Welcome to
Frequently Asked Questions!
This is a page of questions that I often receive from
my visitors.
I hope that most of your questions will be answered by this page!
:)
Just click on a question to get the answer!
What is a cyber pet and what do I do with
them?
A cyber pet is a picture that you can adopt and treat as a pet or friend and put on your website. They basically live on your website. What you can do with them is limited because they are pictures, but you can give them personalities, make up stories about them, or use them to decorate your website. Just be creative! :) The only thing you can't do, though, is change how the picture looks or violate any of my rules of adoption. If you need an explanation of my rules go here.
If you would like to adopt my pets, you must first have a webpage because these graphics are meant to be displayed on webpages only. Then you choose a cyber pet you like and copy it to your hard drive. Then you upload the cyber pet(s) to your website host. Then you use HTML to put the images on your webpage. You also must provide a link back to my site using either a text link or the button that I have made (which can be found on each of my pages). Most importantly, if you want to adopt you must follow the rules posted on my main page.
How can I adopt if I have WebTV?
If you would like to adopt my pets and you have WebTV you must first transload my pets at this site: Star Boulevard Transload ServiceBecause WebTV is different from a regular webpage, you must use this service to download my pets onto your server. Be sure to read the explanations and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on the site to find out how to transload, what it does, and note their policies.
You can adopt as many as you like. :)
Did you make those graphics under your counter and
can I adopt them?
No, I did not make the graphics under my counter and they are certainly not up for adoption on my page. If you would like to use these graphics, please do not take them off my page. There are links to where I got them on the bottom of each of my pages. So you can get one from their original creators, but please read the artists' terms of use! =)
You can get a free webpage at many places like: Geocities, Angelfire, Tripod, AOL, Gurlpages, etc. Here are pages that review the service of free and pay webpage servers to help you decide where you want to get your webpage: FreeWebSpace, Host Global, and The Free Site
Why can't I put your pets on
Expage, Neopets, Message Boards, and online clubs?
Many message boards don't let you upload my graphics to their server and therefore forces people to link directly to my server which slows down my page. Now Geocities does not allow direct linking, so when people try to direct link, the image will not appear and instead a broken image with an x will appear. Also people tend to use my graphics as signatures for their message board and they don't give me credit with a link to my site. This goes the same for online clubs, so that's why I make it a general rule that my pets are not to be used on these pages.
Expage is a webhost that does not allow you to upload .gif graphics to your webpage. Instead, Expage uses a service that changes the .gif file format to a .jpg file format. This format causes the background of my pets to be opaque (not be transparent) and does not allow them to animate. All this alters my pets and I would not like this to be done because I intended them to be in a .gif format that enables my pets to animate and be on transparent backgrounds.
As for Neopets, there are certain pages where they do not allow files to be uploaded to their server, particularly browseshop pages. Since my graphics cannot be uploaded to Neopets, this forces people to direct link to my server, which slows down my page and they will get a broken image.
So if you have an Expage, Neopets Page, Message board, an online club like Yahoo, or any other page where you must link to my server or change the format of my pets, I ask that you please do not put my pets on them. You can find free pages that allow you to upload graphics at Host Global and The Free Site. If you still want a cyber pet but you don't want to get a new page, you can adopt virtual pets you can keep online like Neopets or you can search for others at The Cyber Pet Search Site.
How do I put the pets on my
page?
To put the pet on your page, you have to follow a few steps:
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Choose a pet and copy it to your hard drive. To save the pictures on a PC, right-click directly on the image and choose "Save Picture As" from the pop-up menu. To Save on the pictures on a Mac, click-and-hold your mouse button on the image and choose "Save" from the pop-up menu.
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Next you upload the pet onto your webpage host (like geocities, tripod, AOL, etc.). To find out how to upload, you should read your webpage host's help pages. You can find some tips to help you upload at Web Diner.
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Finally you use HTML to put my pets and a link back to me on your page. If you need help on putting pictures on your site with HTML, this is a great site to go visit: Lissa Explains it All--HTML Help.
My pets are saved in the .gif format, which allows animations and transparent backgrounds. However, America Online has a way of loading webpages so that image files are compressed and load faster when viewed. As a result, only .bmp and .art files show up on webpages and the images can only be saved in these formats. The drawbacks of these these formats is that they will not allow animations or transparent backgrounds and the .art format can only be viewed by AOL users. To fix this problem, you need to change the files from compressed to uncompressed by following these steps:
Go to the "My AOL" icon at the top of your screen
Select "Preferences" on the drop down menu
Click on the "WWW" button
Click on the "Web Graphics" tab and uncheck the box labeled "Use Compressed Graphics"
Click ok.
Then go back to my webpage and right click on my pets to save and they should save as .gif's.
This should work provided that you did not visit my page recently. If it doesn't, you could try clearing your cache.
If you would like to learn more about AOL and graphics compression, visit this site.
I don't understand your rules, can you explain
them?
Why must I have a webpage to put my pets on?
Cyber pets are meant to be pets on webpages. They aren't meant for any other purpose outside of a webpage. If you don't want to get a webpage to adopt, you can always adopt online pets like at Neopets or you can search for others at:
Why can't commercial sites use your pets?
If your page makes money off the internet or if your webpage is a business then you cannot use my cyber pets. The reason being is that I would only like to use my cyber pets for individual enjoyment on personal pages. They are not to be used to enhance a website to make money.
Why do I have to link back to you?
I require a link so that others may come to my site and adopt a cyber pet for themselves. Also it is a way to give me credit for making my cyber pets. :) I really do appreciate your link back to my site! If you would like to read more about providing links or how to provide links, here is a good site to visit:
What do you consider altering and why can't I alter your pets?
Altering is when you change my pet in any way, such as (but not limited to) changing the size, changing the colors, or putting anything extra that was not originally there. Basically just leave my pets as they are on my page.The reason why I don't want people to alter my pets is because I worked hard to make these pets and I would like to adopt them out the way they are. It is also a violation of my copyright on my pets when someone alters my work. If you would like to learn what copyright is, this is a good site to visit:
Why can't I copy your pets or make one similar to yours ?
You can't draw your own copy of my pets, re-draw my pets, or make one very similar to my pets because that would be plagiarizing or copying my cyber pets. Copying my pets is also a violation of copyright. Some examples of copying my pets is (but not limited to) using parts of my pets to make "pets of your own" and drawing pets that have similar dresses, hair, facial features, etc. So if you are going to draw graphics, please make them original, because if you use any parts of my pets, that is considered plagiarizing. The first site below talks more about what is original art and the second site talks about what is considered copying graphics and has a good example of plagiarism as well:
Why can't I put your pets in a clipart collection or gallery?
My pets are meant only as cyber pets and should not be freely displayed or distributed in clipart or any graphics collection. To learn more about this visit the site below:
What do you mean by re-adopting? And why can't I re-adopt your pets?
Re-adopting is where a person would open a cyber adoption page using the pets made by someone else. I don't want people to do that because the point of an adoption page is to adopt out original or unique pets that are made by the owner of the site.Also I believe that a person running a cyber pet agency would gain more fulfillment from the agency if they were adopting out something they made and not someone else's work. You don't have to be a great artist to have an agency and you don't have to adopt out graphics either. Be creative! Also there are some tips that can help you start your own agency at:
However if you would still like to adopt out graphics, there are some cyber pet artists who can make graphics for you to adopt out or provide pre-made sets of pets for you to use. A listing of these agencies is available at:
Why can't I link to directly to your server?
Linking directly to my server will greatly slow down my site and I would not like that to happen. Also, Geocities does not allow others to link to their server, so anyone who does direct link will find that their images will not show up. Instead there will be a broken image with an x. To find out more about the effects of direct linking this is a good place to visit:
Even if you have WebTV, you are still linking to my server and that will still slow down my site. Also your image will not appear on your site either. There is a way to download my graphics onto your webpage server. It is called transloading. A good place to transload and find out information about it is Star Boulevard Transload Service.
The reason that I do not want my visitors to take the background sets I made is because I have spent a lot of time making them to decorate my page. They were created with the intent to fit my webpages only and to be something that is found only on my pages. So I would like them to be used only on my page.
The reason that I do not want my visitors to take the backgrounds that I have borrowed from other artists is because they are not my creation. The backgrounds are borrowed from various artists from around the web, all whom have copyrights over their work. Since the artists' have copyright over their work, they cannot be distributed from any website other than the original artists' website. So, if you would like to use their backgrounds, you need to visit the artists' pages to read their terms of use before you use them. I have links to all the artists' websites at the bottom of my pages, so you can visit the artists' pages and read their terms of use thoroughly before using the backgrounds. Also, there are some artists that no longer have their websites and graphics up on the Internet. This cannot be used as an excuse to take graphics off my site because I cannot redistribute them. Please contact the original artist for copies of the graphics and permission to use their graphics.
What do you mean by my web page has to be for a general audience?
All I mean by this is make sure your page doesn't have anything unsuitable for children such as hate, pornography, foul language, racism, and anything that is vulgar or offensive.
Why do you want me to e-mail you my URL?
I enjoy visiting my adoptee's sites and also it is always nice to see how people display my pets. :)
Why is it when I adopt any of your pets, I am agreeing to follow your rules of use?
As the artist of my pets, I have rights through copyright on how my pets are to be used. So my pets come with certain terms of use. These terms of use are not optional. They must be followed in order for you to adopt them or you would be violating my copyright on my pets. If you do not agree with the rules, you cannot adopt my pets. So when you adopt my pets, it is an indication that you have read the rules and agree to follow them.
I tried to follow your instructions on trailer cursors
but it just won't work!
Make sure that you have done the following things to the code:
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You have the file names correctly spelled and the file is directed to the right place (i.e. if you have stored the images in a subdirectory you would have to put in your html such as: subdirectory/file_name.gif).
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The dimensions (which are provided on my page under each picture) of the images are correct, making sure you just put numbers and not "WIDTH="5"" etc. The numbers should be located right after the file name.
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You have arranged the pictures in the script backwards so for example where the script says "trail1.gif" you would have to put the name of the last picture which is (if you were using the mermaid) "merma3.gif" then go down from there.
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You have deleted the extra slots where the script used for extra images. I only have 4 images but the script provides 6 slots for images so just delete trails 5 and 6.
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You have placed the script after the "head" tag, which is at the very beginning of your html. It should also end before the "title" tag.
Did you draw all the graphics on your
page?
Yes, I did draw all the cyber pets also including some background sets on my site. The graphics and background sets that were not drawn by me have a link to the original artists' site on the bottom of each of my pages and are given credit for their work. Please do not take any of the graphics or background sets from my page. If you would like to use their graphics just go to their page to get it and make sure to read the artists' terms of use! :)
How do you make your graphics and what programs
do you use?
I draw my cyber pets on my computer mostly with a graphics program called Microsoft Paint. That's pretty much what I use to color most of my pets too. On some pets, like on my Angels 1 page, I use Paint Shop Pro. PSP has a lot of nice features and can do more than Paint can. There is a free evaluation download for PSP on this page:
The program that I use to animate my graphics is GIF Construction Set. You can download it at:
I also sometimes use Animation Shop to animate my graphics and it comes with Paint Shop Pro.
If you would like to more information about other graphics programs this is a good place to look.
I hope I have answered your questions!
If you have any more questions or if you think there is a question I should add to this page, please e-mail me!
Or you can sign my guestbook!
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Oh My Gosh!
