Friday, October 27, 2017

Class Notes 10-26-2017

Pictures
The starting question was about pictures. A member was having difficulty uploading a picture to an email by either dragging it to the email or attaching it. It just spun and spun without completing. The issue is the size of the image. Our newer phones and cameras create images that are 3+mb in size. If you resize the image the size can be cut down to a few kb and will send quickly. Or will upload to FB quickly or anywhere else.

To resize a picture quickly, open it on the screen and use the snipping tool to capture it and save it as a JPG. You will be surprised at how small the new image will be. I just used this approach to capture an image that is 3,985 kb or 3.985 mb in size. The new image is only 137 kb and it still fills the screen.

Then we talked about a couple of ways to save your images. The first I suggested is using Google Photos. You have an unlimited amount of storage for images and video with your Google account, which is free. There is an app for your cell phone that will send every picture you take to your cloud account. Similarly, Dropbox can be configured to do the same. With Dropbox you only get a few gb of free storage and after that 1tb cost about $10 per month. We also discussed using Mozy to backup data on your PC.

Awesome Internet Links
A home page for your browser that give you access to many useful sites.



http://tinyurl.com/y93323qy

Popcorn time
Watch current movies instantly for free. And TV shows. And more. One of our members recommended this one. I have not tried it out.
http://tinyurl.com/y7andsux

Cut The Cable
Many are paying big bucks for their internet/cable TV connections. We talked about ways to get shows to watch without the $100 Plus fees. The easiest is to just pay for internet service and no longer get the cable channels or phone service. Use your cell phone. Buy a indoor (or outdoor) antenna and watch TV directly. I have a pair of rabbit ears and get over 20 channels. And do not pay for high speed internet--you can stream movies at 6 mbs.

Solid Signal
Another member recommends this site for TV antenna to allow you to cut the cable and watch TV at home without paying for it.
http://tinyurl.com/y7c8n6up

Free Office Programs
Here is a download for you. Abiword and Gnumeric portable versions that work fine in Windows 10. Read and Write DOC and XLS files. Free Office software. Just click the Free Office Programs link on the bottom left column of my website.
http://rwevans.com

The Windows-key
It powers quite a bit of functionality on Windows machines. It is used by some shortcuts on the system, for instance, Win Pause to open the System Control Panel applet or Win Print Screen to create a screenshot (in Windows 10) as a PNG file saved in the Pictures/Screenshots folder. Win R opens the Run dialog box. Win E opens file explorer. And Win I opens the Settings window.

CCleaner default cleaning rules changes
CCleaner 5.36 changes some of the program's default cleaning rules. Default rules are those that are set when you run the program for the first time--the checked or unchecked boxes.

Probably the biggest change in this regard is that CCleaner won't delete browsing session data anymore by default. Users of the program who did not pay attention to the cleaning rules have had their browsing session deleted when they ran CCleaner.

Also, CCleaner 5.36 does not clean Windows Defender scan history, the MRUs of Microsoft Office, and most recently used documents and other MRU files of Windows Explorer anymore.

Automatically delete files in Downloads folder & Recycle Bin after 30 days in Windows 10
http://tinyurl.com/y9ddg5ov

List of Free Portable Windows Software, Utilities, Applications. These are a few of many apps that do not have to be installed to run under Windows. You may place them on a flash drive and open them. Abiword, Gnumeric and Libreoffice are a few that can work this way. See the link on rwevans.com to download those three.
http://tinyurl.com/js8jlz4

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update removes these features the most notable of which is the MS Paint program we have used for years. Instead, they want us to use its 3D version. However, it looks like it is not going away, just not in the new 1709 build. Here is a note I found from Microsoft: “MS Paint is here to stay, it will just have a new home soon, in the Windows Store where it will be available for free.”
http://tinyurl.com/y7samb7q

Cell phone battery life
If you have an Android phone I have found a considerable improvement in battery life by shutting Sync off. Also, to speed up charging turn on Airplane Mode. Just remember to turn it back off or you will not receive any calls.

Thursday, October 5, 2017

Class Notes 10-5-2017

We talked about the various browsers we use. Edge comes with Windows 10. Internet Explorer is there but hidden. They are both Microsoft programs. You should have at least one non-microsoft browser installed, even if you do not use it regularly. If your Microsoft browser ceases to work you will need another browser go use to determine and fix the problem. I like the Google Chrome browser. Other like Firefox and Opera.

The browser gets you access to the internet and displays web pages on your screen. To locate pages on the web you use a search engine. There are hundreds out there. I like to use Google (Not to be confused with the Google Chrome browser). If you are using a Microsoft browser, the default search engine is usually Bing. There are others like Yahoo, MSN, and more.

To set your starting pages--the pages that open when you start the browser, You open Settings in Chrome or Internet options in IE. There you set the pages you would like to see on opening.

A bookmark bar allows you to create buttons to quickly access pages you like such as your email, weather, and news. You turn on the bar in settings and save web address to it by going to settings > show bookmark bar in Chrome. In IE it is called the favorites bar. You turn it on by right-clicking the title bar (top of the IE window) and selecting it.

We demonstrated adding the Adblock extension in Chrome. Once running ads stop appearing in the web pages you browse. To add an extension open more tools > extensions and scroll to the bottom of the page and click get more extensions. Type adblock in the search block and them select it from the list and Add Extension.

Useful Hot Keys:

Ctrl L moves the cursor to the address bar and selects all

Ctrl + increases magnifies the browser window (makes the words and images larger)

Ctrl - decrease the size

Ctrl 0 brings the size back to default

Alt F4 closes the active window

Forgot your password to get into Windows? If your OS is Windows 7 or earlier, we have an easy way to reset it. If Windows 8 or higher it is harder and may not be possible depending on the computer. The newer the computer, the harder it is. The only approach may be to save your data using another OS booted from the CD or USB port and reinstalling Windows.

One of the participants showed us a neat Chrome extension called Privacy Badger.
Privacy Badger protects you from trackers as you surf the web! It is also available for Firefox.
chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/...

Here are a couple of articles I found this past week that might be useful

How To Fix Loose USB Cable
http://tinyurl.com/ybhg2fku

OneDrive changes announced
http://tinyurl.com/yavgedcf

In addition to my own research, I want to give thanks to Harold at the Club, Ghacks.net Newsletter, and DavesComputerTips.com for the useful ideas we take a look at each week.