Chuck - I think I just got a clue to the solution.
see here:
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/f...ry/009052.html
so - I uploaded a gif instead of a jpeg and
vb took it just fine. I'll research further, but it looks like the source code for imagemagick 6 not longer includes support for jpg by default - I will look at the ./configure option and read further.
I'll post the outcome of my research and findings.