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ISAC Computer Support Group
February 13, 2007
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Please Note : - ) All highlighted text in quotation marks such as "Ask" are shortcut links to more info. Whenever your mouse pointer changes to a pointed finger, click on it. Nineteen members attended. An overview was presented of how we can use the scanner with Picasa to add pictures and pre-printed text to send in our E-mails to friends and family. And how to convert preprinted text to editable text using the scanner and OCR. The second act of our show, under the guidance of Chris Boehm, was a demonstration of Importing pictures from a digital camera and putting them on the Internet. To find out what Picasa can do for you, click on this link http://picasa.google.com/support/ To download Picasa, (it's FREE) click on this link http://picasa.google.com/ The choice of using Picasa for these demonstrations was primarily cost, features and simplicity It is recommended once you have downloaded and installed Picasa, to open the application and before you do anything else, Picasa will scan your computer and create thumbnails (small pictures of originals) of every picture stored on your hard drive. After a few moments, you now have a chance to review what you have hiding on your computer. If this is the first time you have worked with a picture organizing application, proceed slowly and click on File and take note of the options available (black) and non available (gray). Do not select any at this time. Move your mouse pointer to Edit next and again take note of the available and non available options. Continue with the rest of the Menu bar all the way to Help. Now if you're really serious about using Picasa, select the options under Help and start reading. You do have to be online with your ISP (Internet Service Provider) to get access to Help from Picasa. Pay attention to the function of DELETING, it could be catastrophic through improper use if you don't have a Backup (copies of original pictures). By using a scanner and importing pictures to a Folder location you will never forget (try My Pictures), right Click on your scanned picture and Select View and Edit. Try this trick, click on F2 (Function Key 2) to Rename your picture. Someday you might want to find it again and if its name is relevant, you should have no problem to discover it.
Go though the Tabs and select each of the options and see what it does to your picture. If
you don't like the results, check out the "oops, I goofed" button at the bottom of the options called UNDO. Now you can use Picasa to Create
Select one of the options and have a go at it. Remember Delete, no need to worry at this point, your all important Backup is still sitting on the scanner. Isn't it? Add a couple more pictures from the scanner into the same folder and try the Add to Screensaver... When you select your picture, you can see its size in the Status Bar just below the picture and above the function buttons, make a mental note of the number to see if a proper reduction is made when the picture is sent in your Email. Satisfied with your pix fix? Good, let's see how it looks on the air waves.
At the bottom of the Picasa window you will see a number of buttons, select Email,
Select To:. To prevent any embarrassment, it is suggested you send the picture to yourself first. Just create a New Contact using your own Email address and a Last: name of me2. (now any time you want to check out what your Email is going to look like at the other end, just enter me2 in the To: field). Wait a few seconds and open your Email to receive your new mail, if it's ok, Forward it to friends and relatives. If not, its back to the drawing board. Practice makes perfect. When you are working with preprinted text from a scanner for Email, a decision has to be made. Do you want it sent exactly as you see it or, do you want to edit the text before sending. Sending text exactly as you see it is handled by Picasa the same as you would prepare to send a picture from the scanner, because, you are sending a picture of text (non editable). To use a scanner for preprinted text you wish to edit requires an application to convert from a picture to something you can edit with a word processor. All scanners should be capable of performing this function. Use the Help option for your scanner and do a search for OCR - Optical Character Recognition. Follow the instructions and the result will appear in your word processor where you can edit to your heart's content. Change font, font size, colour, Italics, bold, etc., etc. When you reach the stage of an article worthy of a Pulitzer prize, click on Edit, select Select All and click on Edit again and select Copy. Open up your Outlook Express window, click on Create and right click in the Message Area of the Email window and select Paste. Do you see the Email Toolbar? More editing tools. Use the me2 trick of sending/receiving and see what you have done. Looks ok? Great - Forward it on to family and friends. One of our members, Chris Boehm, took on the task of explaining how to display our pictures on the Internet. Picasa was used to Import and Select Device to choose his digital camera via USB connector to get his pictures into a folder he created. After the pictures are all loaded onto the computer, Picasa can be used to organize and edit the pictures. The Editing is the same as the procedure used for scanned pictures. Once you have reached a point of satisfaction, it is recommended to use the Slideshow option and verify all will run smoothly.
Select the pictures you wish to put on the web by clicking on each individually while you hold down the Ctrl key or to select all the pictures in a folder, click on the first picture, hold down the Shift key and click on the last picture. You can
see where the selected pictures will have a small blue frame around them.
At the bottom of the Picasa window, click on the Web Album button. Fill in the open fields of the window displayed - should you question what to do at this point of the exercise, click on Learn more about these options... Picasa has a very extensive support library, don't be afraid to use it. You will be asked to set up an account with Picasa and it only requires an ID and PSW. Do not forget your ID and PSW. Picasa has an option to Share Album but it requires typing each Email address separately separated by a comma, Outlook Express is better for multiple addresses, just remember to use BCC (Blind Carbon Copy). Copy your new Picasa picture web site address and paste it into the message area of you Email and send it to your friends and family. Dazzle them with how clever you are. It's a good idea to also save the address in your Favorites for fast and easy reference for making changes to your album. It will be similar to the following. http://picasaweb.google.com/b1turf78/ISACComputerSupportGroup where b1turf78 is an ID and ISACComputerSupportGroup is the name of the unique album containing the pictures. Contact Chris for assistance if you can't find what you want through Picasa Help. He has considerable experience in preparing albums for the ISAC web site http://www.ocl.net/projects/ingersollseniors/Archives.htm
Losing your mind?? Sorry I can't help, however losing your mouse pointer is different story and, more important. Go to the control panel and open the Mouse Icon and select the Pointers tab. Under Scheme, scroll down and select Windows Inverted (extra large) (system scheme) Click on Apply and OK. Your mouse pointer will now be black only when it's on a white area and white on a black area. For all other colours, the pointer colour will invert making it predominant and easy to see. To be a responsible E-mailer - PLEASE REMOVE THESE PESKY >>>>>>>>>> when you are re-sending an E-mail. There are instructions to do this at http://ca.geocities.com/bpaling@rogers.com/index.htm Never send Bev an E-mail with these included as you will never hear the end of it. One member was interested in how to set up a Spreadsheet. A simplified version was demonstrated. For those interested for more info, start with a good spreadsheet application such as Windows Excel. http://www.openoffice.org/ is good and about $309.00 cheaper. A Google search for "excel tutorial" came up with close to 3,000,000 hits. The first one appears to give a fair bit of help for the basics http://www.usd.edu/trio/tut/excel/ WIKIPEDIA http://www.wikipedia.org/ Absolutely the best Encyclopedia/Dictionary available on the Internet. There are ten's of thousands working on it 24/7 Sincere thanks to the following who have joined our pioneers for establishing the ISAC Computer Support Group. Janet Connor NEXT MEETING - TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2007 @ 1:00 P.M. IN THE DINING ROOM
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Ingersoll Senior Citizens
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select Outlook Express,
now when you see the Email window open, note the size of the picture, if it was originally in the MBs, it should be now in KBs, e.i. approximately one tenth the original size. This reduction allows a picture of many square feet to be shown on a 17 -
19 inch monitor without having to scroll endlessly vertically and horizontally to see the whole thing.
