(jessica)

This question was submitted by a reader:

Okay, here goes: What is your opinion about rechargeable batteries? My camera takes four AA batteries, so when I bought it I also bought several sets of Powerex rechargeables. My thinking was that I wouldn’t be putting so many batteries into the landfill. But they are holding their charge [...]]]>

(jessica)

This question was submitted by a reader:

Okay, here goes: What is your opinion about rechargeable batteries? My camera takes four AA batteries, so when I bought it I also bought several sets of Powerex rechargeables. My thinking was that I wouldn’t be putting so many batteries into the landfill. But they are holding their charge for a much shorter time now, so I have to get either alkalines or more rechargeables. Which kind is better, considering the costs and convenience? If you like rechargeables, is one brand better than another, or are they all alike?

I think the answer to that is entirely environmental. My main cameras now all have lithium batteries, so recharging is what I do.

I have had cameras that run on two or four AA batteries and did the same thing you did and bought rechargeables. But any rechargeable battery has a certain number of times it can be recharged. That is why yours are not holding the charge as well as they should.

In my experience, rechargeable AA batteries last in the camera longer than regular ones. I would carry a set of regular AAs in the field in case I ran out of rechargeables, but the regulars seemed very short lived.

So for the sake of the environment and your expected battery life in the camera, I would suggest buying new rechargeables. Over the long haul, it is a much more economical approach as well.

This is my favorite printer – ever!

This model is on sale now, which could mean a newer model is coming out, but I have been loving this model, so I am doing the review anyway.

Why do I love it? Let me count the ways:

It is wireless. That means I can print to it from anywhere [...]]]> (jessica)

This is my favorite printer – ever!

This model is on sale now, which could mean a newer model is coming out, but I have been loving this model, so I am doing the review anyway.

Why do I love it? Let me count the ways:

It is wireless. That means I can print to it from anywhere on the premises – from my laptop – or my desktop – with no cords involved. It also has the usual connections vis USB if you don’t have wireless. Setting up the wireless took  about a minute and pushing two buttons on the printer itself. I carry this printer back and forth to the gallery and can easily switch it to that wireless signal.

The ink is CHEAP. The printer uses a black cartridge and a 5 Color Cartridge. The price for the two of them is around $23 (as compared to $70-$100+ for other printers). And I get just as much life (pages) out of the cartridges as I did with other brand printers.

The ink is waterproof, archival, pigment ink. This means you can paint over prints or collage them without the ink running. It means you can do Sheer Heaven Transfers that do not bleed through even thin papers and are also waterproof so you can paint over them.

The photo printing is Kodak great. Yes, Kodak does know how photos should look. These prints have none of the off color of Epson pigment ink prints.

The printhead is a replaceable part!!! The reason I had to discard my Epson printers in less than a year each, was that pigment inks are thicker and can clog printheads. The printhead on this printer is a replaceable, snap-in part. I have not had to replace the printhead on the 5250, but when I owned the very first Kodak printer, I had to replace it twice, and Kodak sent me the replacement free. They still do that, but obviously, they have improved something because I have had no nozzle problem that the cleaning function did not resolve.

Great paper feeding. I print on a lot of stuff and some is thick. My own waterproof inkjet canvas that I sell on Cre8it.com is thick. On many other printers, you have to attach a lead sheet which is a pain. The Kodak 5250 just pulls it through as if it is copy paper.

It’s also a scanner and copier. I have not used the scanner because I have two others, but I use the 5250 for waterproof color copies all the time – and borderless, no less! No computer is involved in that process – you make your choices on the nice big LCD screen menu on the printer. You can also use that menu to print directly from most memory cards without going through the computer.

And maybe most exciting of all . . .

There’s an APP for that! Only one thing drives me crazy about my wonderful iPhone. You can’t print photos directly from it. And the same is true, at the moment, of the iPad. Well, this printer has an App (free download from iTunes) that will allow you to print wirelessly from your iPhone or iPad!

The best price I have found currently is $109 at Amazon.

You will see only mediocre reviews there. I can’t speak to the complaints some of these people have, but I have had all three models of the Kodak all-in-one printers. The first was problematic. I had to replace the printhead twice and it was slow with Mac, but it still lasted 2 years before I recycyled it. The second generation was fine (ESP-5) and I still have it as a back-up in the garden room. The wireless 5250, I adore, and I will never switch back to another brand.

The mouse itself is under 3 inches long, under 2 inches wide, and little over an inch high.

The cord is retractable and stretches to about 30 inches when extended.

The cost is around $18 – $20.

This is the only type of mouse [...]]]> (Tizzie)These tiny, retractable mice can be found at Best Buy, other electronic stores, and online.

The mouse itself is under 3 inches long, under 2 inches wide, and little over an inch high.

The cord is retractable and stretches to about 30 inches when extended.

The cost is around $18 – $20.

This is the only type of mouse I have used for ten+ years, and even with the colossal number of computer hours accrued, I do not have any trouble with my tendons in my hand. These mice are so small that you can basically close your hand over them in a number of restful positions, and avoid the weird, stretched-out hand position that a regular size mouse demands.

That’s the greatest benefit, but the fact they are so lightweight and portable is another. They can tuck into a pocket and go anywhere with you and your laptop.

I am constantly surprised when people see my mini-mouse and fall in love at “first-sight”. Another one of those things I thought everybody already knew about.

I have several different brands and models and they have all been good – Kensington, Targus, etc. The models change all the time, so I will just suggest that you Google “mini-mice” and see what you find.

It never ceases to amaze me how often I casually mention something I thought *everybody* in the universe knew all about, and someone will jump up and down all excited because they never heard of it before.

So, Technical Tizzie is going to share those things when they come up – just to be absolutely [...]]]> (Technical Tizzie)

It never ceases to amaze me how often I casually mention something I thought *everybody* in the universe knew all about, and someone will jump up and down all excited because they never heard of it before.

So, Technical Tizzie is going to share those things when they come up – just to be absolutely sure nobody in the Universe is missing out.

The word Google is synonymous with Search. Everybody uses Google all the time – each in their own way.

I met someone who had no idea what the address box on her browser was for – or that there even was one. She did everything through Google – had never typed in a web address and didn’t know what they were!

And my friend, Sue, types her questions into Google as if she were having a leisurely conversation over lunch – long, complicated questions, and somehow, Google finds answers for her.

Most folks are used to their search results being a page of links to Web Pages. But at the top of the Google page, you see this . . .

If you click on Images instead of Web, you get this . . .

This adds a whole new dimension to your search, and depending on what you are trying to find out, the Images mode can get you answers much more quickly.

Suppose you are trying to identify a bird you see in your garden. You wonder if it might be a Juniper Titmouse. So you Google Juniper Titmouse, and here are the results in Web mode . . .

These websites would certainly be worth going through to learn about this bird, but if you search Images . . .

How much easier it is to tell if the bird in your yard might be a Juniper Titmouse (my favorite bird, by the way).

So the next time you are searching, switch back and forth between the Web and Image search for a much richer result.

The subject of photo resolution and sizing is probably one of the most confusing subjects in computer graphics, and if you don’t think it is, you probably don’t really know very much about it.

When we are talking about printed images, the subject is still complicated and needs careful consideration.

However, most of [...]]]> Technical Tizzie . . .

The subject of photo resolution and sizing is probably one of the most confusing subjects in computer graphics, and if you don’t think it is, you probably don’t really know very much about it.

When we are talking about printed images, the subject is still complicated and needs careful consideration.

However, most of us, most of the time, are using our images on the web, where there is just one useful resolution – screen resolution of 72ppi, and our major concern is the dimensional size of the photo – since many of them come from the cameras at billboard size.

For this resizing, there are some very simple, online solutions and this is one of my favorites – a website called ShrinkPictures.com

The interface is elegant in its simplicity:

1. You click “Choose File” to go to your computer to choose the photo you want to resize.

2. Choose your desired width in pixels. 800 pixels wide is usually the absolute maximum you would want, and 400-600 is better for most uses.

3. You could make the photo B&W or Sepia if you wanted to for some reason.

4. Choose a quality.

5. Click the Resize red button.

Some buzzing and whirring occurs and you are presented with your resized photo.

You can Right-Click on it to Save it back to your computer with a new name or just hit the provided Download link, in which case it is saved to your computer with one of those numeric gobble-de-goop names.

You can then delete the online version – or it will be automatically deleted after 2 hours.

I love this site. It should remove a lot of resizing angst for everyone working with online images.

It’s a great font created by Tobias Sommer that is free for personal use.

His photo explains it all. You might want to paint them over when you are done to hide [...]]]> Lots of people are loving putting words on their walls, and here’s a way to make them at home – in any size you want.

It’s a great font created by Tobias Sommer that is free for personal use.

His photo explains it all. You might want to paint them over when you are done to hide the lines and dashes, but this looks like fun for both sides of your brain!

Here is the link to Tobias’s Download:

http://www.dafont.com/punched-out.font

The Page even allows you to test a word or phrase of your own – to see what the letters would look like. If anybody does this, we would love to see it!

That [...]]]> Technical Tizzie has been shaking the nuts and bolts in her head a bit, trying to figure out what she wants this blog to be. Answering questions and giving tips is part of it, but when she conceived this blog, she was thinking mostly of sharing the magic that high-tech brings to our creative lifestyle.

That thought really came home as she was helping The Art Garden put some music together for the holiday. In the “old” daze, that job would have taken days. We would have had to buy a CD/Tape player, and make a mix by recording cuts from a pile of CDs or tapes onto a single tape or CD, and then whoever was in the gallery would still have to switch the CD or tape everytime it finished.

But, no more of that! This time, we used an iPod and iTunes to compile a fascinating mix of old classics and new renditions. Odd combos like Bob Seger singing “Oh Holy Night”. Melissa Etheridge with new compositions entirely. And such.

Tizzie made a Playlist, set the iPod to play it in Shuffle mode, plugged it into one of those iPod speaker sets, and hit Play. All done – the same set of music played in different sequences for two weeks and nobody had to spend another thought or moment on it!

The only mystery for some folks might be to get your Playlist to Shuffle. Seems if you choose Shuffle Songs, and then go on to choose a Playlist, the iPod just plays the Playlist in sequence.

So, here’s the tip:

See where it says “Settings” above? That is where you set your iPod to Shuffle mode. Then you can proceed to Music and choose your Playlist. You should see the little Shuffle icon displayed. Hit Play and your Playlist will Shuffle. And that will hold true even after you turn the iPod off and on again – until you go back to Settings and turn the Shuffle off.

Now Tizzie is off to create a new, non-holiday playlist for January!

Watch on YouTube

If you have not seen this before, here is almost 5 minutes of fascinating creativity. Talk about an art journal!!

When I found this, in a local wild bird store of all places, I fell in love instantly. Talk [...]]]> As a photographer for all these years, I have used blowers and lens papers and lens cleaner until I am blue in the face, had many little bottles of lens cleaner leak in the camera bag, etc.

When I found this, in a local wild bird store of all places, I fell in love instantly. Talk about convenient!

A Brush is recessed into one end and you extend it with the yellow slide. The brush stays clean between uses.

If you remove the cap from the other end, you have a cleaning disc that is revolutionary.

The disc is rubber with a microfiber face that is infused with carbon – which absorbs the oils of fingerprints.

Dust and fingerprints are the worst type of dirt on our lenses, and if you wipe away finger prints with a len tissue, you smear it instead of making it disappear – even using lens cleaning fluid. Worse still, if there is a piece of grit on the lens, wiping can scratch it.

So with the lens pen, you first use the brush to get rid of any dust or grit, and then wipe any fingerprints away with the cleaning disc.

The disc is self-cleaning as well because the inside of the cap has a sponge infused with carbon, so a turn of the cap cleans the disc.

Best of all, you will find this for $9.95 in camera stores – and only $7.52 at Amazon:

Nikon Lens Pen

(Lens pens are made by one company. Nikon and other manufacturers can have them made with their own brand on them.)

Here is a 5 minute video on how this pen works.

Technical Tizzie has not forgotten about answering your questions. She has just been speeding around some serious learning curves of her own!

In response to  the Comments last time:

I reiterate that it is not good to keep your photos *inside* any software so I will explain a good system for storage in a moment.

If your camera will no longer read a memory card, it is probably the card itself that is corrupted, not that the camera is [...]]]>

In response to  the Comments last time:

I reiterate that it is not good to keep your photos *inside* any software so I will explain a good system for storage in a moment.

If your camera will no longer read a memory card, it is probably the card itself that is corrupted, not that the camera is broken. Just buy a new card (they are very inexpensive now) and try it. Your camera is probably fine.

No one waits until their card is full to transfer photos to the computer or to empty the card. That should be done after every shoot.

Attaching a camera to a computer by the USB port does not damage the camera – it just runs down the battery.

Now – about storing those photos:

Most folks keep important files inside folders (directories) in their Document Folder or My Documents on PC. So, that is the logical way to store and organize your photos.

Make a Main Folder and name it something that makes sense, like Photo Collection or Photographs (I call mine Photo Depot).

Inside of that folder, create a folder every time you download a shoot. Name that folder with the date and a name if appropriate. If all photos are from your cousin’s wedding, you could name it that – along with the date.

But most times, there are photos from a few places in that one download, and so just the date is good. If you work with several cameras as I do, you may want to add the camera name.

WITHIN that dated folder, create new folders for each place or occasion where the photos were taken. These titles are important because that is how your computer will search when you want to find your cousin’s wedding pictures again.

So for example, within my Photo Depot folder may be a folder labeled iPhone 10-09-09. If I open that folder, there may be a Garden folder, a Dogs folder, etc.

Think of your main Photo Depot folder as the bank where the originals are kept and back it up often to an external drive. You can copy folders or individual photo files into iPhoto or Elements Organizer, etc. to do what you do there. But those will be copies and your originals will not be changed, lost, or misplaced.

From the File menu in PhotoShop or Elements, you can navigate through your Photo Depot folder to find any folder or file you want to open and work on. If you do edits you want to save, save them back to the same folder of originals – but with a different name. I usually save these edited files as a TIFF file right back in the same file it came from. Then I have the original and an edited version to choose from in the future.

“Nested” folders – which is what this type of system is called seem confusing at first. But if you think of them exactly as you would real world file folders in your file cabinet, they are not confusing at all – they are just folders within folders.

Tizzie is a Mac and, honestly, when PC c-drive problems etc. are involved in a question, she is *really* glad she is a Mac. Solving PC operating issues from a distance, has the same chance [...]]]> This post is prompted by the plight of Cecilia in her comment last time about automatic back-ups and missing photo files.

Tizzie is a Mac and, honestly, when PC c-drive problems etc. are involved in a question, she is *really* glad she is a Mac. Solving PC operating issues from a distance, has the same chance of success as climbing a rope that isn’t tied to anything.

So, we are going to talk about this subject in a more generic way that will be helpful to everyone. It’s a big subject, even though the procedures are actually easy. We will cover it in a couple of posts.

As more and more people get on the high-tech train, manufacturers keep dumbing down operations – trying to get to an “everybody can do it” place. This works out sometimes, but often, it utterly destroys the original concept (like in the confusing mess of photo resolution these days – but that is another big subject – for a different post).

Whenever you can opt out of a situation where the computer is doing something for you, and you don’t *completely* understand what it is doing, opt out. Do the thing by hand instead.

Especially in the case of your precious photo files. You should *always* be in control. So, here is Part 1 of Tizzie’s “White Paper” on downloading your photo files:

The Photo Files
A photo file functions exactly the same way as any other file on your computer – like a word document, a database file etc. They are all different types of files, and it takes different software programs to create and edit them, but as far as file management – like uploading, downloading, copying, storing, transferring and so on, they are the same.

Many cameras (like Olympus for example) treat the files this way – as they should. When you plug an Olympus camera into your USB port, the memory card on the camera shows up as if it were any external drive. Your photo files are in a folder and you can drag them to your computer and put them wherever you want them (more on deciding where you want them in a bit).

When you are sure a copy of all of them is on your computer, you can safely go back and drag the files on the memory card to the Trash, Empty the Trash, and your card will be empty and ready for the next session of picture taking. Eject the card like you would any external drive, unplug the camera from the USB, and you’re all set.

That’s the way it should be done.

Unfortunately, some manufacturers, like Canon, have it set up so when you plug the camera into the USB, you can’t access or download anything without launching their software, or some software.

For example, my iPhone can only be downloaded through iPhoto – which proceeds with its own idea of how to organize and store my photos – and it might not be my way.

The problem with this procedure is that the software program now “contains” your files, and all sorts of confusion can result from that. Not the least of which is that you often can’t find the photos when you want to open them in Photoshop, for example. Often, the program creates “aliases” which are just empty labels for the files that get stored somewhere else. I have at least one friend who somehow ended up with only those aliases and her real photo files have gone missing.

The long and the short of this is that you *DO NOT* want your real photo files organized and stored by any software program. If you like working with iPhoto or your camera’s program for editing or making albums and such, you can put copies in there to play with, but your real files need to be stored in their own folders (directories) independent of any software.

Getting Around the Software Trap.

If your camera forces you to use software to download to your computer:

Every camera has a memory card which is the little hard drive that stores the photo files in your camera. Memory cards come out of the camera.

Many computers and printers these days are equipped with card readers. For example, my MacBook Pro has a slot which takes SD memory cards. My printer has card reading slots for all the popular cards. So, I take the card out of the camera and use the slots. This also saves camera battery life because the camera is not involved in the download.

Example: My little Kodak pocket camera forces me to use iPhoto to download via its USB cord. But it uses an SD memory card. So, I take the memory card out of the camera and stick it in the reader slot on my laptop – and there it is – just like any external drive – and I can copy my photo files to my computer.

If your computer or printer does not have a card reader, buy one. They are very inexpensive (under $20) and widely available at places like Best Buy and office supply stores. Most read several kinds of cards, and all you need to do is check that it reads the type in your camera.

To Be Continued . . . meanwhile, any questions so far?

Holly says: OK- I have 10 year’s worth of digital pictures in my computer. and lots of photoshop stuff. (the photos are backed up and on an external hard drive) My question [...]]]> Here are two questions that have been asked that are very similar. Both deal with working on files stored on an external hard drive.

Holly says: OK- I have 10 year’s worth of digital pictures in my computer. and lots of photoshop stuff. (the photos are backed up and on an external hard drive) My question is- can another external hard drive be used to put the photos and PS-work on so as to free up all that space on the hard drive? Is it safe and easy to work from an external? I have only transferred info TO an external and not worked FROM an external. Do you just ‘open’ from and ’save’ to the external?

Yes, Holly. In this instance the external hard drive works exactly the same way your internal hard drive works. You can keep all your photo files on the external drive and Open them, work on them, and Save them back to the external drive. This does save a lot of space on your internal hard drive for your software programs to have some elbow room, but make sure that you still have a second copy of those files backed up somewhere else. Hard drives, external and internal, can fail. So you never want just one copy in one place of any important file.

Jane Kimball says: Thank you for the external hard drive information. Now I have a question. Can you store programs in them too. If so, how do I do this? I want to make sure one of my huge databased programs is backed up (I have over 2,000 books in it now and will constantly be adding more). I have the file in the external drive now, but want to put the program in it too so I can work from the external whenever I want (plug it into my laptop, etc.).

In most cases you cannot install a software program on an external hard drive. The reason is that the external drive has no Operating System. Most software programs install their “helper” files into different parts of the system, and they need those files to run, so they cannot run from an external drive.

You can keep your documents on an external drive – like I believe you said you are doing already, but to open and work on them, the drive must be connected to a CPU (computer with an operating system).

Most software programs do allow you to install your program on two computers, so if you install it on your laptop as well, you will be able to travel back and forth between computers – keeping your database file on the external drive. In fact that’s a good idea because then you will always know where the most recently updated file is.

Please keep submitting your questions. Tizzie will get to them all.

Patricia G asked: Mac user with prob.a dumbish question stemming from insecurity even though I’m pretty facile and confident with Macbook (how [...]]]> Tizzie has gotten a few questions about external hard drives, so she has some simple answers for you . . . and because she knows you might ask, she will tell you about her favorite.

Patricia G asked: Mac user with prob.a dumbish question stemming from insecurity even though I’m pretty facile and confident with Macbook (how could you not be?). I want to get an external hard drive. I do artwork w/PSE6 so have loads of large MB pics. How much storage should I get. What is a TB? in reference to GB and MB? Also, when said hard drive is obtained and usb plugged in – what then. Do I just drag everything (each file) onto the hard drive icon one at a time. Is there and “everything” way to do it?

First of all, think in thousands. A Gigabyte (GB) is a thousand Megabytes. A Megabyte (MB) is a thousand Kilobytes-KB). Going larger, a Terabyte (TB) is a thousand Gigabytes.

Every computer has an internal hard drive of a certain size. All recent models have very large internal hard drives – 100 to 500 Gigabytes.

But still, when working with large files like photo files, we run out of room. And even if we didn’t run out of room, we need to back up those precious files so there is more than one copy of them in more than one place.

That’s where the external hard drive comes in. Gives you more room and provides a place to back up your files.

To transfer files from one drive (internal) to another (external) or the other way round, you just drag the files to the other drive’s icon or window. You can drag a single file or a whole folder of files at once.

This is where speed becomes a factor and it matters what kind of connection you have between your computer and the external drive.

The most common connector is the USB2.0 which all computers have and which is a little less expensive than the much faster Firewire connection.

When copying large files or large numbers of files, the USB2 can take 10 times as long as the Firewire. So, if your computer has a Firewire port, that is the type of external drive you want.

Firewire is a fast enough connection to allow you to keep video files on an external drive and edit them “live” with no delay.

My favorite external drive (pictured above and below) is made by a company that has been making reliable drives for more than 25 years, Lacie, and this one is small and tough. That’s why they call it “Rugged”.

The Rugged Portable Hard Drive from Lacie is lightweight, about the size of a paperback book, and has the USB2.0 connection plus Firewire 400 and the *very* fast Firewire 800 connection (that’s the one for the MacBook Pro). It comes with all three cables and holds 500 Gigabytes. It has no power cord because it is powered by the computer port – which makes it the *perfect* portable. The orange you see is a thick rubber coat that protects the drive in case you drop it, and if you don’t like orange, there is a little wardrobe of coats available in blue, black, and gray.

This is so much my favorite that I have two of them.

It is Plug and Play for both Macs and PCs.

The best price I found ($144.95 with free shipping) is at Amazon here:

Lacie Rugged All-Terrain 500 Firewire

Tizzie will answer more hard drive questions next time. If you have questions, please ask.

Once you have registered [...]]]> The first part is like buying any book on Amazon.com. Just search for your title in the Kindle Books category instead of just Books. This happens to be a great book on Social Technology, written by Cassie’s neighbor, as it turns out. I thought it sounded good and wanted it right away.

Once you have registered your iPhone Kindle App, you will see this box on a Kindle book page:

If your credit card and iPhone number are on file with Amazon, all you need is one click to either buy the book or get a Sample first. Either way, the book or sample is sent instantly to your iPhone. It will be on your list of books the next time you launch your Kindle App on your phone.

If you have gotten the free Sample, you can purchase the whole book right from your iPhone if you like it – or you can go back to Amazon and buy the book this time.

I tell you. This stuff just amazes me. If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would be in line at the Post Office, have someone suggest a good book, and I could be reading it there in line before they got through recommending it – I just would never have believed it. We live in a magic time.

A person as busy as I am loves streamlined operations and things that make daily To-Do lists easier or at least, more pleasant.

With my iPhone in my purse or pocket, I have my phone (obviously), my address book, my notebook, my [...]]]> Well, it is certainly no secret that I love my iPhone more than most things.

A person as busy as I am loves streamlined operations and things that make daily To-Do lists easier or at least, more pleasant.

With my iPhone in my purse or pocket, I have my phone (obviously), my address book, my notebook, my camera, my GPS, weather report, calculator, entire music collection, stereo player, email, and internet connection right there at hand. And that’s not to mention the painting, drawing, and photo-editing programs (more about that later).

But when I heard my iPhone could be the book I’m currently reading, my heart did a pitter-patter, a hop, skip, and a jump, and by then, I had my Kindle App downloaded and was buying my first hardcover best seller for $9.99! Delivered in seconds to my iPhone, so I was reading it 2 minutes after I thought of it!

I admit, just like many folks, when I first heard about the Kindle from Amazon, I wasn’t too excited. I like the feel of a good book. It didn’t seem to me that holding a flat plastic screen that was as big as a book anyway would be all that exciting.

But on the iPhone!? That’s something else again. I have it with me anyway – standing in line at the Post Office or when I stop off for coffee and lunch somewhere. Always having a book to read was just too tempting an idea to resist.

Besides the Kindle App is free. And the books are less expensive than in bookstores. and I will buy books anyway, but this App lets me download a Sample chapter, so even if I plan to buy a real life physical book, I can read the first chapter on my iPhone first and see if it catches me before spending the money.

The first thing to do is to download the free Kindle App from the App Store at Apple.

Then go to Amazon and download some sample books. The books will be listed when you select the Kindle App on your iPhone.

Click a title and you get the first page. If you have already been reading this book, it opens to where you left off.

This is shown pretty close to life size, and the page is full screen, but what we have here are the controls that pop up so you can change the type size, type color, or bookmark a passage.

The type size shown here is only the second from smallest so you can make the type as big as you need it.

Not only is the iPhone easy to hold in one hand while reading, if you have a rubberized protective “skin” for your phone, it sits on your knee without falling off, or props against a coffee mug or anything on the table at a restaurant.

Because the screen is backlit, you can read in bed without a light, and not disturb whoever else might be in the bed – which might be the part I like best of all because I love to read myself to sleep.

More tomorrow about how easy it is to buy a book or obtain a free sample for instant delivery.

Okay, this has bugged me forever and no-one has the answer but I have a feeling Tizzie will…When I drag a photo into my photoshop7 there are two gray boxes in the top left corner that I cannot for the life of me figure out how to remove – it has an “01, [...]]]> Nancy D asked:

Okay, this has bugged me forever and no-one has the answer but I have a feeling Tizzie will…
When I drag a photo into my photoshop7 there are two gray boxes in the top left corner that I cannot for the life of me figure out how to remove – it has an “01, and then “a box with an x in it” -what the heck???

Tizzie does have that answer, in fact.

Web designers can use Photoshop to actually create web page designs, then slice them up and load them into web software in pieces like a puzzle. Why do this? For things like image maps where you want to have several places in the image where viewers can Click to go to different links.

Anyway, those boxes are the Slice Count. Somehow it got checked to display, and you can turn it off here:

Uncheck the Slices Option and no more boxes.

Hope this helps,

Tizzie

You are correct that when you trash something or delete it, it is not really gone. Only its address is gone. So, you can’t find it, but a hacker could.

Even smashing your hard drive to bits would not be secure if there were [...]]]> Several of you asked this question, so we grabbed it to be next.

You are correct that when you trash something or delete it, it is not really gone. Only its address is gone. So, you can’t find it, but a hacker could.

Even smashing your hard drive to bits would not be secure if there were still a bit big enough to contain information – and that would not have to be very big – like a pinhead, maybe.

So, if you have personal info on an old computer, it is smart to do a true erase.

All ATA drives (hard drives) made since 2001 have actually contained self erasing commands called Secure Erase, but they have been disabled so people won’t erase accidentally. Learn how you can use them here.

As Jim added in a Comment, on the PC side of this, there is a free program called Eraser which will overwrite your data many times, effectively erasing it.

Tizzie did not find the instructions very easy to understand, but then, Tizzie is a Mac and we do things much more easily.

Every Mac ships with a program called Disk Utility. You can find it in the Utilities Folder within the Applications Folder. You can repair your disk with it, but you can also erase. The window looks like this:

Those 4 step instructions allow you to securely erase everything or just the files you have actually trashed or deleted – leaving everything else alone. So, if you had reason to want to really erase some files, but not your whole disk, you can do that.

AND, please do recycle those old computers so they don’t end up in a landfill.

Hope this helps,

Tizzie

jessica@wisdomwoman.com

and we’ll get your drive right out to you.

And now to answer your question while we are at it.

Question/Comment #15:

On the USB flash drive, are you able to put games on it instead of your computer and play off the USB drive? Thanks.

The problem with keeping [...]]]> Penny S – please send your snail mail address to:

jessica@wisdomwoman.com

and we’ll get your drive right out to you.

And now to answer your question while we are at it.

Question/Comment #15:

On the USB flash drive, are you able to put games on it instead of your computer and play off the USB drive? Thanks.

The problem with keeping games or video you are editing on an external drive is the access speed – the rate at which your computer processor can get the necessary info off the drive. It has to be very fast.

There are Firewire Drives which have fast enough access to allow editing video which is stored on the drive, and because I am not a gamer I don’t know if that is true for games as well.

But I do know the USB2 connection is not fast enough. So the answer is that you could not keep your game on the external drive and be able to play it.

Your new drive is great for back-up of files, though, and for transporting files back and forth from the work computer to the home computer or from the laptop to the desktop etc. And it’s cute.

Thank you to everyone for your questions. You have given Tizzie plenty to write about  and she appreciates it!

Congratulations, Penny!

Tizzie

If you missed our last post, you can still qualify to win an 8 Gig USB Drive by asking Tizzie a question about computer life in the Comments to that post.

Debbie [...]]]> Even though our Giveaway does not end until tomorrow morning, I am going to start answering some of these interesting questions from our Giveaway post.

If you missed our last post, you can still qualify to win an 8 Gig USB Drive by asking Tizzie a question about computer life in the Comments to that post.

Debbie L asked this one:

This sounds stupid… but I have used a PC forever up until a couple of months ago and now have a MAC which I love. However, I still haven’t figured out a few things (even after looking it up) like how to spell check by keystroke (so easy on a PC).

Not a stupid question at all – a new operating system does take a bit of learning.

The Keystroke Spell Check on a Mac is

Command+Shift-; (Hold down the Command and Shift Keys and type a SemiColon)

I don’t know how you check by keystroke on a PC. Perhaps Debbie will tell us.

The Mac also has system wide spell checking that happens automatically in most applications. A misspelled word will show a red dotted line beneath it.

You Right Click on the word to see the suggestions for the correct spelling. You can also add a word to the System dictionary by choosing Learn Spelling

If you choose to look up the word in the Mac Dictionary, you get this window:

Double Clicking the word brings up the definition(s) for the word.

You can also choose to include grammar in your Spell Checking, by choosing it in that same drop-down window:

If you do not have a 2 button mouse, Control-Click is a Right Click on a Mac.

Not too shabby, right, Debbie? Welcome to the world of Mac.

Tizzie