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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.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times

Software upgrades can cost you much more than they help you. Very few computer users need to upgrade any software, except for daily updates for security software.

Today, I helped a couple who became frustrated after updating from AOL 9.0 to 9.1. They relayed to me that they went ahead with the upgrade because of the promise that AOL would be easier and faster with the upgrade. After the upgrade, AOL changed their Internet Explorer and Firefox home pages, made getting to email more time consuming, and even lost some of their bookmarks.

It didn’t take long to get them back to their familiar 9.0, but they were extremely frustrated by the changes made to their system.

Moral of the story: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it nor upgrade it.

Print just what you want…

I am resurrecting this great tip from my archives. This tip first appeared about four years ago on the show and then the web site. I wanted to share it again because of our new listeners and the extreme usefulness of the tip.

Printing information from the web can sometimes be frustrating. A long web page yields reams of paper when you only wanted a couple of pages. Read on to learn how to print only the pages you want!

Firefox/Internet Explorer/AOL

  1. Highlight the part of the page you want to print with your mouse

  2. Click on File —> Print

Backup Your Email Address Book – Video Tip

You can back up your address book very simply to a floppy disk or USB Flash drive and the heartache it has the potential to prevent far outweighs the thirty seconds it takes to complete the task. Follow these steps depending on the program you use:

 Outlook Express Windows Mail Users

  1. Insert USB Flash Drive
  2. Start Outlook Express 
  3. Click the Address Book icon from the toolbar.
  4. Click File –> Export –> Other Address Book from the menus
  5. Choose the Text (CSV) option
  6. Click Next
  7. Click in the Save In box and choose your flash drive
  8. Type “address book backup” in the File name box
  9. Click Save
  10. Click OK after backup completes
  11. Pull out your disk, label it and keep it someplace safe

Windows Mail Users(Vista)

  1. Insert USB Flash Drive
  2. Start Windows Mail
  3. Click File –> Export –> Windows Contacts from the menus
  4. Choose CSV option
  5. Click Export
  6. Click in the Browse button and choose your flash drive
  7. Type “address book backup” in the File name box
  8. Click Save
  9. Click Next
  10. Put a checkmark in the First and Last Name fields
  11. Click Finish
  12. Click OK after backup completes
  13. Pull out your disk, label it and keep it someplace safe

Thunderbird Users

  1. Insert a USB Flash Drive
  2. Start Thunderbird
  3. Click Window –> Address book from the menus
  4. Click File –> Export
  5. Click in the Save In box and choose your flash drive
  6. Type “address book backup” in the File name box
  7. Click Save
  8. Pull out the disk, label it and keep it someplace safe

 

AOL Users

Version less than 6.0, Start AOL, open the address book, insert a floppy or USB flash drive and use the “Save/Replace” button to save your address book.

Versions greater than 6.0 do not have the option of saving to a floppy because the address book is actually saved on AOL’s computers.

Juno Users

Refer to the instructions at Juno’s web site for details if you are using Juno 5.0 or earlier. Juno Platinum users can retrieve email in Outlook Express and use the instructions above.

Any Gmail users out there?

As I move more and more of my computing away from my desktop computer to the Internet and Ubuntu, my computing life becomes less complicated and quite mobile. I can access documents, calendar information, contact information, and more from my phone (Treo 755p at the moment) and any Internet connected computer any where I happen to be.

Bresnan Security Suite

Our local cable Internet provider, Bresnan, starting sending out notices about their new security suite from Computer Associates. Computer Associates is one of the older technology companies and produces great software, and I haven’t seen the product yet, but based on the description in the email, I wouldn’t jump on board.

As with most suites, they are usually too big, too slow, and don’t protect you well enough. As of today, I recommend the Castellini on Computers Hybrid Security Suite:

1. AVG Anti-virus
2. Windows Defender
3. A router for your high speed connection
4. Windows Firewall
5. Monthly updates and scans with SypBot Search and Destroy and/or Super AntiSpyware
6. Cloudmark Desktop anti-spam
7. MOST IMPORTANT: ONLY browse the Internet with Mozilla Firefox

How to fix Windows Mail when you can’t delete messages

I ran into a problem today with a Windows Vista machine that apparently isn’t unique. This tip only applies to Windows Vista users who use Windows mail.

Problem: Can’t delete any messages in Windows Mail…which also prevents new messages from being read.

Symptom: When you try and delete a message in Windows Mail, you get an “Internal Error” message then have to restart the program.

Solution:

Print Folder Contents

The ability to print out the contents of a folder (directory) on your computer does not exist in Windows.

“Why would I need to print out a list of what is in my folders?”, you ask. A couple of reasons actually; 1) it can serve as a quick glance reference to your computer’s contents and 2) you might want to print a copy of file names that you backed up.

Thanks to the hard work and ingenuity of programmers everywhere, you can print out those folders’ contents. One such program is called Folder Print 3. It is a FREE utility that you can download and install to satisfy this need.

New computer recommendations

At least once a year, I write a short article about my current computer recommendations. The holiday season is upon us, and I haven’t written an article like this in awhile, so here goes.

In the past six months, I ask more questions than I give when approached with this question.

Scenario 1

If I find that the person has a 2-4 year old computer with Windows XP, and just thinks the computer is slow, I go with this advice: