I started embeddding Google Maps in the topic "Maps Of Location Of Immigration Offices In Thailand, Google Maps" but failed to keep a record of how I did it and now a have a problem doing it again exactly the way I want it. I am trying to recreate the various steps here.

Google Maps has a link to the code for embedding the map in a web page. Near the top right of the screen I click on "Link", then copy and past the text from the fireld "Paste HTML to embed in website":

<iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=101110579867335234058.000465f03d84d91df360b&ll=13.554445,101.587033&spn=0,0&t=h&output=embed"></iframe><br /><small>View <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=101110579867335234058.000465f03d84d91df360b&ll=13.554445,101.587033&spn=0,0&t=h&source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">Thailand Immigration Offices</a> in a larger map</small>

Here's my first problem. In the forum "Thai visas, residency and work permits" I have in the reply window the option to chose the HTML mode and I figured out that for the map to display I have to select "HTML On - Auto Linebreak Mode". Here in the blog I am not given this option, which means I can forget about trying to recreate here the procedure for embedding a Google Map. I might, though, post the code I used in the visa forum and comment on it.

We have learnt how to embed a YouTube video or a Goole video in post and I guess it works the same way with a blog entry. The links with instructions are here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=104240

I'll try a YouTube video here:



This worked fine. Now a Google video:



This works fine, too. The important thing is to add a hyphen in front of the Google ID after copying it into the post.

My next task for today: insert a thumbnail of a picture in my blog album and have the text flow around it. The thumbnail must be a live link to the full picture.

First, I upload another photo to my blog album, to get some practice.

Now I'm going to insert the thumbnail, on the far left of this paragraph. If it works the way it should, there will be a few lines along the right of the thumbnail and the text will continue below the picture, just like we see it in newspapers.

1. Open new browser window with the link "My Blog"
2. Click on "Blog album"
3. Right-click on thumbnail of picture to be inserted in this blog entry
4. Click on "Copy image location"
5. Return to blog entry
6. Click on icon "Insert image"
7. Press Ctrl+V
8. Click on OK --> code for thumbnail gets inserted and remains selected
9. Return to blog album
10. Click on thumbnail of the chosen picture --> larger picture appears on screen
11. Right-click on picture
12. Click on "Copy link location"
13. Return to blog entry
14. Click on icon "Insert link"
15. Press Ctrl+V
16. Click on OK

The thumbnail is there. Clicking on it displays the big picture in a new window. But the text does not flow around the picture. There is just one line of text to right of the picture and the next line is below the picture. Not quite what I expected and therefore it will be better to insert large pictures, not thumbnails. Or in that one line next to the picture, give only a caption, perhaps in bold and/or colour, although a caption had better be below the picture.

It is something like this I had been hoping to achieve:

Gallery albums. Blog album. What use can I make of it? Store pictures, obviously.

I clicked around a little and saw that gallery albums is part of the general ThaiVisa membership benefits. It is there when I click on “My Controls”, with the name “Invision Gallery”. Invision, I gather, is the name of the software on which the ThaiVisa forum is built.

The link “Blog album” must have been created by default. It is still empty at the moment, even though I uploaded a picture into my last entry. This means that pictures uploaded using the new entry dialogue window do not automatically get placed in my blog album. I have to upload it separately first, then insert it in my blog entry.

So that’s what I did now. I uploaded a photo taken on a mountain hike in summer. That’s quite something, this picture gallery. I can add a caption, and a description as long as I want, it seems.

Now I want to add this picture here. Hmmm...where do I click? Perhaps I have to go and hunt down the picture's URL, then come back here and insert the picture. Here goes:

1. Open new browser window with the link "My Blog"
2. Click on "Blog album"
3. Click on thumbnail of picture to be inserted in this blog entry --> larger picture appears on screen
4. Right-click on picture
5. Click on "Copy image location"
6. Return to blog entry
7. Click on icon "Insert image"
8. Press Ctrl+V
9. Click on OK

Good. It worked. The picture is displayed quite big. What if I just want to insert a small thumbnail for readers to click to get the full size? And then, what if I want the text to wrap around the thumbnail picture? I shall explore this another time.

I completely forgot about this blog I had started. Not a good omen.

Today, as I am updating my profile, I am also looking at my blog again and am trying to figure out how to add content to the various items in the frame on the right of the screen. I think they call it content blocks here.

The content clock at the top is labelled “Links”. Contrary to what I thought, this content block is not for me to insert my own links, for example to my favourite online dictionary, etc; it is a space where ThaiVisa has arranged to display links that can be useful for ThaiVisa members and other visitors of my blog.



Onward, then, to explore other features. The content block "Gallery albums" is next in line and I see it already has the link "Blog album" in it, but that’s for another time.

It never occurred to me to start a Web Log (blog) and I'm still not sure if that's what I want to do, but seeing that ThaiVisa offers this feature I plan to check it out now.

I started by giving my blog a name descriptive of what I plan to discuss here. I want to see what features this blog service offers and if I can manage to use them.