Technogran's Tittle Tattle

Windows 8: One OS to rule them all?

2012-02-14T15:55:00.000Z

It doesn’t seem all that long ago in time that the only people who used a PC were business users. If you worked in an office environment then you may have had to use one daily, but other people didn’t own a personal computer at home. At that time there really seemed no need to do so, unless of course you were a business owner and perhaps needed to take work home with you. Ordinary users (and in this context, I mean none corporate users) either couldn’t afford one or didn’t feel the need to own one. During the eighties I first encountered using a PC when I decided to update my skills at a training centre to include word processing, spreadsheets, databases etc. and most of my learning took place on an IBM computer. During that training we did not access the internet of course, as the internet was not available at that time as it is today. There was little incentive therefore for the ordinary man or woman in the street to own a PC.

Slowly over the years, the user base of just the corporate user has changed, and with it the needs of users. Whereas corporate usage tends to err on the productive side, the consumer usage tends to be of an entirely different nature. None corporate users aren’t all that interested in using Office programs or in productivity, for them its all about sharing. Sharing thoughts, sharing what they are doing, sharing their day to day lives, their favourite music or photos of their latest exploits or family, or simply keeping in touch and making new friends. Though most corporate users probably tend to think of this usage as ‘flippant’ in contrast to the way that they use computers, it simply can’t be ignored by those who provide the software on PC’s as the none corporate user base has continued to grow and grow over the years. Combined with this growth in the consumer user base, has also come the need for mobile devices instead of the static none movable PC usually used by businesses. The consumer user prefers their usage of technology and the internet to be always available as they travel, either on a mobile phone or alternatively a laptop or tablet. This change of user base and their needs must have created something of a dilemma for Microsoft who have now to try and provide an operating system that can work both on a static desktop PC for their corporate user and at the same time work on a tablet and/or mobile phone.

How can anyone create an operating system that meets both the needs of your corporate user and the entirely different needs of the growing band of consumers? During the growth of this much more personal usage of new technology and the internet by consumers has also come the growth of touch screens and voice control, a much more tactile user interface. This by itself then requires a huge rethink about how your operating system works, it no longer has to sync with the usual keyboard and mouse, but also work with touch screens as well. Others have managed to create their own operating systems to work with these new tactile interfaces, Google with its Android OS and Apple with its iPhone and iPad iOS. But neither Google nor Apple have attempted to ‘straddle’ both the static desktop PC user interface of keyboard and mouse AND the touch screen interface of portable tablets and phones. Can it work? Is it possible to do? Can Microsoft achieve what seems to many as a near impossible task, and cater for every user and every user interface currently available at this time? Not only that, how can the apps you offer on your different platforms meet the needs of both your corporate users and at the same time your consumer user base?

A tall order and one that I certainly wouldn’t want to face. One answer would be to simply create another separate operating system for the extremely different usage of the none corporate user on those types of devices that they prefer such as phones and tablets, and keep your desktop operating with perhaps enhanced updates, but leaving its core functionality more or less as it is at this time. After all, Windows 7 is a brilliant OS, easy to use and maintain although despite this, I was amazed to find out this last year just how many corporate users in this country are still using Windows XP! Whilst this ‘ordinary’ consumer Granny has moved on from Windows XP, to Vista and then finally to Windows 7, it seems that many of our big organisations such as the NHS have not for whatever reason. It must be a very big undertaking and cost of course to retrain all of your employees to use a new operating system, but still, this fact to me signals that if they haven’t yet moved on to Windows 7, then they are hardly likely to introduce touch screen technology into the workplace no matter how brilliant a new OS that makes full use of it might be to use. The point I am trying to get across here is that we have now arrived at a state where (in this country at least) the corporate users seem to be lagging way way behind the consumer in their usage of technology and PC’s. They may be using Windows XP on a static desktop PC at work, and then on their way home be making use of a touch screen device to contact their family and friends! Who would have thought that it would be this way twenty or so years ago? It is now the none corporate consumer user and their usage and needs that is dictating the progress of technology as we know it today.

But Microsoft’s problem is not just about creating an interface which works with both a keyboard and mouse and a touch device, its also about covering all bases for corporate usage and consumer usage. Here we come to the big dilemma of whether or not to include Office. Incorporate it in mobile devices or not? How do we make it completely usable with a touch device? Will consumer users who buy tablets and smart phones require office apps? Do we provide Office only on static desktop PC’s? Do users really want to be able to share their documents, work productivity etc. via a mobile phone or tablet whilst they are on the move? Or do they tend to do that on a laptop PC? Not easy decisions are they? Microsoft have now stated that a version of Office, Office 15 will be available on their mobile hardware such as tablets, but it isn’t clear at this time if this new version will be free to use. However, including Office on the mobile and touch ARM hardware has also meant the inclusion of the desktop, albeit in a tighter format as only Microsoft will be able to supply desktop programs for this area thereby limiting its use. In fact, I would argue that if including some form of Office on these devices was not necessary in order to keep corporate users happy, then surely it would not have been necessary to include the desktop at all and only the Metro tile interface and associated apps would have been needed. So anyone buying a mobile or touch device will not be able to download and make use of any third party program on the desktop on ARM devices. It will in essence be ‘closed’

Many journalists who follow Microsoft closely have noted how there has been little news available about the new operating system, but I feel that this can partly be explained by how difficult the whole exercise must have been for Microsoft. Apple have not attempted it. Google have not attempted it. It seems to be an exercise fraught with ifs and buts not only because you are trying to cover all bases as far as hardware and user interfaces go, but because you are also trying to keep a very wide user base happy, one who’s needs range from a corporate production environment to sending a quick message to Facebook from the consumer user.

I’ve been trying out the Windows 8 developer preview myself on my Dell desktop using a keyboard and mouse, and it has not been much of a pleasure using the Metro start screen with a mouse. However, using the Metro tile interface on my Windows phone via touch is an absolute joy, but it has prompted me to question just how the corporate user is going to be persuaded to update to Windows 8 or how any Office programs are going to be fully functional with a touch device, but I’m willing to be convinced and so on February 29th I’ll be eagerly downloading Windows 8 Consumer Preview just to find out if Microsoft have managed to do the impossible and created the one OS to rule them all.

Technorati Tags: windows 8,ARM,office 15,OS,mobile,tablets,desktop

What’s in a name? The G+ question.

2012-01-23T18:37:00.001Z

Though I hate to bring up the pseudonym argument again, this post is about my own personal reasons for wanting to use my pseudonym on Google+ and why I feel that pseudonyms should be allowed. I have thought about the whole argument for a long time, since joining Google+ as a matter of fact. I’ve been on Google+ since the very beginning and I joined as Technogran, my online name and the name that just about everyone knows me by. I have used that name since first buying a computer all those years ago and my reasons for wishing to use a pseudonym are varied and I won’t bore you by going into them in detail here. As far as I’m concerned my reasons for using my pseudonym hinge on the way that Google+ differs in its intended usage as a social network from for example Facebook, which is its closest equivalent.

Facebook began as a means of socialising in college and keeping in touch. I should imagine its first initial remit was usability by students who either knew one another personally or if not, were in fairly close proximity to one another and therefore could in theory meet up at say a coffee house etc. In other words, its aim was a user base of a fairly close nature as its users would all be students. Now of course it has a user base which is world wide, but how do the majority of us tend to use Facebook now? In my case most of those I share with on Facebook are either family or friends who know me personally and who I can meet face to face any day of the week. The same is true for them also. I know where they live and they know where I live. We might not see each other for months at a time or we might see each other every week, but we all know one another personally. Although I would have loved to also use Technogran on Facebook, I am not so bothered about using my real name on there as the public never see it because my posts on there are for my family and friends only.

Now in contrast, let’s look at how Google+ got off the ground. Google invited lot’s of technically minded and corporate users to the beta of Google+. These people were chosen by Google for a reason. They wanted feedback of course, but I also believe that they did not want or intend that Google+ be a Facebook clone. By selecting a certain type of user such as technology bloggers and journalists, corporate users, professional photographers and those who work in the technology field, they automatically set the tone for how Google + tends to still be used by everyone today, for mainly serious discussion with like minded individuals who share the same interests. For me as a self confessed geek, its has been a wonderful and enlightening experience and I have learned so much from the countless users who are so expert in their own chosen fields of expertise. But, the big question is, do I KNOW any of these people personally?

The chances of me bumping into (for example) Robert Scoble down at my local pub, or seeing Louis Gray in my local Tesco’s and having a friendly chat with either of them is about as likely as this Granny going to Mars. I knew OF them before the birth of Google+ simply because I’m such a Geek and into technology myself. I know of other technology journalists and bloggers as well by name because I read their articles about subjects that interest me. It’s one of the main reasons why I begged for an invite and once on G+ felt so at home. But I don’t know any of them personally. I could recognise them if they passed me in the street because I’ve seen photos and watched videos of them on the internet or in other social sites that they are part of. But knowing OF someone is not the same as KNOWING them. They probably also know me. I’ve maybe commented on their blog posts or joined in a discussion on other sites as Technogran in the past.

So THAT is the big difference between Facebook and Google+ and one of my main reasons for wanting to be allowed to use my pseudonym on there. There is also another reason, the way that Google+ works. If I post and make it public then anyone can read that post and if they are on Google+ they can add me to one of their circles WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. I am well aware that the simple answer to that is don’t post to Public. But is that how Google really want us to use Google+? I could also call myself by my real name (which incidentally is not the one I was born with as that changed once I married) and then only have two circles, one for family and one for personal friends and only post to those two circles. However in doing so, I would be essentially cloning my Facebook usage and so there would be no real reason that I can think of to be on Google+! Besides which I don’t think for one moment that Vic Gundotra and the Google+ team intend us to use Google+ in the same way as any of us tend to use Facebook. The posts I usually make on Google+ are of little or no interest to my family and friends. I know this because I do sometimes post on there with the odd link or some other interest on Facebook and I never get any response whatsoever whereas those in my Google+ circles are usually very interested. In other words, its a whole different audience on Google+.

So, its horses for courses as the saying goes, and on Google+ where none of my audience know me personally and never will, and where by the same token I don’t know them either, I prefer NOT to use my real name but to be able to call myself Technogran which is the name I am commonly known by on the internet. Don’t believe me? Just Google it!

Technorati Tags: Google+,Facebook,pseudonym,circles,posts,public

My new Mobile. Using the Nokia Lumia 800 Windows phone.

2012-01-13T10:01:00.000Z

Last year I finally tried out an iPhone. It was the first time that I had used a so called ‘smart phone’ and I suppose I was late to try one compared to the rest of the world, but I couldn’t quite see how I needed to use one. Was it important for me to be able to take a picture when travelling about and then immediately share it with my social networks? Or let my online friends know where I was at any particular moment in time? All I seemed to be using a mobile for was calls and messages. I have enjoyed using the iPhone, but I didn’t feel the need to download all that many applications to it, nor did I feel that I had to have it constantly by my side all the time. I didn’t feel the need to use most of its features apart from receiving/making calls or texting my family and friends. At the end of last year, I decided to upgrade to a Nokia Lumia 800 Windows phone and for me, its the best thing I have ever done.

Why? Well, I have always liked the look of the Metro tiled interface, and the Nokia Lumia certainly looks the part. Strangely enough I’ve never been a big Nokia fan, in fact this is the first Nokia phone I’ve ever owned and I love it! Its roughly exactly the same size as the iPhone 4 and it sits comfortably in my hand, feels very sturdy and well made and although I did want the cyan backed version which unfortunately Orange didn’t have available online, I plan to solve that little problem by buying some of the coloured back covers that are available on Amazon for this model. I can then swap and change the back colour to my hearts content and change the colour of the tiles on the home screen to match as I do so!

Getting used to using the phone has been a cinch. Once you have logged into your Windows Live account (don’t worry if you don’t have one, its easy to set one up) you can set up any social networks that you tend to frequent such as Facebook, Twitter etc, and also set up any email accounts you may have such as Gmail or Hotmail for example. Those people that you keep in touch with on any of your social networks or via any email accounts you have, and any updates and posts they make will be available to read and interact with via ‘What’s New’ under the People tile on your phone. The people tile is a so called ‘live’ tile in that it changes all the time on the Home screen showing small avatars of your contacts and friends that constantly flip and change. There is also a Me tile as well which shows your own avatar and which when pressed will allow you to send an update to Facebook, Twitter or Windows Live (or all three if you prefer) by simply entering your message that you wish to share. You can also ‘Check In’ as well as long as you have ‘location’ enabled on the phone, and the resulting message sent will include where you are at that given time using Bing Maps.

I think that one of the most useful tiles if you have location turned on is the Local Scout tile. No matter where you happen to be at any given time, this tile when accessed provides the following useful info , Eat + Drink, See + Do, Shop and Highlights. (The latter consisting in my neighbourhood of, for example the National Media Museum and the Kingsgate Shopping Centre.) I will find this tile very useful when in an area that I haven’t visited before as it will enable me to find the nearest places to eat, visit or yes, even shop! For those users who own a car there is Nokia Drive, which acts as a talking navigation aid similar to a ‘TomTom’ As I don’t own a car, I can’t really report on how good this is or how well it works, as I am not sure if it would work with a walking user such as myself!

You can pin any tile to the front Home screen as you wish and easily remove it again, so for example, you could pin your family group or a certain group of people that you tend to contact the most often so that they are immediately available with just one press. Similarly you can unpin any tile by simply pressing on it and then pressing on the pin. It will then be removed from the Home screen and be placed in the right hand side list of tiles. You can also change the colour of the tiles to suit your style or mood in the settings tile. Moving a tile up to the top, or further down simply requires a held down press, and then a move with your finger to the desired location. It all works really smoothly, enabling you to quickly customise the entire Home screen to suit yourself. You can also easily choose your own wallpaper for the Start screen. Its all so easy to personalise the phone to suit your tastes and how you use it. Being able to choose which tiles are presented to you on the Home screen means that all of your most used features are near to hand and quickly accessed. In fact the entire phone is a joy to use. Its very fast both when scrolling back and forth or swiping left or right. You’ll also find the hard ‘back’ button very useful as well.

In the same way that the iPhone uses iTunes on your PC, the Nokia uses Zune and once an initial connection has been made via the USB cable to your computer, is very easily set up ready for syncing. You can choose to download music, videos or apps to Zune and then sync them to your phone using the USB connection, or alternatively you can use your own home Wi-fi network instead. The phone can also sync via Bluetooth with either other phones or other equipment which is Bluetooth enabled. Of course, you can also access apps directly on the phone via either Marketplace or Nokia’s own App Highlights tile. I have encountered no problems whatsoever using any of these methods to access any of the apps to try out on the phone. Its all worked faultlessly.

Because the Nokia Lumia 800 is a Windows phone, it makes use of SkyDrive for storage of your photos and/or documents which will become especially useful if you tend to take quite a lot of photos on your phone. For those of you who might not be familiar with SkyDrive, think of it as an extra ‘hard drive’ online ( in the cloud) for storing your photos and/or documents. As soon as you create a Windows Live ID you are given access to you own personal SkyDrive and you are allocated a massive 25GB of storage for free! If you already have used SkyDrive for storing your photo albums in the past, they will now be all available to you on your phone. When you take a photo with the phone you are given the choice of where to share your photo’s, either to Facebook, Twitter, via you email accounts, or via SkyDrive, and you can also set the phone up to upload any photo as you take it automatically to your SkyDrive for storage. So SkyDrive can be very useful because it gives you a vast amount of storage in addition to that available on the phone itself. As I have quite a few photo albums already stored over the years, its a really nice touch to be able to see and access all of them directly on the phone.

It wasn’t all that long ago that I wondered why I would ever need to use a ‘smart phone’ at all, now thanks to the Nokia Lumia 800 I am finding myself taking it everywhere I go and I absolutely love using it. I can keep in touch now with everyone and see exactly what they are doing as I travel about and I fully recommend it, especially to those of you who haven’t yet decided to try out using a smart phone and are wondering what all the fuss is about. If your also on Facebook or use Twitter, you’ll love how those social networks are ‘inbuilt’ into the phone. So keep in touch with everyone whilst your on the move with the Nokia Lumia 800! Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: nokia,lumia 800,windows phone,tiles,sky drive,apps

Google Plus for Newbies 10. Personalising your Profile.

2011-08-05T13:27:00.000+01:00

One of the best features of your profile page on Google Plus is the way that you can personalise it and make it quite unique to yourself. Besides the usual profile picture on the left hand side, you can also add a ‘Scrapbook’ of pictures which can consist of photos that sum up who you are, your interests, your favourite photos or (as quite a few users have already done) a unique slant on you. You can also include more than one photo as your main profile photo which when clicked on, will cycle through them all. This opens up some interesting possibilities, especially as you can add some text to each photo in Picnik! So let’s see how you can individualise your profile and make it your own!

Creating your Scrapbook.

1. Above your posts on your profile page, you might have noticed a grey area inviting you to ‘Add some photos here’ This is your ‘scrapbook’ area. It’s up to you which photos you add to your scrapbook of course, but as this is your profile page where visitors will be needing to find out all about who you are, then maybe it might be fun to make your scrapbook say something about you. You could add individual photos of things you are interested in for example, or some of your all time favourite photos. Use your imagination! For this how-to I’m using a sequence of photos that my daughter took of me walking down the cobbled road this morning so that it looks as if I’m walking across the page.

2. Click on Add photo to add the first one to your scrapbook feature wall. You can add a photo from your photo files on your computer or alternatively from your current Picasa Web Albums.

3. You can add up to five photos to your scrapbook. Once you are happy with the display of your photos, decide who you want to be able to see them in your profile page and then click on Done Editing.

Changing your Profile Photo.

You can also have more than one profile photo AND have some creative fun by adding a message for the visitors to your profile! So let’s work our way through it shall we?

4. You can use as many photos for this as you want. Click on Change Photo under your profile photo on the left.

5.If this is the first time that you have added a profile photo, then click on Add a photo. You can add a profile photo from a variety of places, I’m going to add some photos from my computer files. When the first one has uploaded, we’re going to add some text to it in Picnik.

6. Click on Edit photo in Picnik.

7.Once Picnik has loaded, click on the Create tab at the top followed by the Text tab. You can now choose which fonts to use for your text, either default one’s or you can choose from Premium fonts or some others. below. I’ve chosen Burst My Bubble for this how-to.

8. In the box above the font choices, type in your text and then click on Add below. A white box will then appear in your photo which you can move around in order to place it where it can best be seen. Another window will have appeared over your photo containing Text Properties.

9. Choose the colour of your text, its position inside the box, which can be resized by clicking and dragging on the circles in each corner, the fade properties of your text, the size of it, and also Advanced Blend Modes or whether to flip your text or not to make it vertical or horizontal, Try everything out! You can’t spoil it until you click on Save this Image!

10. When you are happy with your text for your profile photo, click on Save this Image at the top right hand side.

11. You will now be asked to crop your profile photo. You can resize this crop box by clicking on the white squares at each corner and dragging them across to make the square larger or smaller.

12. Once you are happy with your photo, click on Set as profile photo.

13. Now you need to add another photo by clicking again on Change Photo. Work your way through the previous instructions in exactly the same way, but changing your text for each shot. You will have to instruct your visitors to click on your profile photos so ‘click on me’ or some such will need to be added to one of them. Each time your visitors to your profile click on your profile photos, they will cycle through them all.

NOTE! If you need your text to read in a certain sequence, then you probably will have to reverse them all when setting them up as your profile pictures, so the last one in your sequence first etc.

Google Plus for Newbies. 9. Sorting out Suggestions.

2011-07-29T18:01:00.000+01:00

Whenever you access your Home page, you will notice that you have some people suggested to you under the Suggestions header over in the right hand side column. These suggestions are made based on the type of people that you have already added to your circles. So if the largest majority of those users added to your circles are (for example) those in Social Media, then most of your suggestions will also be from that category of person because the default setting for Suggestions is ‘Relevance.’ You can change this by clicking on Show All at the bottom of the three persons shown. You can also change the Suggested persons by clicking on the X to the right of their name in order to cycle through them. So let’s take a closer look at Suggestions shall we?

1. From your Home page, click on Show All at the bottom of the three current Suggestions in the right hand side column.

2. On this page, you can see ALL of those users suggested to you by the criteria Relevance who are not yet in your circles. You can change the criteria from Relevance to First Name or Last Name if you want to by clicking on the word Relevance, but for this how-to, we’ll stay with the default.

3. In order to see more information about each person, such as their Profile or the type of posts they are making so that you can decide whether or not to add them to your circles and which circle to add them to, you firstly click on their tile. This tile will turn blue and some choices will then be made available to you on the top right hand side. These choices are as follows, Remove, Clear selection, View profile and More Actions.

4. Clicking on View Profile will take you to that particular persons Profile where you can find out more details about them in order to help you decide whether or not to include them in one of your circles.

5. Choosing Remove will of course remove them from this Suggestions list, Clear Selection will simply clear your chosen person so that you can choose someone else from the Suggestions list.

6. If you click on More Actions whilst someone is highlighted, you can either Block them or Select All.

7. You don’t have to add any of these Suggestions to your circles of course, the choice is entirely up to you and you can simply ignore them all if you wish.

Technorati Tags: google+,suggestions,relevance,block,clear

Google Plus for Newbies. 8. Notifications and Settings.

2011-07-27T12:56:00.000+01:00

Every time that someone adds you to a circle, you will receive an email notification to inform you of the fact. You do not have to add them to one of your circles of course, but one way that you can ‘vet’ those people who have added you to one of their circles, is to see what sort of posts they are making by accessing their posts that they make via Incomings. Incomings is purely a stream made up of the posts of those who have added you but who you have not yet added. Taking a look at your Incoming stream helps in deciding which people to include in a circle or not, and also which of your circles to put them in. For example, if you note that most of their posts are about photography, they can then be placed in a Photography circle.

1. When you receive the email notifying you who has added you to their circles on Google +, click on Add to circles inside the email in order to take you to your Notifications page.

2. Hovering your mouse over each persons name will tell you a little bit about that person. You can also Hide a person or Block a person from this Notifications page.

3. Clicking on More from the top right hand side of this Notifications page allows you to access a drop down list where you have some more choices which are as follows, All, Added to Circles, Posts by you, Posts by others, Mentions and Photo Tags. Clicking on each of those choices from this list allows you to see that choice in the Notifications stream. But how do you choose which Notifications actually end up arriving in your email box?

Setting up your Notifications.

4. From any page in Google Plus, click on the small gear icon at the right hand side of the black bar.

5. From that drop down list, click on Google+ settings.

6. From this Notification settings page you can adjust how you receive your notifications, either by email or SMS to your phone. (by adding your mobile number)

7. Below that choice, you can tick or untick any of the choices listed under Posts and mentions of my name, Photos of Me, begins a Huddle conversation with you, adds a +1 on any non-Google site and you can also choose whether or not to include any geo-location in your newly uploaded albums and photos. You also can choose who’s tags of you in a photo can automatically link to your Profile.

8. To check on the posts that someone who has included you in one of their circles is making, click on Incomings from your Home page. Accessing the Incomings stream can help to aid you in deciding whether or not to include them in your own circles or not.

Technorati Tags: google+,notifications,email,mobile,sms,settings,incoming,circles

Google Plus for Newbies. 7. Having a Hangout.

2011-07-24T15:25:00.000+01:00

Proving to be one of the more popular elements of Google Plus with users so far is the Hangout element. What exactly is a Hangout? If you own a webcam or have one built into your laptop, you may have already made use of talking to a family member or friend via a video call. Hangouts take this a stage further and entail you being able to talk and see several people all at once. This could be family members, friends or members of one of your circles that you have created on Google Plus. You can begin a Hangout yourself, or alternatively join in to someone else’s Hangout if you see one already taking place in your stream. So let’s work our way through a Hangout shall we?

1. From inside your Home page, click on Start a hangout from the right hand side column. If you have not tried a Hangout previously you will be required to download the Google Voice and Video plugin to your computer.

2. When the plugin has been installed on your computer, a window will open containing a smaller window where you can check your appearance and also check that your microphone is working correctly.

3. You can also check any other settings by clicking on the settings cog at the bottom of the window. Click on Save when you are happy with the overall settings.

4. Next you need to invite others to join you on your Hangout. Click on the ‘Add circles or people to share with’ to add others to your hangout. This can be any of your circles or individuals. Then click on Hang Out.

If anyone is available at that time, your Hangout will begin. All those people that you have in your circles will be able to see that you are having a Hangout in their streams. You can also conduct a ‘chat’ from this screen or watch some videos from YouTube. Use the search box at the top to find videos to watch about something of interest to you.

5. You can also join someone else’s Hangout if you see one taking place in your stream. Just click on Join this hangout to join in and take part.

Next post I’ll cover Incomings from those who are following you but are not yet in any of your circles, and also Suggestions.

Technorati Tags: google plus,hangouts,webcam,video,invite,stream

Google Plus for Newbies. 6. Using Sparks and searching for new friends.

2011-07-22T10:30:00.000+01:00

One of the features included in Google Plus is called Sparks and it can can be accessed from the left hand side column of your Home page. Sparks becomes really useful if you have created a circle of friends who are all interested in the same topic, such as Photography or Cycling, Reading etc. Sparks will allow you to do a search by topic or interest which you can then share with your other like minded friends on Google Plus. Let’s say you have begun a Book reading Circle and you wish to do a search for a particular author to then share with the other members of that circle. Sparks can really prove useful in doing that. So let’s try out Sparks shall we?

1. Go to your Home page by clicking on the Home icon at the top.

2. Click on the Sparks Header in the left hand column in order to access the Sparks page. As you can see from the screen grab, there are several subjects already suggested for you such as cycling, fashion, recipes, gardening etc.

For this how-to, I’m going to search for one of my favourite authors Ian Rankin because if I had a reading circle I might want to share the latest news about Ian with that book reading circle.

3. Type in your interest or subject into the search box at the top of Sparks and then begin the search by clicking on the blue magnifying glass. A list of articles about your interest, in this case Ian Rankin will be shown for you to scroll through.

4.You can simply click on the header of each article to read it, or alternatively share it to whoever you wish. In this how-to, we will share it to our Book Club circle. The lower article titled Real-life Ian Rankin mystery of ‘reverse heist’ sculptures looks very interesting so let’s share that.

5. Click on Share and another window will open where you can add a comment and then choose exactly which circle of friends to share this article with, in our case for this how-to, our book reading circle.

6.You can also add that particular interest to your Sparks list so that it is permanently there for you to search through again at a later time simply by clicking on Add Interest from under the search box. Clicking on that particular interest from your Sparks list from your Home page will then update with the latest news about that interest.

But what if you want to find ‘like minded’ users on Google Plus who share exactly the same interests as you do? Or maybe you wish to include all those who live near you to give another example? For that, you use the Find People search bar at the very top of the Google Plus page.

7.Type into the Find people search bar, your criteria or interest. For this how-to, I used Steam Trains because its one of my big interests. Before the search begins, you will be offered the choice of Find everyone matching ‘Steam Trains’ so click on that choice.

8. Another page will then open up consisting of all of those people who are on Google Plus who have included the words ‘Steam Trains’ in their Profile. Now you can see why its so important to place all of your interests into your Profile so that other like minded people who share the same interests as you can easily find you!

9. Scroll down the page where you can then choose from the list of people the one’s that you wish to make new friends with. You can find out more about them by clicking on their name to be taken to their Google Plus profile. As you share at least one interest, you should have plenty to talk about and share!

Next post, we’ll take a look at Hangouts and also your notification settings.

Technorati Tags: Google Plus,Sparks,interests,share,search,people

Google Plus for Newbies. 5. Sharing your photos.

2011-07-21T14:35:00.000+01:00

One of the main delights that most of us enjoy doing on any social networking site, is to share our photos with either our nearest and dearest, or people we will probably never meet from around the world. ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ is a very true saying, and for many internet users from the beginner to the professional photographer, the internet has become a showcase for their photos. Google already has the Picasa photo program including Picasa web Albums, so it make perfect sense for them to integrate Picasa into Google Plus. As with all of your updates on Google Plus, you can share a photo publicly or just to one person, the choice is entirely up to you. So let’s work through sharing a photo shall we?

1. From the top of your stream, click on the green Camera icon. You are offered three choices from the drop down window which are as follows +Add photos (from your computer) Create an album, where you can add a multitude of photos from your computer in order to create a brand new Album and also caption each photo simply by dragging each one into the square area as per the screen grab below, or alternatively From your Phone. Unfortunately the From your phone choice only works with Android phones at this time.

2. Once you have chosen either a single photo to share with others, or a complete new Album of photos and uploaded them to Google Plus, you can then decide exactly who to share it with, either the Public, one of your circles or just one person.

Making use of Lightbox.

Google Plus also includes Lightbox which allows you to view other peoples photos in a much larger format than is available in your stream. It also allows you to view them in a slideshow if there is more than one photo.

3. To access Lightbox, click on top of another persons photo either from your stream, from your circles (accessed by clicking on the photo icon next to Home) or alternatively click on one of your own photos.

4. If you are accessing someone else’s photo/s you can tag someone in that photo, see the photo details and also report any abuse to Google. On the right hand side of the photo viewer window, you can add a comment about the photo. You can also move onto the next photo in the album by clicking on the right or left arrow next to the photo.

5. When you click on one of your own photos, there are additional options in Lightbox for your use. Under the Actions tab, you can rotate it left or right, Edit your photo, Delete the photo or Report or delete any of the comments that others have made about the photo.

6. If you click on Edit Photo, you will then be offered several choices of effects at the right hand side of the photo, so let’s take a look at these different effects because they are very useful and are accumulative in their overall effect to your photo. The editing effects consist of Cross Process, Orton, I’m feeling lucky, Black and White, Auto Colour and lastly Auto Contrast. For this how-to, I’m going to apply three presses of Orton and we’ll see the effect this has on my photo. You can undo any of your applied effects simply by clicking on Undo.

7. As you can see, three clicks onto the Orton effect has made my photo look almost ghostly and I quite like that effect, so I am going to leave it like that. Try them all out one by one until you are happy with your photo or Undo them all if you wish to return to the original. Don’t be afraid to experiment!

Next post, we’ll take a look at Sparks and also how to conduct a search for people who share the same interests as you do using the Google Plus search.

Technorati Tags: google plus,photos,stream,album,phone,lightbox,edit,comment

Google Plus for Newbies. 4. Diving into your Stream.

2011-07-20T11:03:00.000+01:00

As you begin to add other people to your circles on Google Plus, your stream on your Home page will naturally begin to fill with posts and updates which you will most likely want to interact with, comment on and react to. You might just want to reply to someone who has left a comment on one of your own posts for example or take part in an on-going discussion about a subject that you are interested in. As you scroll down your stream to read all of the posts and decide to join in a topic of conversation, you have quite a few choices at your disposal regarding how to react either to someone else’s post or comment or to add your own reply or comment to that particular post.

1. When you see an interesting post in your stream from someone in one of your circles or you wish to reply or interact to someone else’s comment, you can simply click on the blue + sign underneath the post to show your interest and approval. (similar to the Facebook ‘Like’ button.) You can also + someone else’s comment on that post as well if you agree with the comment they have made.

2. To add your own comment to the discussion on either your own post or someone else’s , either click on Comment below the original post or click on the ‘Add a Comment’ box at the bottom of other people’s comments, type in your comment that you wish to add to the discussion, and then click on Post Comment.

3. If you decide to change your comment after you have added it to the conversation then, click on Edit in order to do so.

4. If you decide that particular post is of interest to other people in your circles, you can Share it with them. Click on Share from underneath the original post, and a new window will open where you can choose exactly who to share that post with, either Public certain circles, or an individual person. So if you have a Photography circle for example, and someone has made a post about a photo or a photographer, you can share it with only those people who you know will be interested in that post.

5. When you have added those circles or individual people that you wish to Share the post with, click on Share to add it to your updates.

6. Clicking on the small arrow at the top right hand side of every post gives you other Options at your disposal. You can Link to this post, Report Abuse, Mute this post and also Block this person.

7. If a particular post is quite long, you can Collapse that post so that it doesn’t take up too much room in your stream. Clicking on the small arrow at the very top right hand side of a post will also collapse it from view in your stream.

TIP! If your stream is rapidly scrolling down whilst you are trying to make a comment or editing a comment, you can stop that post and temporarily remove it from the moving stream by clicking on the time stamp at the top of the post.

Next post, we’ll take a look at sharing your photos on Google+ and using the Lightbox feature to both comment and also edit your photos.

Technorati Tags: google+,stream,comment,share,+,mute,block,collapse,link

Google Plus for Newbies. 3.The Home Page.

2011-07-18T18:01:00.001+01:00

Once you have added some family members, friends and acquaintances to your chosen circles, you can begin to share your updates with them. Google Plus gives you full control over who exactly will be able to see your updates so that you can be totally selective and quite specific regarding exactly who sees that update. In the same way that you wouldn’t inform a stranger that you were intending to go shopping or to the pub, neither will your close family such as your Mum probably be all that interested in some technology news that you have just found out about. Google Plus allows you to ‘home in’ on your intended audience for any updates that you wish to share. Let’s take a look at the Home page and see how this works.

1. From the top of any page in Google Plus, click on the Home icon to be taken to your Home page. Your Home page is divided into three columns, the middle wider one consists of your Stream which will constantly be updating and scrolling down the page as your friends and contacts in your circles update their streams.

In the left hand side column you have a list of your circles, any Sparks (more of which later) that you have saved and Chat. In the right hand side column, you have small icons of all the people in your circles, Hangouts, Go Mobile and lastly Send invites. For now, let’s concentrate on inputting an update and sharing to both a specific circle or even just one single person.

2. In the ‘Share what’s new’ box, type in your shared update. On the right hand side of this box, you will notice some small icons which represent a photo, a video, a link and/or your location. For now, we’ll just type in an update with an added photo to show to our family and blogging friends only.

3. Click on the Camera icon to bring up a small window containing the choices of where to get your photo from, either upload from your computer/laptop, Create an album or from your mobile phone. If you select + Add photos, another window will open containing all of your photo files so that you can select one to share.

4. Once the photo has uploaded, you can then add some comment above it to be included for your target audience.

5. Now you need to select just who you want to be able to see the photo and your comment from your chosen circles. For this how-to, I will choose Family and also Blogging friends. Click on the ‘Add circles or people to share with’ box to access the circles that you wish to choose from.

A drop down list will appear containing your individual circles including their names, your circles, your extended circles or Public. Any previous choices that you have made in the past whilst sharing will also be shown at the bottom of the list.

6. Click on the circle or circles if you are choosing more than one, or type in an individuals name or email address if you wish to send your photo and update to just one person.

7. When you have selected those circles or persons that you wish to send your update to then click on Share in order to update your stream.

8. You can also send the update to any other people who are not yet using Google+ as well if you wish. They will receive the update via an email message. Simply untick the box if you do not wish to include them in your update.

Exactly the same applies if you are sending just a text update, a video that you wish to share or a link. You can be very precise about exactly who sees any update that you decide to share.

9. Only wish to see updates from certain people such as your family for example? Just click on your family circle from the left hand column and your stream will only consist of those updates.

Next post we’ll work through joining into a conversation taking place in your stream so that you can begin to make new friends and really begin to socialise with others.

Technorati Tags: google+,home,stream,photo,link,video,location,circles

Google Plus for Newbies. 2. Creating your Circles.

2011-07-16T21:31:00.000+01:00

Now that you have filled in your profile so that other users can both find you and glean some information about you and you have adjusted your privacy settings to your satisfaction, you can then move on to adding some people to your circles. Google has already set up some default circles for you as suggestions, but you do not have to stay with the titles that they have chosen if you don’t want to, you can rename any of your circles to suit you. The idea behind circles of course, is that you are separating your family or friends or any other group of people that you wish to share updates, photos or links with because you simply don’t want to share the same things with different groups of people as in real life. So let’s add some people shall we?

1. From your profile page, click on the circles icon at the top.

2. You are then in the circles page, where at the moment there will probably be no one to suggest adding to your circles. The suggested circles are lined up below. They consist of Family, Friends, Acquaintances and Following plus an unnamed circle for you to name as you wish. You can of course rename the other circles already provided by Google.

If you have been using Gmail or other Google products for some time, they will appear under the Find and Invite tab at the top of this page. You can also add people from your Connected sites such as Yahoo or Hotmail, so let’s add some of our friends from there.

3. Clicking on the Hotmail tab will take you to the Connect screen for messenger where you can bring in all of your messenger friends so that you can begin to place them in one of your circles.

4. You can also do the same with your Yahoo contacts in exactly the same way. The top half of this page will then fill up with your contacts from those services. To add them to a circle, simply drag their name tile to a circle by clicking on it and then dragging it to the relevant circle. A smaller circle of their avatar will then appear in the circles outer rim, and a green +1 will appear to signal that they have been added to that circle.

If any of the contacts from either Yahoo or Hotmail are not yet on Google+, then adding them to a circle will invite them or you will share with them via email.

5. If you click on a circle, such as friends while it is empty, you will not only be able to change its name and get a brief description about its usage, but also get an explanation about exactly what occurs when you add someone to a circle including what you will both be sharing with each other and what they can see about the circle that you have added them to. You can also change whether or not you wish them to appear on your public profile from here as well.

6. You can add as many circles to the default one’s as you wish, or delete them all and begin from scratch with your own personal choice of circles to suit you. In order to delete a circle click on it and then from that window, select Delete this circle at the bottom.

7. To rename a circle (such as one of the default one’s already provided) again, click on the circle in question, then select Rename. Fill in the rename box at the top with your chosen title, and then click on Save at the bottom of the window. If you are offered a default description, you can also Edit that as well if you prefer.

And that’s it! You can now go to your home page and check to see if your stream from those people that you have added and who are already on Google Plus have shared anything with you, and you can now add something to share with them.

Next post, we’ll cover your home page and how to be selective about who sees what when you share something, and also we’ll adjust our Google Plus settings so that we don’t get swamped with far too many emails from our notifications and other settings that we can adjust.

Technorati Tags: google plus,circles,friends,contacts,gmail,hotmail,hyahoo,rename,delete

Google Plus for Newbies. 1. Let’s get started!

2011-07-16T07:26:00.000+01:00

If you are reading this how to, you have probably been sent an invite to join Google Plus by one of your friends who is already on the trial. This will be in the form of an email which will ask you to ‘Learn more about Google Plus’ so click on that to be taken to the Google Plus Welcome page. At first glance this Welcome page may look rather daunting, as there is quite a lot of information for you to digest on there, so you may be rather confused as to where to begin. As with most Social Networks, its best to start at setting up your Profile, and adjusting your privacy settings as you go along. As these are fairly comprehensive on Google Plus, we’ll work our way through them all step by step.

1. Setting up your Profile.

As you can see in the screen grab above, you are invited to Complete your profile so click on the blue box to be taken to your Google+ profile page. Next click on Edit Profile at the top of the page. Each area can be then altered where you can input your details as you think fit. To do this, click on each separate area in order to change it.

a). Introduction.

This tells anyone who you allow to see your Profile a little bit about you and who you are. You can fill in as much or as little information about yourself as you like, but if you wish to encourage others to get to know you better it might be wise to be as detailed as possible. At the side of the header Introduction, you will notice a circle. Clicking on this circle allows you to set up your permissions for that particular area, and the same applies to every area on this page.

b) Bragging rights.

This area is where you can state the things that you have achieved so far that you are proud of. Note that you do not have to fill in every area, they are not compulsory, but the more information you provide, the easier it will be for other users to both find you using Google+ search, or decide whether you are worth adding to their circles as a friend.

c) Occupation

Where do you work now and where have you worked in the past? How much information and who you decide to allow to see that information is entirely your choice. Simply click on the ring to the left of the header to adjust who you wish to be able to view each area.

d) Education.

Schools, Colleges etc that you may have attended if you wish your old school friends to be able to find you on Google Plus.

e) Places Lived.

This area allows you to state whereabouts you have lived by clicking on the map and then inputting an area into the search box. A pin will then be added to the map for each area that you input into subsequent boxes. Again you do not have to fill in this information, and you can alter just who sees that information as you add any areas that you have lived in.

The other areas are as follows, Home (your home telephone number) Work (Work telephone number if you wish to make this available to anyone) Relationship ( are you looking for friends, Dating, A relationship, or Networking.) Gender (you do not have to fill this in if you don’t want to) Other Names (maiden name or alternate spellings) Nickname (if you have one) and lastly Search Visibility Do you want to help others find your Profile in search results?

Lastly you can set up a Scrapbook to be shown across the top of your Profile. This can be any set of photos that you like, of yourself, or perhaps some favourite photos that you are especially proud of or to show what you are about.Once you have uploaded your photos to your scrapbook, you can also set up who can see those as well.

On the left hand side, you can set up who can see the people that you have placed in your circles and also those people who have added you to their circles. Note that no one, even those people in your circles have access or can see which circles you have placed them in or what you have called your circles. For this demo, I have made all of the people in both the circles completely invisible to everyone by unticking the tick boxes for both In your circles and Have you in circles.

When you are happy with your information that you have supplied and also your privacy settings for each area in your profile, then click on Done Editing in the red band at the top of your profile page.

In the next post we’ll move on to the next stage of adding people to your circles so that you can begin sharing!

NOTE! Each area on this page does not have to be filled in, or you can of course be as vague as you wish with the information that you provide. You will note in this how to, how I have been rather tongue in cheek with the information that I have given but this is just for demonstration purposes.

Technorati Tags: google plus,welcome,profile,permissions,scapbook,circles

Google+. From a Granny’s point of view.

2011-07-13T18:31:00.000+01:00

For the last few days, I’ve been trying out Google+, the new social network to arrive on the scene from Google. What, another one? I hear most of you cry, but I for one love it, in fact I haven’t been able to keep off there since I received the invite! Some of my readers may be aware that I have never been a fan of Facebook, I only began using it because members of my family asked me to join. Google+ is far more to my taste, from it’s brilliantly conceived circles that allow you to keep everyone separate so that you can just post an update to those you choose, to its fantastic integration of Picasa and your photos. Oh, and don’t of course forget Blogger!

As on other social sites, your profile is key to others getting to know you and choosing whether or not to add you to their circles, and it is also key to using Google+ search which allows others to find you by searching your info such as where you work or the area where you live. If you want to be more vague about this info when you fill in the respective areas, you can of course do so to help to protect your privacy, but you can no longer keep your Profile private in Google+. However, don’t be worried about privacy because Google+ does have a very impressive way of setting up your privacy settings to suit you. Nor do you have to fill every item in as you can see from my Google+ Profile. Just remember when you fill it in, only put in what you wish others to see. (as with all social networks.) In fact you can get a view of how others see your profile once you have filled it all in so that you can check that your not giving too much info away to others by simply clicking on your profile icon and then choosing the View Profile As box and entering someone’s name who is in one of your circles.

It’s Circles that are really the backbone and the inspiration that makes Google+ such a success in my opinion. Far too often on Facebook I have added some link or other that I knew would not be interesting to my family and many of my friends, so being able to post an update to your individual circles (or even just to one particular person) is a godsend. The principle of Circles is fairly easy to understand and Google starts you off with some default circles such as the obvious one’s of Family and Friends. You can rename these default circles as you can any of the other circles that you may create later. No one is going to see what you have called your circles or who you decide to place in them and you can add as many circles as you like.

Picasa has been fully integrated into Google+ and is the default for your photos that you share on there, either in your stream or as uploads to Google+, where they are saved as posts as is your profile picture. Clicking on your photos icon from the top of your stream (home) or alternatively from your profile, takes you to your photo page where you can see all of the photos that people in your circles have used in their streams, plus photos from your phone, photos of you, and lastly your photo albums that you have amassed in Picasa. Clicking on someone’s photo from this page or from your stream brings up an full screen version with a black background where you can leave a comment about the photo. There are also some useful features for the owner of the photo accessed from the Actions tab such as Photo Details, Rotate Left and Right, Edit Photo, Delete Photo and report or delete comments. You can also add a tag to your photo.

I feel that Picasa has been well integrated into Google+ and the enhancements made to the UI are to be welcomed. When I go to view my photos in my albums now from Google+ and hover my mouse over an album, the album fans out’ to display the first three photos in that album and it looks very attractive.

The other feature of Google+ that I have used so far is called Sparks, where you can use Google+ search to search any subject and then choose one of the articles found to post to your stream in order to share with others. There are some subjects already provided for you but you can search on any subject that interests you or may be of interest to those in your circles. So if you had a circle consisting of all the members of a book club for example, you could search for the latest books.

Another very popular feature found in Google+ is Hangout where you can invite others to join you in a video chat. At this particular time, you can invite up to ten people to chat to all at once and this feature is turning out to be getting some really good use from those who are on Google+ at this time. A chat feature is also available but many of the early adopters consider that the Hangout feature is a fantastic idea and one that will be used in the future for lot’s of collaboration and get togethers. Whether the maximum number currently allowed will be increased as Google+ evolves is debatable, but if it proves popular with users it might be possible for Google to increase it. The following video shows how hangouts work in Google+

Google+ Hangout

My personal concern so far is that most of the initial users on Google+ have been the more technically able, and although one can understand why any big technology company would tend to focus on such users to trial their software, the feedback and the usage so far is bound to be skewered. Whilst we ‘Geeks’ and more tech able have found Google+ easy to set up and get to grips with, and there have already been some fantastic ‘tips and tricks’ doing the rounds on Google+, and also some very useful extensions for Chrome have already surfaced from developers, the success or failure of Google+ is as always going to hinge on whether or not the mainstream users take to it or not. So far, most of the tech able users love it and it is proving very VERY addictive, but whether the man or woman in the street is going to feel the same and abandon other social networks for Google+ is a moot point. Will they be able to easily grasp setting up their circles and the concept behind it all? Of course, Google has tried to be as helpful as possible by providing some really good videos to demonstrate how it all works, and others are quickly providing helpful guides via their blogs etc, but it is can prove very difficult to gear your user interface to cover every level of user out there. The success or not of Google+ will all hinge on this very question in my opinion.

Technorati Tags: google+,profile,circles,videos,social,photos,hangouts

Taking a look at the new Blogger Interface.

2011-07-08T14:41:00.000+01:00

At last after months of waiting, Blogger has updated its Blogger in Draft interface. We users have probably had to wait until the soft launch of Google +, as other areas of Google are also receiving updates during this time. When I logged on this morning to my Blogger account, I was very pleased to see the new interface in Blogger in Draft. Some users are already unhappy with it, mainly the colours used and the waste of space on the page, but I for one prefer it to the older version, its light, looks far more in keeping with todays web pages, and is an absolute joy to use.

The first page that greets you is your Dashboard. Your blogs are all listed at the top of the much wider page with the reading list of the blogs that you follow underneath. At the right hand side of each blog are three icons, the first takes you to the new online editor which again is the full width of the page.

At the right hand side of the editor are the post settings where you can add labels, a schedule when you wish the post to be published, a location for the post and lastly other options such as allowing comments on this post, backlinks, the compose mode and line breaks. All the usual editing and composing features run along the top of the Compose area.

The next icon which is in the shape of a house consists of a drop down list which contains the following, Posts, Comments, Stats, Earnings (from AdSense if you use this on your blog) Layout, Template and lastly Settings.

Selecting Posts takes you to a list of your posts where you can edit, add tags etc. to any of your previous posts. You will also notice that whilst I was taking a look at the new online editor and doing a demo post for my screen grab, Blogger saved the post automatically because it’s there in the list. (take notice Live Writer, auto save in the background!)

Clicking on Comments from the drop down list takes you to the new comments page where you can edit any comments that appear on your blog posts. Stats show you a very comprehensive view of your visitors to your blog in an easy to understand graph, either for hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or for all time, a map showing where most of them live and also the traffic sources such as Twitter etc.

You will probably have noticed that every page also contain the same list on the left hand side as the drop down list on your Dashboard so that you can easily access those choices without having to return to the main Dashboard page. Clicking on Layout takes you to the new Layout page where you can change the layout of your blog as you wish.

Selecting Template takes you to the new template page where you can simply change your blog to a new template or customise a new template which will take you to the Template Designer. Clicking on each template will give you a Preview of your blog so that you can see how it looks before you decide to change it or customise it. You can download a copy of your current blog to your computer before you make any changes, just in case you make a hash of it or change your mind later.

You can see how your blog looks in the other Templates from this preview by simply clicking on the arrows in the preview window to move onto the next template or the previous one. Selecting Settings from the list allows you to alter the basic settings for your blog such as its Title, the description, add authors, state who can read your blog and whether it can be trawled by search engines.

Your Reading List on the main Dashboard page now looks really attractive. It includes a small picture from each blog, and you are also given the option to read your list of followed blogs in Google Reader if you prefer on the right hand side.

All in all I really like the new user interface. It’s attractive and easy to navigate around. Okay, there is quite a bit of wasted space on some pages, but its a vast improvement to the previous version in my opinion. Of course, if you don’t like the new version, you can always use the old version by choosing not to use Blogger in Draft for your Dashboard.

Technorati Tags: blogger,draft,editor,user interface,posts,templates,dashboard

How I make use of Photo Fuse in Windows Live Photo Gallery.

2011-07-04T10:11:00.000+01:00

During our recent day out in York I wanted to take a photo of a very attractive building, but there were so many people walking in front of this particular building, I simply couldn’t get a clear shot of it. The answer is to take quite a few shots from exactly the same spot so that you can ‘fix’ it and remove all of the people using Photo Fuse in Windows Live Photo Gallery. Of course, the original intention of Photo Fuse was to arrive at a perfect ‘Group’ shot of people, but I find Photo Fuse far more useful when I wish to take a shot of something and I can’t get a clear shot without including people walking past. Here is my step by step ‘how-to’ showing you just how to remove any unwanted portion of your photos and arrive at your perfect shot.

1. Firstly take as many shots as you can of your intended subject, the more the merrier, and make sure each shot is taken from the same spot. (see my photos of the building below.)

Notice that in each of my shots there are different people walking by in front of the building. By using the Photo Fuse feature in Windows Live Photo Gallery, I’m going to remove them all so that I eventually end up with my desired photo of just the building.

2. After importing the photos into Windows Live Photo Gallery, highlight the photos that you intend to fix using Photo Fuse, and then click on Create in the ribbon interface and then choose Photo Fuse.

3. Wait a few moments whilst Photo Fuse aligns your chosen photos to Fuse.

4. Next, your photo shot will be shown in the Photo Fuse window, and inside the photo will be a square of dots that you can move around the photo. At the right hand side of the square, you will see a small window containing a scrollable collection of the same area from each of your photos in question, in my case four. You are asked which one of these you like best. As I need to get rid of all the people in front of the building, I will need to choose from the selection, the one with no one present.

5. Now move the square of dots around your photo by clicking on it and holding down the left hand mouse button. I need to move mine over the first set of people in the picture. You can enlarge the square by clicking on each dot and dragging it sideways by holding down the mouse button until the dotted square surrounds the area you wish to change. I shall make my square cover the two people holding hands.

6. Now all I need to do is choose one of the corresponding areas from the ‘Which do you like best?’ pane, so I need to choose the one with no person in it. Click on your choice from the pane to select it.

Like magic the couple holding hands have disappeared! Next I need to move onto the couple with the blue t-shirt on.

7. Continue in the same way with all areas of your photo that you wish to change. Simply move your dotted square over the area in question, making sure it covers the entire area that you wish to change, select one of the other views of that area, click on it to select it and your photo will change to your choice.

In this how-to, I only have the far set of people to eradicate now. So I’ll place my square over them, making sure it covers them completely, choose the version from my other shots from the sidebar window that contains no person at all and voila! I now have my perfect shot!

TG (Isn’t technology marvellous?)

Technorati Tags: windows live photo gallery,photo fuse,people,building,square,eradicate

The Trouble with Microsoft.

2011-06-25T11:47:00.000+01:00

As a purely ordinary PC user, i.e not a corporate or business user, I thought that I would put my views forward as to why Microsoft has missed the boat somewhat and allowed others to pass them by in the ‘keeping up with trends’ race. First of all, I feel that every corporation or manufacturer, in whatever area they are, needs competition. Without competition, you would simply stagnate, there would be no one to ‘keep you on your toes’ to encourage you to be innovative or imaginative. You would tend to sit on your laurels because you would be the only one available to your customers, and they in turn would have no other avenue to compare your products with. There would simply be no incentive to improve.

Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, if you had the market all to yourself, you would have little need to listen to feedback from your customers, what they would like in the way of improvements, the future avenues they would find useful, so feedback would not be as important either, you could just move in any direction that you as a business felt was right or suited you. Which users feedback should you listen to as a huge business anyway? The one’s who make you the most profit? Or have done in the past? In Microsoft’s case, this has tended to be the corporate user simply because they were the ‘cash cows’ as they were the largest PC users, and also needed Microsoft’s Office Suite.

The ‘none corporate’ user were in the minority, not a lot of none corporate users owned their own computer in the past, but now things have changed. Slowly over time, we the ‘ordinary’ none corporate user have grown in number, we own PC’s, laptops, iPads, smart phones, and our needs and wants are no where near the same as the corporate user. We want to share, form communities, make friends online, share stories, photos, communicate, and be able to sync instantly our files and photos across our devices without hassle, as long as we have okayed that sync.

Because Microsoft was listening to the wrong audience, they have allowed themselves to lag behind the likes of Google, Apple and Facebook, who haven’t been as concerned about concentrating their listening to the feedback from their corporate users. Today technology has a different set of users, still growing in number, whilst the corporate user, at least in my neck of the woods, is still stagnating and falling behind by still using Windows XP as their operating system, probably because of the cost of re-training their workforce to use a new version of Windows. In fact, I would imagine that there are more none corporate users who have made the leap to Windows 7, and will do the same with Windows 8. It could also be the same story with MS Office as well, but as I am not party to sales this is only a guess on my part.

So where does all the money come from now? The large corporate user, or the ever growing number of ‘ordinary’ users? If you are only looking and listening in one direction, you miss the ability to listen to the requests from the other direction, and can end up lagging so far behind, that it’s going to be hard going to keep up.

(I’m only a Granny, and this post is my personal view of why I think Microsoft need to take a long hard look at who’s feedback they take notice of.)

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,feedback,users,Google,Apple,iPads,smartphones,PC's,Windows

Creating a Header using Windows Live Photo Gallery

2011-04-27T08:57:00.000+01:00

If your blogs theme allows you to use your own header, its nice to be able to use one of your favourite Vistas or scenes so that you can really make your blog really personal to you. Whether you use Wordpress or Blogger, here’s how to make a fantastic header using the panoramic feature available in Windows Live Photo Gallery. You don’t need an expensive camera either, so here’s the step by step way to make that favourite scene or spot feature as a header on your blog.

1. Download Windows Live Photo Gallery from http://explore.live.com/windows-live-photo-gallery?os=other and install on your computer.

2. Now you need to go and take your pictures of your favourite vista or view. You will need to take your shots of the scene from either left or right, and slowly swing your camera horizontally along the entire scene from one side to the other taking your individual shots. Try to keep the camera on the same plane as you pan either left or right. Each shot should overlap each other so that Photo Gallery can ‘stitch’ them all together. See the separate shots below and how they overlap one another as I took them.

3. Next we need to make our Panorama inside Photo Gallery, so select all three (or however many shots you took of your chosen vista) and then click on the Create tab from the ribbon in Photo Gallery.

4. From the Create ribbon, choose the Panorama icon and Photo Gallery will then begin to ‘stitch’ the individual photo together into a panoramic shot. Once completed it will ask you to give the panorama a name and then you can click on Save.

5. It’s highly likely that your newly created panoramic shot will need cropping, so click on the Crop icon in the ribbon and then crop out all of the black excess from the panoramic shot. When you are certain that all of the black has been cropped out, click on Crop once more to tidy up your shot.

6. Now that our panoramic shot is complete, we can use it on Wordpress or Blogger as our header. I’ll deal with Wordpress first. Go to your Wordpress Dashboard and click on Appearance and then Header from the left hand Menu list.

7. Next you will need to upload your panoramic photo so click on Choose File and then navigate to your panoramic shot and select it, then click on Upload. As it will probably be a large file it may take some time to upload.

8. Once uploaded, you may have to do some more cropping of the panoramic shot depending on the width of the header that your theme uses, then once you are happy with your final crop, click on Crop and Publish.

9. Now go to your blog by clicking on Visit your Site and admire your new personal header!

10. Now let’s use our panoramic shot as a header on Blogger. Go to your Blogger Dashboard and select Design, then click on Edit in your current Header.

11. Next, from the window that opened click on From your computer and then Choose File. If you want your blog Title to still be shown, then also select Behind Title and Description from the list. It’s also a good idea to tick Shrink to Fit so that the header fits into your chosen theme.

12. Once your new header has uploaded click on Save. Now you can go and view your newly created header on your blog!

Technorati Tags: header,wordpress,blogger,live photo gallery,panorama

Blogger- A blog with a view

2011-04-05T09:10:00.000+01:00

Last year, the Blogger bods asked their users what features and updates they would like to see on Blogger. Now they are busy updating the interface and features, and if you currently use Blogger as your blogging platform, you can try out one of the new features for yourself! It allows you and your readers to access and view the posts in your blog in dynamic ways. You can read more about it here at Blogger Buzz All you have to do to access the new dynamic views of your blog or someone else’s is to add to the URL address of the blog /view It’s that simple! Not only that, but if you use Chrome as your browser, you can also add an extension to Chrome which will automatically allow you to see all of your friends blogs in the new dynamic views!

The dynamic views use the latest web technology which allow you to view blogs in five new ways and with obvious benefits.

1. Infinite Scrolling: Read more posts without having to reload or click on a new page.

2. New Layouts: Different views suited to different types of blogs.

3. Speed: Download any images as you view them, not all at once in advance.

4. Interactivity: There are now more ways to experience and engage with blog content.

There are five different views of either your own blog or someone else’s blog and these are as follows.

Sidebar.

Here the posts are listed in a sidebar whilst the content is displayed in the larger area.

Flipcard

In this view, all posts are on Flipcards which can be flipped to show more information about that post. The reader clicks on the Flipcard in order to read the post they are interested in.

Mosaic.

In this view, your posts are shown in different sizes (hence the name) and can be clicked on by the reader in order to read each one.

Snapshot.

This one is particularly useful if you have a photo blog. Photos are shown in a line with captions underneath.

Timeslide.

Lastly we have Timeslide which shows your latest posts in the far left column, then earlier posts listed in the middle and even older posts in the far right. Readers simply click on a post they are interested in reading.

Blogger are also interested in users feedback which you can give here at https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dG5vUHotaWxTdnpMTkk1RkNXMkFtVkE6MQ

Try them all out on your own blog and on your friends blogs. You don’t have to use them if you don’t like the new dynamic views. I’m looking forward to seeing what other new features Blogger will be introducing soon!

TG P.s In order to use these new views, you do need to have Feeds enabled on your blog. Here is some more info about how to enable Dynamic Views on your blog http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1227173&ctx=go

Technorati Tags: view,dynamic,blogger,posts,feedback

Making a Sidebar List on Blogger.

2011-01-19T14:16:00.000Z

One of my friends on Blogger has asked me how she can make a list of her Recipes in the sidebar of her blog so that other readers can easily click on the recipes and access them. There are other methods of doing this, but for this how-to, were going to use the Link Lists Gadget in order to achieve our aims. Once all of your Recipes are published to your blog, you can use the Link List Gadget to list them in the sidebar. Also its very easy to add more recipes to the list as and when you add them to your blog. Every post (and therefore every recipe) has a unique web address contained in the browser address bar. We will need all the different addresses of each recipe so that when a reader clicks on the name of that recipe from inside the sidebar, they are automatically taken to the recipe in question.

1. Firstly once you have posted up some recipes to your blog on Blogger, access your Dashboard and from there, click on Design.

2. From the Design page, click on Add a Gadget in your Sidebar area.

3. In the Add a Gadget window, scroll down until you reach the Link List Gadget. Click on the Add box (blue plus sign) in order to access it.

4. Now you need to fill in the relevant boxes. First of all give your List a Title. In this case and for this how-to I have chosen to call it Recipes.

5. Next you need to fill in the Number of links to show in the list. If you intend to have your list contain loads of Recipes, it might be better to leave this box blank.

6. Do you want your list to be sorted, either Alphabetically or Reverse Alphabetically or not sorted at all? You can set this here.

7. Next you need the URL Address of your recipe. To obtain this address for each separate recipe that you have posted to your blog, click onto that particular recipes title, the URL will change for that recipe, click inside the Address bar in your browser, then once it has changed colour, right click and choose Copy, and then place your cursor into the New Site URL box in the Link Lists URL address bar, right click and choose Paste. That particular recipes address will then be added.

8. Give the Site a name. This will be the name of that recipe in this particular case.

9. Click on Add Link.

10. Lastly click on Save to save the Link List gadget to your sidebar.

11. To add all of your other recipes at any time, simply return again to your Dashboard then Design. Click on Edit on your Recipe Gadget and then add the new recipe’s URL address as just described and give it a new Site name. Click on Add Link then click on Save. Repeat for all of your recipes as and when you add them to your blog.

Eventually you will end up with a long list of recipes where your readers can easily click on each recipe they are wanting to access. You could also make separate Link Lists for different types of recipes as well, so you could have one Link List titled Main Courses and then a separate list for Desserts.

Have fun!

Technorati Tags: recipes,lists,link,gadgets,dashboard,design,URL,address,title.

Keeping up with your friends blog posts.

2011-01-03T16:03:00.000Z

We all like to keep tabs on all of our friends blogs and to be able to read their latest posts as soon as they are published. However, this can often mean trawling around blogging sites, or in the case of Wordpress, subscribing to them and then keeping up with reading all of our subscriptions. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every time a friend published a new post to their blog we could not only be informed but read it straight away on our computers? Well you can do exactly that! Without leaving your desktop, you can see all of your friends blog updates and read their posts just as if you were online! Here’s how.

1. Firstly you will need to download Windows Live Mail if you don’t already use it. Get it from HERE

2. As soon as you have set up your email in Windows Live Mail, you need to set up all of your friends blog feeds to send updates to Windows Live Mail, so next, go to your friends blog site.

If you are using Internet Explorer as your browser, then simply click on the orange icon and a drop down list of all the available feeds on that page will be listed, so choose the blog one from that list in order to subscribe to it. Any feeds that you subscribe to in Internet Explorer are automatically added to the feeds in Windows Live Mail.

3. Many blogs also contain the RSS feed in the sidebar or in the header. Click on this to access the feeds URL address and subscribe to the feed. If you are using a different browser than Internet Explorer, then you will need to Copy the URL address of your friends blog feed, so here’s how to do that.

4. Visit your friends blog and click on either the RSS icon if it is present in either the browser or the blog page itself and then click on the words in the address bar at the top of your browser window. They will usually change colour so right click and choose to Copy from the drop down list that appears.

5. Close your browser and open Windows Live Mail on your desktop and select the same orange icon at the bottom of the email accounts column on the left hand side. If you used Internet Explorer to subscribe to your friends blog, the Feed will already be present in the left hand side column. If you use a different browser, then select the orange icon from the ribbon at the top.

6. The Add RSS Feed window will open so place your cursor inside the URL bar in that window and then right click and choose Paste. The URL of your friends feed will then be inserted into the address bar. Click on OK.

Your friends blog feed will now be added to the RSS feeds in Windows Live Mail. You can now choose how you view all the posts from that blog, either Ascending (oldest post at the top) or Descending. Next, let’s change the view of those posts in Windows Live Mail so that they appear exactly the same as if we were viewing them online.

7. From the ribbon interface, click on the File icon at the very top left hand side of the ribbon, and then select from the drop down list, Options and then select the orange Feeds icon on the right. You are now in the Manage Your Feeds window.

8. Click on the name of your friends feed. The feeds name will appear for a second time under the first one. Select the lower second name to bring up the Edit Feed window.

9. In this window you first need to tick the box next to Show articles as web page, instead of summary. Next you can choose to update your friends feed using your own schedule or the default for updating your emails. Lastly you can choose how many blog posts to show and keep in Windows Live Mail.

10. Once you are happy with your choices for your friends blog posts, click on OK to exit the Edit RSS Feed window and save your settings, and then click on Close in order to close the Manage Your Feeds window. Now you can read all your friends blog posts just as they appear online but still from your desktop. Just simply repeat this for every one of your friends blog posts that you like to keep up with whether on Wordpress or some other blogging platform.

After reading your friends posts, if you decide you would like to leave a comment on that post, then simply click View Online at the top of the post. You can read all of your friends blog post updates at the same time as you read your emails! How easy is that!

TG Remember, Windows Live Essentials is all about making your life easier.

Technorati Tags: how-to,live mail,RSS,feeds,blog,posts

Windows Live Writer, Dual postings.

2010-12-12T08:10:00.000Z

One if the big advantages of using Windows Live Writer to publish your blogs posts is if you have more than one blog and each is on different blogging platforms. I am in this position, I have two blogs on Wordpress.com and also two on Blogger. Windows Live Writer allows me to send the same post to both at the same time, so I can do a ‘double’ posting to each one. In this post, I will be showing you how to do this, step by step. Firstly you will need to set up both your Wordpress.com blog in Live Writer and also your Blogger blog. For this how to, I’m going to use my Photo blogs in order to demonstrate how to set them up in Writer and then how to publish the exact same post to both of them.

1.In Live Writer, click on Add Blog Account from the ribbon interface. or click on the File Icon in the top right hand corner of the screen, and then from the drop down list, select Options, Accounts and finally Add.

2. Choose which Blog service you are using for the new blog and then in the window input the URL Address of your blog, your user name and your password. When that is completed, click on Next. Live Writer will then begin the ‘sync’ with your blog including its current theme. Once that has completed, you need to sync Live Writer with your other blog on the other blogging platform but this time filling in the details for that blog instead.

TIP! If Live Writer has any problems correctly syncing with your blog, check the URL address, your user name and password are correct. Also try at some other time when perhaps your internet connection is at a better speed.

3. Once both blogs have been correctly set up inside Live Writer choose one of them and begin to compose your post.

4. Once your post is completed, publish to that particular blog. Then simply switch to the other blog by clicking on the list of Blogs in the Home ribbon. Selecting the other blog will then show the post you have just composed but now displayed in the other blog. If there is any difference in the width of the second blog, you may have to slightly adjust your formatting or size of any included photos.

5. Once you are happy with the second blogs format, publish the post up to the second blog. And that’s all there is to it! One post to two different blogging services!

TG ( And this post will be published to my Wordpress blog at http://technograns.wordpress.com and also my other blog at http://techno-granny.blogspot.com and is for my friend Arlene)

Technorati Tags: how-to,live writer,2011,posts,wordpress,blogger

Review: Flock the Social Browser.

2010-12-01T09:32:00.000Z

I have made no secret in the past that I love using Flock the social browser. I have used it for a good many years, but in its former incarnation when it used Firefox as its base, it did tend to be rather slow and cumbersome. Yesterday the latest version of Flock, now based on Chrome, was released. . In this post, I intend to explain why using Flock in order update all of my social feeds makes my life so much more convenient to be able to not only see all of your twitter/Facebook, RSS feeds, YouTube and Flickr updates in the sidebar, but also be able to instantly access any links, reply or tweet yourself with just one click.

Obviously if you are not a big user of social sites such as Twitter or Facebook etc, then Flock may not seem to appealing.

After downloading and installing Flock you are required to set up a Flock account. This is simply to enable Flock to access and remember all of your social site accounts. Once you have set up a Flock account, then you can also set up any of your social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr or LinkedIn.

As you enable each of your social networks in Flock, the progress bar will show you how far you have gone or you can click on Done at any time.

Once completed, you can access all of your Social Networks updates in the handy sidebar on the right hand side. Once you have worked your way through these updates you can dismiss the sidebar from view by clicking on the icon at the far right hand side of the Address/Search bar.

You can scroll down your updates in the sidebar by using the wheel on your mouse. The sidebar normally scrolls back to at least 10 hours worth of tweet updates for me personally, so I can do lot’s of catching up! Clicking on a link that someone has tweeted about, takes you to that web page. You can then easily retweet that webpage yourself in two ways. You can add your own tweet by clicking on the top icon in the Sidebar itself, adding your own comment and then click on the link (chain) icon under the update window. Flock will automatically shorten the URL address.

Alternatively if you see a Webpage, or some news you can also update to both Twitter and Facebook or just one of them by clicking on the icon just to the left of the Address/Search bar in Flock. Again, Flock will automatically shorten the URL for you.

You can also fully interact with your Facebook updates in the sidebar. Simply hover over the update, a small green arrow will appear on the right hand side, click on that and then you can and then you can comment, send a message, write on that persons wall, Poke them or post a Like to their update. When clicking on a Twitter update in the same way, you can Reply to or Retweet their update.

On the Flock Homepage you also have some very useful tabs available in the Flock bar namely Favourites, Groups and Explore. You can also access your Flock profile from here as well. Your Favourite sites are listed in a very useful page (or pages) for you to sort, read or delete as you wish. You can add them to your Flock profile page as well as sort them by Date or Title.

Groups allows you to Group each of your social friends according to how you wish. You can view your friends as All Friends and Feeds, Just Friends, YouTube Friends, Flickr Friends etc, and also create your own Groups of social friends such as Family or by some other criteria such as Business Associates for example. All are presented on the Groups page as small Cards complete with the person’s Avatar. You can add anyone to a new list simply by clicking and dragging their card over to that list.

Flock makes in super easy for me to keep in touch with every one of my friends in those Social Networks I use the most. Of course not every social network is available in Flock at this time, but for me the most important feature of Flock is what a time saver it can be when you wish to keep in touch with all of your friends and add any updates your social networks.

Technorati Tags: review,flock,browser,chrome,social networks,sidebar,url,link

Windows Live Essentials 2011. Windows Live Writer.

2010-11-21T09:12:00.000Z

Of all the programs included in the Windows Live Essentials suite, Live Writer was probably the most obvious one to benefit from the use of the ribbon interface. Before this update, it was amazing just how many had been using Live Writer for their blogs and were not aware of many of the features contained within it. To give one example many users did not realise they could add a watermark to their photos from within Writer or alter their photos by applying different effects. These features were all tucked away out of sight under the ‘Advanced’ area in the sidebar originally, but now that they are offered to the user in easy to see icons across the ribbon when they click on a picture or photo, they are constantly visible and only one click away to access.

The Home Ribbon.

The Home ribbon contains all that you need in order to compose and edit a blog post and includes Paste, choosing a font including its size,colour, bold, underlining etc, choose bullets, numbering and quotes and alignments for your paragraphs, your headers and their size, all depending of course on your particular themes settings, and also to use the spelling, word count, find and select all when editing your post. Inserting a Hyperlink, Picture or Video is also available from the Home ribbon as well as under the separate Insert Ribbon.

Being able to dispense with the sidebar has meant that the entire width of the screen can now be employed for your blog theme and post in the editing window. Wisely, the categories box, tag box (in Wordpress) and the set post date have now been moved above the edit window allowing them to be constantly in view and so not as easily forgotten about and at the bottom left are three tabs, Edit. Preview and Source.

The Insert Ribbon.

Accessing the Insert ribbon by clicking on the Insert tab allows the user to quickly have access to all of the following, Horizontal line,Clear break, Split post ( not also added for Blogger as well as Wordpress) Table, Hyperlink, Picture, Photo Album, Video, Map, post tags, emoticon, or add a plug-in and plug in options. To add a single photo or picture, you simply click on that icon from the ribbon, choose from ‘your computer or the Web, then add your photo. Once its added to your post, you are then offered lot’s of choices in the Picture Ribbon which appears whenever you click on a photo or insert one into your post.

This Picture Tools ribbon contains all the features that you could possibly need to make your included photos and pictures look both attractive and to position them as you see fit inside your blog post. Crop, resize, rotate, tilt, different borders to apply, picture effects, contrast, place a watermark in your picture which in the new version already includes the copyright mark. Next you can add properties to your photo such as a link or apply alternative text. Alignment allows you to position the picture to the right or left of any text (word wrap) or centre the picture. Lastly Margins allows you to place an ‘invisible’ margin around the picture so that your text doesn’t butt right up to the edge and look unsightly.

Blog Account Ribbon.

This ribbon actually looks rather sparse at the moment, but its here where you can have full access to your blog account. This contains Blog Options, shortcuts to your blog such as View the site, Dashboard (in the case of Wordpress) Manage Comments, then under Theme, Blog theme and Update Theme. The latter is very useful if you happen to have carried out a fairly small change to your blog such as changing the font for example or the background.

Tucked away under the very top left hand corner icon are the File options and choices. These are in a drop down list, accessed by clicking on the icon and include New post, Open local draft, Open recent post, Save (draft or post as draft online) Delete a local Draft, Publish, Print, Options and About Live Writer.

I would much prefer that most of these choices were instead added to the Ribbon interface, maybe the Blog Account one which at the moment looks very empty. New users to Live Writer are still going to find these choices hard to find, tucked away as they are under the very tiny file icon at the top left hand side.

All in all, Windows Live Writer has benefited greatly from the use of the ribbon interface, especially in the area of inserting pictures and photos to your blog post. Now all of those features that tended to be overlooked by many users previously are now easy to spot and accessible via ‘one click’ icons in the Picture Tools ribbon interface. I certainly wouldn’t dream of blogging without Live Writer, it makes all of those online editors seem very clumsy and basic. Best of all, once you have inputted your blogs credentials into Live Writer, you can see exactly how your post will look once published as it is able to sync with your blogs chosen theme on any of the major blogging sites.

Technorati Tags: windows live essentials 2011,writer,ribbon,home,insert,blog account,photos,theme,file,save,draft

Windows Live Essentials 2011. Live Movie Maker.

2010-11-15T11:42:00.000Z

Windows Live Movie Maker has already received both the ribbon interface and lots of new features during the past year, so compared to the other applications in Windows Live Essentials suite, it hasn’t really had all that many new features added in its 2011 incarnation. However the new addition of Auto Themes is a really great feature that allows anyone who has never created a Movie before to be able to make a fantastic and professional looking movie with just one click from the ribbon interface is a stroke of genius in my opinion.

Auto Movie Themes

Auto Movie Themes basically allow the user to simply select some photos or a video, apply a theme to them and let the program take care of every single aspect including a title frame, effects, transitions, end credits, and location display. The simple remit for Auto Movie is to completely simplify the task of making a pristine looking movie without having ever tried to create one before and in my view this has been achieved.

All that the user has to do is simply choose their photos or video then click on a chosen theme, input their choice of title into the title frame provided by their chosen theme followed by inputting their name into the credits frame as well as anyone who is featured in their movie To finish they need only add the location featured and their movie is then finished. If you aren’t sure which of the Auto Movie themes would suit your particular Movie you can view a short preview of what it will look like by simply hovering your mouse over each one inside the ribbon interface at the top.

For those users who want more control over their movie or are ‘old hands’ at movie making, then you can manually choose your own Title page, your animations, transitions, pan and zoom effects and visual effects , to which some new choices have been added, including adding additional ‘credits’ such as ‘starring’ ‘location’ and ‘director’ which helps to make your movie look professional.

Sharing your Movie.

Users can now share their completed Movie on SkyDrive and Windows Live Groups as well as Facebook and YouTube. Once you have uploaded your video to your SkyDrive your friends on Windows Live can then watch your completed video from there and download it if they wish to do so.

Colours of Autumn

Here’s my completed movie made in just twenty minutes using one of the Auto Themes in Live Movie Maker. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: windows live essentials 2011,movie maker,auto movie,themes,sharing,YouTube

Windows Live Essentials 2011. Live Photo Gallery.

2010-11-10T14:19:00.000Z

As with all of the other applications in the Essentials suite of programs for your desktop, Live Photo Gallery has received some very welcome new features in the new 2011 update. Beginning with the use of the Ribbon Interface to make finding all of those really great features much easier, to a brilliant new addition to the Create tab, there is now a multitude of editing and creative things you can do with your entire photo collection. Here are just a few of my favourite new features.

Face Recognition.

You probably all ready know how time consuming it can be to have to work your way through your entire photo collection name tagging the same person over and over again. Well you don’t have to do that anymore thanks to face recognition. Simply tag a few photos of any person who appears in your photos, the program will then begin to recognise their face and then working quietly in the background, tag all the other photos in your collection or in any new photos you import into Photo Gallery. Saves you a lot of time and effort! If the program is not certain about a face found in any of your photo collection, it will suggest a match to you for confirmation. The more instances of someone’s face that are tagged, the more it will be able to recognize the persons face and auto tag each instance for you as they are loaded in from your camera.

Geo Tagging.

Another well requested feature from users, Photo Gallery now allows you to geo tag your photos to add to the information about that particular photo and also aid any search for a particular photo that you might want to do. Simply choose the photo to geotag and then after selecting geotagging from the ribbon, you can add the location of where the photo was taken.

Retouch.

Another of my favourite new features is the new Retouch feature. If you have a spot or a blemish (which I have!) then it can now be easily removed inside Photo Gallery. Choose the photo in question, then click on the View tab and select Zoom in so that you can view the blemish or mark close up, click on the Edit followed by Retouch then simply drag the cursor around the spot or blemish and it will magically disappear, so that all of your photos of your nearest and dearest will look perfect. (including the one’s of me!)

Photo Fuse.

This brand new feature, found under the Create tab alongside another of my favourites Panorama is yet another useful addition to the new version of Photo Gallery. Although primarily it is aimed at getting the perfect shot when you take a group photo, I think that I will tend to use it in a slightly different way. For example,deleting those shots of a building where a car drives by in one of them, and the other shot contains a person walking past. Using Photo Fuse, I can put those shots together and then choose to eliminate the people in each one that I don’t want to be there.

If you take a look at my shots here where I am trying to take a photo of these sculptures, each one has some people walking past in as this particular spot if always a very busy thoroughfare. By firstly taking three or four shots of the sculptures and then applying Photo Fuse I can easily eliminate all of the people walking past to create the perfect shot that just includes the two sculptures only. See the finished result below.

The Find Tab.

The Find tab quickly allows you quickly find any photo using a number of criteria such as by face, names, date, geo-location,descriptive tags, folder titles or any combination of those so that its now easy to find that ‘one in a million’ photo that you are searching for inside your photo collection no matter how large it is.

Batch Editing.

In the new version of Photo Gallery its all about saving you time. You can batch edit your photos so easily. Simply highlight the photos that you wish to edit, click on the Edit tab and then apply your edits to your chosen photos from right there in the ribbon.

Auto Movie Themes in Slideshow.

Need to quickly create a fantastic looking slideshow of your chosen photos to share with your family and friends? Simply highlight your chosen photos, click on Slideshow from the ribbon, choose your Slideshow theme and then click on Share Slideshow where you can then upload it to either your SkyDrive, Facebook, YouTube or Windows Live Groups to share with family and friends.

So in the Live Photo Gallery contained in the new Windows Live Essentials 2011, a brilliant free photo editing application which was already fantastic has now got even better at saving you the user lot’s of time and effort and includes some wonderful new innovative features and sharing capabilities and best of all its free!

TG (Some content in this post was originally posted on my Windows Live Spaces blog.)

Technorati Tags: windows live essentials 2011,photo gallery,people tag,geotag,photo fuse,find,batch,editing

Windows Live Essentials 2011. Windows Live Messenger.

2010-11-08T07:59:00.000Z

Windows Live Messenger has undergone some very extensive changes in Windows Live Essentials 2011. . It is now far more than just an instant messaging program, it is a fully functioning social networking centre which brings together all of your connected social networks inside the Messenger Social window so that you don’t have to visit all of those different websites which often means having to create yet another account.. Whether your family and friends are on Facebook or MySpace or any of the other services that you have chosen to connect to. You can see all of their updates, comment on them, share photos and videos with them without leaving your desktop in order to do so. Messenger has now become the ultimate social dashboard for staying in touch whilst eliminating the noise. Here are just a few of my favourite features.

Messenger Social.

In Messenger Social, your feeds are divided into the following categories, Highlights, Recent, Me,Photos and under the More tab, Status, Links and Videos.

The Highlights feed automatically filters all of your favourite friends and families updates. In other words, those friends that you tend to keep in touch with the most feature in your Highlights feed. This includes anyone on Messenger or Facebook or any other services that you have connected to. The Recent feed contains all of your contacts updates made recently and can contain their photos they have uploaded to SkyDrive or Facebook for example, a Video that they are sharing with you on YouTube, a new status update or link that they are sharing and also any new blog post they have made.

The Me feed as you might expect, contains everything that you have updated either in Messenger, on Windows Live or any other of your connected services such as Facebook or MySpace. This feed proves to be handy for viewing any comments that your family or friends have added to any of your updates, and you can reply to their comments from there.

The Photos feed contains any photos that your family and friends have uploaded to SkyDrive or Facebook, MySpace, Flickr etc, and also any videos they have uploaded and shared as well. You can comment on any photos and videos right there in the Messenger Social window, and if there are more than one photo, you will be able to see each one in a slideshow by simply hovering your mouse over them! You can comment on each individual photo in that photo album if you wish. You can also watch any shared videos as well, and comment on them. In fact Messenger Social on your desktop allows you to interact with any of your family and friends updates, photos, videos, links, status updates and their latest blog posts without moving from your desktop!

Of course if some of your friends are online at the same time, you can still have a conversation as always via the familiar Messenger window by simply clicking on their name, and whilst you are chatting, you can easily share a photo with each other by simply dragging it into the conversation window. And its not only the content from your PC that you can share, With one click, you can pull in your photos from online sites such as your SkyDrive or Facebook.

The new messenger also contains tabbed conversations as well,, a much requested feature by many Messenger users enabling you to ‘juggle’ multiple conversations instead of having lot’s of windows popping up. Also with the integration of Bing results, you can easily add photos and videos from anywhere on the Web without having to leave the conversation window in order to do so.

Another new addition that I like in particular is than you can choose to appear offline to everyone else whilst being online and chatting to just one person as you can see by the screen grab above. Now that’s handy! Want to return to the usual conversation only window? No problem! It’s just one click away to return to the familiar messenger window view.

There are lot’s of other new features besides these that I have mentioned in this post, these are my particular favourites. I have made no secret in the past of not being a big Messenger fan, only tending to use it to message my grandchildren but with the new Messenger Social and all the additional new features, from now on I won’t need to use anything else! I love it!

TG (Note. This particular post was originally posted on my Windows Live Space blog.)

Technorati Tags: messenger,windows live essentials 2011,photos,videos,social,facebook,myspace,youtube

Windows Live Essentials 2011. Windows Live Mail.

2010-11-04T17:08:00.000Z

I have used Windows Live Mail as my only method of writing and sending out emails since its first appeared many years ago, and I consider it unequalled in its ease of setting up your email accounts, requiring no knowledge whatsoever by the user of any settings. Windows Live Mail copes with just about everything that you need to read or access on your computer and does so in an easy to use format and now that it has received the ribbon interface, its even easier to use because all the most important features that the average user is likely to need are presented in readily available icons across the top ribbon needing just one simple click to access.

Reading and Writing your emails.

Once you have set up your email accounts in Live Mail, they are all available separately in the left hand sidebar. I prefer this method to having all of your emails from all of your accounts lumped together in one place I feel its far easier to access and read them when they are kept separate. You can even give each email account a different colour to distinguish them even further. As you can see from the screen grab, Windows Live Mail works with all the major email providers such as Hotmail, my ISP, Gmail and also Yahoo.co.uk, and it needs no input at all from the user in order to set up each account apart from your email address and password. There is absolutely no need to remember complicated settings with Windows Live Mail! Nor do you need another program in order to access your Hotmail account in the way that Outlook does.

All of the features or items that you are likely to need when reading or writing an email are easy to access from the Home ribbon icons. and include Email Message, Photo Email and Items in the New area of the ribbon, Junk and Delete, Reply, Reply All and Forward in the Respond area, Add to Calendar, Unread/Read, Move to, Flag, Watch Encoding, Copy to, Copy and find and included in the Actions area, the Tools area contains Send/Receive and also Work Offline and finally your Windows Live Account complete with your current Avatar.

You can read each email from the Home page of course or you can double click on an email from the list which then enlarges the email viewing window and allows you to read through your emails without having the sidebars present. Simply read the first email, reply, delete, etc, and then using the large blue arrow keys on the ribbon, move either back or forward through your other email messages. All of the relevant items that you might need to use are again readily available from the ribbon interface above the reading area.

Conversation View

New to the 2011 version of Windows Live Mail comes Conversation view, where you can collapse all your messages with the same subject into one expandable line as with the new online Hotmail. So no more cluttered looking inboxes! And don’t forget that by using Windows Live Mail, you can access all of your email whether you are online or offline.

Photo Emails.

Want to send some photos to your family or friends? Even if you have lot’s of photos you need to send, from a holiday for example or a family event, there are no problems doing so in Windows Live Mail! Simply choose Photo Email from the ribbon, select all the photos that you wish to send, and they will be added to that email message in a very attractively displayed Photo Album inside the email. Not only that, but they are sent in a compressed form so that you can include as many photos as you like even in high resolution, and your recipients inbox will not be overloaded. They can then view them as a slideshow once they are received.

RSS Feeds.

I often have said about Windows Live Mail that it let’s you access everything but the kitchen sink on your desktop and nothing is more truer than its use of RSS feeds. Why bother trawling the internet to read a news article or one of your friends blogs or webpage when you can let Windows Live Mail bring them all down to you?. This really does make life so much easier and is one of the first things I do when logging onto my computer is to read both my emails and my RSS feeds. My favourite RSS feature is Windows Live Mails ability to allow you to view all of your RSS feeds as a full webpage so that you view it as it appears online.

And don’t forget that most webpages and blogs use RSS feeds.

Slim Cal.

One of my favourite features in the new version of Windows Live Mail is the Slim Cal feature. You can have this set to show on the right hand side of your emails as a constant reminder of this weeks events so that you don’t forget them. You can also quickly insert a new task for today or event at the bottom of the Slim Cal. This new feature could almost be tailor made for absent minded me! Now I have no excuse whatsoever to forget someone’s birthday or an appointment as they are all there to see whenever I read my emails!

For me personally, Windows Live Mail makes my life so much easier. Its the first program I open after booting up my computer and I rely on it to both keep in touch with family and friends and also any news, webpages or blogs that I want to read. It’s so easy to set up and use for any type of user, from the novice to the expert. I love it and in my view it just keeps getting better and better each time its updated.

Technorati Tags: windows live essentials,mail,ribbon,photo album,conversation,accounts,hotmail

Review. 3View HD Freeview Personal Video Recorder.

2010-11-03T10:59:00.000Z

I fully intended to write this review some time ago when the unit first launched, but as there were quite a few software problems with the unit, I decided to wait until the unit was fully stable before doing so. As the 3view team have now managed to eradicate practically all of the bugs that users were experiencing with this unit and also have been able to enable BBC iPlayer as well, then I feel that it now warrants a full review. In comparison to all the other Freeview HD PVR’s out there, the 3view unit contains some wonderful new ideas in my view that set it apart from the rest of the Freeview HD twin tuners available.

In the Box.

The 3View box contains the 3view unit, a remote control with batteries, an Ethernet cable, an HDMI cable the external power supply and a Quick Guide, This takes you through connecting the unit to your particular setup. Once the unit is connected to all of your other equipment and then switched on, it takes a few moments to boot up (this only occurs on connection to the mains supply, the unit switches instantly from standby after this initial set up stage) you are taken step by step through setting your 3View unit up including the video output resolution for your particular TV ( I have mine set at 1080p because my Samsung TV is a full HD display) Once you have set up your video output resolution the unit will begin the search for all available channels and lastly set up your connection to your network via the Ethernet connection. The set up wizard is really well thought out and enables even a user who has never used a personal video recorder before to easily set up the 3View unit. Once you have completed the Setup Wizard the unit will display Live content.

You can choose to Hide those channels that you never watch and also create a favourites list of channels as well simply by ticking or unticking the channels that you prefer not to be visible in the Electronic Program Guide.

The remote control is a nice size and fits comfortably in the hand. All the buttons are a well placed for easy access with the most used ones gathered conveniently around the navigation area in the middle and the less used one’s at the bottom of the remote. They have a nice tactile ‘click’ for feedback. The unit reacts instantly to any button press and the remote works from almost any angle.

Setting Up Recordings.

Setting up your scheduled recordings, whether these are single recordings or a series link of recordings is fairly straight forward and is achieved by navigating through the EPG and then pressing OK. You are then offered different choices for that particular program presented in a ‘drop down’ list where you can choose to either Watch the channel, record that episode, record the series, view any upcoming episodes or set up a manual record of that program including any padding. If you decide to record the program you are already watching, you simply press the Record button and as long as you were tuned to that channel from the beginning of the program, the whole program will be recorded for you.

The Electronic Program Guide shows a small version of the current program you are watching above and includes six channels in total to view at one time. You can move down or up the EPG six channels at a time by using the P+ P- buttons on the remote. You can also move quickly along the timeline of the EPG by using the FF/RW buttons. The EPG is very fast to navigate through. Each recording that you schedule will then be shown in the EPG in blue and Series Links will have two green ticks.

You can also view what’s on next on the current channel you are viewing by simply pressing OK to access the Info Bar where you can also set up a recording later that day for that particular channel or any other by simply using the direction arrows on the remote. This same bar is also accessed via the Info button as well whilst you are watching a recording.

Accessing your Recordings.

Everything you may need to access regarding your recordings is available under the PVR button on the remote control. Its here It’s here that you can conduct a search using the onscreen keypad, and also by selecting PVR Event Viewer you can view all of your current scheduled recordings. Any recordings which have already taken place are shown at the top of the list on the right when you select All Programs.

To watch the recorded program, simply highlight it and then click OK. You can place it in the Trash and then Delete it from this screen (trash is in case you change your mind before fully deleting the recording) and also decide how long to keep that particular recording on the hard drive including the choice of keeping it forever.

The Main Menu.

Although its labelled as Home on the 3View remote, I tend to think of this to be the Main Menu of the 3View unit because every aspect of the unit can be accessed from this page. This Main Menu gives you access to your recordings, the EPG, the 3View portal, Sky Player (not implemented yet) your Photos, Music and Video files and lastly the Settings for the unit. It also shows a small screen of the current program that you are watching to the right hand side of the Menu list.

3View Portal.

The 3view portal is where you access all of the online services including the BBC iPlayer which is absolutely fantastic on Freeview and is in my view far superior to its counterpart on Freesat. Not only that, the picture quality of the content from the iPlayer is exceptional even when showing standard definition material. I recently watched an episode of ‘Getting On’ which was originally broadcast on BBC Four and it was nearly as good as high definition in my view.

The player has been a long time coming to the 3View unit but has been well worth waiting for! Apart from the initial buffering at the beginning, I have experienced no problems with watching the content, even when it has been shown in high definition. You can also access videos from YouTube from the 3View portal, and construct a list of your personal favourite videos that you like to watch.

The Widgets currently available at the moment are a BBC and Yahoo news reader widget and a Calculator Widget. More will be added to the unit at a later date.

Conclusions.

The 3view team have worked really hard to iron out any problems that were evident at launch, averaging a new software update every week so far, and their tireless efforts have really paid off in my view as the unit is now very stable in operation and is really shaping up to be the Freeview HD PVR to own.

There are some wonderful touches to the units user interface that I particularly like, and I thought that I would end this review by listing them here.

I love the way that the unit allows you to set up recording options such as padding and how long to keep or delete for each individual recording besides allowing the user to set up a default for all recordings.
The units picture quality is second to none in my opinion, certainly on my Samsung full HD LCD. It sparkles and is pin sharp and detailed both on high definition content and also standard definition.
The set up wizard is one of the easiest to use that I have ever come across. Even a novice personal video recorder user will soon have the unit up and working in next to no time. It takes you through setting up the unit in easy to understand set up screens.
I love that the 3view unit records the buffer. As long as you have been tuned to that program from the beginning, if you then decide to record it during watching then the whole program will be recorded without having to rewind the buffer to the beginning.
The 3View unit comes straight out of standby immediately with no boot up time whatsoever. It’s also silent in operation as well.
I adore the BBC iPlayer on the 3view unit. The picture quality is fantastic, there are no buffering issues even with high definition content.
I also love how the unit automatically reverts to live broadcast if left on any of the user interface screens by the user.

I am really pleased that I kept faith with the 3View unit and with the 3View team and I look forward to any additional features as they are added to the unit in the future.

Technorati Tags: 3View,Freeview,HD,PVR,BBC iPlayer,Widgets,YouTube

Windows Live Essentials 2011. An Introduction.

2010-11-02T13:33:00.000Z

One important feature that you might have noticed after purchasing a new PC running Windows 7 or upgrading your current PC is the lack of any email program included with the operating system. In order to rectify this, you can download a set of programs called Windows Live Essentials. This is a package of free programs from Microsoft which includes an email program Windows Live Mail, a Photo editing program Live Photo Gallery, a program to construct and make videos Live Movie Maker, the Live Messenger program, Live Writer which is a blogging editor for composing and publishing to your blog, Windows Live Mesh and also Family Safety to help you keep track of any family members usage when they use the computer.

You don’t have to install all of the programs if you don’t need them. For example I don’t bother installing Live Mesh or Family Safety because we have no one using the computer who is not an adult, and I only have one PC so I don’t need to ‘sync’ with any other equipment. Each of the included programs can be used separately but they do work better together as a complete suite. In following posts I will be taking a look at each of these free programs to show you what I consider are their most useful features for the average computer user. We’ll take a look firstly at Windows Live Mail, followed by Live Messenger and then Live Photo Gallery, Live Movie Maker and finally the program I am currently using to do all of these blog posts and that I personally would not be without, Windows Live Writer.

The new versions all make extensive use of the Ribbon interface, first seen in Office 2007, and employed across most of the Live Essentials suite to help all users, no matter what their level of expertise, be able to easily find and access all of the included features easily using just one click in order to do so. It really does not matter if you aren’t familiar with the Ribbon Interface or have used it in its Office incarnation because it is so intuitive to use that even a novice will feel right at home. Here are some screen shots of all of the different ribbon interfaces for each of the Windows Live Essentials programs so that you can see how each one works and how all the important features of each program are so easily accessible for the user.

As you can see, each ribbon features the items that most users are likely to need and each ribbon includes those items that are most relevant to whatever the user needs at that particular time. Photo Gallery and Movie Maker ribbons for example contain those services that you most likely need to access in order to share either your photos or your new Video including SkyDrive, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube, whilst Live Mail’s Home ribbon includes all the main items that you need to use when reading or writing your emails. Live Writer’s Home Ribbon resembles Words ribbon in many ways because it needs to include a choice of fonts, headers etc for the composition of your blog post. We’ll be taking a look at each of the relevant ribbons as we work our way through each of the programs in question.

One program missing the ribbon is of course Live Messenger where the ribbon interface cannot really be applied or is really necessary. Instead, Live Messenger becomes a Social application as well as a desktop messaging program, where you can now have access to all of your social feeds from Windows Live, Facebook, Wordpress, MySpace and any other Social Network that you may happen to use. It also incorporates Facebook Chat so that you can chat not only with your Messenger friends but also those on Facebook.

Technorati Tags: clubhouse,windows live,essentials 2011,ribbon,mail,messenger,photo gallery,movie maker,live writer

Blogger needs YOUR ideas!

2010-10-15T09:43:00.000+01:00

Just over a year ago, Blogger bods asked everyone who uses their blogging platform for ideas on how they would like Blogger to evolve. It was purely from this feedback made by Blogger users that the fantastic new Template Designer was born, pages were introduced and other welcome enhancements were made to the Blogging site. You can read all about every change that was introduced on Blogger as a result of receiving all of their users feedback in this post on Blogger Buzz.

Now, I am a great believer in any site or service listening to feedback from their core users and not just from a select few who don’t represent the majority. I love the new Template Designer on Blogger, its really easy to get to grips with for even the newest user and kudos to the Blogger team for its brilliant implementation.

Now just over a year later, the Blogger team are once more asking for all of your bloggers who make use of Blogger as your preferred blogging platform to give your views on what features you would like adding, what you would want changing to the existing features so that you can help to make Blogger the best blogging platform out there.

How do you express your ideas? Well, simply take a mosey over to http://productideas.appspot.com/#15/e=e828&t=2f433a&f=303d3a where you can vote on other ideas submitted by other Blogger users and then submit some ideas of your own by clicking on Submit an Idea at the bottom of the other suggestions. So, if there is anything at all you would like to be made available on Blogger, or any feature already there that you feel could be made far better, now’s your time to make your views known!

Technorati Tags: blogger,buzz,feedback,template,designer,vote,submit,ideas,users

Windows Live Writer. Adding a Watermark.

2010-08-22T18:53:00.000+01:00

Although you have been able to add a watermark to any of your photos included in a blog post in Live Writer, in its previous incarnations this feature tended to be overlooked by users as it was hard to find, buried as it was under the Advanced tab in the Pictures sidebar. In Live Writer’s latest version available from HERE it is far easier to both find the Watermark feature and use it as well. Here’s how to put your own stamp on any of your photos that you include in your blog posts directly from Live Writer!

1. Insert the photo that you wish to Watermark into your post in Writer and then click on it to bring up the Picture ribbon.

2. Next click on Watermark from the picture ribbon. The Watermark window will open. It already contains the ©copyright marker for you, so all you need to do is add your preferred copyright such as your name, and also decide its placement within the photo and which font you prefer to use.

3. Click inside the top box to add your copyright name. I’ll add Technogran to mine. You will notice that as you type in your © copyright name, it will appear inside the photo.

4. Next I am going to choose a different font for my Watermark from the default Arial one and then also choose a different size.

5. I’m going to choose Antipasto font for my Watermark and resize it to 10. I’m also going to move it to the top left hand corner of the photo where I think its easier to spot. You have the choice of using any of the available fonts stored on your computer, and you can place the Watermark in any of the four corners of your photo, or alternatively you can place it in the centre. NOTE. Some fonts are more prominent than others, and you might have to try cycling through some of your fonts until you find one that suits your particular picture and its placement in the photo can also add to whether or not it is easy to spot.

You might not want it to look prominent so as not to spoil the photo. preferring instead to make your watermark blend in. However, other users do prefer that their watermark is very prominently displayed over a photo so that others cannot easily share or display it elsewhere without the copyright notice being seen.

So its now really easy to add a copyright watermark to any of your photos that you wish to include inside a blog post. As I have stated, this feature was present before in the Wave 3 version but many of Live Writers’ users were simply not aware of its existance. Now, thanks to the Ribbon Interface, its so easy to find this useful feature and make full use of it.

Technorati Tags: writer,beta,watermark,photos,fonts,size,position,ribbon

The perils and pitfalls of being an early adopter.

2010-08-19T17:20:00.000+01:00

For anyone reading this post who hasn’t a clue what on earth I am talking about, the title of ‘early adopter’ refers to any user who simply has to be one of the first to buy new Av equipment. Av equipment also usually applies to such items of hardware such as televisions, DVD players, Personal hard drive Video recorders, surround sound systems etc. Wikipedia has a very detailed description of a Early Adopter here at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_adopter

As its description states, early adopters tend to end up taking on the role of unpaid beta testers ‘out in the field’, and most will readily admit that this does tend to be part and parcel of being one of the first to buy a piece of Av equipment as soon as it hits the shelves. You also have to be aware that by being an early adopter you can expect to encounter some problems such as buggy software or problems with connections to your equipment and be ready to give lot’s of feedback to the manufacturer about each problem as and when it occurs so its not for the faint hearted!

I am an early adopter. I have been one for quite some time. I am also one of the very few female early adopters. It’s one of the main reasons why I frequent Internet sites such as Avforums and Digital Spy because it’s where most of the other early adopters tend to hang out. We end up being the users who are busy ironing out all those niggles and bugs prior to the general public becoming aware of its existence, but we do also try to help other not so technical savvy users who have purchased a new piece of Av equipment and might be having difficulties in using or setting their equipment up.

One of the largest areas where our feedback and early testing has proved invaluable to quite a few manufacturers, especially over the past few years, has turned out to be the personal video recorder area and especially the twin tuner recorders. No manufacturer has so far seemed able to produce a twin tuner PVR which works 100% out of the box, though some have come pretty close to it. As the past years have rolled by, it has left many of us who have bought various PVR’s during that time, wondering will we ever achieve that seemingly unobtainable goal. Is it a pipe dream and if so, why? Why is it proving so difficult to produce a twin tuner PVR that simply records everything you ask it to, either single recordings or a series, beginning and ending on time day in day out, and to connect to everyone’s equipment faultlessly with no difficulty, including having a user interface that is easy and intuitive to use even for a PVR newbie?

Therein lies part of the problem especially with the terrestrial Freeview platform. Not only does a manufacturer have to allow for everyone’s different connected equipment that they own such as different makes of TV etc, but they also have to build in allowances for different signal strengths all over the country and for twin tuner PVR’s in particular this has proved to be a big problem. Which goes some way to explaining why any manufacturer of twin tuner Freeview PVR’s who aims to get their unit working as near to 100% as is possible, needs to use ‘out in the field’ beta testers as well as their ‘in house’ testers. In exactly the same way that Microsoft allows external users to test their operating systems so that they can get feedback about how its all working with all those different configurations of external connected equipment such as printers, monitors, makes of PC etc, personal video manufacturers need to know how their unit is working with lot’s of different connected hardware as well. On top of that, they need to check that the unit works just as well up in Scotland or Wales as it does down in London.

The ideal would naturally be one tester to each transmitter all over the country, and the manufacturer who really wants to achieve a well working PVR will almost certainly use outside beta testers as well as their in house testers. For such a product, in house testing is simply not thorough enough, as only the same signal strength will be used for testing. Although they may have a testing suite containing some different makes of television to hook their unit to, they are hardly likely to have every make of television out there to test with, so problems can often surface after the unit has been launched to the general public. In the past, we have had manufacturers actually recruiting beta testers directly from the forums and when you think about it, this makes perfect sense. Where else can you get beta testers who are spread out in different areas of the country, who because they have bought other manufacturers units or equipment over the years, have a wealth of knowledge about general usage of a PVR and can also helpfully suggest features to include in your user interface to enhance its usage thereby making the product a ‘must have’ for other users.

Most of us early adopters will have beta tested either officially or unofficially at some point in time. I know I have. I thoroughly enjoy doing it as well, and seem to have an uncanny knack for finding those hard to pin down bugs. Although you are not paid to beta test, you are usually rewarded at the end of the testing phase with being allowed to keep the piece of equipment that you have been testing. Not everyone will have the patience for it, because it can be annoying if your unit is forever experiencing crashes or reboots, or keeps missing that recording you were dying to watch. You also have to consider the rest of your family as well. It’s little use testing a PVR that might not be reliable in the recording area if your wife wants you to record a certain program that she is desperate to watch!

I am lucky in that any testing that I carry out is only for my own consumption. and being retired is a definite bonus as well, I can also devote plenty of time to putting a piece of AV equipment thoroughly through its paces.

Technorati Tags: early.adopter,freeview,PVR,manufacturers,twin,tuner,equpment,connnections,beta,testing,feedback,signal,software

Review. The Doro PhoneEasy 420gsm

2010-08-15T13:45:00.000+01:00

Whenever searching in the past for a suitable mobile phone for my Down’s Syndrome daughter to use, I have always been annoyed at the fact that there simply wasn’t all that much choice around for a simple to use handset complete with a very large text display that she can easily see and use. As mobile phones become more and more like portable PC’s, mobile manufacturers need to be reminded that there are some mobile users who simply don’t need all these fancy features, instead requiring a simple to use mobile phone with which to make calls or send texts. Orange have now begun to stock the Dora PhoneEasy 410gsm mobile on Pay as you Go and soon to be available on contract. Although the phone is aimed at the more elderly user, its also ideal for someone with special needs as well.

Currently Orange are only stocking the phone is black but it is also available in the other colours and sim free from other outlets such as Amazon.co.uk. It comes in Black, Pearl White and Burgundy. In appearance its a clam shell phone which is useful for keeping the phone tucked into a pocket without being worried about the keys being accidentally pressed as you move around. The phone comes complete with a battery charger, earphones, a handy neck strap, a Quick Start Guide with instructions for enabling the Emergency Call key and an instruction book which is very clear to follow and has been printed in a handy large typeface for those with less than perfect eyesight.

The phone has a very attractive appearance. It feels nice and comfortable to hold in the hand, and the outside surface on the front and back has a nice ‘velvety’ feel to it. It looks as if it could take some bangs and bashes without mishap. Our version is the black one. A green line runs across the front and around the sides of the clamshell itself. Also at the front of the phone are two warning light areas which flash whenever a text has been received or the battery is running low. On the left hand side is the volume up and down control and on the right hand side, the headphones and battery charger connections. At the rear of the phone is the Emergency Call key, more of which later.

On opening the phone, the interior is white with black buttons and a largish screen display. The opening mechanism of the phone appears very sturdy and well made, which is important if buying this phone for someone with Special Needs who might be constantly opening and closing it. Setting the phone up for use is an absolute doddle for any user, even someone who has not owned a mobile phone before. The instruction book has been well thought out and is very easy to follow, with helpful icons to illustrate each instruction. The instruction book works through setting up the phone systematically and in a logical order in easy to read large type, beginning with Installing the SIM card and battery to the Security settings, Safely instructions and Care and maintenance.

The phones Menu contains the following, Phonebook, Messages, Call Log, Alarm, Calendar, Calculator, FM Radio, Settings and Games. Adding a person to the Phonebook can include their mobile number, home number or office number. You can also set up a Top Ten entry for your 10 most used numbers if you have quite a few entries. These top ten entries are then always displayed first in the list when scrolling through the phonebook.

In order to personalise the phone, the user can choose the sounds for their ringtones, messages, the opening tone closing tone and a keypad tone. the volume and the alert type, either ring.vibrate or both. You can also set up error tones and warning tones as well. You can of course choose to set the phone to silent if you wish or this can also be set by simply pressing the # button. In settings you can also change the wallpaper displayed, which information you prefer to be displayed either just the clock or All Info, and you can set up the time of the display backlight before it turns off.

One of the most useful features of this mobile phone for anyone who lives on their own and might be particularly worried about what would happen if they had a fall or accident and needed to let others know of their plight is the added Emergency Call key. This key can include up to five separate numbers that the phone will automatically call one by one until one is answered when the user presses the Emergency Call button and holds it for three seconds. If the first person called does not answer within 25 seconds, the phone will then dial the second number in the list and so on until someone answers. The phone also sends out an emergency SMS text message to all the phone numbers included in the Emergency numbers list. When an emergency call is activated, the phone is pre-set to operate in handsfree mode. (In case the user is hurt and can only shout out.) NOTE. This feature has to be turned on in the settings and can either be set to be enabled by the user with a long hold of the key for 3 seconds, or alternatively be pressed three times within one second in order to avoid accidental use.

Summary.

For any user who simply needs a mobile phone without all the ‘bells and whistles’ of many of today's modern phones, or for someone who is hard of hearing or who’s eyesight is poor, this phone is ideal. For anyone with an elderly relative who lives on their own and who worries about how they would be able to contact relatives if they were to have an accident again, this phone is the perfect answer to all those concerns. For anyone with a relative who has special needs but who needs a phone to keep in touch, then look no further than this phone. And even if you don’t fall into these categories but simply want an fuss free phone that looks attractive and lets you make calls, send texts and is easy to use into the bargain, then this phone is the perfect answer. I might get one of these myself!

Other Reviews. http://www.reevoo.com/p/doro-phoneeasy-410gsm-1

http://www.gadgetspeak.com/gadget/article.rhtm/757/587360/DORO_PHONEEASY_410GSM.html

http://www.handleeasy.com/index.php?id=doro_phone_easy_410_gsm_mobile_phone_for_the_elderly

Technorati Tags: review,mobile,easy,doro,elderly,special,needs,eyesight,hearing,clamshell,black,white,burgundy,emergency,call,text

Freeview HD PVR. The race is on!

2010-08-08T13:55:00.000+01:00

Remember my previous post where I posted about the contenders for who would win the Freeview HD PVR race? Well, as things are hotting up with a few more contenders ready to join the race in the very near future, I thought it might be a good idea to update everyone about the state of play as it currently stands. Progress has moved on apace since my last post on the subject. The first one’s out of the block if you remember, were the Digital Stream unit and the Philips/Pace unit. These two were closely followed by the Technica (Fetch TV) unit sold exclusively at Tesco’s supermarkets and by far the cheapest to purchase at £200 nearly £100 cheaper than its rivals. As usual, the members of AvForums and Digital Spy were out in force buying these units as soon as they had hit the shelves and in typical ‘early adoptor’ fashion, have been busy acting as unpaid beta testers for each manufacturer since.

First out was the Digital Stream unit and although it did ship with some problems, the Digital Stream manufacturer has been more than willing to work closely with most of the early adoptors who have bought this unit and who post on either forum. As soon as a problem is reported, they acknowledge it and feedback between both the users and the units manufacturers has foisted some very good relations. Software updates have already been downloaded and applied to the unit, and so far, from the current crop of launched units the Digital Stream is emerging as the most stable at this point in time.

Next out came the Philips/Pace and since then, things have not turned out to be quite so rosy. Again, the unit was released with a few problems on board, and those early adoptors who had bought this unit purely on the strength of the Pace name were sadly disappointed with the behaviour of the unit. Added to that, unlike the close rapport that built up between the early adoptors and the Digital Stream unit, no such rapport was achieved between Pace and the early adopters on Digital Spy or AvForums as no one from Pace either bothered to reply or give any indication that they were aware of the problems those users were encountering or that they would be resolving them any time in the future via a software update.

As far as I am aware, users are still waiting patiently for an update to correct the stated problems with the electronic program guide not allowing you to press OK to watch a program and any other issues encountered. It has been acknowledged though by all those who purchased this unit that the build quality and HDMI upscaling is of this unit is far superior to any other unit they have owned previously. If the software problems could be resolved by Pace, then most would certainly re purchase for the picture quality alone.

In the case of the Fetch TV unit better known as the Technica Smartbox 8320HD, which followed the two previous units, things got off to a bad start. There were lot’s of bugs initially and the unit was actually withdrawn from sale by Tesco at one point. However, luckily a discourse quickly sprang up between the manufacturer and the early users who had purchased this unit, and slowly but surely updates have been applied to the software since the units first launch. In fact, Fetch TV have been quite prolific with their updates to this unit and seem very intent on responding quickly to their users feedback. This unit still has a few problems. Some early adopters are determined to stick it out until the unit is more or less perfect (although in fairness to any manufacturer, that particular utopia has so far never been achieved by anyone in the Freeview or Freesat PVR market in the UK so far and we PVR users are still patiently waiting for someone to come along and achieve that particular goal.) whilst some have simply become fed up and taken their units back to whence they came. It’s the price that makes the Technica Smart Box such a tempting buy when compared to its rivals, and this is no doubt adding to the reluctance to return the unit and look elsewhere. If the manufacturers can get this little unit free from its current problems, then they are certainly onto a sure winner.

The other unit already available to buy and which also is receiving some praise from the early adaptors who have purchased it, is the Sagemcom RT190-320. They too have been listening and applying updates to remedy any problems found so far by the users. An over the air update has already been downloaded from Sagemcom and a member of staff is monitoring all feedback from the early adopters on Digital Spy which bodes well for this particular units future. According to the Sagemcom thread on DS, it appears that the latest software update has fixed the sound glitches and the slow to navigate Electronic Program Guide so maybe this unit will become a front runner.

And what of that promising sounding newcomer to the Freeview PVR market, 3View? As it’s a new company which is obviously still finding its feet, some hiccups have occurred with production and with launch dates. The unit was initially expected in April then because 3view were not happy with the first production run, they changed to another factory to assemble the units. They then made the mistake of broadcasting that the 30th July would be the despatch date which has since fallen by the wayside as well, causing some mutterings and cancellations of pre-orders from doubting and impatient would be purchasers. However, this author is holding out for this particular unit and hopefully will be publishing a full review when I manage to get hold of a unit.

However, they are far from being the first to make these mistakes as most manufacturers who have been here for some time will probably agree. Never promise a firm date for despatch! Something is bound to go wrong and then you end up with egg on your face. Be vague. Say something like ‘We hope to have these units in our warehouses and ready for despatch sometime in the Autumn’ which gives you a fairly wide range of dates as your goal should anything untoward go wrong during the assembly process or from some other unplanned hiccup. This much anticipated unit is now expected some time during the next week or so.

But what of the mighty Humax? Where is its Freeview HD PVR offering? Well, we are supposed to be seeing the Humax HDR- Fox T2 hit the shop shelves sometime in the next week or so at the hefty price of £329. How that will fair being one of the last to launch when others have enjoyed so much of a head start remains to be seen. Certainly as a manufacturer of both Freeview and Freesat PVR’s they have up until now been undisputed King of this area consistently achieving the position of being the most stable and usable on both the Freeview and Freesat platforms. Will they be able to keep their crown or will one of the new upstarts take their place? We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?

PVR Junction currently have a check list of features for each Freeview HD PVR either currently launched or about to launch that some might find useful to check if you are considering owning one of these units here.

Technorati Tags: freeview,HD,PVR's,DigitalStream,Pace,Philips,Technica,Tesco's,Sagemcom,3View,Humax

Problems with your Hotmail upgrade?

2010-08-01T12:55:00.000+01:00

LiveSide.net have recently published their latest post regarding some problems that some users are currently encountering since the new Hotmail upgrade. These problems can all be read on the Windows Live Solution Centre and tend to range from not being able to open any emails in order to read them to not being able to reply to someone. Funnily enough, the obvious workaround for any Hotmail user is to simply use Windows Live Mail on their computer desktop in order to access their Hotmail accounts until such time as the Hotmail team gets these problems sorted out. As a user who never accesses her Hotmail online ever, I have not suffered from any problems with my Hotmail account. Of course, some users may not have used Windows Live Mail before so here’s a step by step through using Windows Live Mail in order to access your Hotmail Account.

1. Download Windows Live Mail from http://explore.live.com/windows-live-mail and then run the installer. If you only wish to install Windows Live Mail and not the other applications in the Windows Live Suite, untick all the other programs. NOTE. The new beta version will not work with Windows XP, you will have to install the older version available directly from that webpage.

2. As soon as Windows Live Mail is installed on your computer, it will ask you to provide a Windows Live ID. This is of course your Hotmail user name and password, so fill those details in, and your Hotmail address.

3. Click on Next. Windows Live Mail will then take a few moments to ‘syc’ with your email folders and then they will be downloaded to your computer where you can then access them fully. If you wish, you can right click on the Hotmail title in the email column, move it up or down if you have other email accounts, give it a colour for the headers of your emails and also alter its title to (for example) Hotmail Account.

Hotmail is fully usable in Windows Live Mail and therefore is the ideal solution for any user who is currently experiencing problems with their online Hotmail account since receiving the new Wave 4 Hotmail update.

Technorati Tags: hotmail.wave4,update,access,emails.replies,windows live mail,download,username,password,address,sync

Beginning Blogging. Tips and Tricks.

2010-08-01T09:27:00.000+01:00

This will be my very last post in this Beginning Blogging series for anyone new to blogging. I do hope you have all found my posts on Blogger and Wordpress.com to be helpful. Which blogging platform you choose is of course entirely up to you and where you feel that your blog fits in. To end, here are some tips and tricks to try and help all of you newbie bloggers out there achieve a long lasting readership of your blog.

Your Theme.

When choosing a theme or template for your blog do check that the text is easily readable. I am constantly amazed when visiting other peoples blog posts, how many bloggers choose to have such terrible colours of text or backgrounds that end up rendering the entire post unreadable. This often occurs if you prefer a dark theme. White text on a black background is very tiring to the eyes, try choosing a light grey instead. Here are some really terrible choices of both colours and text fonts so that you can see exactly what I mean.

Try doing a ‘dummy’ post and checking that you are easily able to read it back yourself. Others simply won’t bother to read your posts if its too hard to read.

Same thing applies to your choice of font’s. Some fonts are far easier to read than others. This font is Ariel. Another easy to read font is Segoe UI or Tahoma. Other fonts such as Lucida Handwriting might give your blog a ‘handwritten’ look but can be very hard to read. Try not to make the size of your fonts so small that others need a magnifying glass in order to read it. Choice of Font, colour of font in relation to your themes background and size of font make all the difference between other users staying to read your blog posts or finding it so tiring to do so that they go elsewhere.

Breaking up that text.

You might have a lot to say about your chosen subject. Your posts might contain a lot of very interesting content. But it can be so tiring for you readers to have to plough through tons and tons of text that simply goes on and on and on without encountering some relief along the way. Try breaking up your content into well managed paragraphs which are easier to digest. Or better still, break up the content with pictures, photos or graphics. Not only does this help your readers to ‘rest their eyes’ from doing all that reading, but it can help to make your blog post look more attractive if it contains photos and pictures.

These can also be helpful to the reader in adding to the content of your post. If you simply write away going on and on an on, no matter how interesting the subject, your readers will find it tiresome and simply move on somewhere else. It’s far easier to insert photos, pictures and illustrations into your blog posts, either on Wordpress.com or Blogger by making use of Windows Live Writer to compose and publish your posts. Not only can you insert photos and pictures and place them wherever you want, you can also break up your text with line breaks if you are using Wordpress. There are some fantastic photo and picture effects you can add as well to make the whole post look attractive and interesting to read, so that you encourage your readers to stop and stay reading.

Use interesting Headlines!

If you make the title of your blog post look intriguing and interesting to others, they are going to come and investigate that post. To give an example of this, say I was posting about a shopping trip for a new bag. I could simply title the post, ‘Off on a shopping Trip’ or some such. Not very exciting. After all, we all go out on shopping trips. But if I title my post ‘Quest for a new Bag’ see then how it conjures up a journey of search and adventure? It sounds far more intriguing than ‘Off on a Shopping Trip’ so do give some thought to the titles of your posts.

Publicise your Blog!

Let the whole internet know about your blog! Market it. Advertise it. By far the best way of doing this is of course via Facebook and Twitter, especially Twitter. There are also other social methods and Wordpress in particular allows you to publish to both Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo automatically via your dashboard.

You will need to enable this feature on Wordpress but its very easy to do. Go to your Dashboard and select from the left hand sidebar and under My Dashboard, My Blogs. Under the Publicize tab, click inside the Yahoo Updates, Twitter and Facebook boxes. You will need to authorise each one first. Once that has been done, every post that you publish will appear on Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter automatically.

Blogger has recently added some very useful buttons to the bottom of every post for both you and your readers to use, but they are not invoked every time you publish a blog post. The easiest method of publicising each blog post on Blogger is to use Windows Live Writer and include some plug-ins for both Twitter and Facebook Get the Twitter plug in from http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=6b2b5ffe-936a-4cb3-869c-c01de29de176&bt=9&pl=8 and the Facebook plug in from http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=07c1dabd-accc-411f-bae0-ddef160067a9&bt=9 Once you have input your user name and password, they will both automatically be invoked every time you publish a post as long as you have enabled them for that particular blog in Live Writer. If not, you will be asked whether you wish them to be invoked per post as you publish. NOTE. There are other publicise plug ins that work with Writer such as Delicious and also an email plug in that sends an email every time you publish a post.

I hope that these tips help your blog to gain lot’s of followers and readers. Keep blogging everyone, and the most important aspect of all, have fun doing it!

Technorati Tags: tips,tricks,wordpress,blogger,fonts,sizes,colours,paragraphs,pictures,photos,live writer,publicise,twitter,facebook

Beginning Blogging 12. Social Blogging.

2010-07-27T10:39:00.000+01:00

I think that one of the most enjoyable sides to Blogging, unless you happen to keep your blog private of course, is the socialising side of it. I have found that when compared to forming online friendships via other social network methods such as Facebook, MySpace or Twitter, blogging is the only way that you can feel confident that you know the person concerned and can decide whether you feel comfortable in forming an online friendship with them. Because of the more detailed information contained inside their blog posts, its easier to feel as if you actually know that person even if they live at the other side of the world from you and you will probably never meet each other in person. It would be very difficult to do this from the limited insight you can gain from a short sentence or a 140 letter comment! So how do you find other peoples blog posts to read them and then form any online friendships on Blogger or Wordpress?

Let’s take a look shall we? I’ll begin with Blogger.

Making new friends on Blogger.

By far the easiest method of reading other peoples blogs on Blogger is by using the ‘Next Blog’ tab from the Navibar above your own blog. Clicking on that takes you to a variety of other blogs so that you can read them. If you like the content you can then click on the Follow tab from the Navibar or alternatively click on Follow from the Follow Gadget if they have included that on their blog. You can also leave a comment on that persons blog so that they can then return the compliment by clicking on your name or Avatar to visit your blog.

If you need more explanation about Following someone’s blog and what it means then toddle off to http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=104226 where all will be explained. Don’t forget that you can include a Follow Gadget for your own site as well. Its available from your Add and Arrange Page Elements in Design from your Dashboard. Do remember to place it where your visitors can easily see it won’t you?

The other method of finding new blogs to read (and thereby making new friends) is via your Dashboard itself. Under the area where your blog is listed, you will find your Reading List. This area includes any blogs that you are currently following, Blogger Buzz for updates of what is new on Blogger, the new Blogger in Draft, again showing you the new updates as they happen and finally Blogs of Note where you can read blog posts from those blogs that Blogger consider are worthy of being read and followed.

If you make use of Google reader, the blogs that you follow with automatically be added to your reader as well so that you can read them from there. Lastly of course, you can use another method that I often employ, that of making friends with those who comment on my friends blogs. So if I head off to read a friends blog, see a comment from someone who isn’t currently a friend of mine but I like their comment, I can then click on their Avatar or name to then take a look at their blog and have a read. If I like what I see, I can then either comment or Follow their blog.

The other method of making new friends if a friend happens to have included the Follow Gadget on their blog is by clicking on someone’s Avatar picture shown inside the Gadget. . You will then be able to access the Google Friend Connect window where you can choose to either Add as a Friend, Send a Message, see a synopsis of their Profile, access their blog if they have one, and also view all of the other Sites that they have joined. I actually prefer this method of making new friends on Blogger.

Making new friends on Wordpress.com

Again, as on Blogger, by using the Wordpress Toolbar at the top of other blogs on Wordpress, you can click on Blog Info and then from that drop down list, choose either to Follow that Blog or add it to your BlogRoll. Your Blogroll on Wordpress differs from the blogs that you Follow in that it can be also added as a Gadget in your sidebar for others to access as well. To read all of the new posts from any of the blogs that you follow, you simply go to your Dashboard and click on Blog Surfer. You can also alter how many posts from each blog that you can view inside your Blog Surfer by changing the Display Posts box.

In addition you can make use of Readermatic which is available from the list in your Dashboard sidebar as well. This acts in exactly the same way as Google Reader and allows you to read any of your favourite blogs from your Dashboard instead of actually visiting them. On Wordpress there is no ‘Next Blog’ tab in the Toolbar but there is an excellent Search box available from your Toolbar. By using this method, you can search by any word for any blogs on Wordpress containing that word, so a search for Grumble brings up the following multitude of blogs with similar grumblers such as myself! I can then click on each name or Avatar to go and have a read of each blog. As soon as I find any that interest me, I can then leave a comment or alternatively, use the Blog Info tab from the Toolbar and then either Follow or add to my Blogroll.

I can either click on someone’s Avatar or name who has left a comment on a friends blog or alternatively take a look at their Blogroll if they have included it on their blog and click on someone’s Avatar from there. Making use of Tag Surfer from your sidebar is another method of reading the blog posts from other bloggers on Wordpress who are talking about the same things as you. NOTE. For others to be able to find your blog posts and read them using this method, you must include your tags via the Wordpress tag feature and not any other. ( Live Writer let’s you include your tags via Wordpress.) You can also add other Tags as well from the Tag Surfer page if you wish to search for a specific theme or item. This feature is intended to allow you to find ‘like minded’ bloggers who are blogging about the same subjects as you tend to do.

So there are all the different methods of scouring both Blogger and Wordpress in order to find and make new blogging friends. Hope that you find it useful and if you know of any other methods that you use to make new friends on either platform, do please add them via comments. Thanks.
TG

Technorati Tags: blogger,friends,next,blog,navibar,follow,dashboard,note,read,avatar,wordpress,blogroll,surfer,tag

Beginning Blogging 11. Slideshow’s and Galleries.

2010-07-22T15:03:00.000+01:00

If you have a photo portfolio type blog, or if you simply want to include some photos for the readers of your blog perhaps to illustrate its contents, then its a good idea to familiarise yourself with using the Gallery and Slideshow features which are available to you on Wordpress.com. These two features become available once you have uploaded some photos or pictures to your Media Library on Wordpress. Let’s take a look shall we?

First of all you need to upload some photos from your computer so go to your Wordpress blog, click on My Dashboard and then select Media from the left hand sidebar. If you have already included any photos in any of your blog posts, they will now be shown listed under your Media Library on the right. We could add some of the photos already there, but for this demo let’s upload some new one’s. Click on Add New either from the sidebar or from the top of the Media Library page.

From the Upload New Media page, click on Select Files. Next, choose the photos or pictures that you wish to display in a blog post either as a slideshow at the top of the post, or as a Gallery inside the post. For this how-to, I’ll upload some pictures of some cats as if I was aiming to write a blog about them. Click on your chosen files and they will begin uploading to your Media. NOTE. This can sometimes take some time depending on how many photos or pictures you have to upload, how big they are, and of course your internet connection. When they have completed uploading click on Save.

NOTE. You can alter the names of your uploaded pictures by clicking on Show as they complete uploading and giving each one a title or caption and then clicking on Hide. Your new title or caption will be saved when you click on Save Changes. You do not have to change their title of course, it can be left as it is. If you give your photos a caption and then use the Gallery feature, the caption will appear below each photo.

Next we need to assign these photos to a post, so because they are all cats, for this how-to, I composed a blog post about cats using Windows Live Writer rather than the online blog editor. When you have created your post that you wish to attach those photos to (his can be an old post that you did some time ago of course) access your Media again by clicking on Media from the sidebar in your dashboard. Now we need to attach those photos to our chosen blog post. I have called my post Cats. So tick all those photos that you need to attach then click on Attach. A window will open to allow you to select the post or page that you wish to attach the photos to. Enter the name of the post in question into the box at the top of the Find Posts and Pages window, click on Search. When the post has been found, click on it and then click on Select and those chosen photos will then be attached to your chosen post.

Now we need to enable the Gallery or Slideshow for our photos. So next, click on Posts from your Dashboard sidebar. Your latest post should be at the top of the Posts page. If your chosen post is an older post, it will of course be further down the posts list. Place a tick into the square box and then click on Edit. You will now be in the familiar Edit post screen with the online editor at the top. Making sure that your cursor is positioned inside the blog editor exactly where you wish your Slideshow or Gallery to be placed, click on the Media icon above the Blog Editor window and to the left of the word Visual.

The Add Media window will open and at the top you will see that there is a number next to the word Gallery. These are your photo files that you attached to this post earlier. Click on Gallery.

All of those attached photos will now be listed with a box against each one to the left of the word Show. At the very bottom of this list are some Gallery settings as follows, Link thumbnails to: either an Image File or Attachment Page (default) Order images by: which contains choices of Menu order, Title, Date and Time or Random, Order: by Ascending (default) or Descending, Gallery columns which in my case, as I have a total of 15 pictures, is set at 3 by default. Underneath the Gallery Settings we have two buttons, Insert Gallery and Insert Slideshow.

The boxes at the side of the word show allow you to place inside them the number of the order of your included pictures as you wish to display them. Of course, if you aren’t bothered how they appear, then these can be left blank. Firstly let’s try the slideshow feature out. As I am not particularly bothered about the order of my photos I will simply click on Insert Slideshow. The word ‘slideshow’ (enclosed in brackets) will now have been placed into the post at precisely the place where your cursor was positioned last. (in my case at the top of the post where I think it looks best.) Now click on Update on the right hand side of the blog editor window. When the slideshow update has been applied, you will be informed that your post has been updated and can then view the post to see how it looks.

Lastly we’ll try out the Gallery option. Again, click on Posts from your sidebar in your Dashboard, and once more click on Edit in order to edit that particular post. Next delete the [Slideshow] from the post editor window. Leave your cursor where you prefer your Gallery to by placed inside your text, and again click on the Media icon at the top of the edit post window. Click on Gallery once more at the top of this window. We are back with our list of photos, but this time let’s number them all in preference of how you would like them to be displayed in your Gallery then click on Save all Changes. I am going to leave my Gallery columns at 3 but if you have say 8 photos, you might like to display them as either 2 or 4 across. I’ll also leave it at Ascending order as well.

This time click on Insert Gallery instead of the slideshow choice. ( you can always change back to Slideshow if you prefer that display option later.) Now when we look at the post editor, we have an added light blue dotted area with a picture and camera icon in the middle of it.

Click on Update as before. Again you will be informed that your post has now been updated and you can View the post containing your new Gallery. Of course its appearance entirely depends on how many photos you have attached to your post. If you have quite a few photos, then I think personally that the slideshow is more appropriate but you might disagree. As long as you made sure that your cursor was left in the position where you wanted your Gallery or Slideshow to be placed inside your post text then your photos will be displayed really attractively so that all of your readers can enjoy looking at them all.

TG Which display do you prefer? The slideshow or the Gallery? You decide.

Technorati Tags: portfolio,photos,post,media,dashboard,library,files,show,editor,wordpress,gallery,slideshow,order,columns,thumbnails.update

Beginning Blogging 10. Menu’s Pages and Tabs, oh my!

2010-07-20T21:19:00.000+01:00

Most themes on Wordpress allow you to add a Custom Menu to your blog page, where you can provide ‘click through’ tabs for your readers to access other areas. These can be either pages, such as About Me, or alternatively other blogs or websites. So let’s set up our Custom Menu. We’ll begin by creating a page about ourselves, and we’ll include a sort of résumé and a photo so that our viewers can find out more about the author of this blog.

Go to your Wordpress Dashboard. Down the left hand sidebar, you will see Pages listed between Links and Comments. Click on Pages and note that there is already one available titled About. Click on Edit. You will now be in the Edit Page with the online editor available. Simply write something about yourself here. You can include a photo of yourself by clicking on the small image icon at the top of the online editor window next to Get Shortlink. When you are happy with your About page, click on Update.

Pages can have an hierarchy so that in my case, my Who Am I? page is listed under About and is 1 in number order. To understand Page Attributes, click on Help from the top right of the Edit Page. Take a look at your blog. Who Am I? should not have been added to your tabbed Menu list at the top underneath your header.

Next we are going to create a Custom Menu which will not only include any pages that we compose on Wordpress to give our readers more information, but also take them directly to any other blogs we might have such as a Photo blog for example. NOTE. Not all themes on Wordpress allow you to Create a custom Menu. Those that include this feature will state that information underneath their theme picture on the Manage Theme page.

From your Dashboard, click on Appearance and then if your chosen Theme has the Menu feature included, click on Menus. Firstly you need to give your Menu a name, so type into the Menu Name box your chosen name for your Menu. NOTE. This name can be anything because it is not visible to any of your readers. Next click on Create Menu. On the left of the Menu area you will have some choices become available to you namely Theme Locations, Custom Links, Pages (which should contain any pages that you have already constructed) and also Categories. As my chosen theme only supports one Menu, this is named as the Primary Navigation.

In the Custom Links area, type in the URL of any other blogs that you wish to include. NOTE. These blogs do not necessarily have to be from Wordpress, they could be from any site. It could also be your flickr photostream for example. When you have inserted the URL, you will need to also add a Label. This is the title of your tab, so as I am including an URL to my photo portfolio, I’ll name it ‘My Photos’. To include in your Menu simply click on Add to Menu. Next choose which pages to include by firstly clicking on Show All, and then ticking the boxes next to the name. NOTE. You really need to add Home to your Menu so that your visitors are able to return to your Home page, especially if your chosen theme tends to make use of Split Posts on the Home page. Again, click on Add to Menu. You will now notice that Home, My Photos, Serious stuff and Who Am I? have appeared on the right hand side under the My Menu area with another of my Custom Links pointing to one of my other blogs.

Lastly you can also add some of your Categories to your Menu if you wish. If you have quite a few categories you do not have to add them all, you can of course leave some unticked. However, if you also have quite a few other sites added to your Menu and/or quite a few Pages it can begin to look fairly fussy in content. Remember that your categories can also be added to the sidebar or the bottom Gadget area instead. To finalise your Menu, you can now ‘click and drag’ each Menu item either up or down to alter the order that they are to appear on your Custom Menu. When you are completely happy with your Menu items and their order, click on Save Menu.

You can now go and take a look at the finished result. Click on each Menu tab and check that by doing so, you are taken to the sites and pages that you have chosen to include. And that’s how to set up a Custom Menu. You can see how mine looks in the picture above.

Technorati Tags: wordpress,custom,menu,tabs,pages,links,dashboard,edit,themes,appearance,label,home,categories

Beginning Blogging 9. Keeping up Appearances.

2010-07-19T15:10:00.000+01:00

Next let’s work through choosing another Theme for your blog, giving it a header of your choice and also choosing a new background. Some of the newer themes allow you to add a new header and background to them. So let’s choose one shall we? From your Wordpress dashboard, click on Appearance from the left hand sidebar. You will be presented with all the themes that are currently available on Wordpress. We need to narrow our search for a new theme down to background and header customisation.

From the Manage Themes page, click on Feature Filters at the far right. Here you can filter out the features that your are looking for in your new theme choice. Because I want to demonstrate applying a background AND a new header, I’m going to tick those choices of features for my new theme and then click on Apply Filters. You can apply any criteria that you like to your search for a new theme, colours, how many columns you prefer, the width of your blog and any other filters that you feel are important to you. Once you click on Apply Filters, then all those themes that meet your filters will be shown.

To see what each theme looks like in appearance for your blog, click on the Preview tab below each theme’s icon. If you don’t like that particular theme, then click on the small cross at the top left of the preview window to be returned to the filtered themes so that you can Preview another one. As soon as you find a theme that you like, simply click on Activate (name of theme) at the top right hand side of the Preview window and your new theme will be applied to your blog. For this tutorial I have chosen the theme Koi.

Next, let’s give our new theme a background. In your chosen theme, click on Background from the Manage Themes page or from the Appearance list in the left sidebar on your Dashboard. You can use any picture you like for a background, and there are plenty of backgrounds available to use on the Internet. Try doing a search for free backgrounds. Wallpapers are ideal for use as backgrounds as well. I am going to offer a few tips here for choosing a good background for your blog.

Try to choose as big a background in pixel size as you possibly can. It will then fill the entire webpage from side to side and it will not be necessary to apply any background colour as any side areas will not be visible. If not, you may have to apply tiling which can look unsightly.
The higher definition backgrounds and wallpapers always look best in my opinion, as do those without any overly fussy graphics.
Do note that if your chosen theme is transparent in the writing or sidebar area, your chosen background will show behind. Text could then be rendered difficult to read unless the background you have chosen is fairly plain in nature, and the colour of the background is fairly light for dark text or alternatively dark for light text. You might have to try several backgrounds out until you find the one that looks just right. A very good site for backgrounds I have found is Awesome Wallpapers here on Wordpress.
I find that the backgrounds that seem to work the best are the very subtle one’s, either with very gradient shading or textures.

From the Custom Background page, click on Browse to be taken to your files on your computer where you can choose a picture to use as your new background. When you have chosen your background image, click on Upload. Once your background image has uploaded, you can choose its display options. Its Position will largely depend on how large an image it is and if its very large you should be able to leave it in the centre. If its smaller in width than the screen, you will have to choose left or right and also to repeat it by clicking on Tile. Next you need to choose whether or not the background image will scroll down whenever a visitor scrolls down the page. You can enable this or have the background image remain fixed whilst the blog scrolls down. Finally you can choose a background colour to compliment your new background image. If the image chosen is fairly large in size, then choosing a background colour should not be necessary. If not, simply select a colour from the colour wheel and then click on Save Changes. You will be informed that your background has been updated and your can then click on Visit your site to see how it all looks. NOTE. If you prefer to have a plain background, then simply choose a different colour or leave the original background at the default.

Next, let’s add a new Header to our theme. I’m going to choose one of my favourite panoramic photos of Loch Lomond for my header. So click on Appearance/Header from the Dashboard Sidebar and again click on Browse in order to upload a picture file from your computer. Depending on which theme you chose, you will be informed that the chosen image will be cropped and to what size. For example, for Koi, I am told that my chosen image will be cropped to 980 x 200 pixels. Once you have chosen your image, click on Upload as before.

When your chosen Header image had successfully uploaded, you can move the crop area around until you are happy with the result, and then simply click on Crop and Publish. You can now go and view your new header to see how it looks. Returning to the Custom Header page will allow you to upload a new header if your not happy with how your chosen header looks, Remove your header or Reset Image which will restore the original header image if one was present in your chosen theme. Some themes may also allow you to choose to Display the header text or not and to select the colour of your header text from a colour chooser wheel. If your chosen theme allows you to choose your header text colour you will also be offered the choice to reset it back to the original colour. When you are happy with all your Header changes, click on Save Changes.

And that’s it. We have now added our own background and our own header to make our chosen theme look pretty unique and different from anyone else's blog. Next post, I move onto adding pages to your Menu which on Wordpress works exactly as it should work, allowing your visitors to click through to either another page you have composed (such as About Me) or alternatively be taken straight to another blog or webpage, such as your photo portfolio for example.

Technorati Tags: appearance,theme,filter,custom,background,header,Koi,upload,text,colour