All posts by Computers Made Simple

How to Crop a Photo Using Irfanview

October 9, 2012 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

As you may know, we’re working on another blog, http://ww1diary.com/ . That blog requires us to crop photos of a 100 year old diary. Some of the text isn’t legible or decipherable, meaning that the photos of the original words are necessary in case there is a mistake. Hopefully, as the blog becomes more popular, readers will point out our mistakes. Here’s how we crop the photos that we use in our blogs.

1. Download Irfanview and install it. Make sure you download it from Tucows, fourth or fifth down the list here: http://www.irfanview.com/main_download_engl.htm . The other download sites often insist on downloading a special program first, which it total bunk. Head to Tucows and get it there.

2. When you install Irfanview, it will ask you if you want to associate your image files with it. This means, “Do you want to allow Irfanview to be the default program for image files”. We always say yes to that but you may have different preferences. Irfanview is fast, free and very dependable. We have relied on it for years.

3. Choose the photo that you want to crop. Here is one that we will work on today:

Photo of original diary page — ***This is the full page that we have to break up into day to day sections.***

4. When you are cropping a photo, you’re essentially cutting out everything except the part you want. That could involve taking people out of a photo that aren’t part of the final image that you want, for instance. Drag your cursor across the image while holding down the left mouse button. You will see a box shape forming as you move from left to right. Practice this a few times to get it right. If you don’t get the right section, click once outside the rectangle to start again. You want something that looks like this:

Photo of crop rectangle on original photo. — **We are cropping the first entry. You see the faint rectangle shape here.**

5. Once you have the box formed around what you want to save, release the left mouse button and press the Control key and the y key at the same time. Instantly, the box that you formed will become the full photo.

6. Press the Control key and the s key at the same time and the Save dialogue will come up. Make sure you change the name of the image file to something else, otherwise the original photo will be replaced by the cropped image.

Tip: Just as you can crop a photo by hitting Control/y, you can keep the original but cut out sections by hitting Control/x instead. You’ve seen the photos of someone with a rectangle around the spot where there eyes would be, in order to disguise them. This is done using Control/x instead of Control/y. Here’s an example of that:

Photo of image with sections cut out. — **This photo has had sections cut out of it.**

We use GIMP for fine photo editing, using its cloning tools, etc., but Irfanview is our go-to tool for cropping, cutting, batch resizing, etc. Try it. We guarantee you’ll wonder what you did without it.

TIP: Although it is a bit more difficult, you can use Irfanview for batch photo cropping as well. You have to make sure that your photos are all EXACTLY the same except for some partial content, a series of screen captures comes to mind. We will deal with bulk processing in another post.

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Cloud Storage, Dropbox, Encrypt Dropbox Folder, Free Software, Privacy, Security, TrueCrypt

Protect Your Privacy with TrueCrypt – Part 3

October 4, 2012 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

In our last post, we created an encrypted volume using Truecrypt. This volume could be thought of as a folder but it’s a bit more than that. If you think of this thing that you created as a separate drive on your computer, you will have a better picture of what it really is. When you add a new hard drive to your computer, you have to mount it before you can use it. Before you can use your newly created folder, you also have to mount it. Using Truecrypt, we’ll show you how to mount the new volume in order to make use of it. 1. The new volume (folder) should be on your desktop. It may or may not have a three digit file-type designation, depending on how you chose to name it. If you didn’t use a three letter name, such as .avi or .mp3, Windows will not use an icon to give you an idea of what it thinks it is. Here’s what our volume looks like:

Photo of Truecrypt folder — **Windows knows there is something there, it just doesn’t know what.**

Just a simple, generic page icon. Windows does not associate a program with this volume/folder. You can’t double-click it to open it, right? Don’t forget that. Open Truecrypt now. 2. When Truecrypt is open, you’ll see this screen:

Photo of Truecrypt opening menu — **You are looking for ‘Select File’ then ‘Mount’.**

This is a standard Windows dialogue/menu, nothing different from most other programs. You open the program first, then use it to open a file that it can handle. Click on Select File, find the volume that you created then click Open to go back to the menu shown below. 3. Here is what you should see next :

Photo of Truecrypt menu — **The path to the file is there in the window and a drive letter may or may not be highlighted in blue.**

You will see a number of drive letters in this menu, everything from G to Z. Choose a letter that isn’t currently being used by your computer. You’re pretty safe with anything past O or P. We have chosen T for this drive. Click on the word ‘Mount’ on the lower left of the menu. 4. Make sure you have the password that you used to create this volume. Truecrypt will prompt you for the password:

Photo of Truecrypt password menu. — **Type in the password that you used to create this volume.**

If you forget your password, there is nothing that you can do to retrieve it. Whatever volume you created is lost for good. Don’t lose your password. You’ve been warned. 5. Once you enter the correct password, Truecrypt will mount the volume. In other words, it will allow you to access it. It’s not open yet but it is accessible. This is what you should have on your screen now:

Photo of mounted Truecrypt drive. — **There it is by the letter T. Note the size difference of the folder.**

This drive is now accessible in two different ways. You can either double-click it now on the Truecrypt menu or navigate to it through Windows Explorer. In our case, it is listed as ‘Local Disk T’. Once you open the drive/volume/folder, drag and drop something into it. We chose to keep our encrypted text password document in ours. In this way, our passwords are protected by two walls, one through Notepad ++’s encryption and the other through Truecrypt ‘s. TIP: After you put the files into this volume/folder/drive, make sure that you dismount it before you close down Truecrypt. The process is this: Mount the drive, add or subtract files into it, dismount it. You can’t open the volume without mounting it and you should not close it without dismounting it. This is the only way that Truecrypt can guarantee to keep its contents safe. Two long and fairly convoluted posts, right? Keeping your data safe isn’t simple but we feel that using Truecrypt doesn’t require much tech savvy. If you follow our simple step-by-step instructions, you’ll be fine. What’s next? Moving this folder around inside of Dropbox. One more post on this topic and we’re done. Thanks for reading!

Cloud Privacy, Cloud Storage, Encrypt Dropbox Folder, Encryption, Security, TrueCrypt

Protect Your Privacy with TrueCrypt – Part 2

October 3, 2012 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

In this post, we’ll describe how to encrypt a small folder using TrueCrypt, a free and very powerful encryption tool. You can put anything you want in this folder, of course, but the point of this exercise is to have something that is extremely safe from prying eyes that will allow you to keep your passwords or online account numbers private. Once you create this folder, you can put text files, documents…basically whatever you want to, as long as the total size is not larger than the folder you create. We’ll explain that later.

1. Download and install Truecrypt. You can install Truecrypt or run it from a folder. You could even keep the Truecrypt folder inside your Dropbox folder in order to make it available on every computer that you access Dropbox with.

2. Run Truecrypt. Here is the window that comes up at the start:

A volume is something that only Truecrypt can open. As you will notice later on, there is no three letter file designation to the folder/file/volume that you create. No other program will recognize it, not Windows, not Notepad, only Truecrypt.

Menu for TrueCrypt — **For the next few screens, you’ll just accept the default settings. Here, choose ‘Create an encrypted file container’ then click Next.**

Menu for TrueCrypt 3 — **Click Next to start creating a Standard TrueCrypt volume.**

Don’t get confused here. You’re not choosing a file or folder, you are really creating a volume somewhere you are on your computer. We chose our Desktop but you’re on your own here. All you do in this menu is simply type in a name, make up anything you want. You can even use a three letter file name to make this Truecrypt volume look like another kind of file. The default program for that type of file, .avi or .mp3 for instance, will NOT be able to open it, remember? Only Truecrypt can open this file.

Photo of TrueCrypt — **You’re on your own here but we chose a 1 MB file, lots of room for our password text file.**

10.

11.

12.

Move your mouse all over this menu for a minute or two then click Format. Truecrypt will then format the volume that you just made, creating, more or less, a separate drive on your computer. That drive is controlled by Truecrypt, nothing else. Windows doesn’t know anything about it, other than it takes up space. It cannot open the volume and will not even suggest a program that might open it.

13.

14.

That’s it for now. This post is long enough but we’ve accomplished a lot. You now know how to create a locked volume that can be opened only by you. Even if someone gets access to your computer or your cloud folder, they will not be able to see what is inside this folder. Cool huh?

Next time, we’ll show you how to use this volume. Basically, you just mount it using your password, open it then drop files into it and then dismount it. Once you dismount it, it is locked again.

Thanks for reading!

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Dropbox, Encrypt Dropbox Folder

Encrypt your Dropbox folder with TrueCrypt

October 1, 2012 Computers Made Simple Leave a comment

In our last post, we encrypted a text document. Here’s that article in case you missed it: Using Notepad ++ to Encrypt a Text File This post is a continuation of that theme, keeping your cloud files safe from prying eyes. Whose prying eyes? The employees and management of the various cloud companies, that’s who. Now that Microsoft has banned photos containing nudity in their SkyDrive folders, you can be certain that employees/managers/bots scan your files for offending data. Hell, your government is probably scanning those folders as well.

TrueCrypt is free. You can get it here: TrueCrypt . Once you download TrueCrypt, install it. While it is a very powerful program, Truecrypt is mostly based on passwords. If you lose your various TrueCrypt passwords, you’re totally out of luck so anything you do with this program must be done using a password that you won’t ever forget. You’ve been warned.

The concept of this whole thing is to make an encrypted folder on your computer which will become your Dropbox folder. Since that folder is synced with your online Dropbox folder, it is automatically encrypted. TIME OUT! In the middle of writing this post we discovered that the guide we were using simply doesn’t work. We managed to encrypt the Dropbox folder on one of our computers but not the online Dropbox folder. We’re back to square one here but we’ll update this post a.s.a.p. Yes, this is a short post but it’s been three days since our last one and we didn’t want anyone to think we’re sleeping on the job. We’re not. Things get in the way every now and then!

We’re back!

OK, we figured it out. Although the system we started to describe is in different places all over the Internet, it does not work. What follows is the only way to secure your Dropbox contents from prying eyes. You can use the same technique on other cloud services, SkyDrive for instance, and rest assured that no one but you can access your material there…provided you remember the password.

Before we get into the how-to section of this post, we want to explain some principles about what we’re going to do here. You have to know how Dropbox works before you can understand this whole thing.

The Basics

1. There are as many Dropbox folders as there are computers that access the same account…plus one. There is one folder on the Dropbox site itself plus the same folder, more or less, on every computer that you use for the same Dropbox account.

2. If you put a file, let’s say a photo or a video, into your Dropbox folder on one computer, that computer uploads the file to your online Dropbox folder.

3. When you turn on another computer that has access to the same Dropbox account, the file that was just uploaded to the online Dropbox folder is downloaded to the current computer’s Dropbox folder. If you change a fileThis is what syncing is all about, right?

The Problem:

1. When you change a file, Windows notes the change by telling us that the file was modified at such and such a time/date. If you modify a file, Dropbox notices this and updates that file all by itself. The next time you start your other computer(s), Dropbox sees that the version of a file isn’t the same as the one that it has in its online folder. As soon as it sees the discrepancy, Dropbox downloads the newer version of the file to whatever computer you are currently using.

2. When you are using Truecrypt, any folder you open is hidden, more or less, from Windows. In effect, that file is open only in Truecrypt, as if it was another operating system. You open Truecrypt then open the encrypted folder, add or subtract data from it and then close it before you close Truecrypt. When Truecrypt closes the folder (called dismounting), it does not update Windows on what changes have been made. As far as Windows knows, nothing has changed.

3. Do you see the problem? If Windows doesn’t tell Dropbox that the folder has changed, Dropbox doesn’t know to sync that file with either its own online version of that folder or the other versions of the same folder on any other computer that you use. Ah, there’s the rub.

The Solution:

1. There’s only one step to this solution. Instead of letting Dropbox sync your encrypted folder by itself, you have to send the folder to Dropbox each time you add or subtract anything from it. Basically, you copy and paste the changed folder into your current computer’s Dropbox folder. Only then will Dropbox feed the newly changed folder up to your online folder. In theory, this is how it should work. While you’re mulling all of this over, we’re trying to check that this is exactly what happens. Next post, we’ll let you know if our theory worked. Wish us luck!

Thanks for reading!

Cloud Privacy, Encrypt a Text File

Privacy in the Cloud – Your personal files are not private or safe.

September 27, 2012 Computers Made Simple 7 Comments

If you think your files on Dropbox or Microsoft’s Skydrive are private, think again. They’re not. Microsoft announced this week that nude photos, whether real or drawings, cartoons or paintings, cannot be uploaded to your Skydrive folder…even if your folder is set to Private. How would they know unless they look at everything users upload to their folder? As shocking as this may seem, you have to realize that anything you upload to the Internet can be seen by someone else.

Dropbox, one of our favorite free cloud companies, recently had a security lapse. Anyone could log in to any account without using a password. This went on for about four hours. In our estimation, cloud storage is neither safe nor private. Here’s how to take care of the private part. We’re going to walk you through a couple of options, one simple, one a bit more complicated, which you can use to keep your stuff away from prying eyes.

The concept: If you want to keep something private on your computer, you can use a password to protect the computer or you can encrypt the file or folder itself. When you put data up to the cloud, you assume that your password will keep it private. As we’ve seen with Microsoft and Dropbox, a password won’t keep anyone who works for the cloud company out of your stuff. Therefore, you are encouraged to encrypt it. Here’s an easy way to do that:

1. Download and install Notepad ++ . Get it here: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ Notepad ++ is free and much more powerful than the standard Notepad that comes with any version of Windows. Most of you should download the installer version which is highlighted in this image:

Photo of Notepad ++ Download Page — **Download the Installer version unless you know what you’re doing with the others.**

2. Open Notepad ++ and type a few words. For now, it doesn’t matter what you type, even one letter will do. Here’s our example. You will notice that Notepad ++ is a bit more spartan than the regular Notepad but, believe us, it is far more powerful.

Photo of Test Text in Notepad ++ — **Sample text file.**

3. At the top, look for the word ‘Plugins’. Click on it then click on NppCrypt then choose and click on Encrypt. Three steps represented in this image:

Photo of Notepad ++ Menu — **Plugins,NppCrypt then Encrypt.**

4. Make sure that you only have ONE file open, the one you want to encrypt. This is important. If you have another text file open, you might encrypt it as well as the current file. Notepad ++ will attempt to prevent this, using this menu, but mistakes can happen, right?

5. You’ll see a faint line of open documents in the second and third photos above. Click on your open files and close them down, one by one. Then click on Yes, simply because you only have one file open and you want to encrypt it. This menu will come up:

Photo of Encryption Dialogue — **Enter your password here. Write it down so you don’t forget it or make it very easy to remember.**

6. You’re entered the password once but Notepad ++ will ask you to enter it again. This is normal with encryption, basically making sure you didn’t commit a typo the first time.

Photo of Second Encryption Menu — **Enter the password again.**

7. As you will see in this next photo, the text is not encrypted. You can’t read the words until you decrypt the file.

Photo of Encrypted Text File — ***You can’t read the words but you can edit this encrypted file. Be careful.***

TIP: The file that you have just encrypted is just like any other text file except that you can’t read it. You can delete text, add text, whatever you want. Therefore, make sure you save the file immediately and don’t make any changes in it. Why? Because you don’t know what you will be deleting if you accidentally backspace once. Sure, you can add text but it won’t be encrypted unless you re-encrypt the file again. Here is an image of a file that is partially encrypted.

Photo of Partially Encrypted Text File — **We added the last part to show you what a partially Encrypted text document looks like.**

As you can see, you are able to encrypt part of a text document or all of it. If you edit something that you have already encrypted, you have to re-encrypt it. We hope that makes sense. Save the file as normal, either on your computer or directly to your Skydrive or Dropbox folder. Make sure you remember the password. You can’t retrieve that password from anywhere else except your brain!

Tip: The file you have just created looks like any other text file. You cannot tell that it is encrypted until you open it. Notepad ++ will open the file but you won’t be able to read anything until you decrypt it. (Plugins, NppCrypt, decrypt then enter the password.) On the bright side, no one else can read it either!

This is step one on your journey to protect your privacy. If you don’t care about who reads your personal messages or notes, don’t worry about all of this. We feel that what we do or write or photograph is no one’s business but our’s. Employees do snoop, we guarantee it. Nothing in the cloud is private.

Next time, we’ll tell you how to create an encrypted folder that will keep prying eyes out of your cloud container. Once you put something into that encrypted folder, no one can see it without a password.

Thanks for reading!

a little bit of hi-tech, a little bit of common sense and a lot of fun