Phone: 250.764.7043
Email: help@computercarekelowna.com

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Getting  Along With Your Computer Column Archive

Spring Forward!
by Cate Eales

Appeared March 10, 2011 on castanet.net

Three tips this week to help you get along with your computer: Share photos, install fonts, find out what’s on those old CD-R’s. And, oh yes! It’s time to Spring Forward!

Share your photos simply with minus
There are plenty of ways to share digital photos. You can share them with everyone on the planet, or you can share them with only the people you select. Maybe you’re using Facebook, Flickr, Posterous, or Picasa Web . Those are all good choices, and they will all work. However, I think I have found the easiest way ever.

Point your browser to http://min.us/ and drag some photos from your computer onto the page. That’s all there is to uploading photos. They are private unless you choose to share them. Each photo has a link directly to it, and when you upload a bunch of photos, there is a link to the whole bunch, called a gallery, as well.

(click here to enlarge graphic)

If you want to keep track of your uploads, you can create an account. If you don’t want to create an account, you don’t have to. You don’t need to provide any information except to create a username and password. Here is a link to a gallery I created: mvb1lLH. As you can see I added captions, but that’s not required.

minus is free and easy to use. You can learn more about the service here. I recommend it for sharing, and for “parking” your pictures when you’re travelling. As with all online storage spaces, I do not recommend uploading anything you think is sensitive or confidential. I would never recommend relying on any online service as the ONLY storage location for something important.


Install fonts easily in Windows 7
If you’ve installed fonts in Windows XP, you are familiar with the process of locating the folder and clicking on something and navigating somewhere and hoping for the best.
Good news. Installing a font in Windows 7 is easy, I promise.

That’s all there is to it. (Works in Vista, the forgotten Operating System, too.)


If you want to delete or hide some of your fonts:

(You can’t hide fonts in Vista, but you can right-click and click on Delete.)


See the contents clearly with Karen’s Directory Printer
If you have a drawer full of CD’s with photos or “important” files on them, or several USB flash drives lying around, there will come a day when you’ll want to know what is on them. Labelling a CD “Year End 2005” probably made sense at the time, but might not tell you all you need to know now.

Karen’s Directory Printer can print out the name of every file on the disk, and it can print out a lot more information, too. You can send this directly to your actual printer, or you can save it to a file. If you do this when you’re ready to burn your disk, you can include that file with the others and have kind of a table of contents. Read more and download the file here.


Spring forward!
Yes! Finally! Daylight Saving Time begins Sunday, March 13! Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead one hour if you live someplace that observes DST.

Links
Facebook http://facebook.com
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/
Posterous https://posterous.com/
Picasa Web http://picasaweb.google.com/
Share simply with minus http://min.us.com/
Stuart Park Bear Gallery http://min.us/mvb1lLH
minus FAQ http://min.us/pages/faq
Karen’s Directory Printer http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptdirprn.asp
Daylight Saving Time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time
Computer Care Kelowna http://computercarekelowna.com/
Getting Along With Your Computer Column Archives http://rlis.com/column.htm
Get Cate's column by email http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Sub=20618
RSS Feed: http://rlis.com/rlis.xml

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Do you need help with your computer? I'm here to help you and your home or business computer get along!

Cate Eales runs Computer Care Kelowna, a mobile service helping home users and businesses get along with their computers. To arrange an appointment phone her at 250-764-7043. Cate also welcomes your comments and suggestions. Send email to help@computercarekelowna.com.

You can read previous columns here. If you'd like to subscribe to this column by email, please visit this link It's easy, and free. If you'd prefer the RSS Feed, click here.

© Cate Eales 2011 – All Rights Reserved

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