Posts Tagged: editing

Riding Shotgun with Adam — 2 Comments
19
Mar 08

Where to buy a book manual for your computer

“Why didn’t my computer come with a manual?”

One of the most common complaints we hear is about how new computers don’t come with manuals. I am here to explain why this is the case.

The sad answer is that if the computer company came with a manual, it would weigh more than the computer.

“But my old computers used to come with manuals…,” Is the next comment.

Back in the old days of computers there weren’t many uses. You would use computers for word processing, finances, Internet and email. In each case there were only a handful of options.

Putting together a manual meant covering how to do email in AOL or Outlook Express. Word Processing was done in Word or WordPerfect. Finances were done with Quicken. Internet was AOL or Internet Explorer.

Today the options are endless. The method of attaching a file to email is different depending on whether you use AOL, Yahoo, Comcast, Yahoo, Juno, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Gmail, etc. Just covering how to read an email could take up 10 pages of a book because the book would have to explain how too do it on each system.

In every case the book would be more confusing than having no book and you would pay a premium for it because of the size.

Add to that the fact that we now use computers for phone calls, digital photography, movie editing, calenders, games, and holographic teleportation. Covering all of these processes in depth would mean including a manual that covered Picasa, Word, WordPerfect, Photoshop Elements, every email system, Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Skype, iTunes, Windows Media Player, MusicMatch, Google…

In other words, once you turn on your computer, you actually never use your computer. You use the software.

If you want to learn how to use the computer, you need to learn the program that you are using. If you want to learn Quicken, buy a book on Quicken. If you want to learn email, buy a book on your specific email system.

If you don’t want to buy a bunch of books, simply buy one book on Google and that will take you into the world of free answers on the Internet.

Oh, and make sure to always check HelpMeRick.com first and we will point you in the right direction.

 

DP & the Internet / Riding Shotgun with Adam — No Comments
23
Jan 08

Online Photo Editors

Basic photo editing no longer takes special software. You can now do some wonderful things with photos from any computer on almost any browser from anywhere in the world. Online photo editors allow you to edit photos simply by going to a special website.

Once fully loaded, these sites let you resize, adjust brightness and contrast, tweak color and even work with layers. While none of these editors are as robust as Photoshop Elements, they are great for doing basic adjustments especially when working on a computer that is not your own.

Splashup – an excellent photo editor that looks a lot like Photoshop Elements or Corel Paint Shop Pro. It is lacking in any real advanced features, but what it does have it does well. This is the best online editor for people who are used to working with commercial image editing software.

Picnik – an extremely simple image editor that is setup very well for people who are new to image editing. Picnik doesn’t do anything very fancy, but it loads fast and is great for quick tasks like making an image ligher or cropping a photo. 

FotoFlexer – touted as the world’s most advanced photo editor, this service appears to live up to its name. FotoFlexer offers the usual basic fixes but then adds on a dozen or more special effects that are likely not offered by any other single online editor. The Interface of FotoFlexer is also broken up into easy categories so finding the right tool is fairly simple given how complex the site is.

Google search for online editing – I found the above site and many more by searching for “online photo editor” in Google.

You can use any of these programs without setting up an account, but to get all of the features offered including online storage of works in progress. Setting up an account is simple for each of the reviewed programs. Typically all you need is a user name, password, email address and a secret question. 

 

Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
25
Dec 07

5 Web 2.0 Sites to Watch

I have been blathering on about Web 2.0 sites for some time. Web 2.0 means many things, but can be boiled down to web sites that allow you to be productive within your web browser. Pre-2004ish, the Web was mostly an information gathering tool. Around 2004 and especially from 2005 forward, many web sites started to mature and sprout up that allowed us to perform actual work on the web that was previously only accomplished through programs we purchased for our computers. Now, with Web 2.0 applications, we can perform many computing functions through our web browsers from any computer in the world, regardless of the operating system.

Zoho, Google Documents, and  Blogger are a few of the applications that I’ve introduced in the past. Today, I wanted to bring five newer Web 2.0 sites to your attention. Let me know if you decide to try any of these or if you currently use them and how you like them:

  • Expnsr.com and Wesabe.com are actually two different sites that offer online financial management.
  • Jumpcut - an online video editing web site (now part of the Yahoo! group of sites)
  • Picnik and Splashup stand out as two of the better online photo editing systems…a quickly growing segment of Web 2.0 applications.

These are just five of the many new Web 2.0 applications that are changing the way we get things done today, and will get things done tomorrow. Again, let me know what you think of these sites or any others you may have tried by leaving a comment below.

Riding Shotgun with Adam — No Comments
24
Sep 07

Photoshop Elements 6 is out – Yawn.

Adobe released a new version of Photoshop Elements this week. I haven’t read everything about it, but looking over the "What’s New" section on the website it appears that there is little to get excited about.

The new features and upgrades fall in four main catagories, organize, edit, create and share. These four catagories can be narrowed to two, useful and arts-and-craftsy.

On the useful side, Adobe claims to have improved the panorama feature for blending multiple pictures into a single panorama. Listed as a totally separate feature is improved blending of multiple group shots into a single good good picture. Perhaps what may be the most significant upgrade is speed. Adobe vastly improved the startup time of full Photoshop CS3, hopefully this same improvement has been made to Elements 6. Other vague improvements have been made to the clone tool, brightness and contrast, and the black and white conversion.

While I prefer Picasa for organizing and sorting photos, many people swear by the Elements photo organizing features. Adobe lists improvements to the speed of this feature, if the program opens quickly and thumbnails appear as fast as they do in Picasa, this could be pretty significant.

Now for the arts-and-craftsy features. Adobe has added features for creating photo books and other photo projects that have been so popular from services like iPhoto, Shutterfly and HeritageMakers. These features must be popular because adding arts-and-craftsy features have been the only major features added to each new edition of Elements since version 3.

Perhaps there is a major market for these features, I tend to believe that Adobe has perfected the editing program so much that all they can really do to sell new copies is add more fluff. Call it Vista-izing Photoshop Elements.

 

Windows Tips — No Comments
30
Aug 07

Print Anything You See on Your Screen – Video Tip

Many times a computer user may need the ability to print what they see on the screen, but can’t access a Print command.  Using the underutilized Print Screen button on the keyboard can rectify this situation.

The Print Screen button is usually located just to the right of your F keys and above the Insert, Home, Delete key section.  

In the ol’ days of DOS, pushing this button would indeed send a paper flying out of your printer with the contents of your screen printed on it.  Today, however, when you push the button, nothing appears to happen.  Appearance is not as it always seems…your computer takes a ’snap shot’ of whatever is currently visible on the screen and stores it in the Windows Clipboard when you press the Print Screen button.  

To access this ’snap shot’:

  1. Open your favorite word processor (if you are using Word, sometimes it needs to be open before you hit the Print Screen button). WordPad works great for this tips.

  2. Click Edit from the menus

  3. Click Paste from the menus

  4. Now print as you normally would via File –> Print from the menus.

If you only want to print out part of the screen,  you can either crop it in your word processing program (if the program supports that function) OR you can paste your screen shot in an image editing program or even Microsoft Paint to further modify the screen snap shot.

Go on, give it a try.  You are sure to find a use for this interesting and useful tip. Believe it or not, this function has been built into all versions of Microsoft Windows since 1995!

 TIP WITHIN A TIP:  Push the Alt key plus Print Screen to capture just the ‘active window’. For example an error message box or a dialog box.

Riding Shotgun with Rick — 6 Comments
30
Jul 07

Ubuntu – Day 14 – Final Report

 
Ubuntu Header graphic

I can’t believe it has been two weeks already that I’ve used Ubuntu Linux exclusively. If I had to sum up the experience in one word, that word would be “satisfying.” And my regular readers/listeners know that I can’t sum anything up in one word, so I will use this format to provide a complete synopsis of my Ubuntu thoughts.

Minimum Requirements

Ubuntu and its derivatives can run on extremely modest computers. Ubuntu works best on a system with at least a 500mhz processor and 192 mb of RAM…specs that even the six year old Windows XP would choke on and Vista needs triple those specifications to even get close to running at any appreciable speed. Xubuntu is a very basic operating system capable of doing all the major computer functions, but only requires a 166mhz processor and 48mb of RAM! That’s a computer that was sold in the early 90’s!!

These modest system requirements are what first drew me to Ubuntu. Compared with the monster hardware required to run Vista, Ubuntu gives new life to computers previously thought ready for the scrap pile. The fact that Ubuntu is FREE on top of all this is just a bonus.

Available Applications

A fresh install of Ubuntu (typically less than 30 minutes) gives any computer user the ability to:

  • Browse the Internet
  • Send and receive email
  • Download digital photos from a camera
  • Edit digital photos 
  • Create word processing documents
  • Create spreadsheets
  • Create slide presentations
  • Play games like Sudoku, solitaire, blackjack, Mahjongg and more

All of the above are full version programs…not time limited or crippled versions and they are all free.

Who can use Ubuntu?

Literally anyone that can click a mouse or type on a keyboard can you use Ubuntu. The real question is; Who is right for Ubuntu? Here are my thoughts:

  • Any aged computer user who only needs a computer for Internet, email, and occasional word processing. This is probably my idea of the number one demographic for Ubuntu.
  • Any aged computer user who wants to do the activities I listed above plus download and do light editing of photos and play basic games.
  • Families who want a solid, inexpensive, worry free computer system that the kids can do homework on and play Internet games on as well. 

About the only group of people who I think should not use Ubuntu are those who require specialized industry software or software only available for Windows. 

Ubuntu Support

Dell started selling Ubuntu desktops earlier this year and if you buy a computer with Ubuntu pre-installed at Dell or other vendors you might find, you will have the option for phone support. However, the power of Ubuntu is its community. The Ubuntu forums are second to none in being able to find answers to many existing questions and the ability to ask questions that come up as you use the system. I have found the forums to be extremely well organized and frequented by cordial, knowledgeable individuals. Also, many states offer Ubuntu users groups called LoCo groups for even more localized support.

Ubuntu Weaknesses

As much enthusiasm as I have for Ubuntu, I am not so blinded by love that I don’t see the chinks in the armor. And like ANY software or operating system, Ubuntu has a few chinks. The most glaring, in my opinion, are:

Hardware support. The Ubuntu community continues to work hard at providing drivers and programs that will work with every printer on the market and off the market as well as scanners, digital cameras (use a card reader for no problems at all), web cams and other devices. However, the number of hardware devices that have been available over the past ten years is staggering and Ubuntu has a lot of catching up to to do.

Wireless Internet. Once I figured out wireless on this laptop, I have had few problems, but getting wireless up and running requires some patience, technical know-how, and willingness to research the web for answers. It is getting better, but not as easy as wireless with Windows…yet.

Database. I love working with desktop databases. My skills are unfortunately pretty weak with databases, but I recognize their power and possibility so I constantly dabble in them. I was sorely disappointed with OpenOffice’s database program. It was slow, couldn’t handle much data and hard to customize. This all surprised me since their word processing, spreadsheet and presentation manager program all work so well.

Summary 

At the beginning of this article I summarized my Ubuntu two week trek as being satisfying. I was satisfied that Ubuntu handled almost everything I threw at it. I was satisfied that I think the interface is such that any computer user of any age or ability could quickly get up to speed with Ubuntu. I was satisfied to have found a robust operating system that doesn’t break the bank in terms of computer needs and actual costs. As a tech guy who helps other fix their computers, I was extremely satisfied to use an operating system that requires virtually no worries about computer Internet security.

Will I continue to use Ubuntu? Absolutely, as my primary laptop? Will I give up my Windows PC? Not until all the support that I give lies only in Linux, which unfortunately won’t be any time soon. 

 

Riding Shotgun with Rick — 1 Comment
23
Jul 07

Ubuntu – Day 7

Today marks the one week mark that I quit using my Windows Vista machine and started using Ubuntu exclusively. I pledged to use Ubuntu only for two straight weeks to really put the operating system through the paces of daily use. After a rough start with email and fighting spam, I am almost in a groove of using this free and robust operating system. I think that Microsoft has the work cut out for themselves over the next few years to maintain their huge share of the operating system pie.

When I first installed Ubuntu on a test machine almost five months ago, I wrote how optimistic I was for the system. After a full week with the machine, I maintain that optimism. I said then, and still believe that today, that Ubuntu would make a great operating system for anyone who ONLY needs to do email, web browsing, word processing, card and puzzle games, and some digital photography. If a user needs to break out of those areas and do things like desktop publishing, genealogy, video editing, and other specific applications, it can be done with Ubuntu, but requires much more expertise and troubleshooting abilities than a Windows machine…at the moment.

Keep reading all week long as I continue my two week trek into the world of Ubuntu.

Riding Shotgun with Rick — 2 Comments
23
Jul 07

First iPhone setup

I helped setup an iPhone for the first time today. Here is a quick summary of my findings:

Pros

  • Amazingly easy setup on the Windows XP machine we installed it on. No disks or CD’s ship with the iPhone at all. The only requirement is that you have the latest version of iTunes installed. The activation and installation were SIMPLE…the way all installations should be.
  • Nice form factor. Felt like a large candy bar and had more heft (a good thing) that I anticipated. Curved edges allow for easy pocketability and feels good in your hand.
  • Amazing screen clarity and color.
  • Web looks good and the ability to switch from portrait to landscape and zoom in and out of a page all work to make it a good experience overall.
  • Synchronizes bookmarks and editing bookmarks is easy on the device.
  • Out of the box, the phone is very responsive. Very little waiting when switching between applications.
  • Large screen makes it easy for folks who use reading glasses to see and use a smart device.
  • Sound clarity seemed good on both ends of the call. Did not try a headset with it yet. 

Cons

  • Cut, copy, and paste not available. This is a huge omission, in my opinion.
  • Typing isn’t nearly as fast as on a keyboard smartphone like a Treo or Blackberry, but I have to admit that it was easier and more accurate than I anticipated.
  • No one should ever use a cell phone when the drive, and the iPhone will make for some awfully distracted drivers if their owners attempt to use this device while driving except for maybe answering calls.
  • Navigating contacts is really slow. With practice, perhaps an iPhone user can access their contacts at maybe 2-3 times that of a Treo user. Even after practicing a little, it took a full 20-30 seconds or so to look up and dial a contact and you have to use both hands. On my Treo, I can perform that feat one handed in under ten seconds. 
  • At this time customizing the “home screen” is not possible, and that is diappointing. Adding quick web links or frequently called numbers to the home screen would vastly improve the product.
  • No task or To Do list application. 

Although impressed at the ease of setup, the seamless synchronization to Microsoft Outlook, the nice interface and presentation, I wouldn’t trade my Treo 755p for an iPhone. If Apple through a real keyboard on it, allowed cut, copy, and paste, and enabled the highest speed wireless Internet, I would only then consider it…but definitely not jump on it.

 

Riding Shotgun with Adam — 1 Comment
30
May 07

Dang! There’s a computer program for everything

In the basic computer classes I teach for the local Parks and Rec., I discuss how computers should make our lives easier, not more difficult. I have often written on this site and talked on the show about how your computer should be a tool and you shouldn't feel obligated to learn features and programs that you don't have any interest in.

Anyone can use a computer to make their job or project easier. There are software programs for tracking finances, astronomy, bird watching, tracking trucking logs, and teaching horses to dance.

That's right. There are software programs for teaching horses to dance.

Today I visited with a client to in involved in choreography and training for dressage. You know, dressage – teaching horses to dance in front of an audience and judges.

Over the years I have helped teach her how to edit music for her shows. She used to video tape a routine then try to find music that would match up with the horses instinctive rhythm.

Today when I visited her she had a program that did it all for her. Here's generally how it works.

First, she spends time with the rider and the horse and a metronome. As she watches and works with the horse, she uses the metronome to gauge the natural rhythm of the horse.

Next, she finds music that matches the beats per minute. She uses music editing software to piece together different cuts from songs. She also slows songs down or speeds them up if they don't quite match up.

Last, she imports the songs into Dressage Divas a 3D horse dancing choreography simulator to put the routine together.

As soon as I saw how the program worked, I knew what I would write about tonight in my article.

Can you get any more niche than software made for horse dancing choreography? It seems that you can. The company that publishes Dressage Divas makes a whole line of equestrian training and show software.

Hopefully someone who is looking to teach their horse to dance will discover this article before they spend tons of time trying to do all of the tough work in the field.

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