Archive for computer tips
Screenpresso – Free Screen Capture Tools
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enpresso came cross my radar just a week or so ago. It seems they are pretty new to the web because when I went to follow them on Twitter, I was just the 84th follower.
Screenpresso is a screen capture/editing/effects/twitter tool. Oh, and it’s free! It’s a bit like Microsoft’s Snipping Tool—only more feature-rich. After it’s downloaded, it resides in your system tray (I know, another resource drain, but you can turn it off). When you’re ready to get a screen shot, just right click on the icon and you’ll get a menu of items. This is where you choose if you want an entire screenshot or a certain region of a screen. There’s a cool feature called ‘screenshot autoroll’ which stitches together more than one screen-full.
Above is a shot of their main features—let’s take a look at the more advanced features:
- screenshot history – if you don’t want to save your captures, just leave them in the history of Screenpresso. If it’s something you won’t use again, just delete it. If it’s something you’ll use over and over, there’s an option to save it to a folder on your hard drive. It looks like they are saved in a date order and with a .png extension. If you find yourself making a lot of captures, I’d suggest filing them in folders to keep things manageable.
- add effects – here’s where you can add borders, shadows, etc.
- capture scrolling part – this feature lets you capture more than one screen-full using a stitching mechanism. I didn’t try out this feature, but this is pretty cool!
- screenshot to email – this is very nice because all you have to do is have your history open and drag your capture over to your email task bar and it will put it in your email as a .png attachment.
- screenshots to Twitter – pull up your history and you’ll see the twitter bird icon at the bottom of the screen. Click it and you’ll get a popup to sign in to your Twitter account and send it to twitpic and add a message.
- edit/enhance your image – here’s where you can add explanatory text, arrows or other formatting features to highlight an item or feature. Also a nice feature is the blurring tool – great for blocking sensitive/identifying data
Conclusion
Since this is a start-up, they are still working out kinks and probably trying to make everything work. They are working on a Pro version, which will probably be a for-pay service. I see it looks like they will be offering video – but that service isn’t ready just yet.
I liked using it, the features were pretty intuitive and didn’t take too long to catch on. I think Jing is a competitor of theirs (you can read my article on that), and has an advantage because you can video and record what’s on your screen and share it. I’ll still use Microsoft’s Snipping Tool most because I usually don’t have a need to put effects on my snips or save them. Screenpresso is great for full screenshots and being able to point out with text or arrows what you want your reader to see.
Jing-Make a Video, Take A Screenshot
Posted by: | CommentsRecently, I was wanting to do an instructional video for a friend who needed to perform edits of her website and I remembered how I had used Jing a year or so ago. If you’ve never used the program, you may find it helpful to download the guidebook (pdf), as it quickly steps
you through how to do a screenshot and how to make a narrated video.
I previously posted about Jing from TechSmith. Back then, I had compatibility problems with the program and had to uninstall it. Now, it’s rediscovered – at least by me. I installed it and didn’t have any problems using it with Windows 7.
I use the Snipping Tool to capture illustrations, (ships with Windows Vista & 7), but one thing it can’t do is get a capture of a drop down menu. Jing has the ‘capture hotkey’ feature. With this feature you can click to get to your drop down menu, initiate your capture key combination (I chose Crtl + J), and then the Jing interface appears and you can get your capture—slick.
Here are some of the newer features
- ability to add up to 8 additional customizable buttons to have Jing do different things
- Send your screencast to twitter to share
- updated help section with videos showing you how to do just about any Jing task
- Get an embed code and post your content to a blog or website
Other Jing Features:
- Takes a snapshot of your whole screen or a small portion of your screen
- Option to save your output (.jpg) to either a free screencast account, your computer, or if you’re really geeky, you can save output at your FTP site or YouTube (Pro Version).
- Ability to capture a video running on your computer to share with someone
- Ability to make your own video – be it instructional or just fun in nature. Videos can then be instantly shared via IM, web or email.
- If you have a microphone, you can record your comments or instructions while capturing what you want to share. Nice feature and really allows for personalization.
- Output your jpgs to your Flickr account
- There is a 5” time limit for videos.
- A Pro version is available that will allow direct import to YouTube and the ability to save your videos as MPEG4s instead of the default SWF Flash Video. Other advantages to Pro as well. See them here
The Pro version is only $15/year. If you are one who likes to make instructional videos – for fun or for business, you’ll want to upgrade. With the Pro Version, you’ll be able to use a webcam and get smoothly transitioned shots of yourself, along with what is on your screen. Then post to your YouTube account with one click.
Jing is a free product by TechSmith (who also brings you SnagIt (like Jing, only not free), and Camtasia Studio (a high-end video producing software, also paid). Jing also integrates well with both of these products.
Sync Outlook and Google Contacts
Posted by: | CommentsThere is the handy Google calendar sync download that will do a 1 or 2-way calendar sync, but it doesn’t handle syncing contacts. I thought Google or Microsoft would address this limitation, but I’ve found that WebGear has stepped in to offer the free GO Contact Sync that does the job very nicely with many options from which to choose.
This open source program is hosted at Sourceforge, a reliable source for innovative and free software. GO Contact Sync supports categories, so if you have set up groups of categories, it will find and keep them categorized. If you use contact photos, it will sync those too. However, if you have different photos for the same contact, it will not do a sync.
The best thing are the number of sync options available.
Sync options from the website…
- Merge Prompt: This will ask you which contact to overwrite if both have been updated.
- Merge Outlook Wins: If both contacts have been updated, the Google contact will be overwritten.
- Merge Google Wins: If both contacts have been updated, the Outlook contact will be overwritten.
- Outlook To Google Only: Only updates Google contacts based on Outlook contacts.
- Google To Outlook Only: Only updates Outlook contacts based on Google contacts.
Once the program is installed, you’ll have an icon in the system tray. Here you can click to sync your contacts on the fly. However, you can choose during the setup process how often to sync, or to sync upon startup.
I just found this program and haven’t decided if I’ll use it yet since I have different sets of contacts in my Outlook and Google contacts and I’m not sure if I want to merge them or not. The program is in beta, so they do say to use at your own risk! It’s always good to do a backup before trying something new.
64-Bit Browser Comparisons
Posted by: | CommentsI recently purchased a Lenovo IdeaPad complete with Windows 7 and a 64-bit processor. It’s been a great laptop, full-size keyboard and some cool features from Lenovo that I’d never used.
A month or so has gone by and I really hadn’t thought about the differences between the 32 and 64-bit software. Then I was reading an article about Firefox and Chrome browsers made for 64-bit machines and I realized I just had to try them out.
When I went to Mozilla.com, I typed in 64-bit firefox in the search box, but came up with zilch. Luckily, I had the link to Firefox 64-bit in my Windows Secrets newsletter. When I went to install the program, I was a bit concerned to see it was called ‘Minefield’, but went ahead and found that it’s a new 
(beta) version of Firefox. I was wondering how my add-ins would fare with a double switch to a 64-bit and a beta of a browser. My tree-style tabs still worked (my most important add-in). Unfortunately, Foxmarks (this add-on syncs my browser bookmarks across computers), will not work with this, but I can live with that for now. So far, I haven’t gotten any messages about other add-ins.
While in Minefield, I tried playing an embedded video and got a message that I needed a plug-in, an Adobe Flash plug-in. So I downloaded what they suggested, but got a message that ‘it might not have installed correctly’. Evidently, I must need a different version of flash. I’ll keep looking, but if anyone can provide a link-that would be excellent!
Then I went to find the Chrome 64-bit installation. That one was actually a lot quicker to download and install. So far, I’ve no problems at all playing the videos that Firefox would not play for me. 
Internet Explorer comes in a disappointing third place in my un-scientific browser comparison. In fact, I couldn’t even find an install for IE 8 for Windows 7 64-bit. How
amazingly short-sighted is that! I did find this link for IE 8 for Vista, but it won’t work with Windows 7. So I’ll have to stick with the same, slow IE 8 that 32-bit machines use.
My Findings
Fastest – Chrome runs faster on my Lenovo than the other two browsers
Compatibility – Chrome seems to keep everything working the same as before while I had problems both with Firefox add-ins and it won’t play Flash videos.
Security – I don’t find just a whole lot about how they rank with security—with Chrome, there’s the privacy issue that they say we really don’t need to worry about. Firefox has been highly praised by IT people I respect, so I will give that one to Firefox. IE has had multiple browser security problems and is a bit slow to release fixes for them.
Conclusions
When I’m using my Lenovo, I’ll probably use a combination of both browsers, but probably Firefox as my primary. It’ll be nice to have Chrome as a back-up browser for playing Flash videos. I only use IE when I’m editing websites in Office Live.
Even though 64-bit has been out since around 2003, the software to utilize it is still not there. I found a site called 64x Software that might be helpful, but I’d sure like to get some links from some of you who are more experienced with 64-bit software.
The Best Of 2009
Posted by: | CommentsThanks to all for your readership and comments over the last year. I enjoy keeping my eyes and ears open for new technologies and writing about it in a way to be easily understood and easy to integrate into your digital life to make you more efficient. Best wishes to
all for a techie new year!
As the year winds down, I was taking a look at my blog post stats and thought it might be helpful to do a ‘best of’ post of my top 10 posts for the year. Below is the list and number of views.
Windows Calendar Sync with Google Calendar/Windows Live Calendar with Outlook
5,780 views
Windows Live Photo Gallery vs. Picasa – 1,305 views
Picasa 3 Movie Maker Review – 694 views
Windows 7 Review – 690 views
Do A Clean Install With Windows 7 Student Version – 406 views
Google Voice-Keep Your Original Number – 401 views
How To Add A Facebook Fanbox or Badge To Your Website - 336 views
Back-up Your Facebook Contacts – 314 views
Windows Live Mail-POP Account Enabled – 244 views
Microsoft SkyDrive & Photo Storage Upgrades – 231 views
TripIt – A Traveler’s Solution
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As a traveler and travel arranger of hundreds of trips, I wish TripIt would have been around when huge chunks of my time went to making and communicating travel plans.
TripIt came about in 2006 from frustrated, but technically savvy travelers in Silicon Valley. They wanted the ability to have all their travel plans condensed in one place using software that builds and revises an on-line, shareable and printable itinerary.
TripIt does all this and more. Set up your free account at TripIt and jump right in setting up your profile and adjusting your settings for sharing and privacy.
TripIt seems really big on the ability to proclaim your travel plans to the world. Choose from LinkedIn, Windows Live, RSS feeds, Plaxo and a Twitter-like app as well. When you initially set up your account, TripIt will encourage you to let the software scour your contacts for any other TripIt users. If it can’t find any, they will ask your permission to send everyone in your address book an invite to join. So be careful where you click. Some travelers, especially groups, could find this feature helpful.
What It Does and How To Get It Done
It’s not complicated – simply forward your travel confirmations to plans@tripit.com. That’s pretty much it. The illustration below is a current listing of the many travel companies from which TripIt can process travel confirms. From there, TripIt will organize by date your air, hotel and car reservations. If you’ve made dinner reservations, it will add that too. In addition to this, it automatically adds in weather, maps and directions.
Say you have an upcoming trip and you’ve done some on-line research and wish it could be incorporated into your itinerary, just use TripClipper to send your ‘clips’ directly to your account. No more writing notes on scraps of paper that get lost.
Keep your travel plans in sync by following instructions to add and automatically have your travel plans updated in Outlook 2007, Google Calendar, Lotus Notes, iPhone and iCal. Check the link for detailed instructions for each supported calendar type.
Mobile App
When we’re traveling we need instant access to our itineraries. TripIt has a mobile app and has developed apps specifically for the Android, iPhone and is nearly finished with the Blackberry app.Go to m.tripit.com on your mobile phone to get set up. With these apps, you’ll be able to call your hotel or airline with a simple click.
Misplaced your itinerary? No problem. Just send an email to plans@tripit.com and your itinerary will be emailed to you.
For Travel Arrangers, Virtual Assistants, Admins
If you are a travel arranger for several people, simply set up an arranger account and have the ability to set up individual travel plans for all your travelers and keep them informed as to any changes.
With Tripit Pro you also get ($69/year):
- point tracking – keeps track of all your frequent flyer programs
- alternate flights – get options for alternate flights if your scheduled flight has problems
- itinerary monitoring – you’ll receive text messages about flight delays or gate changes
- ability to automatically share every trip with key people
Whether a corporate, small business or individual traveler, why not sign up for TripIt and try it out. It looks like a great timesaver and resource.
Do A Clean Install With Windows 7 Student Version
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I’d been looking into getting a student version of Windows 7 for my daughter’s computer to upgrade her from Vista. I purchased one this week and the options during the purchase were to download a file, or I could order a DVD for an additional $13 and wait a couple of weeks for it. I know the steps to burn a DVD from an ISO, so I went for the download from Digital River.
To my surprise, the download wasn’t an ISO, it was an .exe format (DLMWin7HP32US.exe). After downloading, there was an extraction process for the purpose of doing an in-place upgrade. An in place upgrade doesn’t wipe the hard drive – it just installs over what is there. Some people may like this, but I wanted to take this opportunity to wipe the hard drive as it’s been used for more than two years with no reformat. In order to do a clean install, I needed to boot from a DVD.
So I did some searches on how people had accomplished this. One site I found was called Windows 7 Forums. There I found a huge message board and instructions on how to create a bootable DVD. I read through that – it seemed too complicated! I then noticed there were over 60 pages of comments from folks. Lots of people had lots of problems following the instructions and having success. I skipped to the last page of comments and found the solution!
Gizmodo came through again. They published a short article with links to an ISO and instructions on how to burn a DVD from the ISO. They said that Microsoft recognized that people were having problems with Digital River and the whole process and had provided an ISO. I did some searches and couldn’t find anything on Microsoft’s site about this (does anybody else find searching Microsoft difficult?)
I was a bit uneasy downloading from the Gizmodo link, but everything turned out great. Below is a graphic of the icon and type and size of the file. The download took a little over an hour and then I had my ISO file. Then I burned my file to a DVD and booted from the DVD (to boot from a CD/DVD, do a restart and hit F12 as it boots up to change the boot sequence to your CD/DVD drive). The install went perfectly and quickly. We waited to activate until the install is completed per Paul Thurrott’s instructions on his blog site. I’ve done it three times with three different types of Windows 7 installs and it’s worked perfectly each time.
Backing Up and Restoring Data & Applications
Before doing the install, we used Windows Easy Transfer to back up all her data to an external hard drive. This was the second time I’ve used Easy Transfer and it’s worked great both times. It keeps all your settings, favorites, email preferences – even her previous desktop wallpaper came back. I highly recommend it. If you are currently using Vista, you have Windows Easy Transfer – not so for XP users.
Easy Transfer backs up everything BUT applications – for reinstalling applications, I found the How-To-Geek had the answer – Ninite! Ninite is a site that lists dozens of the more common web apps that many of us use, as well as even iTunes. Choose the apps that need to be reinstalled on your computer by clicking the check box and Ninite downloads an installer and quietly installs the programs in the background. Some examples of what’s available: Audacity, Firefox, Evernote, Picasa. They had nearly all the apps needed. We chose about three at a time to download and install with no errors. Then because we’d used Windows Easy Transfer, all the settings and preferences were loaded when the applications were started. It was wonderful!
I’ve got one more computer to upgrade and then our household will be all moved over to Windows 7. If anyone has other resources to share or would like to relate their experience on an upgrade, please leave a comment!
Windows 7 Tips, Hacks & News
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from Release Party in NYC (pic from Paul Thurrott's site)
Today was the Windows 7 release date – a date anticipated eagerly by some. Microsoft is hoping to erase the bad memories of Vista from consumers’ minds. I think they’ve hit a homerun with Windows 7. I’ve been using it on two computers since the RC (release candidate), came out earlier this year and won’t go back to either XP or Vista. I found Windows 7 very easy to adapt to. Even my husband caught on to navigating his way easily through the upgrade from XP to 7.
For this week’s article, I’ve decided to assemble a list of tips and special offers I’ve gathered from some of my favorite sites and put them all together to make it easy to browse around and decide what you might want to try to personalize your Windows 7 machine.
The How-To Geek has compiled a list of 175 Windows 7 Tips, Tweaks & Geeky things. They are divided into these categories:
- Windows 7
- Disabling Features and Annoyances
- Networking and Sharing
- Privacy and Security
- Shortcuts and HotKeys
- Tips
One I took advantage of right away was a little tweak to find and install regional themes from Canada, the United Kingdon, Australia and South Africa into my theme gallery. These are already on your hard drive, but not installed. It took just five minutes to get and install them.
Microsoft has 7 Days of Windows 7 special offers – it started on launch day, Thursday, October 21st, so hurry.
Lifehacker assembled it’s ultimate guide to Windows 7. They’ve included screenshots and videos to help you along.
Paul Thurrott of the Windows Supersite and author of recently released Windows 7 Secrets, blogs about the addition of Netflix and Internet TV access through the new Win 7 Media Center.
The world’s first Microsoft retail store opened today in Scottsdale, AZ. Word was there was a crowd of hundreds, some who waited over 12 hours for the store’s opening and to receive goody bags, some containing Ashley Tisdale concert tickets in them.
A couple of months ago, Microsoft was looking for people to host house parties for the Windows 7 launches. If you were one of the ‘chosen’, I understand Microsoft provided party favors and for the host, a copy of Windows 7! Anyone out there a host?
Enjoy!
Microsoft Security Essentials & Bitlocker Tip
Posted by: | CommentsThere’s a new anti-virus/anti-spyware product on the market. This one’s from
Microsoft and it’s free to anyone with a licensed copy of Windows. It’s called Microsoft Security Essentials. It replaced Microsoft’s fee-based One-Care software and was released September 29, 2009.
Information and download of Microsoft Security Essentials
Why is this free, we all ask? Some think Microsoft is trying to make amends for its spotty history of delivering operating systems that continually need patching and updating. We’re all familiar now with ‘patch Tuesday’ – the second Tuesday of every month when there’s usually patches to be pushed out to users.
Some feel that since Microsoft developed the OS, they should take responsibility for providing the tools to keep us safe. The software seems to be working great on my system. It’s lean and fast. It installed in minutes, updated itself and did an initial scan of my computer.
I really like that it’s not bloated like Symantec & Norton. I refuse to run either of these on my systems. I have used both the free AVG and the fee-based Nod-32 by Eset. Both have worked well for me, but I decided to switch over to this product because to me it makes sense to have a security suite by the same people who made my OS.
Here’s a screen shot of a protected computer – green is good!
There are tabs to check out for fine-tuning your system. The settings tab has many options on it for configuring when, where and how to handle whatever the scan might find.
There aren’t a whole lot of reviews out yet, but here’s one by Computerworld that will give you a more technical, in-depth assessment of the software.
Use Bitlocker on a USB Drive
Bitlocker is a premium feature found only on Windows 7 Ultimate & Premium (it’s on higher-priced Vista systems too). It’s an easy-to-use encryption tool to encrypt your entire drive, an external drive or usb thumb drive.
For those of us who’ve downloaded Windows 7 for the free test drive, we all received the Ultimate version of Windows 7, which has Bitlocker installed on it.
For those of us who will be ‘downgrading’ to Home Premium, we should be able to put Bitlocker on any thumb or external drives now and it should continue to work. I haven’t been able to test this yet, but I have encrypted a thumb drive.
To encrypt a removable drive, insert it into your usb drive and then go to the Start button and type in Bitlocker, then manage bitlocker encryption. It takes several minutes to encrypt the drive, especially if it’s large. You will be prompted to enter and verify a password. It’s very important to save it to a file on your computer or print it out. When finished, then move files, folders, etc. over to the drive.
Now, you’ll want to verify that your data is encrypted. Take it to a different computer and try to access the thumb drive. You should get a notice that a password is needed.
I tried this with my encrypted drive on my daughter’s computer, running Vista (without Bitlocker), and I was able to enter in my password and view the files on it. Microsoft says that you can take the drive to a computer without Bitlocker, running either Vista or Windows 7 and enter your password and view your files. I haven’t tried it on an XP machine. I’ve read reviews of folks using the Beta Win 7 and this feature didn’t work, but it’s working with the RC version of Windows 7.
Bitlocker can be turned off if you decide not to use this feature later on. If you routinely carry thumb drives around with your or customer data, why not take advantage of this free feature. If the drive is lost or left somewhere, at least it won’t be accessible to prying eyes.
HomeGroup Feature in Windows 7
Posted by: | CommentsWindows 7 has a new feature called HomeGroup, which is really another word for home network. Windows 7 has really made it easy to connect to other computers in the same household that are also running Windows 7.
To get started, go to the start>control panel and then click on the Network and Internet section, finally select HomeGroup.
Here’s where you choose what you want to share with other computers on your network.
As you can see from the graphic below, Win 7 makes it easy to share a variety of documents, media and even printers.
Windows assigns your network password to you. It’s viewable by anyone in your network simply by going to the Network And Sharing Center and clicking on ‘show password’. You can keep the one given to you or change it. Write it down or print it out and take it to the next computer on the network and follow the instructions below…
If more users, libraries or printers are added to the network later, follow the instructions below to add them into your HomeGroup.
After you’ve set up sharing on the computers in your network, you’ll want to access them to play music or view documents. Simply go to Windows Explorer and click on the HomeGroup icon and it will expand to show you what is available. Click and enjoy.
I’ve been using HomeGroup just a couple of days now. It seems to be working well. By that, I mean I can click on my Win 7 folder icon and see that my HomeGroup is still in my network. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the new sharing feature in iTunes, but it’s not worked very reliably for our network, so I’m glad we can share our music the Microsoft way.
