Sunday, November 22, 2020

Computer Non-Class Notes 11-26-2020




We could not meet on Zoom today. I am in western Kentucky and enjoying the company of friends that moved here from Florida a couple of years ago. I trust you all have had a great day.

REMEMBER to come into the office if you are in town and cast your vote on December 1st from 10 am until 2 pm. Then get on Zoom for the December General Meeting. There will be a basic class at 5, my intermediate class at 6, and a presentation at 7, and the meeting itself with the results of the election.

Here are some interesting articles for you to look over and send me questions about for next week’s class on December 3rd.

Monitor Your Connection
Have a slow connection or not having a consistent one? This app will track your connection and make issues behind the scene obvious. You can keep a log to show your provider the issues and hopefully convince them to fix it.

Easily check if your Internet connection is stable or loses too many packages. Monitor failures of your Internet connection. Know the start, end, and duration time of every connection failure.
https://www.pingstatus.net/en.html

Older Geeks
This site looks like a safe place to find new apps. Check it out and let me know what you think.

We are a software download site without ads, fake download buttons, or "crapware".
https://www.oldergeeks.com/

Forward an Email as an Attachment in Gmail
I did not know how to do this and it works great. No more copy and paste or forwarding an email to someone else. Just create a new one and attach the emails you want them to be able to view.

Instead of forwarding several emails individually, you can send them all at once as attachments. With Gmail, you don’t even have to save the emails to your computer to do it–there’s a built-in option just for you.
https://tinyurl.com/yxcjztqg

How To Add Captions In Word
This is a good approach to adding words to an image in Word. I have always just typed the “caption” under the image and centered the image and the words under it. Give this approach a try.

There are many instances when one would wish to add a caption to a document in Microsoft Word. I specifically like to add captions when I am creating a manual or when I am doing a tutorial. I feel that we all learn in different ways and that includes reading and seeing, so I like to include screenshots.
https://tinyurl.com/y5ndyzry

Set Program Windows To Stay On Top
Every time you open a new app it opens on top of everything else on your screen. This app allows you to force a screen to stay on top while you work on another app.

Sticking a window to stay on top is a great way to multitask. You can watch videos while you work, use multiple programs at the same time, or keep important information always visible on the screen
https://tinyurl.com/y4zjdobf

Free Microsoft Office in Windows 10? Sort Of
Office 365 is free with Windows 10 for 30 days. After that, you have to purchase it for $70 a year. In addition to Office, you get 1 TB of OneDrive space. Using Office.com you can use the online versions of Office at no charge. Your files are saved in the OneDrive cloud. You get 5 GB of free space with your Microsoft Account.

Microsoft Office appears in every new install of Windows 10, but is it really "included"? Yes and no. No. But then again, yes. In fact, there’s a free version for anyone, on any version of Windows — or indeed, almost any operating system
https://tinyurl.com/y5kqn7wn

Resize Images Using Paint 3D on Windows 10
Paint 3D is the updated version of MSPaint. It does all that Paint does and much more. This resize feature is one of many. Let’s give it a try.

If you need to perform a simple task like resizing an image on your Windows 10 PC, you don’t need to use software with a steep learning curve like Photoshop. You can do it using Microsoft Paint 3D. Here’s how it’s done.
https://tinyurl.com/y3n5vkxm

Friday, November 20, 2020

Computer Class Notes 11-19-2020

View the class at https://tinyurl.com/y4z8dkoy

How To Edit A PDF
We talked about this on 9-3-2020. Here are those notes:

Tools to Edit a PDF File
You don't give a PDF file a second thought, but this file format can be tricky too. Sure, every browser can open a PDF these days---but do you know how to edit PDF files? Keep reading to learn how to edit a PDF on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and Linux.
https://tinyurl.com/yxhxjm8e



SmallPDF.com lets you edit a PDF or convert a PDF into something else

Microsoft Word can also open a PDF for editing but not very well and not with the online version of Word
  • How To Find Previous Class Notes
  • In your browser, Ctrl+L to jump to the address bar
  • Backspace key to clear it
  • Type your search followed by site:dickevanstraining.blogspot.com
  • Press the Enter key
The notes found on the blog containing your search words will be displayed. Use Ctrl+F to search on the blog page to drill down into the notes.

More On Google Photos
They are STILL free. A change is coming as of June 1, 2021, whereby all high definition photos added will count against your free 15 GB allocated to anyone having a Google account. All pictures in your Google cloud up until that date will still NOT count against your 15 GB, only the new additions. If your average picture size is 3 MB then you have enough room for over 5,000 pictures in that 15 GB.

A Question Came Up About Albums
How do I move images from one album I created to another new album? It also looks like if I have images in the albums that they are still all in "Photos file". Am I correct in this? When I do delete a photo in the photo file does this photo stay in the album?

An album does NOT contain any pictures. All pictures are in one “box”. They are not sorted or organized in any way. When you create an album you are organizing how you want to view some of the items in the “box”. They remain in the “box”. Only a reference or a pointer as to where to find them in the “box” is in the folder. When you access the folder, the pictures you have put in the album are found in the “box” and shown to you. They are never taken out of the “box”. So, if you delete a picture from the “box”, it is gone from the cloud and will not show in any album you had it in. And, yes, you can reference the same picture in multiple albums. If you delete a picture in an album, it does not delete it from another album, or from the “box”. If you delete it from the “box”, it deletes from any album that referenced it.

Address List and Mailing Labels


MyMailList claims to be the best selling mail list management software for the last 20 years. With this software, you will be able to use hundreds of professional templates to design your mail or email that you will get nowhere else. Also, you will be able to print out custom labels, postcards, and envelopes with logos and graphics using the simple interface. Get started today with your copy of MyMailList & Address Book.

I have used an older copy of this software and it is easy to use and prints labels directly from the address list. No need for merging with Word or Excel. However, it does have a one-time price of $30.

Here is a Free address list app:



Efficient Address Book Free is a professional free address database software program designed for personal and business use. It helps to note the phone numbers, website addresses, country, company name, addresses, email addresses, city, fax, and mobile of your partners and contacts.

I have not tried this one and hope one of you will download it and let us know how easy it is to use. The reviews are good. And I wonder how the data can be used to print labels.

Unique Lorem Ipsum Generators
Lorem Ipsum is placeholder text used in publishing and web design so that designers can see how a page will look. It’s usually a form of nonsense Latin, but here are 10 generators that make the text more interesting.
https://tinyurl.com/y3ed3599

In Microsoft Word, just type =rand(p,s) on a new line and placeholder text will be generated for you where p stands for the number of paragraphs and s for the number of sentences.

If you want Lorem Ipsum text, use =lorem(p,s).=

If you want The Quick Brown Fox, use =rand. old(p,s).

How Do I Delete Files From OneDrive, but Not My Computer?
There are two basic approaches to deleting files from OneDrive online cloud storage while still keeping copies for yourself. Which you want depends on whether or not you want to continue to use OneDrive at all.
https://tinyurl.com/y3a9y7n3

Is a Periodic Password Change a Good Thing?
There’s no reason to change your password periodically only because time has passed. Most password-based hacks have little to do with age and more to do with bad passwords, phishing attacks, and/or keystroke loggers. For the best security, use good password hygiene to begin with. Change your password if you hear of a breach or something else that affects your account.
https://tinyurl.com/nr35g2z

What about Windows 10 backup?
Backups should be easy. File backups in the form of file history can be if you remember to set it up. The image backup function – a cornerstone of a comprehensive backup strategy in my opinion – is so well-hidden it might as well not exist.
https://tinyurl.com/y4dsmjt5

Avoiding or Fixing Software Rot in Windows 10

Software rot is the slow degradation of your computer's performance for no apparent reason. I'll review why it happens, how to prevent it, and how to recover.
https://tinyurl.com/yxmw88oq

This is a very good article pointing out a number of ways to avoid issues. However, issues will arise and that is why we suggest continuous weekly maintenance and image backups.

Windows 10 File History
File History is a good thing, and I encourage you to turn it on if you haven’t already.



Some of your files will start getting backed up periodically.

Which files? Well, apparently any files you have stored in Windows Libraries (which typically includes your Camera Roll, Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos folders), your desktop, your Windows Contacts, and your Favorites.

How often? Every hour.

As I said, it’s a good thing. For the data files you have stored in areas covered by File History, it’s another layer of protection.

But it is no substitute for a complete back-up system, and sadly, that’s what Microsoft, originally at least, set out for it to be.

I have a 64 GB flash drive set as my File History drive and it filled up very quickly so I think a better approach is an external hard drive. But it works very well keeping a history of what is on and is changed on the system drive.

If you want your computer to run as well as when you brought it home from the store, I suggest a new hard drive and a fresh load of the latest Windows 10.

Before you pull the old hard drive, run Belarc Advisor to have a list of all the software you have installed and the software key codes for the OS and Microsoft Office, etc.

Use the old hard drive as an external drive to copy all your data to the new drive. Then install any additional apps from your installation media or download them from the web. I leave many of the downloaded installation software in my downloads folder so I would just have to install them from the external drive. And use Ninite and/or PatchMyPC to install other software.

Another approach is to use the Recovery option in Windows to Reset this PC. Before doing this I strongly suggest making an image backup with EaseUS or Macrium.

Win+I to open the Settings window.
Click Update & Security, then Recovery.

You can reset it keeping all your programs and file or have it remove them and reinstall Windows 10.

Restore Points
A chrome extension somehow changed my search engine. This is where having a restore point is very helpful


Simple go to Settings (Win+I) and type “restore” then choose to Create a restore point.



Click Create to set a restore point. I suggest doing this prior to running the maintenance programs once a week. This will give you a point in time to return to if issues come up.


Click System Restore to locate previously created restore points to take you back in time to where everything was working fine.

Click Next to view the restore points available



Choose one and click Next to back your computer up to that point in time.



Thursday, November 12, 2020

Computer Class Notes 11-12-2020

Video of the Class: https://tinyurl.com/y5bg3c63

APCUG Photo Contest


This photo taken by one of our own CCCGC members won second place in the 2020 APCUG Digital Photo Contest. It was taken at Reagan International Airport showing the effect of Covid.
https://tinyurl.com/y3nfqyaa

Mail Forwarding
Starting January 1, 2021, Yahoo Mail will stop forwarding emails to any account. The emails remain in the Yahoo inbox and can be accessed from there, but the option to have these emails forwarded automatically will not be available anymore at that point
https://tinyurl.com/y4zt8sgh

Most of us have multiple email addresses. I have Comcast for my Internet provider and therefore I have an email address @comcast.net. Other than Comcast nobody knows that email address. I have set my Comcast email so it auto forwards to my Yahoo email. This way all my emails can be seen in one place. And if I chose to switch to a different provider they would assign me their email address and I would forward those emails to yahoo as well so all my email would be on yahoo still.

Using yahoo I can also add additional email addresses without having to forward them. However, they would not be merged together and I would have to open them independently. Windows 10 Outlook, the envelope icon, works the same way. You can add multiple email accounts and see them in that one app.

Split, merge, rotate pages in a PDF
Viewing a PDF document is easy, you likely use your web browser or a standalone tool for it. But splitting or merging pages from PDFs is slightly complicated, as many viewers don't support that functionality.
https://tinyurl.com/y2a45fd7

Remember you can “print” anything as a PDF simply by choosing the printer called “Microsoft Print to PDF”

Google Sheets Search
“I was in a Dr's office...needed a password.....opened my Google Drive on my phone....opened my EXCEL sheet.....forgot how I titled it.....I could NOT find a SEARCH to find a specific word INSIDE the excel sheet?”

Android

Use find and replace in a spreadsheet
On your Android phone or tablet, open a spreadsheet in the Google Sheets app.
Tap More More Find and replace.
Type the word you want to find.
Tap Search
To see every time the word is used, in the top right, tap the arrows.
To replace the word, tap Replace with.
Type the replacement and tap Replace or Replace all.
To return to the spreadsheet, tap Done

iPhone

Use find and replace in a spreadsheet
On your iPhone or iPad, open a spreadsheet in the Google Sheets app.
Tap More … > and then Find and replace.
Type the word you want to find.
Tap Search.
To see every time the word is used, in the top right, tap the arrows.
To replace the word, tap Replace with.
To replace a single word, tap Replace.
To replace every time the word is used, tap All.
To return to the spreadsheet, tap Close .

Print Address Labels


What is the best way to create address labels for Christmas cards?

Create a database of all your names and addresses using a spreadsheet app such as Google Sheets. Then purchase premade address labels and use that spreadsheet to generate labels.

Print Labels from Google Sheets
Google Sheets can be a helpful tool for pulling information into consistent printed labels. However, Google Sheets doesn’t include the capability to print labels. Instead, you can add this functionality with the free “Create & print labels” add-on from Labelmaker. The add-on pulls information from a Google Sheets spreadsheet, formats it, and exports it as a ready-to-print Google Docs document. Once created, you can print the label documents the same way you’d print any other document.
https://tinyurl.com/y5a2m4dw

How To Create Mailing Labels In Word
Learn how to create your own mailing labels using Microsoft Word’s built-in tools.
https://tinyurl.com/y46uk6hl

How to Print Address Labels Using LibreCalc
While labels can be complicated, all the configuration tasks can be broken down into a manageable list of small, easily digestible pieces. And that's exactly what this guide is going to do.
https://tinyurl.com/y6p8pe73

Add Folder Shortcuts to the Start Menu’s Left Sidebar
The Windows 10 Start menu includes a handy list of shortcuts to common locations (such as Pictures, Downloads, Settings) in a tiny sidebar. Using Settings, you can customize which shortcuts appear there. Here’s how to do it.
https://tinyurl.com/yxlqenc8

Hyperloop
Hyperloop travel has been a pipe dream (pun intended) ever since Elon Musk proposed the travel alternative in a whitepaper in 2013. Imagine the vacuum tubes at a bank, only with people in them traveling hundreds of miles per hour. Now in the biggest step forward for the idea yet, Virgin Hyperloop just completed a test launch with actual human passengers in the pod.
https://youtu.be/xKvbSboQ5_g

Today, Google Photos is the home for more than 4 trillion photos and videos, including yours, and a remarkable 28 billion new photos and videos are uploaded every week. In order to welcome even more of your memories and build Google Photos for the future, we are announcing a change to our storage policy.



Starting June 1, 2021, all new photos and videos backed up in High quality will count toward the free 15 GB of storage that comes with your Google Account or any additional storage you may have purchased, the same way other Google services like Google Drive and Gmail already do.

All photos and videos you back up in High quality before June 1, 2021 are exempt from this change and will not count toward your Google Account storage. This includes all of your existing content uploaded in High quality.


Key Finder
This key finder smart tracker would be a thoughtful gift for your friends, families, elderly who are also misplacing their keys or phone, it will help them save many troubles. Also as your best travel buddy for peace of mind. Happiness is when you found something you lost! Audio notifications if you leave without your stuff. It's more than a Bluetooth tracker. It's the joy of life.
https://tinyurl.com/yype6x37 another https://tinyurl.com/yyhemtv6

Download any Windows 10 version ISO
When you use Microsoft's official Media Creation Tool, it is the latest version of Windows 10 that you get when you use it to download a Windows 10 ISO image to the system or make a USB device bootable using the operating system. While that is often the desired version to get, it may sometimes be necessary to get an earlier version of Windows 10.
https://tinyurl.com/y4fn7986

When you have more than one computer it is a lot faster to upload them all with one download of the upgrade. And it gives you the means to troubleshoot an issue by booting from the installation media when booting from the hard drive does not work.

Use Your Smartphone as Your Webcam
Elgato, a Corsair brand known for its content creation equipment, recently acquired a smartphone video app EpocCam. The app lets you turn your iPhone or iPad into a wireless high-definition webcam for your macOS or Windows computer. It works seamlessly with popular apps like Google Meet, Skype, OBS Studio, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom for streaming, chatting, and recording.
https://tinyurl.com/y2sumk2w

This is an easy install and works great with zoom. Zoom just see the cell phone as a camera.

Auto Hide Desktop Icons
AutoHideDesktopIcons allows automatic hiding and showing features for your desktop icons, including an adjustable timer and arbitrary activation options.
https://tinyurl.com/y6s8sy3u

Hiding them on your own is a simple right-click on the desktop. This app will auto hide them for you an FHA's a number of options.


How To Open Window SysMenu With Hotkey
https://tinyurl.com/y6thnmu9

Microsoft Defender Wins Top AV Rating
For the second time in a row Microsoft Defender, the antivirus software built into Windows 10, has ranked among the highest in lab tests performed by AV-Test. For those who may not be aware, AV-Test is a highly regarded independent organization based in Germany that evaluates and rates antivirus products.
https://tinyurl.com/y5reyh8x

Defender is my choice. All the others add more behind the scenes background processing.
How To Send Text Messages From Your Chromebook

Chrome OS offers a handful of ways to keep your Chromebook and Android phone in sync. One of its features allows you to access your SMS inbox and respond to texts from your Chromebook.
https://tinyurl.com/y57ejq9o

With this app you don't have to type on that tiny keyboard to answer text messages. 

Keep The Contents Of Two Directories In Sync With Syncfolders
If you constantly transfer files to and from a computer to a USB Flash drive, external storage, or a remote location, you may know that it can be a boring task. … Might be good for automatic backups of your data files/folders.
https://tinyurl.com/y283k8s3


Thursday, November 5, 2020

Computer Class Notes 11-5-2020

Video: https://tinyurl.com/y5ga842b   

PixBim Question
I downloaded PixBim and colorized a B&W photo. I would like to print the colorized version but did not have any options to save or print. Is there a way to print the colorized version?

Take a screen print and save it. This is where I use shift+win+s to open the snipping tool and draw a box around the new picture then paste it into the paint program and print it.

Here are the class notes from 9-10-2020…

Colorize Black and White Photos
We downloaded and installed PixBim. It uses AI to automatically take a B&W image and add color to it.



Just open the original and watch it do its magic. Pretty neat. The resulting picture will have a watermark if you are using the free version.



At the home screen (pixbim.com) scroll down to locate the link to download the free version. It is a 699MB file so it will take a few minutes to download and a few more to install. Then it is pretty straightforward. Open a B&W image and it will do its work.

And a new feature to do the same with Photomyne:

Magical B&W photo and video colorization. A Photomyne-developed colorization process that breathes new life into B&W photos and videos!
https://tinyurl.com/yxh6gkzb

From Donna What is Your Password?



Send And Receive Money With Zelle
Zelle is a fast, safe, easy, and contact-free way to send and receive money with friends, family, and others you trust. You can receive money directly into your bank account in minutes.
https://www.zellepay.com/

Enable and Use Vertical Tabs in Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge now has vertical tabs, which can be a great tool on modern widescreen displays. Here’s how to get a vertical tab sidebar in the Chromium-based version of Microsoft Edge. This feature is coming in January 2021
https://tinyurl.com/y594czf9

How to Open the Classic “System” Control Panel
Microsoft says the classic “System” properties Control Panel has been removed from Windows 10. As of the October 2020 Update (20H2), there’s no way to access it—or is there? Here’s a hidden command that opens the System Control Panel.
https://tinyurl.com/y6f5n26f

Helpful Windows 10 Tools
Windows 10 offers many other power tools for enthusiasts—if you know where to find them. Some are older, yet still obscure. Others are relatively new, added during the twice-annual major upgrades Microsoft’s been pushing out since Windows 10 launched over five long years ago (though most recent feature upgrades, like the October 2020 Update, tend to be minor). But all 10 of these little-used tricks and tools can help hardened PC users save time or eliminate headaches
https://tinyurl.com/y5p5sqhu

Choose A Custom Color For Your Start Menu
Starting with the October 2020 update, Windows 10 now defaults to a light theme that takes away accent colors from your taskbar and the Start menu. If you’d like to select a custom color for your Start menu, there’s an easy way to pick it in Settings. Here’s how.
https://tinyurl.com/y2cjn7qf

Understand Windows 10 Update Names and Numbers
Windows 10 has a lot of overlapping version numbers and names. For example, the October 2020 Update is also called 20H2, version 2009, and build 19042. It often seems like different teams at Microsoft are speaking different languages. Here’s how to decode Microsoft’s jargon.
https://tinyurl.com/y4tuvkpt

Public Records Encyclopedia
Learn all about any address, person, or company in the US without leaving your couch. ClustrMaps.com makes finding information in the United States easier than ever.
https://clustrmaps.com/