EXAMPLES OF ONLINE INSECT COLLECTIONS:
Nowadays most casual collectors wanting to share pictures of their goodies just upload their pictures to FaceBook or a similar service. However, if you want to be more serious you can find yourself a free webpage, or even set up your own for-fee website.
Here are some general thoughts about making online insect collections:
Photo sharing websites offer online software tools that allow you to upload, store, organize and share your digital photos and some sites even allow you to edit your pictures. Some limit storage and photo size so check the site's terms and conditions. To find a free photo sharing website use a search engine such as Google and do a search on "free photo sharing websites". Some of the most popular are Webshots, Yahoo's Flickr, or Google Photos. Once you've found one you like, it's easy to join.
One way to find a free site is to use a search engine such as Google and do a search on "free websites". For example, there are yola.com and webs.com. They're free, but they put ads on your pages. For a small price they'll provide pages without ads.
Once you have someone to host your pages or websites, check out WordPress.Org. There, people all over the world have uploaded free aps or plug-ins. You just download what you want, and configure them for your own use. But, you have to be sharp enough to know what "configure them" means...
Some free websites enable you to post your text and images without having to know anything about HTML code and without having to use a special FTP program. Other free websites may require you to learn some very simple HTML code, which is no big deal.
Once you have your page made with your pictures on it, send it to your new website. Each site provider has its own way of uploading your pages, so just follow their instructions.
USING BUGGUIDE.NET
FOR IDENTIFICATIONS
You can have your digital pictures of insects identified online at BugGuide.Net.
At the above page register for free, then log in and click on "ID Request." On the resulting page click on "add image," and fill in the information boxes. When you come to the box called "Image" you need to tell BugGuide.Net where your picture is found in your own computer. Click on "Choose" at the right of that box, then navigate the subdirectories or folders of your computer until you find file holding your file. When you finish all the boxes and click on "Submit," in a few seconds your photo will appear at the head of the line of photos needing to be identified, and probably someone, someplace in the world, will let you know your bug's name.
This is such an important possibility that we have a whole page on using a digital camera..
Our Backyard Insects Section introduces the world of backyard insects and shows how to get started identifying them. There we explain how to use a field guide and how to do a search using the internet. If you are still having trouble IDing your critter you can always post your image on What's That Bug or on Bugguide.net.