I love playing with Photos. My site of the week, Photofunia, allows you to take your ordinary, boring photos and jazz them up. Put your face in the Mona Lisa. Create your own motivational poster. This site is amazing. So take a great picture of yourself and head to photofunia.com.
Archive for May, 2010
Site of the Week: PhotoFunia
Sunday, May 30th, 2010The Correct Way to Remove Programs
Sunday, May 30th, 2010Getting a program on your computer is easy. Getting it off can be more difficult, though. First rule: Never drag the program to the trash can to get rid of it. When a program installs itself, it usually puts bits and pieces of itself all around your system. Chances are you will miss some of these pieces if you try the brute strength method of deleting. Here’s the correct, and cleaner method of removing unwanted programs using Windows. Click on the “Start” button, and then on “Control Panel.” A window will pop up with many icons. Double-click on “Add or Remove Programs”. In Windows 7, click “Programs.” Once the window opens, you will have a list of all the programs you have on your system. Click on the program you want to get rid of, and hit the “Add/Remove” button.
Online Garage Sale Tools
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
Are you a garage sale hound? Do you revel in the notion of finding hidden treasure in someone else’s collection? Then, keep reading. As most of you know, the rule of successful garage sale hunting is “being first.” I’ve found some great Internet sites that will give you the jump on your competition. Some of these sites simply help you plot an efficient route between all of the addresses. Others give you a preview of the loot you will find. So, before you jump in the car, check out these great Garage Sale links:
- Yard Sale Treasure Map – I love this site. It collects all of the local garage sales from Craigslist and presents them in map form. You can search the ads for specific items like “baby toys” or “furniture.” Then, click the “Optimize Route” button to finish up. What could be easier?
- Garage Sale Tracker – The feature that caused this site to be added to my favorites list is their iPhone app. Imagine, having the perfect Garage Sale tool in the palm of your hand. You can post your sale for free on this site, and it will even cross-post it to your Facebook Account if you want.
- GSALR – While not as polished as the other two, this site usually has the largest collection of sales. You can even add addresses from the paper and have it optimize your route.
Site of the Week: All About Showers
Sunday, May 23rd, 2010Ladies, if you suddenly find yourself in charge of a baby or bridal shower, you’ll need to check my site of the week, All About Showers. Every aspect of their design and planning is here. Tips and tricks to make sure the event is memorable are included. You’ll also find some great “game” ideas, but only at allaboutshowers.com.
Phishing and Identity Theft
Sunday, May 23rd, 2010Every once in a while you will get an e-mail message that appears to be legitimate. You might even click on a link in that message that takes you to a legitimate site. However, chances are, you are being duped into giving out personal information. Very clever spammers are designing fake websites to look like banks and commercial companies and then sending massive amounts of junk e-mail luring people to the sites. This technique is called Phishing. Remember this, your bank never “loses” your password. The department of Homeland Security does not close your bank accounts and then contact you via e-mail. And, there is no Nigerian prince who needs your help to move a large amount of money around. The FTC has put out some great information on protecting you from these threats. Always check the validity of an e-mail asking for information by calling the company in question. You’ll be glad you did.
Site of the Week: Vector Park
Sunday, May 16th, 2010And now, time for something weird. Next time you have a few minutes, check out my site of the week, Vector Park. There is no way to explain it. There are no instructions. Just watch it and click on things. That’s all I’m going to say. Start the weird adventure at vectorpark.com.
Drive-By Programs
Sunday, May 16th, 2010
We’ve all been told not to download unknown programs or install strange attachments. After all, that’s how you get spyware and viruses, right? Well, a new type of attack has emerged: drive-by installations. Here’s how it works. You’re surfing around the Net and happen across some web page. It’s not the one you want so you leave. But what you don’t realize is that by simply viewing the page, spyware, or worse yet, a virus has been transferred to your system. Most pop-up problems occur this way. The newest version of Internet Explorer catches some of them. But, take my advice: make sure you have a good Spyware/Virus removal program like Malware Bytes or Windows Security Essentials, and keep it updated! Trust me, you will be the victim of drive-by installs at some point in the future.
Studying for Finals: The Best Resources
Thursday, May 13th, 2010
Wow! Look at the calendar. School is almost out. And, you know what that means: Test Finals. But despite our great leaps in technology, a student’s standard test preparation methods haven’t evolved that much: (1) Create flash cards. (2) Cram. (3) Test yourself. (4) Rinse and repeat.
Well, once again, the Internet can come to your rescue. And while it can’t take the test for you, it can make the studying part much easier. So, in no particular order, here are my favorite online study aids. And, yes, they are all FREE:
- Head Magnet – Flash cards are great. But how do you know which cards will be the tough ones to memorize? Head Magnet knows. Don’t ask how, it just does. First, you create your cards. As you study, it watches how long you spend on certain cards, adjusting how they are shown to you.
- Flash Card Exchange – But what if you don’t want to make your own flash cards? Then, check out a great site that acts as a clearinghouse for other students’ card decks. Chances are, no matter what the subject, a deck has already been created.
- ProProfs Quiz Maker – Perhaps flash cards aren’t your style. At ProProfs you can create your own interactive quizzes. After you build it, you can take it as many times as you like, simulating, hopefully, the real test you are about to take!
- Memorize Now – Sometimes you just need to memorize a large amount of information, like quotes or Bible verses. This site has some great tools that will speed up that process tremendously. It doesn’t rely on flash cards, per se…
Site of the Week: Broadband Reports
Sunday, May 9th, 2010Checking the health of your Internet connection has never been easier with my site of the night, Broadband Reports. Click on Tools in the blue menu for a number of online resources. Check your speed, security, and transmission quality. Are you getting the speed your ISP promised? Find out at broadbandreports.com.
Organizing Your Photos
Sunday, May 9th, 2010Don’t you just love your digital camera? After all, you can just snap and snap and snap and never run out of film (or pay for it for that matter). But now that you have megabytes and megabytes of memories, how do you organize them?
Since your digital camera automatically stores the date and time every picture is taken, I recommend setting up a folder hierarchy. Start with the My Pictures Folder. Then, create a folder for the year. Then put the months as folders underneath. Makes finding your photos a cinch.
If your collection is truly huge, though, I recommend Google’s free Picasa Software. It allows you to sort and catalog every digital photo you’ve ever taken. That way you can search for “just pictures of your kids” or photos taken before 2002. It’s that easy. Picasa can even do automatic facial recognition on your photos to make finding all the pictures of weird Uncle Harold a breeze.
