We discussed Picasa 2 late last year, but since then I have discovered many more wonderful things that can be done with the program. In fact, I now use it more often than any other program for my day-to-day digital photography.
HOW TO GET PICASA:
1. 
Either click on this button, or go to www.picasa.com and click on the Free Download button.
Computer users are always grateful to learn new tricks of the trade. One ‘trick’ that was implemented with Windows XP more than five years ago continues to escape many computer users…send pictures via email efficiently. Sure you might be sending digital photos as attachments, but can you send more than one at time? Are you resizing your photos before sending them so they don’t require horizontal and vertical scrolling? Do they travel quickly through the Internet or do they take a long time to transmit?
No matter now…this tip will get you sending multiple, appropriately sized photos quickly with Windows XP.
We talk about the Microsoft Configuration Utility (msconfig) so much, that we have a t-shirt available for it in our store. Msconfig is accessed by:
Once in the utility, you want to click the "Startup" tab. Here is a list of some the programs that can be safely unchecked. After doing so, click OK, and restart the computer as instructed and your computer should run just a little better.
These are the most frequent programs we come across that do NOT need to start automatically. Unchecking the boxes in msconfig has absolutely no effect on running the actual programs. For more information on what the heck is starting up automatically on your computer, check out this easily navigatable list.
I talk about this almost continuously it seems and hope that I’m preaching to the choir, but the topic comes up constantly in my travels…backup. Backup is probably the least interesting, but certainly the MOST IMPORTANT topic that we can discuss regarding computers.
Today, I ran across yet another computer user whose computer wouldn’t boot up and he didn’t have a backup. Fortunately, he knows a smart guy who can help recover the data, but data recovery is risky, expensive business and the results aren’t always 100%. I implore and beg you to start and maintain a backup program that will protect your precious digital data in the event of a meltdown. Search our site for the single word "backup" and you will be rewarded with many articles and tips covering backup.
One trend in printers that I am starting to see is the networked printer. Manufacturers are offering network (wired and wireless) options on many new ink jet and laser printers. Network options in a printer means that you can hook the printer directly to a router (device you may already be using to share your high speed Internet) instead of connecting to your computer.
By using a networked printer, the printer is accessible to anyone who is currently connected to the network either via Ethernet or wirelessly. Any new computers must install the printer’s driver before printing. But once configured, you no longer need to have any other computer turned on in order to access the printer. This feature eases the installation and use of a printer that needs to be accessed by many.
WARNING: This tip involves editing the Registry, so only perform these steps IF you feel comfortable making changes to a part of the computer where one wrong move can bring your whole system down.
Performing these steps will disable the "compress files" part of the Windows Clean Up utility:
Microsoft has built in a few features into Windows to make the operation of the computer a little less annoying. As the word Accessibility suggests, they were designed to aid computer users who have a hearing, visual or physical disability. However, many of the features can help any computer user.
To access the Accessibility Options, Click Start –> Control Panel, then double-click the "Accessibility Options" icon.
StickyKeys – If your fingers don’t function like a contortionist or you find it hard to press combinations of keys for shortcuts, enable this feature. It configures the computer so that if you need to push a combination of keys, you can push them one at a time and get the same affect as pushing them together.
FilterKeys – For heavy hands or if you tend to rest your fingers too long on the keys, enabling and tweaking the settings in this section will teach the computer to understand your individual touch of the keyboard.
ToggleKeys – If you tend to accidentally push the Num Lock or Caps Lock keys, this feature will give you an audible beep when those keys are turned on and off to bring your attention to them.
Use these settings to give you visual cues when your computer is making error or warning sounds.
Set High Contrast mode if full color is hard to distinguish
Cursor Options – Make the "blinking cursor" easier to say by changing the width of the cursor (very helpful) and the speed at which it blinks.
Enable this setting to use the directional keys on the keyboard like a mouse.
Other options available for accessibility can be found by clicking Start –> All Programs –> Accessories –> Accessibility. You can find a basic "screen narrator" that reads the screen to you, a screen magnifier, and an on-screen keyboard to use in place of a traditional keyboard.
For more details on these tools and more, visit the Windows XP Accessibility Resources section of Microsoft’s web site.
Almost seven years ago, I created some form templates for a customer of mine who is a salesman. He wanted to automate some forms that he filled out frequently so that he could minimize his time filling out forms and increase his time selling products. He gave me the forms that he currently filled out by hand, and I re-created them in Microsoft Word using Tables and the form features available in Word.
The final form was then saved as a Word Template (so it could be used over and over without affecting the original). All he had to do was double-click on a shortcut that pulled up a blank form for him to fill out and then print, email, and or save. The form even contained calculated fields to total his line items and the entire order. Did you know Word could do that?
I visited my client again today and we tweaked those seven year old documents to match his current needs. I really enjoy helping clients come up with ways to improve their efficiency using tools already on their computer.
If you are interested in how to create fillable forms with Microsoft Word, I found these online tutorials to be a good start:
This is a short note to help those folks who are having problems with opening Word documents after a critical update from Windows last week. It appears it is unique to folks with some specific HP software.
After studying it, I would recommend going to Add/Remove Programs and remove the HP Share-to-Web program (unless you are really using that feature…most people don’t). If you do use that feature or want to learn more about the cause and fix for this problem. Visit Microsoft’s Support site and read their article.
Many of you are familiar with how to search the Internet, but did you know you could search through your email similarly? Look for the "Search" function in Thunderbird and the "Find" function in Outlook or Outlook Express in the Edit menu.
Using these tools, you can quickly search through hundreds of messages to find a specific sender, content of the message, etc. Simply fill in the boxes corresponding to the information you want to search for. You can choose to search for a word in the From, To, Subject or Body of the message.