First hit's free. The joys of blogging.

Re-posting because a recent blogger experienced the same issue.

Prefaced:  While the title and body of this post can be taken poorly it truly is not.  That being said I will do my best so this post is taken positively.  If it also seems like this post jumps around and put together in different parts that's because it was.  About 4 days of information is put together here.  I've made it as coherent as I could.

Blogging.  Some do, some don't.  Tallarn has a great post about blogging.  I'll ask his permission to put the link in this post for you to read.

I blog, because probably like many, to emulate someone.  The target of my adoration, immitation and inspiration: Natfka.  I deeply appreciate his no drama philosophy.  Also appreciate his blog and how he operates it.

Since then I've changed my intent on blogging.  Little did I know how blogging would change me.  Something I'm beginning to appreciate.

There's a dirty secret about blogging.  Its addictive.  Like many vices the reasons for the addiction are legion.  It could be the ever growing list of followers.  Post view count.  Traffic source information.  Search word info.  Pie chart showing the types of systems used to view your blog.  Comments on your posts.  The mighty, unprecendented power to completely delete a comment so that it never existed.  The graph that shows the numbers of views from now til all time.  All time graph of seeing the view count only go up.  These are just a few things that can make blogging addictive.  Each user finds their own niche with this drug.

Its a good drug too.  As many of us know.  Self-esteem generated from within is a renewable source of good feelings that very few can take away.  When we start looking for those good feelings without we are at the mercy of those providing those good feelings.  When the people providing those good feelings go away the good feelings go with them.  Self-esteem provided from blogging is more like the latter than the former.  One must be careful with the high received from blogging.

Of course there is a darker more insidious side of the addiction.  Several months ago I read a post.  Was dismayed by the bloggers feelings.  Could sympathise with him.  He was performing a thinking error.  Specifically, Feelings of Entitlement.  The post was about how he had been blogging for awhile now and had yet to get a dime for the adds on his page.  At the time I didn't understand exactly how he was going to get money.  Now I know, AdSense.  No doubt some could get cash from blogging.  That shouldn't be something to bring a blogger down.  If anything it should confuse the blogger for 15 mins while they figure out why there was a deposit of 10 cents into their checking account.

One may be asking.  Where is this going?  How is all this tieing into the title?  I can sense something's afoot.

You are correct.  Here it goes.  Google, you're good.  Almost too good.  Give me a place for my shiny blog.  Let me design it how I want.  Add cool pic for the background.  Challenge me to learn how to make background of posts to be translucent instead of opaque.  Still haven't figured that one out.  You let me enjoy the freedom of putting pics up of my work for whomever.  Right as someone is in their stride and about to become something new it happens.  They reach the 1GB Picasa maximum for uploading.

What?  Please give it back!  I'll buy you dinner whereever you want.  I'll get you those shoes you've been oogling.  Yeah, covering your rent will be my pleasure.  You're good, Google.  You're very good.  First hit's free huh, Google?

I have reached the 1GB max of uploading through Picasa.  Blogspot informs me of my options.  In no uncertain terms, start deleting pics or please buy me this thing I've been eye-balling since we've met.
Emailed a couple fellow blogspot bloggers about what they've done.

Email 6 Aug conversation between Sons of Taurus and myself regarding putting pics online.

Me:

Hope this finds you well.

You have a couple of years of blogging under your belt.  I've only been doing it for 3 months.  Perhaps you have experienced this.

Have you encountered the 1GB limit for uploading images with Picasa on blogspot?  I understand there's no work around.  Google Drive is simply a source to access synced information through multiple computers.  If you have encountered the 1GB limit what did you do?

Sons:

There is a 1GB limit apparently shared with Picasa, but I don't know how to see that or where I'm at.  Most of the pictures I use I load up to photobucket ( http://photobucket.com/ ) and then use the "direct link" URL when adding the picture. 

I'm sure that there are some limits there too, but I have yet to run into them.
Hope that helps!

I started direct loading things too; it's natural.  I had started using imageshack and then photobucket for other stuff so started for miniatures pictures too.  May have run into the same problem, but if so it was so long ago I forgot!

Me:

(edit conversation so I don't sound like a complete simpleton)

You have been a wealth of information regarding this.  Thank you so much.  Is it ok if I use our conversation, minus names of course, in an upcoming blog post?

Sons:

Sure thing; glad to help.  You'll probably get even better info in the comments.

End of email.

Here is some information about online storage for "what it is we do."

http://wingloon.com/2009/01/06/choosing-flickr-picasa-web-album-or-photobucket-free-account/

What does this mean to present and future bloggers uploading photos?  Not exactly sure.  One could account hop til all the memory is used then start paying for more memory.

Raw info from my blog as of 7 Aug.

Number of pics: 570

Number of posts: 65

Average number of pics per post: 8.76

Would share what the message is but now its not appearing.  Really curious.  Now you're just toying with me, Google.  Just like a good dealer.  Sunday while loading a BatRep I received the message that I reached my 1GB Picasa max.  Monday, Tuesday as well, I was able to load pics.  Beginning to think there might be a limit of uploading over a certain period of time.

Message came back Wed 8 Aug.  Here is what is specifically says:

Whoops! You're out of space. You are currently using 100% of your 1 GB quota for photos. Upgrade storage

Photos are stored in your Picasa Web Albums account and are included in your 1 GB free quota for photos. Additional storage you purchase is shared between several Google products and is in addition to your free quota. Learn more

Not sure why it came up last Sun then disappeared for a few days and now came back.  Very odd.

Didn't get word back from Tallarn.  You can find it on his blog desertraiders.blogspot.com great blog by the way.  Please check it out!

Figured it out!  Didn't click through enough links to get the magic.  Specifically:

*Picasa Web Albums: 1 GB for photos and videos. Files under certain sizes don't count towards this limit. This limit applies to photos uploaded to Picasa Web Albums and photos uploaded at original size to Google+ from the Picasa 3.9 software.

Guess the photos I've been loading are above the size limit.

Here is the information regarding sizes what is free and what is not.

Free storage limits

Photos up to 800 x 800 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes won't count towards your free storage.

Automatic resizing

All photos uploaded over the free size limit will count towards your 1 GB of free storage. When you reach your storage limit, any new photos you upload to Picasa Web larger than the free size limit will be automatically resized to 800 pixels (on their longest edge).

Note: If you reach your storage limit when uploading from the Picasa desktop software, you'll only be able upload at free storage sizes. Larger uploads will not be automatically resized to the free storage limit.

Now I need to learn how to adjust the pixel size of the photos I'm adding so that none of them are greater than 800 x 800.  If you use Windows Live Photo Gallery click Properties in the Organize section of the tool bar.  This is located to the left of Auto Adjust and Crop at the top of the window.

The skinny is either pay 2.49$ a month to load any size photo you want, be more discerning about you are posting or go through a couple of extra clicks to resize your photos.  Which for me is what I will be doing.  Since I'm already cropping the photo to get rid of the noise, Lane doesn't like the noise, it won't be difficult to resize everything to 800 pixels.

Been working on this post for the entire week.  Since I haven't posted anything I've been studying this issue.  Then confused when I could start posting pics again.  I think I'm done adding onto this post.  Will probably proof read it again tomorrow at work.  What one thinks makes sense at 2:26am rarely does at 8:50am.

Oh, one last thing.  Thanks, dealer, you've been great allowing me to have a blog on your blogspot!  I promise to play by the rules from now on.  High five?

slainte mhath