Finished Products…

As a proud grandmother I love showing off photos of my two, beautiful granddaughters, but in this digital age I don't carry around an album of photos. Instead I share photos on my iPhone and iPad or upload them to my photoblog. If for some reason I want to alter these photos, I can easily edit photographs taken with my DSLR on my computer, and photos taken with my iPhone can also be easily edited directly on either the iPhone or the iPad. 

Enter the world of photo editing apps. Both iPhone and Andriod smartphones have  built-in photo album apps that allow users to adjust exposure and crop images. For a wider range of editing tools, there are numerous third-party apps from basic (exposure adjustments and cropping) to advanced (cloning, removing backgrounds, creating layers) techniques. There are probably thousands of such app for both iOS (Apple) and Android devices, and among the most popular are iPhoto (Apple only), Photoshop Express, Filterstorm, and Snapseed. 

In addition to cropping and adjusting exposure, most of the apps include features such as color correction, black and white conversion, sharpening, and red-eye correction. Another category of photo editing apps apply filters to images with one touch. An image can be transformed into sepia tone, high contrast, or made to look like an antique. Instagram, the most popular app in this category, has a companion website that boasts over thirty million users. For even more advanced editing, Photoshop Touch, for both platforms, has many of the features found in Photoshop, Adobe's flagship computer application. 

Photo editing can be done directly on a smartphone, or, as I prefer, on the larger screen of a tablet. When I take a photo with my iPhone, it is automatically saved to the built-in Photo app and simultaneously to Photo Stream, which stores the photos in Apple's, iCloud. Android images can easily be transferred between devices with Dropbox or other similar cloud storage services. 

What do I use for photo editing? My choice for quick and simple editing is either Photoshop Express or iPhoto. Both offer basic editing tools for adjusting exposure, cropping, fixing color balance, and sharpening. For more complex edits my choice is Photoshop Touch. Once I am happy with my edits I save the image back to the built in photo app, which simultaneously adds it to the Photo Stream. From there I can chose to display the image on both the iPhone and iPad, and I can upload it to Facebook or my photoblog. 

• Cnet reviews of Photo Editing Apps for Andriod
• Cnet reviews of Photo Editing Apps for iPhone & iPad

• Example of simple photo editing on my PhotoBlog
* Many of the photos on my blog were taken with the iPhone and edited on the iPad. Take a look!

Capture this…

As an avid photographer I like to have a camera with me at all times. On a "photo shoot" I use my DSLR (digital single lens reflex camera), but at all other times I carry a point and shoot in my pocket or purse. That is until last December, when I got an iPhone 5, one of the new breed of smartphones that support high quality cameras. I still use my point and shoot on occasion, but over time I find myself using the iPhone as my go-to camera for taking spontaneous photographs. 

As a side note, most smartphone cameras have a variety of high-end features in common. As I am not one of the paid technology columnist who receive demos from manufactures, I am limited to reporting first-hand on what I actually own, and on  research for competitive models. Last September CNET (reviews.cnet.com), an excellent website for all things technology, compared the HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S3 with the iPhone 5. The overall conclusion placed the iPhone first for overall photographic quality, followed closely HTC and Samsung. The features on all three phones include: an 8-megapixel, backlit sensor; large aperture; little or no shutter-lag and shot to shot recovery; an LED flash; HDR (high dynamic range) mode; digital zoom; and image stabilization for video recording. Both the HTC and Samsung also feature scene modes, a feature not found on the iPhone, but according to the review, one that did not make much difference in the overall quality of the photos. 

My experience is that the iPhone 5's five-element sapphire-crystal lens produces excellent photos. Taking a picture is as easy as pointing the camera at a subject and taping the screen. If the scene has uneven lighting, tap a dark area of the screen, and the light sensor will adjust the exposure for that area of the image. The camera includes a grid option which turns on a three by three grid to aid in image composition, and a digital zoom that works by placing two fingers on the screen and pulling them apart. 

The feature I use the most is HDR, or high dynamic range. With HDR photography, I can take three successive photos at different exposures – underexposed, overexposed, middle exposure – and combines them into one image that is closer to what the human eye sees. The three images are snapped in rapid sequence, and there is no noticeable shutter lag. The flash is automatically turned off when HDR is turned on, and I keep it turned on unless I am in an extremely low-light situation.

Panorama is a software-based feature that was added to the operating system update introduced with the iPhone 5. This feature, which also works on the iPhone 4S, combines together up to a 360° image when you hold the camera in portrait mode and turn slowly. The phone even tells you to slow down if you are turning too fast. While there are a variety of third-party apps available for creating panoramic images, the new, built-in feature produces excellent quality photos with the minimum of fuss. 

Finally, making videos is as easy as snapping a still photo. Simply swipe a slider from still to video and tap the screen to start recording. It is very comfortable to take video holding the phone in portrait mode, and at a 1080 pixel-resolution with built-in image stabilization, the results are excellent. In addition an added feature is the ability to snap still photos during video recording. 

I am sure by now you have noticed that I have not mentioned tablet devices. Most tablet devices, with the exception of the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire, feature rear-facing cameras, but my personal preference is to use my iPhone for taking picture. The image sensors on most of the tablets are of lower resolution than their companion smartphones, and I find taking photos with a tablet extremely awkward. I have also omitted discussing the front-facing cameras designed for video chatting (the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire do feature front-facing cameras). These cameras, in both smartphones and tablets, are of a lower resolution than rear cameras, but they adequately serve the purpose of live video chats. 

Using a smartphone camera is is easy and fun, but it is how the smartphone post-processes images that really demonstrate their excellent results. Next week in OnMouseClick I will write about how smartphones natively process images, and what apps you can use to make your images better. Visit my photoblog at www.digitalquinn.com/photoblog for examples of iPhone photography.

More information on the HDR mode on the iPhone & Android phones.

Hacked

Yesterday my TR neighbor, Anne, told me one of her email addresses seemed to have been hacked. Her daughter had just forwarded an email, purportedly from Anne, that contained a link to an unknown website. When Anne received the forwarded email, she knew she did not send it and she wasn't sure what to do. My advice was to immediately change her email password, but when she tried to log into her account, her password was not accepted – signaling that a hacker might have changed the password. After an extensive online session and several phone calls with her Canadian internet provider, she was able to get the password changed. 

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, one definition of the word hack is "…to gain access to a computer illegally." A recent article in the New York Times sited major corporations, such as Apple, Google, Intel, and even the New York Times itself, as victims of Chinese hackers. While hackers going after Fortune 500 companies are not interested in you and me, we are in the sights of spammers and spoofers, who are often one and the same. 

Spamming is the sending out of unsolicited emails for the purpose of advertising or for more nefarious reasons. If you use an email application on your computer, or you send email through a web based service, a spam filter will attempt to filter out this junk email. As these filters have gotten better at identifying spam, spammers have had to develop other methods of getting their email into your inbox. One of these methods is disguising the spam as mail coming from someone you know, and to do this they spoof, or hijack, legitimate email addresses. 

When a spoofed email is sent, it appears to be coming from a legitimate email address, often from someone you know. The  subject line might read something like "Great" or "Check this out," and the body of the email, with or without other text, will contain a link. The link might be totally unfamiliar, or it might be appear to be a link to a familiar website. Don' let that fool you, the visible appearance of a link can be very different from the webpage it really opens (an example appears in the online version of the column). 

What has really happened is that you email address, or sometimes just your name, has been captured and is put in the FROM: section of the spam email. In Anne's case her actual email account was hacked, and her address book was used. Several of these bogus emails appear to have been sent, but yet they did not appear in her Sent mailbox, as the hacker must have deleted the message before they could be traced. 

Another form of spoofing is using just a person’s name and their online address book. A few weeks ago I received an email message from a friend that did not appear to come from her. The From line showed her name, but the email address was not one with which I was familiar. Since then I have received similar messages from both my sister-in-law and my daughter-in-law. Both times the email showed the correct name attached to an unknown email address, they were addressed to me, and they included a link to a website. All three used online mail accounts:  AOL, YAHOO, and HOTMAIL, respectively. Since the address books for these services are maintained online, it is not difficult for a knowledgable hacker to get into the system and extract information without actually hacking individual accounts.

What to do? A good practice to follow is to never click on links in emails unless you are 100% sure of their origin. If you have any doubts, contact the person who sent you the email to find out if it was really sent by them. Also be very wary of unsolicited email from a business, even from one that you regularly do business with. If you think the email may really be important, visit the corporate website through your browser. Legitimate operations will never send you email asking you to enter sensitive information. Such requests are phishing schemes that direct email recipients to counterfeit websites that often resemble the real thing. 

It is not my intent to create paranoia, or make you afraid to send and receive email. Just remember that if you think your email account has been hacked, immediately change the password and contact your provider. If you receive an email that you expect is bogus, do not click on any links – your best best is to immediately delete it from your system, and empty your trash for good measure. 

Below are several links to websites that discuss email hacking and prevention. And as a final note — I followed the source of one of the bogus emails I received from my friend in New York, and it was sent from central Russia. 

Prevent Hackers from Getting into Your Email Account

How to stop your Gmail account being hacked

Five steps to prevent your email from getting hacked

What do I do when my email is being hacked?

Wikapedia — What is email hacking

Protect your email account from hackers

Let me count the ways…

The difference between an app and more traditional software is that apps are designed as specialized programs meant to do one thing quickly and easily, with the emphasis on easily. I was reminded of that this morning when Eddie gave me an article to read in the Wall Street Journal.  At the bottom of the article was a QR (abbreviation for quick response) barcode with the caption "scan this code to watch a video…"  Being curious I gave it a try. As soon as I scanned the code with ScanLife, one of the many scanning apps available for my iPhone, the whole process got me thinking about some of the simple, everyday smartphone apps that I use to simplify my life.

• QR Codes are a form of barcode designed to provide easy access to information through smartphones. QR codes appear everywhere these days: in newspapers, magazines, and on the grocery shelf. Use your phone to capture the code and you might open a video, read an expanded article, or find out more about a product. If you are out shopping, there are apps that will scan product barcodes for comparison shopping. 

• A slightly more complicated, but very useful app is Scanner Pro by Readdle. The app scans documents with the iPhone or iPad camera, and does an excellent job of making readable, reproducible copies that can be sent to a printer or saved as a jpeg or PDF file. Scanner Pro is a paid app, but the publisher just released a free version of the app, Scanner Mini. The Readdle apps are only available for Apple, but you can find out about similar Android apps here. 

• Another class of apps I regularly use are timer apps. As I write this column I am sitting on the veranda outside the Paul Ruth Room waiting for my laundry in the washer/dryer machines. To make sure I take my clothes out of the machines on time, I set a timer to let know when to go back inside. I also use timer apps when I cook.  Many of the apps let me set multiple timers at once, which is very helpful when timing a variety of dishes on the stovetop and oven. A timer is built into the iPhone Clock app, and there are a multitude of third party apps available for iOS and Android devices. 

• Weather apps are a must – everyone always wants to know about the weather. I use the iPhone's built-in weather app and The Weather Channel app for forecasts, but I really like Thermometer, a free app that only does one thing – displays the current outside temperature. It is especially useful when we are traveling and I want to find out the temperature where we are at that very moment. A free app with the same name and function, but from a different publisher, is available for android devices. 

• Keeping track of my grocery list was always a chore. How many times did I arrive at  the supermarket and forget to take my list, or I'd be out and remember something I needed, then forget to write it down when I arrived home? Since getting a smartphone I keep the list in an app, and my grocery shopping life has been easier. There are numerous grocery list apps, and the one I use is Grocery Gadget. It includes a very extensive database of grocery items, organized by categories, and as you shop you can chose to arrange list items either alphabetically or by category. There are both free and paid, ad-free versions of the app, and they are available for both Apple and Android devices. 

• Every smartphone includes an app for takings notes. In the past I kept a little note pad in my purse – and I was always looking around for something to write with. I now use the native Notes app built into my iPhone. When I want to write something down, I open the app, touch the plus sign for a new page, touch the screen for the keyboard, and begin typing. 

Twitter 101…

Before I delve into the topic for today, I want to thank everyone who came to the Macintosh Users’ Group iPad & iPhone Workshop on February 5. From the number of participants it is clear that tablets and smartphones are very popular with TR residents, and I hope everyone who attended came away with at least one question answered. A second, slightly more advanced workshop is being planned — date and time to be posted on the Computer Club bulletin board in Busch Hall. 

An attendee at the workshop mentioned that one of her friends uses a Kindle Fire, and would love to see a workshop offered on that device. My suggestion, to Kindle Fire users and users of other Android OS devices, is to find other like-minded users and form an informal users group. The best way to learn about technology is to use it, and sharing with others is a great way of expanding your knowledge.

In last week’s column I introduced Twitter, the free, social networking service that enables users to send and receive short,140 character messages, known as tweets, in real-time. Twitter is used by a wide range of people to share just about every aspect of their lives, and it is also used by many commercial enterprises and nonprofit organizations. While most of the tweets from organizations are advertising in nature, organizations also use tweets to disseminate vital information. This week I am going to cover setting up a Twitter account, using Twitter on a computer and mobile devices, and how to find helpful tweets to follow.

Creating a free Twitter account is a simple process — you can go to www.twitter.com on a computer or on a smartphone or tablet, use the official Twitter app or one of the numerous third-part alternatives available for both Apple and Android devices. After entering the usual, required information (full name, email address, etc.) you will be asked to create a username and password. The username is how you will be known on Twitter, and when you send a tweet it will be your username preceded by an at sign (@). For example, my Twitter username is @lindaslens.

Signing onto your Twitter account on either a browser or mobile app will direct you to your personal home page with a listing of your tweets. On a computer the left side of the home screen features a long list of suggested users to follow, with a search box located directly above. On mobile versions of Twitter the search icon is located at the top-left of the screen. Enter the name of a person or entity and you will be directed to their Twitter account.

A more direct method for selecting to follow a commercial organization is to visit the organization’s website. Somewhere on the home page, usually at the very bottom or very top of the page, you will see a small blue icon of a bird, or the words Follow Us on Twitter. Click and you will be linked to the company’s Twitter page, where you will see a Follow button. Click the button and you will begin receiving tweets on your home page. To stop following a user, click on the blue Following button next to the user’s name on your homepage and you will stop receiving tweets.

As I am writing this column a major snow storm is being forecast for the northeast. If I were flying home to New York over the weekend, I would immediately begin following my ticketed airline. Twitter users are usually the first to know about flight delays and cancellations and are ahead of the curve when it comes to rescheduling and rebooking.

For anyone who wants to know more about the intricacies of using Twitter, the service provides excellent help pages that can be accessed through the the drop-down menu under the gear icon on the home page. It can be accessed directly at http://support.twitter.com.

Indispensable …

I love books and I love beautiful paper. I like writing on paper, especially with a fountain pen. I like to draw with a pencil or pen, and I like creating artist's books with handmade paper. And yes, I like making handmade paper. As a young person I kept copious journals of my life, and over the years I have always kept notebooks to detail areas of both my professional and personal life. The problem, of course, is keeping track of all my notebooks of important information, a problem compounded by living in the small space of a motorhome for almost half the year. For me, using a tablet computer device has been a life saver, and using my iPhone and iPad in tandem makes it even easier.

Last week I detailed how I use Keeper to keep track of passwords, usernames, and other pertinent information. Capzule PHR is another app I use for record keeping. 

The app stores health data in separate charts for each member of the family. While its features are too numerous to cover here, the app includes sections for vitals and medical conditions, family history, current and past medications, doctor's visits, lab results, and medical procedures. Scanned lab reports and medical records can be imported, and when you enter an upcoming appointment the app will ask if you want to add the it to your Calendar app. 

I began using Capzule PHR on my iPhone before I had an iPad, and I found it very useful when filling out the paperwork that invariably comes with a visit to a doctor. I no longer had to remember dates of procedures or the strength of medication I had once taken. Now that the app is also on my iPad, it is a simple process to copy the data from one device to the other. The larger size of the iPad makes it more convenient for entering information, and the small size of the iPhone makes it easier to bring to doctor's appointments. Information on the app is available for Apple devices ($2.99) at http://capzule.com. 

While both Keeper and Capzule PHR are record keeping apps, I also use both my iPhone and iPad for note taking. Since I almost always have my iPhone with me, rather than jotting information down on scattered pieces of paper, I keep my notes in one place using Apple's built-in Notes app. 

Since the same app is a feature on my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Pro laptop, notes are synced wirelessly between devices. 

I have also begun keeping a series of virtual notebooks on my iPad. There are many notebook apps available, and after copious research I settled on Noteshelf ($5.99, iPad only). Noteshelf is a feature rich app that let's you write directly on the iPad with your finger or a stylus. You can also enter text from the keyboard and images from photo albums. The virtual notebooks, which I keep on a variety of topics, can be organized into groups that are attractively placed on virtual shelves. Among the topics for my notebooks are notes on how-to instructions for Photoshop, settings for fine art printing, and copies of receipts (imported scanned images) pertaining to my business expenses. For more information on Noteshelf visit www.fluidtouch.biz/noteshelf.

The last app I am going to mention is Bento, a database creation app (only for Apple). I use it to create database files for maintaining records such as my most used recipes, a home inventory, an exercise log, my fine art photographic prints, camping reservations, and computer hardware and software. I could, of course, find apps that will keep track of all of these things, but I prefer to design my own records. Bento, one of the more expensive apps I use, costs $4.99 for iPhone and $9.99 for iPad. The app is also available in a computer version, and when connected to a wireless network, up to two devices can be synced with the computer. Read more at www.filemaker.com/products/bento. 

For Android devices, a Google search for  medical record keeping and database creation apps will produce a variety of choices.

Keeping track of my stuff…

Quick note – my MacBook Pro is being repaired, and I had to add this post from the iPad Blogger app. It is my first time using the app, and it has very limited features and is not importing my bold text, links, and it is not letting my reposition images. I will fix this post as soon as I have my Mac back!


If you are anything like my husband and I, you regularly visit numerous website that require a login with a username and password. As it is never a good idea to use the same password for multiple websites, how do you remember all your different passwords? And what about all the other information you need at your finger tips — your spouse’s social security number, medical insurance number, retirement account numbers … well, you get the picture. We are all responsible for too much information!

A few years ago I wrote a column about how difficult it is to keep track of all this information. Back then, my solution was to use a small notebook, divided into sections with write-on tabs. The system worked very well, but the notebook was something else I had to keep track of. If we traveled, I had to be certain that I had my notebook with me. Last summer I resolved to find an electronic version of my notebook for my iPad. I tried several different apps, and I found a solution that I am very happy with — Keeper.

Keeper is a database specifically designed to catalog and protect your passwords and private information. The app is free to download, and initially I entered a few records before taking the plunge and entering all of my information. The app divides your records into categories, or folders, with builtin fields for the name of the record, login name, password, web address, and notes. You can also add custom fields specific to each individual record.

The app itself is password protected, and when you select the app, the first screen that appears looks like a vault with a text box to enter your password. (It is very important to create a Keeper password that is easy for you to remember, but not easy to crack.) The app allows three tries before self-destructing – and erasing all your data (although it remains available for online retrieval).

Once I decided to keep using the app, I installed it on both my iPad and iPhone. While Keeper is free to download, it costs $9.99 per year, per device to sync your information between devices. In addition to syncing devices, the subscription gives you unlimited online backups and storage, web access from anywhere, and 24/7 live support. The best part is that my iPhone and iPad are in sync. Information entered on one device immediately appears on the other.

Keeper is pretty amazing, and I am using it to store all of our important information, not just login information.  My Keeper contains fifteen folders, and each folder stores from three to twelve records, and making edits on already entered information is relatively easy. I can also assess my records online, from any computer, by logging into the Keeper Security website.

Keeper versions are available for Mac, Windows, and LInux computers; Apple iPads, iPhones, and iPods; Android smart phones and tablets; Windows phones; and the Amazon Kindle Fire. For more information on Keeper, visit the website at keepersecurity.com.

Linda's 5-Stage Backup Plan …

What is the best way to backup the important data on your computer? There is no right or wrong answer to this question, only what works best for you. To help you get started on making your own personal backup plan, today’s column is an overview of how my husband and I go about backing up our computer data.

Last week I listed five steps for backing up data, and I mentioned that you can backup to flash drives, external hard drives, or to a cloud (internet) storage service. In the recent past many people also created backups on CD and DVD discs, but these discs are much too small and slow for serious data backup, and I do not recommend using them. What follows is an expanded version of my 5-Step Backup Plan. 

Point 1 – Create a complete backup of your computer's hard drive. 

For my MacBook Pro I use TimeMachine, a native backup utility installed on all Apple computers running Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). If you have a desktop Mac, you can leave an external USB drive plugged in all the time and TimeMachine will make incremental backups every hour. With my laptop, I plug the USB drive in every few days and activate TimeMachine. Eddie's Dell laptop is backed up to a second USB drive using the backup utility built into Windows 7. If you prefer not to use the builtin options, a bit of research will uncover numerous other third party backup solutions. 

Point 2 – Backup your most important files to a flash drive every time you make changes.

Eddie uses Quicken to keep track of our financial records. To insure that he never loses any of this very important data, he keeps an 8 GB flash drive next to his computer, and at least once a day, he creates a file backup on the drive. For my part, my most important files are my photographic images. When I import photos from a camera to my hard drive, I also put copies of the photos on a flash drive as a safety measure. 

Thumb-sized flash drives are very inexpensive, with 8 GB drives selling for under $10, and you should have several in your desk drawer. 

Point 3 – If one backup is good, two is better.

One backup copy of your hard drive is never enough. If the backup data saved in one location is lost, having a second copy can be a life saver. The second copy can be saved on a second external hard drive, or in the "Cloud." Cloud storage services are remote facilities that you connect via the Internet using password protection. A major advantage of Cloud storage is that your data is accessible from any computer, anywhere that has a secure Internet access. 

In addition to our local backups, Eddie and I both store copies of our data in the Cloud. After some extensive research, we purchased a two-year subscription to ZipCloud. Most of the Cloud-based services offer a 30-day free trial, and we tried several plans before settling on ZipCloud. One of the clear advantages of ZipCloud over competing plans was the availability of unlimited storage at a very reasonable price. 

ZipCloud backups are incremental – the initial backup can take a long time, but subsequent backups are much faster. Cloud-based backups need fast, broadband internet connections. At home in New York we have high speed Verizon FIOS and it performs excellently. At TR we have a Centurylink DSL connection which performs reasonably well, although at a significantly slower speed.

Point 4 – Keep one backup of important information in a remote location. 

In the past, good advise was to keep a copy of important files in a safe deposit box. With the advent of cloud storage, it has become much easier to store files remotely. In addition to periodic backups of his complete drive, Eddie creates a daily ZipCloud backup of his financial files. ZipCloud also allows for the backup of external hard drives, and as soon as I put my photo library files in order, I plan to back up all my external USB drives.

Point 5 – Make periodic backups of smart phones and tablet computers.

You might be surprised how much information is stored on your smart phones and tablet computers; information that needs backing up in case something happens to the devices. Apple iPhone and iPad are backed up every time they are connected to the iTunes application on both Macs and PCs. 

Apple iPhone and iPad users, whether you are PC or Mac computers users, should have iTunes application installed on your computer. iTunes was originally developed to download and manage music on the computer, and when the first iPod music player was released iTunes was as a conduit to transfer music from the computer. It has since evolved into the management software for all of the Apple iDevices (iPhone, iPad, or iPod). Apps (small programs that run of the iPhone and IPad), as well as music, can be download into iTunes and then transferred to an iDevice when it is plugged the computer via a USB cord. Additionally, until recently, every time one of these devices are recognized by iTunes all of the information on the device is backed up on the computer. The backups still occur, but you now have a choice as to wether you want to backup to the computer or to Apple’s iCloud service. Everyone who creates an Apple account, which is necessary to utilize the iTunes App Store to download free and purchased apps, is automatically allocated 5 GB of iCloud storage. If you have a lot of information on your iDevice, you would need to purchase additional iCloud space. I choose to backup my devices to my computer.

There is no native method of backing up Android devices, but you can find directions at this online CNet article. 

Not if, but when …

I wrote in last weeks column that my focus for 2013 would be using your computing devices to make life easier — and life isn't easier when you are worried about the safety of information on your computer hard drive. Hard drives fail. There is an adage that it is not "if" a hard drive fails, but "when." Add to that all the information you keep on smartphones and tablets, and we all have a large amount of data to worry about. 

If you have been reading my columns over the past several years, you will know that I am an avid photographer. I take many pictures, and I use my computer for enhancing and editing my work. Often, I will have multiple copies of an edited photo, and many of my images are used in various commercial endeavors. During the summer I began the monumental task of totally reorganizing my digital photo library. Without going into the gory details, the drive I transferred my files to went bad before I could back up the files, and I lost a large volume of work. 

The drive was under warranty, and it was replaced without a problem. I also have backups of some my photo work scattered across my many USB drives, and I keep backup copies almost all of my unedited images. Needless to say, I have a big job of recovery and re-editing to do this winter, as well as making sure that I have one or more backup copies of all my important files. 

I am a strong proponent of making frequent backups, and I practice what I preach, but even when you backup religiously, things can go wrong. If you have a large amount image files, as I do, one backup location is not enough. I have images scattered across many different drives, and each of those drive needs to be backed up. What follows are some practices you might want to consider to avoid having a similar disaster. Next week's column will cover more specifics on backing up your important data. 

1. Perform backups of your computer hard drive on a regular basis — daily, or at least weekly, depending on how often you make changes to important files.
2. If you keep your financial records on your computer, using Quicken or a similar financial record keeping program, consider backing up just those files to a USB flash drive every time you make changes.
3. One backup copy of your hard drive, or important files is never enough. If you back up your internal drive to an external drive, consider subscribing to a cloud (online) backup service as well.
4. Keep backups of important information in more than location (see number 3, above). If you keep all your backups in your house, and there is a disaster of some kind, you lose everything. 
5. Backup tablets and smart phone regularly, either to your computer, the cloud, or both. 

If you are looking for additional information before next week's column, do a Google search of COMPUTER BACKUP. Anything from CNET is a good place to start.

Happy 2013!

As the new year begins I cannot help but think about how my use of computers has evolved since retiring from teaching in 2003. Back then I prided myself on being on the cutting edge of technology. I had a Palm Pilot type PDA  (personal digital assistant) device which held my calendar, address book, and occasional notes. My computer was a top-of-the-line Macintosh laptop with a 17 inch screen, 512 megabytes (MB) of RAM and a whopping 10 gigabytes (GB) hard drive. I kept track of student attendance on my PDA (as a high school teacher I saw multiple classes each day), and my grade book was a spreadsheet I designed to automatically compute averages and final grades. 

Much has changed since then. Teachers in schools all over the country (including my high school) keep attendance records and grades online. PDAs have been replaced by smart phones, and tablet computers have carved out a large portion of the computer marketplace. Personally I use a smartphone, tablet, and a laptop computer. And while many of the functions of these devices are not too different than the functions of their 2003 predecessors, they interact with each other seamlessly. When I make an entry to my calendar, address book or note pad on a single device the information is shared between all three devices. 

When I began writing OnMouseClick, my goal was to help novice computer users navigate the ins and out of working with personal computers. As the years passed readers became more comfortable with computer use and the focus of OnMouseClick shifted to the world of online technology – and in 2012 to social media. This season OnMouseClick will focus on tying everything together. How to setup a smartphone, tablet and personal computer to work in tandem? What accessories are necessary to make devices work smoothly? What applications (or apps as they are called for smartphones and tablets) can be used to connect and communicate with the online world? What apps can be used to make life easier and more fun? What apps keep track of important information? How can online information be kept safe and secure?

An operating system (or OS) is the backbone of any computing device, and determines how the device works. My computer, smartphone and tablet are all Apple devices, using OS X version 10.8 (Mountain Lion), and iOS 6 respectively. However, most of the applications running on the three devices have counterparts that run under Window or Android operating systems, and I will offer relevant information when available.

My 2013 personal hardware lineup includes a MacBook Pro Retina with 8 GB memory and a 250 GB hard drive; a 64 GB iPad 2, and a brand new 32 GB iPhone 5 that replaced my iPhone 4 for Christmas (thanks Santa). My husband uses a Dell laptop running Window 7, a 64 GB iPhone 4, and Santa brought him a 32 GB iPad 3^rd Generation (replacing his original 64 GB iPad).