server.

How Do I Post Those Photos Here?
You can now post your photo on this (or any) website by posting the address there in this format:
http:/ /Your_Doman/Your_Photo_Name.jpg.

[hawk55732]

Im making this a sticky for a while. With photobucket doing its thing, I think that some people on here may do this more.