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Sending Photos to a friend

Sending Photos to a friend

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* This is a duplicate post originally posted here.  Google has an issue with that site for some reason and I don’t know that they won’t take it down one day.

There are many folks out there with digital cameras but with little understanding of what they have and what do with the photos they have taken. This post will attempt to help those that want to send one or more photos to a friend.

Free Online Services

Most people, I am guessing, use a free service like Shutterfly, Snapfish, SmugMug, Walmart, or Walgreens to upload their photos and share with others. This is a pretty good option. Anyone can order prints including the owner, there is a nice slideshow that can be viewed by anyone and that can often be the end of it. The downside, is that people have to sign-up to the specific service and they may not like doing that, especially if they have already signed up for other similar services. It also, of course, locks everyone into using that particular service for printing and they may or may not give the original owner or any one else access to the original high-quality files. If printing is not necessary, I recommend services such as Flickr or Google’s Picassa Web Albums which integrates nicely with their free Picassa photo managment software. Flickr has a free basic account but it limits you to 100mb of storage and only 200 pictures. You can only access your original high-quality images on Flickr if you have a paid account. Picassa Web Albums has a 1G limit on their free account and you DO have access to your original high-quality images. With Picassa Web Albums you can allow others to download photos or entire albums. This page describes how to download entire albums.
So, any of the above mentioned online services will do the job, but if you want the most control over your photos and for other reasons you want to send them directly to people, then keep reading.
Photo Resolution

If you remember when you were shopping for a camera the buzzword was MegaPixels. You were offered 2, 3, 6, 8 or more “megapixel” cameras. The more the better, you were told. Below is a chart of what the megapixels really give you:

Type of image Minimum resolution needed Number of megapixels needed
Web image 640 x 480 1-megapixel cameras* & up
4″ x 6″ print 2048 x 1536 3-megapixel cameras* & up
8″ x 10″ 3072 x 2048 6-megapixel cameras & up
16″ x 20″ 3264 x 2448 8-megapixel cameras & up

What this means is that if you plan to print your photos, and depending on the size of the prints you plan to print, you should be using a 3-6 megapixel camera. Now just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD take high-resolution pictures. Each camera has the option to take photos at a lower resolution than the highest that it supports. So regardless of what megapixel your camera is, if you only plan to take pictures that you can view on your computer, email, put on the web somewhere, or mail your friends, then you should set the camera to take lower-resolution photos. 1024 x 768 or something close to this, is a good size.

The larger the resolution, the bigger the file. Nobody should be mailing around photos that are bigger than 500k each, otherwise you are wasting bandwidth, and eating up valuable space on your PC, SD cards, or wherever you are storing your photos. Often less than 100k per photo will suffice, and if printing, anything greater than a 2 or 3 Megapixel is overkill, unless you plan to print VERY LARGE prints.

Now if space isn’t an issue, and you think “Well, I don’t KNOW which shots I plan to print so I want the option of printing or not printing”, then that’s ok too. Shoot at a high-resolution. But when it comes time to SEND the photos somewhere, do the receiver a favor and scale them down before sending. Sending friends and family 6 megabyte files for each photo is not very friendly.

Resizing Photos

There are many different ways to scale down photos and you may already have a few programs installed on your computer that can do the job. I’ll mention just a few that I recommend.

If you are running Windows XP, try installing the Image Resizer Power Toy. Once installed you open up Windows Explorer, find your photos, right click on them and resize to another size.

A free program which also integrates into Windows Explorer allowing you to right click an image you want to resize, is VSO Image Resizer.

Finally, you can change how you email photos. Instead of starting an email message and attaching a file to it, use a program like Picassa to manage your photos, then select one or more photos, hit the email button and Picassa will give you the option of resizing the photo and will automatically start the editor with the resized files attached! Couldn’t be easier. iPhoto on the Mac works similarly.

There are many other ways to resize your photos, just Google “free image resize” and you’ll find many more choices.

For the daring, FTP your files!

If you have a lot of photos to send and the receiver is a propeller head like me and you are a bit daring, you might dust off your propeller hat and try the following workflow. It actually isn’t that hard and once setup it is incredibly easy!

Download a free FTP program like Filezilla, or for Mac CyberDuck. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It’s an old tried and true technology for moving files from one computer on the Internet to another.

The recipient must have their own website, or be setup to allow FTP access and you must know the address, username and password to connect. Once connected you simply drag and drop from your computer to the FTP program’s window and it will transfer your files to the destination computer. This is the best way to copy many large files to another computer or to a website. As a matter of fact FTP is often the technique used to update websites.

Update Nov 2,  2010: Minus Photo  Sharing Service looks nice

Speeding up your Windows computer

Speeding up your Windows computer

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The best and most reliable way to speed up your computer is to reinstall the operating system.  Yes, I know it is a hassle and an extreme option but it’s the best option.  You can try to manually cleanup your computer and you can make improvements but this is time consuming and no gaurantee you will fix the biggest problems.  Reinstalling the OS requires that you back everything up which is a good thing to get in the habit of.  Your computer could crash one day and you should be prepared for this anyway.

Reinstalling the OS takes a few hours but it runs pretty much unattended.  The most work will be preparing for the reinstallation.

But if reinstalling the OS  isn’t an option, here are the things you can do to improve performance:

  1. Remove spyware using Windows Defender or AdAware
  2. Remove viruses using Microsoft’s free scanning service or installing Microsoft’s free Security essentials  software.
  3. If you are low on disk space, free up disk space using Disk Cleanup or WinDirStat
  4. Defrag your disk
  5. Detect and repair disk errors
  6. Make sure you have enough RAM
  7. Uninstall unused program
  8. Remove unneeded services
  9. Remove programs that auto-start
  10. If your browser is causing problems use a different one.  You may inadvertently have installed many plugins for Internet Explorer which is slowing it down or causing problems.  Firefox and Google Chrome are excellent alternatives.

For more ideas checkout this articles.

Why you might not want to be owned by Google

Why you might not want to be owned by Google

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I had my first bad  experience with Google software which has been remedied but it was enough for me to  reevaluate my level of commitment using their websites and software.  Everyone knows it’s not good to rely on just one company for ANYTHING.  Over time I have become  more reliant on Google for  mail and  documents.  I use their Calendering and Picassa/Web Albums, Blogger, and Google Voice service.  I also use GMAIL  for my company’s tech support and we share documents at work.

This week when I attempted to create a new document, I got a message that I may be in violation of their terms of service. I was  locked  out from ALL  accounts which was tied to my Google  GMAIL account.  I couldn’t check GMAIL or use Google Docs. Soon after that, I received a message that a blog I had setup (http://pcbestpractices.blogspot.com) had been flagged as a possible SPAM site.  Ironically, that blog I started which has 2 lengthy posts attempting to inform about the proper use of BCC,  and how to manage photos is probably the two most USEFUL posts I’ve ever created!  Here is the text of the email  I received:

Hello,

Your blog at: http://pcbestpractices.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a potential spam blog.  To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at [linked removed]

Your blog will be deleted in 20 days if it isn’t reviewed, and your readers will see a warning page during this time. After we receive your request, we’ll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. Once we have reviewed and determined your blog is not spam, the blog will be unlocked and the message in your Blogger dashboard will no longer be displayed. If this blog doesn’t belong to you, you don’t have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won’t be affected.

We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for this error. By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to bloggers like you instead of to spammers. For more information, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577

Thank you for your understanding and for your help with our spam-fighting efforts.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

P.S. Just one more reminder: Unless you request a review, your blog will be deleted in 20 days. Click this link to request the review: [link removed]

The only thing I can think of is that the fact my blog was flagged as a potential spam site, triggered the lockout of all my other google accounts.

It’s one thing to suspect wrong doing and I accept that there are false positives, but to turn off EVERYTHING associated with an account until  it is proven an error doesn’t strike me as not Doing Evil.  It’s like the policy of shooting first and asking questions later.

I’m not  going to stop using Google properties, but I’ve got my foot on the brake and I will no longer recommend them as enthusastically, or without warnings.  I will post a Google Best Practices ;-) at a later time.

Here are a few other stories related to being “Google Owned”

When Google Owns You

A Google Horror Story

Google Voice

Google Voice

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I use Google Voice when I’m  on the  computer (which is most of the time) and I start receiving text messages from Jane or one of the kids.  Google Voice gives you a free phone # that can also receive and send text messages.  I can go to the Google Voice website and type in my messages using my computer keyboard, or read text messages received.   Google voice maintains a thread just like GMAIL.  You can do other things such as forward the # to another phone so that your primary phone rings if someone calls it.  It also transcribes voice messages into text messages!

Here is a portion of what Google Voice looks like:

Reading blogs with an aggregator

Reading blogs with an aggregator

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The blogging experience has two parts. The first part is creating and maintaining a weblog. The second part is reading and keeping track of multiple weblogs using a dedicated program that works similar to a mail program.  Often referred to as RSS readers, feed readers, feed aggregators, news readers, or search aggregators,  these programs allows you to “subscribe” to various weblogs and not have to worry about what new information has been posted to each blog. The information will be pulled down and ready to read in the Newsreader at regular intervals, just like a mail program.  A special program is not required to read a weblog.  A weblog is always available through a browser.  But a specialized program is highly recommended.

I  recommend:

FeedDemon for Windows
NetNewsWire for Mac
GoogleReader for a  web-based reader.

The latest versions of mail clients like Outlook or Mac Mail have built in support for RSS as do many browsers.    There are also RSS  readers for tablets and smartphones.

(Updated Aug 10, 2011)

The iPad is here

The iPad is here

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Yeah, I’m pretty sure I want one.   I did not run out and buy an iPhone.  I never thought it was worth the price of the monthly cell + data plan.  For sometime now, I have been watching TV shows and movies on my MacBook Pro; Cassidy has too.  She is always borrowing it on weekends to catch up on the network shows she doesn’t have time during the week to watch.  We settle in, in our favorite place on the coach, or in our bedroom, put on some headphones and have a close-up immersible experience on the laptop.  So the iPad is in effect, our second “laptop” but in a form factor that is better tailored to that personal intimate experience on the coach.  It’s not a small laptop, it’s a big iPod Touch (oh, we have 3 of those in the house).  It does not run Mac desktop software, but instead runs iPod apps plus the software that comes on it.

A pleasant surprise was the price!  I feared it would start at $1000 but the WiFi-only model starts at $500 for the 8gig model, $600 for 16gig and $700 for 32gig.  It will be available in March. In April the Wi-Fi + 3G version comes out and will be priced $629, $729, and $829.  Again there’s that data plan for 3G which I feel I can live without.

Recovering GamerTag on a new XBOX

Recovering GamerTag on a new XBOX

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We just got back our XBOX that was freezing up. Turns out Microsoft was willing to fix it free of charge because it was a Core system.  This system has already been sent in for the red ring of death.

This first Core XBOX I bought used, was a huge bundle. It came with a hard drive, wireless adapter, driving wheel, a custom Gears of War metal carrying case, lots of games, controllers, wireless headset, charging units, Memory Unit.

Microsoft sent a replacement unit which has a new Serial #.  On boot up I had to answer some first-time questions as a brand new system.  I didn’t have any problem with my XBOX live profiles (FrostySlam and  SuperSlam2)  because I keep those on MUs so David and I can play on either one of our two systems.    If  I had kept our XBOX live profiles on the hard drive, it would have been another story.

Tonight a friend called because he had just gotten back HIS XBox  from the Microsoft repair center, but after connecting his Hard Drive his XBOX Live gamertag was missing.  I suggested he needed to recover the gamertag.  I researched a bit and found out why he had to do this.

When you download content, the content is registered to the gamertag that downloaded as well as to the XBOX that it was downloaded on.  That means ANYONE can use the content on that XBOX, like extra map-packs to Call of Duty or Arcade games (without having to connect to XBOX Live).  In addition, you can re-download and use that content on any other XBOX as long as you are logged in using the gamertag that downloaded the content.  That works out great for us because an extra purchase can be used by both David and I as long as we download on one XBOX, then take the gamertag to the other and download and  use it there.

In addition, it seems that the gamertag is also somehow tied to the xbox on which it was purchased.  So simply replacing the hard drive isn’t going to allow the gamertag to be active on that xbox, hence the need to recover a gamertag on a new xbox even though you connect the hard drive that had the gamertag stored on it.

My friend, having the worst luck, ran into one more problem as he was recovering his gamertag on the new XBOX. He got the message “cannot find a storage device or not enough space to recover game tag”.  He needed to go Settings…Memory…Gamer Profiles and delete his XBox live gamertag (it showed up THERE) because it was apprently corrupt.  That allowed him to recover his gamertag again.

A few posts on the subject: 1 2 3

Ascii Emoticons

Ascii Emoticons

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I needed a mischievous emoticon so I looked for one on Google.

Thought I would post some here for future reference.  Emoticons you can type are referred to ascii emoticons as opposed to icons that are inserted in email or IM.

From  WindWeaver:

HAPPY, SMILING, LAUGHING
 :-)     smiling; agreeing
:-D    laughing
|-)      hee hee
|-D    ho ho
:->     hey hey
;-)      so happy, I’m crying
:’-)     crying with joy
\~/     full glass; my glass is full

TEASING, MISCHIEVOUS
 ;-)      winking; just kidding
‘-)       winking; just kidding
;->     devilish wink
:*)      clowning
:-T      keeping a straight face

AFFIRMING, SUPPORTING
 :^D    “Great! I like it!”
8-]     “Wow, maaan”
:-o     “Wow!”
^5      high five
^        thumbs up
:]       Gleep, a friendly midget who wants
to befriend you
(::()::)   bandaid; offering help or support

UNHAPPY, SAD
 :-(    frowning; boo hoo
:(      sad
:-<    really sad
:-c    really unhappy
:-C   really bummed
&-|   tearful
:’      crying
:’-(   crying and really sad
:-|     grim
:[      really down
:-[     pouting
\_/    “my glass is empty”

ANGRY, SARCASTIC
 >:-<   angry
:-||      angry
:-@    screaming
:-V     shouting
:-r      sticking tongue out
>:-<   absolutely livid!!
:-,      smirk
:-P     nyahhhh!
:->     bitingly sarcastic
TRYING TO COMMUNICATE
 :-&    tonguetied
:-S     incoherent
:-\      undecided
:- I     “hmmm…”
:-,      “hmmm ”
:-#     “My lips are sealed”
:-X    “My lips are sealed”
:-Y     a quiet aside
:-”      pursing lips
:-W    speaking with forked tongue
:( )     can’t stop talking

FEELING STUPID OR TIRED
 :~/     mixed up
%-)    braindead
(:I      egghead
<:-I    dunce
=:-)    hosehead
:-]      smiling blockhead
:-[      un-smiling blockhead
|-O    yawning
|-I      asleep
:-6     exhausted; wipeout

SURPRISED, INCREDULOUS, SKEPTICAL
 :>    What?
:@   What?
:Q    What?
:-o   “uhh oh!” OR surprise
;-)     sardonic incredulity
:O     shocked
8-|    eyes wide with surprise
:-/     skeptical
8-O  “Omigod!!”
:-C    just totally unbelieving
|-{    “Good Grief!” (Charlie Brown)

HUGS AND KISSES
 : *      kisses
:-X     a big wet kiss!
:-x      kiss kiss
:-{}    blowing a kiss
[]        hugs
(( )):**    hugs and kisses
((((name))))   hug

MISCELLANEOUS
 :-*      Oops!
:-I       indifferent
\-o      bored
:-P      tongue hanging out in anticipation
O :-)   angelic; being an angel (at heart, at least)

NEW  EMOTICONS (by Tracy Marks):
 ][       feeling separate
] [      separating
)  (     really separating
{ }     face-to-face
[ ]      wanting to hug
}xx    kisses
()       feeling in harmony; connecting
] ?     moving away and wondering about you?
[ ?     moving toward you and wondering about you?

From Yahoo Messenger 9:

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

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Sherlock  Holmes ****  Not your normal Sherlock  Holmes. Robert  Downey plays a funnier, grittier, more action packed version.  Jude Law plays Dr. Watson.  One of my favorite actresses Rachel McAdams,  plays his old girl friend.  I bit hard to understand (english accents) and follow for the younger set (I saw it with David) but enough action to keep them interested.