inserting BLOB data

I am trying to store my file contents in a table. I have never worked with BLOB data types before.
I realised that inserting the file contents into the BLOB column is not the same as inserting into a regular column.

The file size is about 2.2M. I have set the system variable max_allowed_packet to 3M.

Can anyone please give me some ideas about how the file contents can be inserted?

Table structure is as follows.

+-----------+-----------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field     | Type                  | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+-----------+-----------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| file_id   | smallint(5) unsigned  | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| file_name | varchar(25)           | NO   |     |         |                |
| file_size | mediumint(8) unsigned | NO   |     |         |                |
| file      | mediumblob            | NO   |     |         |                |
+-----------+-----------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+


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