Love,
SheilaDog

Graphics make a page interesting. The internet is really a visual medium. Have you ever been into a page that had nothing but a white background and a lot of text? It is hard to keep reading, isn't it? Remember that you need to have your page interesting enough that the reader wants to stay there.

Graphics work the same way as backgrounds. You can go anywhere and use a graphic. Just make sure you are copying it legally. Photos are especially touchy. When you use a photo without permission you may be robbing the photographer of a lot of money. Make certain that the photo&#s use for internet is "free".

How to get them, code provided.

Graphics are handled the same at Dogster as is a background. You will need to use a new bio field for an extra graphic. Dogster Plus offers several such bio fields.

Animations work the same way as regular graphics. Go to a website that offers free graphics, copy the code offered, and paste it into your bio field where it says "body". In the "field" space, put whatever you want to title the graphic, like "Happy Puppy".

Here are two great sites for graphics: http://mbif.net and Clip-art.com. Here is one more: Gifanimations.com. It offers exclusively animated graphics, and they are really fun!

No code provided.

Alternately, you may want to use a graphic you see at a website that doesn't offer a code. To do this, you will use this basic HTML code:

<IMG SRC = "this is the URL that finds the graphic"> The URL is the web address the graphic lives at. Your graphic's URL will end with .gif or with .jpg or with .jpeg. When you put it in the above code, you must put the quotes around it for it to work.

Let us say you found your background at Clipart.com. You need to click on it at that site to open it in a new window. In the new window you will see nothing but your graphic in the top lefthand corner. Look at this point at the top of your browser page at the URL there. Copy this URL - not the graphic itself - just the URL. This is what you will paste in your "body" box on your page. A URL address is really just a set of directions to tell a browser how to go out on the web and grab the graphic you want to appear.

Using a photo.

A photo is just like any other graphic. On Dogster, you can use a photo in the places Dogster provides to upload photos - which causes your photo to appear on the left side of the page. Or you could use one of your bio fields with Dogster Plus, to add one more photo - this is a bit of a different process.

To do this, choose a bio field. In the "Field" box, write whatever you want. In the "Body" box, you will put your code for your photo. In order to know the URL for your photo, you will need to have it first uploaded into a server. If you have an email account, you can probably upload it at that server. If you don't, I would highly recommend a free Yahoo" account, at which you will be able to upload photos easily.

Your URL would then look something like: http://www.yahoo.com/myaccountname/Photos/mydog.jpg. Note that all photos should end in .jpg or in .jpeg . Make sure that they are .jpg or .jpeg files before you upload them to the server. In your "Body" space you will write this code: <IMG SRC = " Your photo URL address.jpg"> . Always remember the quotes must be there.