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Laser Printers

Many more of my clients are opting for laser printers as their primary printer. And why not! Laser printer costs have dropped dramatically over the past two years and consumables are as much as 60% less than ink jet printers. Their prints won’t smudge, their ink (toner) NEVER dries out, and they are generally much faster than ink jets.

Monochrome  laser printers can be found for less than $100 and perform admirably for email, word processing and Internet prints. For about $250 you can look at color laser printers. Color laser printers won’t give you the photo quality that ink jets provide, but they’re not bad for the occasional print and are awesome for greeting cards, flyers, and brochures. I still think that computer users are better off printing out pictures with services such as Shutterfly or Club Photo or using local services like drug stores and grocery stores. It’s cheaper, they look better and last longer than prints made at home.

RSS – Really Simple Syndication

RSS has been around for quite a few years already, but we have not brought it up as an official tip. We purposefully held off because we wanted the technology to mature and for the technology to truly become usable. We also delayed the idea a little until we perfected how we were going to offer this exciting web technology on our site.

This week, we just want to introduce you to the topic and then next week give you the step-by-step on how to best utilize RSS. RSS, originally developed by Netscape, stands for Rich Site Summary. Somewhere along the line, the acronym became more commonly known as Really Simple Syndication.

RSS allows web site owners to ‘share’ their content (articles, tips, pictures, audio, video, etc) with other sites or users. Instead of having to physically go to our site, for example, to see what is new on a given day, you could use RSS to check on the headlines from our site. The headlines would link you back to the site where you could read the entire article. Customizable portal pages like Yahoo, Google and MSN offer will let you add any RSS content to the page as well. Think of RSS as being able to truly customize and instantly receive the exact information and entertainment that fits you. No more schlepping through other people’s content, you can create your own!

For those of you who crave more in depth information and history of RSS, please refer to these two sites:

Wikipedia -RSS
History of RSS

Next week, we will teach you how to look for, compile and utilize RSS content or what are known as ‘feeds’.

Picture Slideshows….take a cue from TV

My daughter ‘graduated’ from middle school today. During the ceremony, a group of ambitious students put together a 60-75 slides, using Microsoft PowerPoint, documenting their 8th grade year. PowerPoint and other slideshow making programs give us great flexibility in putting together our pictures like never before.

Does anyone use the old slide projectors anymore?

These students had a minimum slide time of 20 seconds and some slides were on screen for almost 30 seconds. Needless to say, the impact of the program was dramatically reduced because of the extremely long time the audience had to stare at the same picture. The students also put the slideshow to music. Being of the video and Internet age, I would have thought these students would have questioned the length of slides, but I also expected their tech teacher to point it out as they were putting it together. The kids showed some gumption in doing the slideshow, so I have no fault with them at all…I just wish the teachers would have helped guide them.

Picasa 2 Revisited

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. Download Either click on this button, or go to www.picasa.com and click on the Free Download button.

Sending pictures via email

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.

The adventures of Rick and Adam in Glenwood

Today Rick and I spent a while in Glenwood working on the handout material for our eBay class to be held on May 2 from 1-4pm. Rick had to get his VW Van worked on and so I went along and we made a business meeting out of it.

After the van was done we stopped at the only tech store in Glenwood (Staples) and looked at all of the computers (about six of them) and other goodies.

We walked over to the digital cameras and looked them over quickly. While we were talking a salesman came over and asked if we needed help. "Yes," replied Rick, "What is a megapixel?"

The salesperson gave a short definition. "Are more megapixels better?" Rick asked. The sales person’s answer was amazing in its accuracy yet it showed how clueless sales people can be about thier customers.

Add folders to Picasa’s index

When you first install Picasa, it asks if you want to scan your entire computer or just your My Documents folder for pictures. If you select one option but change your mind, you can add more folders or subtract folders to the Picasa index by doing the following:

1. Click on FILE

2. Click on Add Folders to Picasa

3. Select a file then click on the "Always Scan" bullet at the side.

4. Click OK and it will scan all the given folders for photos. 

What to do if your CD doesn’t autostart or it autostarts incorrectly

Often computers forget how to start up CDs automatically when you put them into the drive or they start up in the wrong program starts up.

To solve this problem go through the following steps:

1. Close any programs that are running.

2. Double-click on My Computer (on your desktop or in the right pain of your XP start menu).

3. Right-click on your CD-ROM icon.

4. Click on Explore from the menu that comes up.

This will open up a window showing the contents of the disk. From this point you can click on the "Setup" icon if you are trying to install a program. If the disk contains pictures or music, double click on the files that you want to look at or listen to. 

Shareware and Freeware – March 2006

We haven’t covered this topic since 1999!

Shareware is software that you can "try before you buy". The developer usually provides the program for free of charge with either some features disabled or a time limit on how long the product can be used. To unlock all the features or use the program past its expiration date, you must pay for a registration number. This type of marketing works quite well for developers who make good products.

Freeware is software that you can use for no cost at all. Developers providing this software usually create the program to either fill a niche or jus practice creating new programs.

Programs by small developers can be found for almost any purpose you need. Everything from organizing pictures to creating labels and from recording music to changing wallpaper. The only places I recommend hunting for and downloading freeware and shareware are:

Download.com
Tucows.com
Nonags.com
Palm Gear (for Palm Pilot users)