Posting Information for Participants & Alumni

Eligibility
Posting in the EEI blog is open to current participants (who may be required to post pictures and text associated with either volunteer work or case study assignments), and program alumni (who may create a personal blog of their Costa Rica experience). However, it is very likely that not all of your personal pictures are appropriate for posting on this web site.  See the guidelines that follow.

Guidelines
All pictures and associated descriptions must be of a professional nature. As such, we require that you adhere to the following content guidelines: a) Post ONLY pictures associated with your stay in Costa Rica/Central America. You may include pictures from program activities or personal travel, but pictures from elsewhere are inappropriate; b) Indecent or otherwise offensive pictures are NOT permitted; c) Bar scenes, or pictures exemplifying partying or excessive alcohol consumption are NOT permitted. Pictures of that sort will be deleted immediately, and posting privileges revoked. If in doubt regarding acceptable content, please contact us ahead of time.

Instructions
In order to successfully post on the blog, you will need to perform the following steps:

1. SELECT & PREPARE PICTURES FOR POSTING
In order for pictures to be posted, they must adhere to the following guidelines: a) File type. Only Jpeg (example.jpg) picture formats are acceptable. This is the format used by digital cameras; b) File dimensions. The picture dimensions should not exceed 400 pixels (maximum width or height). Note: A 'normal' horizontal picture, if 400 pixels wide, would be 400W x 300H. This can be set on most digital cameras; c) File size. The maximum file size is 100KB (NO LARGER PICTURES PLEASE).  If you would like to post pictures which are larger in dimensions or file size, you will need to resize them on your digital camera (if it has that function), or using a photo editing software program (e.g., Photoshop, Paint, Coreldraw, Photo Studio, Photo Deluxe, ACDsee). Simple photo editing programs are commonly already installed on your computer (e.g., MS Paint on Windows machines), and many digital cameras also come with such an option. When you are preparing your pictures, you will also need to oriented them correctly (if they were taken vertically) before posting them.  NOTE: Alternatively, video may be posted in place of pictures, but ONLY if it hosted on another site (e.g., YouTube).  Please DO NOT upload video to the blog directly.  If in doubt, please contact us.

2. PREPARE THE ACCOMPANYING TITLE TEXT FOR EACH PICTURE
It is highly recommended to prepare all accompanying text in a Word Document, Word Pad,  Notepad, or equivalent prior to posting.  IMPORTANT NOTE: If using Word, once the document has been saved, re-save it as a text file (.txt) which removes advanced formatting.  If you try to copy and paste text into the blog directly from Word without doing this first, it will not be accepted.

3. BLOG LOGIN & POSTING
In order to be able to upload pictures and text, you must first acquire the appropriate login information for the EEIblog account.  Please contact us in-person for this information.  Once you have this, login to the account and create a 'new post'.  The easiest way to proceed is to paste the text, and then upload the pictures in the correct location.  Please note that the layout can be hard to get just right, so it may take a few times posting and then editing again by moving things around or adding subtracting blank spaces to achieve a professional-looking post (see previous examples for acceptable format).  Once you are satisfied with the layout, add LABELS (lower right) by clicking on as many as appropriate (click 'show all' to see them), and then click on POST OPTIONS (lower left) to enter the correct date. Repeat the process as appropriate for each posting.   If it seems that nothing is happening at any point in the process, hit 'reload' in your browser.

IMPORTANT: For security reasons, when you are done, please do not forget to logout and close your browser!