Some posting issues

Hi folks
I've just posted my second blog but made really hard work of it. Could folks help me with a couple of things please?

1. There seems to be a time out that means you are logged out after a while. How long is 'a while' and is it a number that can be changed? Several times I was logged out while partway through. When I logged in to continue I was presented with a white screen. Clicking the browser back button made my post contents disappear.
2. I saw 'auto saved' flash up now and again, and did use this to get work back. But it tended to contain weird letters in front of question marks and quotes. Can you save manually, if so - how?
3. I would have reduced photo size and posted directly but clicking 'insert image' only gave me a line to put a url in, I couldn't see how to put a picture in directly. My posting permissions at the bottom of the page says 'you may not post attachments'.
4. Can you save a post part way through, close down SOTP, come back to it and retrieve the post to continue?

I ended up writing the text in MS word, then pasting it into the post and trying to get the photo links in before something went wrong!
I'm using firefox on a pc.

Thanks

Ian