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Fun, private, and easy-to-use photo sharing web site

Last week, a customer of mine sent me a site called Schwup from Muvee Technologies. Muvee designed Schwup from the ground up to be site where multiple people could contribute to the same web photo album. For example, if you just returned from a weekend trip to San Diego to see the U.S. Open and play golf, you and your buddies could return home and all upload photos to the same album so each could have access to them.

There are many photo sharing options on the web, but Schwup aims to be slightly different by offering a free service that can be accessed by multiple people through an invite system, and currently offers no storage limitations.

Defrag, scan disk, and deleting cookies don’t do much

In the computer world, there are hot rodders – people who will tweak their computers to get every last bit of horse power out of their systems.

Just as with automobiles, techniques used by hot rodders were once necessary in the early days when horse power was hard to come by.

Today, most computers come with all the horsepower most people need. Important tasks like defragmenting the hard drive, running scan disk and deleting cookies no longer do anything spectacular to the performance of the average computer.

Cookies are harmless – even the shady ones. Defragging does little on a 250 gig hard drive and scandisk is take care of by utility features in Windows that run every time you boot up or shut down.

Why print pictures at home?

We talk about this topic many times here at HelpMeRick.com, but too few people are reaping the benefits (and cost savings) of printing their digital photos via a print shop instead of at home. Printing pictures at home costs a lot of money and takes up way too much time. And unless you spring for the more expensive printers, inks, and paper, the results of home printing are sub-par at best.

Successful eBay Buying – Video Tip

eBay has been around for more than 10 years. However, many computer users still find eBay either dangerous or hard to figure out. In this week’s tip, I set forth some simple steps to help make your eBay experience, a good experience.

In the video, I demonstrate my four steps to finding a reputable eBay buyer:

  1. Never consider an auction that has exorbitant shipping costs
  2. Study the eBay sellers profile. Positive feedback percentage (I recommend only 98% and higher), total number of feedbacks, and read actual member feedbacks
  3. Carefully read the auction description and study the item photos.
  4. If you have any questions or would like more information, ask the seller BEFORE bidding.

I also point out, in the video, that none of these rules work unless we all leave honest feedback after the completion of any auction you complete…good or bad. I didn’t mention in the video that you should always know your product and not get caught up in the excitement of auction bidding and over-bid your position.

Take a look at the video below…it will save you a lot of grief when buying on eBay, and probably make you a more frequent eBay buyer!

The $399 Power Computer

Last week, I was charged with finding a computer for a customer who only wanted it for Internet, email, and word processing. He didn’t want to add any games, extra programs, or anything else to it. My first thought, as I was listening to his needs, was Ubuntu. One other request was not to break the bank on cost. Lastly, he told me that he would be hooked up to a high speed cable Internet service.

Upon talking a little more, I explained my idea bout an Ubuntu Linux machine. He asked, “Does it do Internet? Email?” I said, “Yes.” He agreed that it sounded fine to him.

Managing your digital photos

Organizing your digital photos is so important. Too often I see people who have major computer problems and think that everything is backed up only to find that their digital photos were so spread out on their computer that the only had a portion of them backed up.

Many people simply copy their digital photos onto their computer wherever a given piece of software puts them and they have no idea where that is. These notes will help you setup a system for managing your digital photos so they will be easy to find and backup even without programs like Picasa.

Here are a few links that will help you:

Rick Castellini’s file management PowerPoint presentation

Think twice before your blame your computer’s manufacturer for problems

“What brand of computer do you recommend?” is one of the most common questions I get asked. My answer is usually, “It really doesn’t matter as long as it is a name brand and has the specs that you need.”

I often hear comments like, “Our first computer was a Dell and we constantly had problems with viruses and spam,” or “I’m never going to get another HP, this one just locks up and crashes all the time.”

Most computer problems I see every day have nothing to do with the parts they are made up of. Most home computer problems are software related – not hardware.

Save pictures from email – Video Tip

It’s been almost one year since I first posted this tip. We have many new visitors this year, and not enough of you are heading my advice yet on this subject, so I’m posting it again. Please believe me when I tell you that this tip alone can save you countless dollars, time, and tears!

Through my travels, I have noticed that many computer users save emails with pictures because they are unsure of how to save those pictures. Saving lots of pictures in your email program can drastically slow down the performance of the email program over time. Email programs typically can handle thousands of messages, but if something happens to the email database, and you haven't backed up those databases, the pictures will be gone for good. Your best insurance for saving pictures is to save them to a folder on your computer (like My Pictures or a subfolder of My Pictures) then back them up on a regular basis.

To save pictures from your email to a folder on your hard drive, do the following:

Outlook Express

1. Click the paper clip icon in the preview pane*
2. Click Save Attachments
3. In the "Save To" box at the bottom of the dialog box that pops up, click Browse and choose where YOU want to save the pictures and click OK
4. Click Save

* If you read your Outlook Express email in its own window, then RIGHT Click on the

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.

Photoshop Restoration in Elements

Tips and tricks for restoring old photos and removing blemishes digitally

Meeting notes from 02-26-08

Tools needed:

A good scanner

For prints, almost any scanner will do pretty well, but if you are doing small photos, slides or negatives, you will probably want to go with a nicer Epson scanner such as the  Epson Perfection 4490. These scanners offer transparancy scanning for slides and negatives as well as very high 4800 dpi resolution for well under $200.