Sunday, December 31, 2017

Class Notes 12-28-2017

Google photos

There are a number of ways to get your photos up to Google’s FREE photo cloud storage. You do not have to install anything on your PC to do it. Just open photos.google.com and whether your images are on a flash drive from your camera or on in your Pictures folder on your PC you can upload them.



In the upper right, click UPLOAD and locate the images you want to upload to the cloud.



When the upload finishes a window will upen saying X items uploaded. At the bottom of that window, click ADD TO ALBUM.



At the next window, click New Album



Type the name to call the Album, replacing Untitled.

If you are taking pictures on your smartphone, install the Google Photos App. Then every picture you take will be automatically uploaded to your cloud.

We spent time in other areas of Photos as well such as animation and editing right in Google Photos. You can also install a program for Google Photos on your PC and it will automatically upload any pictures on your PC to the cloud including those you transfer from your camera SD card or copy from your cell phone, assuming you are not using the Mobile App to do it.

How to get music from a CD/DVD into a MP3 format to put on a cell phone or MP3 player. I use the Windows Media Player and let it rip the music files and convert them into MP3. Then I can open the folder on my C drive and copy them to whatever device I choose.

On the bottom left of your taskbar, in the search box, type WMP.



Right click to put the shortcut on your Start menu or on your taskbar.

Open Windows Media Player

Go to Organize > Options > Rip Music



Make the Format MP3

Check both the Rip and Eject boxes

Click Apply

When you put a CD in the drive, WMP will automatically rip the songs of it and format then as MP3. When finished the CD will eject and your songs will be in the folder you have listed under Rip music to this location on the Options window (see above).

Many in attendance were unaware of the Tinyurl site. Often we have to send someone a link to a website we have found. We know we can grab the URL to that page in the Address bar and copy it to the clipboard. Then we can paste it into an email or even a FB message to them. However, the address may be many lines long and a tough item to type for them. Instead we turn that long URL into a manageable one using Tinyurl. Then we send th shortened link to our friend. I is easy to type the tiny version. This is what makes opening the Hangout link for our weekly meetings--tinyurl.com/DickEvans

If you want your own email address instead of one from your internet provider or a generic one from Gmail or Yahoo or Live, you need to own a domain name at a host site. A host site provides a place for a website to live. A domain name takes someone to that host site opening the web pages for that domain. For example www.rwevans.com is hosted by a hosting company I use. I pay for the domain name on an annual basis. I pay for them to host or store my web pages on their servers. Because I am hosting my site with them I am given the option of having email address ending in @rwevans.com. If you want information about hosting a site, please see evanshosting.com

Windows comes with a Snipping tool to grab anything on your screen. You “snip” it by drawing a box around what you want. You can then copy it to the clipboard or save it as an image. I use this tool quite a bit.



Type Snip in the search box next to the Start button. Click to open it. Click New to drag the box and use it to create an image of the desired portion of your screen. You can also press PrtScr on the keyboard to capture the entire screen in your clipboard.

Bulk Crap Uninstaller 4.0 update released. Many use a program called Revo to uninstall programs from a PC. It works better than the included uninstaller in Windows because it finds more of the pieces of some of the software on your PC. This program does a similar job, but has some neat extra features.
http://tinyurl.com/ycjkwory




When running CCleaner, always look to the bottom right and click Check for updates. The old version still work but do not catch the newer issues. Get the latest and then run it. Do NOT pay for it. Say you do not want to but the upgrade and on the next page scroll down and Download the FREE version.

I leave all the checkboxes alone. I use the ones that come with the program so as not to remove things like my saved sites and passwords. If you have been using it for a while it remembers your old settings when you upgrade. You might consider uninstalling it completely and then download the latest version set to the normal defaults.

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.

Friday, December 22, 2017

Class Notes 12-21-2017

Tired of those pop ups that tell you about a post on Facebook. They can get quite annoying. Here is how to stop them on Google Chrome. The other browser should be similar.

Allow or block notifications from all sites
  • In the upper right corner of the browser window, click the Chrome menu .
  • Click Settings > Show advanced settings.
  • In the "Privacy" section, click Content settings.
  • In the dialog that appears, go to "Notifications" and choose...
Tired of those videos auto playing when you go onto a website? Google Finally Lets You Mute them In Chrome—Here’s How
http://tinyurl.com/yaxe2dkc

Have you fallen for one of those “we are from Microsoft” phone calls or popups? Here is how To Beat The Fake Microsoft Virus Scam Syskey PASSWORD.
http://tinyurl.com/y7h7e4j3

This is a way to host for free podcasts. Perhaps recordings of meetings or teachings or whatever you want to let others here. This is a The easiest way to start podcasting
http://tinyurl.com/y8v62hrk

Facebook Stats will give you things that are interesting but maybe not what you care about--LOL. Everyone on Facebook is connected to one another by an average of 3.57 degrees of separation. Also that the average Facebook user has 155 friends. Lots of details statistics for your browsing pleasure.
https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-statistics/

A good article on Fixing Hard Disk Problems titled "How To Survive A Hard Disk Failure" October 24, 2017 by Marc Thomas
http://tinyurl.com/yb94rsdj

Check websites for security and performance issues with Sonar
http://tinyurl.com/ybyxehjh

Controlled Folder Access in Windows 10 1709
http://tinyurl.com/ybuwg5b6

Use MailStore To Backup Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Emails to your hard disk
http://tinyurl.com/ydga8jpk

Here is some detail about MailStore Home 10.2
http://tinyurl.com/yc6zwdl9

Windows 10 Event Viewer can be located by typing Event in the search box. http://tinyurl.com/yawoyu2c

How to take what is on an email and post it on Facebook. Also how to take something on Facebook and use it in an email.

Open the email and select the words you want to post on FB. Then right-click the selection and choose Copy. Open FB and paste into a new post.

Open a FB post and select the words you want to send in an email. Then right-click the selection and choose Copy. Open your email program and click to compose a new email. In the message portion of the email, paste what you copied.


PC won’t boot? If you created a recovery drive you will be able to get into the drive. Find this option in the Control Panel.
http://tinyurl.com/y9t45jfm

Login Password
Your computer has a password associated with it. You will forget it someday if you do not use it regularly. Write it down and keep it in a safe place. When you need it you can go to that safe place and find it. However, maybe you forget where the safe place is. LOL

Backup Facebook
Facebook contains a lot of “stuff” about you, your connections to others, and your image collection. On your page, click the down arrow to open a dropdown list of choices and choose Settings. Under General, find the link at the bottom:



Click Download a copy… FB will create a file containing all your stuff that you can download to your computer or even save on your backup drive or a flash drive.

Image editing
In Ninite you will find a free download named Irfanview. It has many feature including editing your image by cutting, enhancing the color, converting to B&W, and more. Even a way to resize one or a group of images.

Nextdoor.com
The best way to stay in the know about what’s going on in your neighborhood—whether it’s finding a last-minute babysitter, learning about an upcoming block party, or hearing about a rash of car break-ins. There are so many ways our neighbors can help us. We just need an easier way to connect with them.
http://tinyurl.com/6wd7323

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.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Class Notes 12-14-2017

More this week on Facebook. We looked at saving a picture from someone's facebook page and then using it in an email or private message someone else or to even modify (change size, crop, add words on the image) it using the Paint program. Looked at Irfanview (available on ninite) to resize a picture.

We talk a lot about tagging pictures and that when you tag someone in a picture the picture is seen by your friends and by the friends of the person who posted it.

We looked at notifications and how to turn off email notifications. If you are getting notifications on your cell phone I suggest going into the App on your phone and turning that opeiton off or you'll be inundated with a bunch of notifications daily.

I reminded them of the use of the print screen key on the keyboard. When you press it an image to what is on the screen is copied to the clipboard. Hold the Windows key down and press it and a png file of the screen is placed in your Pictures folder in a folder called screenshots.

Amazon delivery late again? Use this sample email to request compensation
http://tinyurl.com/ybpp2prk

Check a phone number with CallerName
http://tinyurl.com/y7vw2t6s

keyboard shortcuts
http://tinyurl.com/y9ynygk9

What Are File Attributes
http://tinyurl.com/ycjasle7

Printing a Web Page
Ctrl+P and choose Save as PDF. Then you can view the PDF and print the pages you want to have a hard copy of. And the links on the page will be active in the PDF view.

Sleep vs. Hibernate
While sleep puts your work and settings in memory and draws a small amount of power, hibernation puts your open documents and programs on your hard disk and then turns off your computer. Of all the power-saving states in Windows, hibernation uses the least amount of power.



Under System Settings you can change what happens when you do certain things like closing the lid on a laptop. And define the options such as set your sleep and hibernate keys in the start menu.

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.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Class Notes 12-7-2017

We spent most of the time on Facebook. I had some rough notes of what I was intending to cover but that was altered as the questions began to come. Next time we will continue to look at Facebook and entertain questions on any other subject.

Here is a great reference I found online from the dummies website.
http://www.dummies.com/social-media/facebook/facebook-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/

Facebook Stats… Facebook has more than a billion active users and this article takes a look at many other statistics as well.
https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-statistics/

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.