Here we go again, folks. Last week I heard an interview with a relatively popular musician. He mentioned that he’d recently spilled a glass of rye on his laptop keyboard during a recording session. I’m not sure why he had a rye during the session but maybe that’s how he relaxes. The singer was relieved that he hadn’t lost all of his music, words and ideas but he came close. Believe it or not, the interviewer mentioned that he had recently done the same thing and almost lost the book he’d been writing. I listened and thought, “Wow! Two people who are creative but not too bright when it comes to common sense computing.”
First, if you have material on your computer that is important to you, sign up for Dropbox. It’s free, simple and ensures that nothing you create will be lost if something untoward occurs. Check out my post on Dropbox here: Dropbox – 6 reasons why you should be using it now. Briefly, if you save your work to your Dropbox folder, you can access it online from anywhere in the world. The free 1 gigabyte of storage is ample for most needs but if you need more, you can get up to 16 gigs through referrals or, more simply, pay a premium for more space. I’m a writer and I save everything I write to my box and I haven’t used more than a quarter of the space. Besides keeping your stuff safe, Dropbox saves old versions of your work, just in case you make a save error somewhere along the line. You can access these old versions by logging into your account online.
TIP: If you need more space, refer yourself a few times using your other email addresses. For each referral, you get another gig of space. Honestly though, I have lots of pics and articles in my folder and I still have 750 megs left open.
Next, a Dropbox account is a sensible part of backing up your computer but it’s not a complete solution. In the next few posts I will (again) run through the various steps that you need to perform in order to keep your creative efforts safe. If you’re an artist, a business type, teacher or just about any other profession, backing up your computer relieves stress and might just keep you employed.
Thanks for reading!
If you can’t wait, look for my older posts on backups here: How to back-up your computer Part 1 My next few posts will explain all of this using the latest software but the older posts are still effective.
I’ve written about Fotobounce before. If you share photos from one social media site to another, Fotobounce is a great tool. It allows you to download complete Facebook photo albums to your computer. What you do with them after that is your business, I guess, but you really should ask for permission if you are going to share anything that isn’t your own. Here is an explanation about what Fotobounce is: Fotobounce Made Simple (The original post wasn’t named that but it sounds good, right?)
While Fotobounce is a cool app, the actual downloading of albums can get tricky because of the way the instructions are worded. In this post I’ll try to help you figure out the odd English that they use in the selection process. Before I forget, Fotobounce is available here: http://fotobounce.com/
1. Download and install Fotobounce…duh!
2. Open the program and head over to Facebook. Sign in to Facebook with Fotobounce. You’ll have to allow it access but, according to the makers, they don’t save your password. You can always remove the access after you’ve downloaded the albums that are of interest.
3. Find the album you want to download. You have to sort through your friends, your likes and your acquaintances to find the right album(s) but that’s pretty basic.
4. Once you find the album, right click it. You’ll see the ‘Download’ button. Click it and the following menu pops up:
I've selected Events by clicking on it but I haven't started the download.
5. In this menu, you are choosing the main folder for the download. If you click ‘Select album’, Fotobounce will start the download to, in this case, Events. That’s not what I want. I want to create a sub-folder and then maybe a sub-sub-folder. Let’s do that. We’ll make a sub-folder inside of Events.
6. Click New Album. Fotobounce will show you a new album dialogue, as pictured below, and it will have the same name as the album has on Facebook. We don’t want that. We need to sort out the downloaded albums according to whose they were on Facebook, right?
Type the new name of the album in the box and hit Enter.
7. Instead of Profile Pictures, I want to name my new album ‘Joe Nemechek’. (Joe and I are lookalikes to the point that I get stopped in stores. If I ever headed South and wore a NASCAR jacket then I’m sure I’d eat free wherever I went.) Type in whatever name you want and hit the Enter key. A new album will be created and Fotobounce will give you a notice at the top of the page.
8. Once you’ve found your new folder, click on it and you’ll see the same menu window come up same as before, giving you the option to Select that album or make a New album inside of it. This time you can leave the name the same, if you want. The default name is the same name as it was on Facebook.
9. If that name is fine, click on the Select Album button and Fotobounce will download the album inside of the album that you just created.
This sounds pretty simple, right? It’s not. Here’s the problem, as I see it. When I see the words ‘Select album’, I expect to get a choice. Instead of the normal ‘OK” that everyone else uses, Fotobounce uses ‘Select album’ as the button that starts the download. Unless you make a folder or a folder within a folder, Fotobounce will happily download your albums into the same directory. Good luck trying to figure that out when you’ve got more than a few albums in your collection. You have to create new albums if you are ever going to figure out which album is which. Sure, you could to all of this within Windows Explorer but it should be a one-step process or the wording should be a bit clearer. That’s what I think, anyway.
Fotobounce does a lot more than simply saving albums in Facebook. Check it out. I’ve just scratched the surface here.
As you probably already know, Irfanview is one of my favorite free programs. I’ve used it for years and every computer in the house has it. Read past posts about Irfanview here and here and here. Irfanview is fast, fun and works perfectly every time. You can download it and its plugins from Tucows. Get it here: http://www.irfanview.ca/main_download_engl.htm
If you have used Irfanview for a screen capture session, you’ve probably got dozens or hundreds of jpgs that include more of your screen than you need. Irfanview is perfect for captures but sometimes the box you draw around your target is too big. Here’s how you can set Irfanview up to crop those captures in one operation, no matter how many photos you have. How do I know? I’ve used this method before to crop about 2400 photos that I made into a little animated gif. It didn’t go viral but it was fun make.
1. Get all of your jpgs in one folder. Sort them out so that all the photos have the main capture in the same position on the screen. If you moved the window at some point while you were capturing the whole screen, sort those photos out and put them in different folders. You can reorganize them later.
2. Open Notepad or keep a paper and pencil by your hand. You will be writing down a few numbers for each cropping job.
3. Before you actually begin to crop, practice sizing the crop area first. Open one jpg. As with most programs, holding down the left mouse button and dragging the cursor will create a box. Test this out and try to get the correct size, the one that looks best to you. When you have the right box, click anywhere outside the box to unselect the crop.
4. Next, click on the top left corner of the area that you want to crop. Don’t move your mouse, just click once and hold it there. On the top left of the Irfanview window you’ll see XY:(number,number). This is your X -Y reference point. Make a note of those two numbers. This is what you will see:
Look for the XY:(480,561) - your numbers will vary.
5. Next, you’ll want to write down the full size of the crop box that you want. Click in the same spot, or as close as you can to it, then drag the box out and hold the mouse button down until you are able to read the numbers that you need. What you’re looking for is the number of pixels that define your crop box’s height and width. In the photo below, you’ll see what I mean.
See the (646x472 Pixels, 1.369)? You need the first two numbers: 646 and 472
6. Now you have the numbers that describe where the box starts and the numbers that describe the size of the crop box. You’re all set to start your batch cropping. Look for File on the top left, then Batch Conversion/Rename. The following window will open:
Here is where you will do two things. Add the photos to crop and choose your output directory.
7. Set up the menu by checking that ‘Batch conversion’ is ticked. Then, on the top right, select the photos you want to crop. Remember when I said to keep your photos separate? This is why I said that. It’s much simpler to choose ‘Add all’ as opposed to picking through the jpgs one by one. Click ‘Add all’ if you have all the right photos in one folder. Then, in the middle left, choose where you will put the cropped pics. Don’t use the same directory as the originals, just in case you make a mistake with your crop window. You still want the originals until you make sure your numbers are correct. Once you’ve done these steps, click on the ‘Advanced’ button. The following window will come up:
Don't get nervous. This window looks complicated but it's not that bad.
8. Top left, see the Crop section? This is where you’ll fill in the numbers that you wrote down earlier. Make sure ‘Crop’ is checked then type in the X-pos number and the Y-pos number. Below that, write in the width and the height. Below that, make sure that ‘Left top’ is chosen. You can crop in any corner, just make sure you know which corner you have chosen. I always use top left but you can do whatever you want.
9. Make sure that nothing else is checked. On the bottom right, I have ‘Overwrite existing files’ chosen, simply because it’s easier if I make a mistake. I put the cropped photos in a new folder then I check it after the batch if finished. If I have made a mistake, I redo the numbers and run the batch again. I don’t have to open a new folder.
TIP: If you are doing a few batches, uncheck the ‘Overwrite existing files’ just in case you forget to use a new folder. Make sure this is unchecked if you are using the same folder as the originals, too. I’d advise against that, however.
10. Double check everything then choose OK once to close that menu. The batch menu is still open, of course, and you need to press the ‘Start batch’ button. Once you do that, Irfanview whisks its way through the task at hand. Depending on the speed of your computer, this might take a while. Wait until Irfanview is done then check your results. Chances are you’ll make a mistake the first few times but read through this again and you’ll get it right, sooner or later.
If you’re just starting out with computers, there are many things that can make you feel lost and confused. Don’t worry, that’s normal. You’re not a dummy, not matter what the book says. No one starts off by knowing what to do with a computer. It’s certainly not intuitive, no matter what Apple or Microsoft might tell you. Stick with Computers Made Simple and we’ll sort it all out for you.
The first thing you see on your new computer is the desktop. This is much like your house or apartment. Everything you need is right there, waiting to be used. Just as you would paint your apartment to change its look, you can change the way your desktop looks. When you go away, sometimes you might have your lights set to come on at a certain time. Your screensaver, the thing that cuts in when you’ve been away from your computer for a while, does the same thing. I’ll explain all of this in another post but, for right now, we’ll get used to what’s on your desktop and just beneath it.
Your mouse is your steering wheel. With it, you can steer your way through menus and programs, making choices as you go. Since your mouse has two buttons, you might wonder which is which. The left button is the one that says, “Yes!”. The right button is the one that asks questions. If you right click in any area of your screen, whether it’s your desktop, a photo or inside a program, a menu will come up. That right click menu offers choices, basically asking you what you want to do. Try it now. Right click your desktop and choose personalize. This will bring up the program that is standard with Windows. It lets you choose how you want your desktop to look.
TIP: If you have Windows Starter Edition, the one that comes with most netbooks (those little laptops), you can’t change much on your desktop. Don’t worry, it’s not worth the extra money to upgrade Windows on a basic computer such as a netbook.
Every app or program has a different right click menu. If you’re stuck and can’t figure out how to do something, try right clicking anywhere on the screen to see what choices are offered.
The left mouse button is the one you use to select things. If a menu is open, one click will select the item you want. If you’re on the Internet, one click will open a link and a right click will offer different options to choose from. On your desktop you’ll have to double click to open a program or a folder. Sometimes you might double double click and get two things running at the same time but, no worries, just close one down by clicking the X up on the top right corner of the program screen.
Holding the left mouse button down is used for selecting things on your desktop or in something that you are working on. If you click and drag with your left mouse button in Word, for instance, you will highlight a section of text. On your desktop, holding the left mouse button after you click on an icon will allow you to drag that item around. Try it. Click once and hold the button down to drag any icon around your desktop. Cool huh?
Instead of getting deeper and deeper into computer technology, I’ve decided to start at the beginning. Many blogs deal with technology but not many of them are targeted at beginners. Tech people like to hide behind jargon. We will try to clear the air and the confusion, using plain English instead of buzzwords. Computers Made Simple will help you figure out what’s going on behind the scenes with your computer. If you understand the basics, I think you’ll discover that computers aren’t so mysterious after all.
Since I am a PC guy mainly, much of what you read here will pertain to the Windows Operating System (OS). Some of the posts will be cross-platform so if you’re a Mac person, keep reading. Windows and OS X are both operating systems and this post will help you figure out what an OS does.
Inside your computer are many, diverse bits and pieces. In order to make them work together, in order to simplify your work, you need an OS. This isn’t too much different from your car. It, too, has many diverse bits and pieces. Somehow, all of these pieces have to be controlled. You don’t want to be driving down a busy highway wondering whether your fuel will run out, right? There’s a gas gauge on your dashboard which takes care of that worry for you. That dashboard, full of gauges and lights, is essentially the same as Windows is on your computer. It’s the interface between the mechanical or electronic bits and pieces of your car and you. The Windows and the OS X interfaces are different but they do essentially the same thing; they control everything that is running behind the scenes while you work. They make life simpler, although that might be a questionable statement.
When you start your car, it takes a few minutes to boot or start. The engine has to get some fuel, it has to get a bit warm and it has to figure out if anything is missing that would cause a problem for you when you finally take off. It takes a look at things like seatbelts, air bags, tires (sometimes), oil pressure and so on. Once your car (actually a computer that controls your car) decides that things are running fine, it finishes the boot process and waits for you to drive off.
Windows does the same thing. When you start your computer (laptop or desktop are the same here), Windows checks hundreds of things before it is ready for you to start using it. We’ll go over some of these things in future posts but, for now, let’s say that Windows looks at file system integrity, the drivers that run the different pieces of hardware, the anti-virus software that keeps your safe as well as all of the little programs that are set to run when you start or boot your computer. Depending on your set-up, this could take just a minute or, sometimes, much longer.
Behind Windows (and OS X) is a massively complex sub-system which uses very complicated language to control everything inside your computer case. Just as you don’t actually have to know how the fuel from your tank gets into your engine to make it run, you don’t have to know how a file is saved to your hard drive, either. That in itself is a very complex process, both electronically and mechanically, but, because you are using Windows, you don’t have to think about it. It just happens.
There are some who would say that Windows has made computing more complex but if you think about the new cars, well, they are complicated, too. They do many things that cars didn’t do ten years ago. Computers, too, were simpler ten years ago but there is no reason to be afraid of them. Stick with Computers Made Simple and we’ll sort it all out together.
Thanks for reading!
a little bit of hi-tech, a little bit of common sense and a lot of fun
