This week’s column is being written in Arizona, and by the time it appears in the TR Times we should be in Hawaii visiting our son Brian. As promised, we have used our Cingular Wireless card as we drove across the country, and I am glad to report that it works as advertised. It is truly amazing to be driving along the interstate and connecting to the Internet at the same time (only in the passenger seat, of course).
We did have a delay in trying out the card. We did not take our motor home on the trip; instead we decided to buy a used GMC Savana van that we thought would be perfect for our needs. It gave us the room we needed, and the seller promised it was in perfect condition. Unfortunately, even before we left Travelers Rest it needed a great deal of work.
On our first day on the road , Friday, March 2, I planned on using the computer to connect to the Internet to find a place to stay when we were ready to stop for the night. However, after only three hundred miles, on I-10 between Tallahassee and Pensacola, the van bucked a couple of times and then died. The next two hours were spent on the side of the road waiting for road service to send a tow.
A local mechanic worked on the van, but he couldn’t find the cause of our problems. He ran the engine for over three hours and proclaimed that the van appeared to be working fine. After a night in the small town of Marianna, Florida, we got the van back and continued on our way. Outside Mobile, Alabama, on our second day on the road, I finally tried to use the wireless card to make a reservation for a hotel for the night. What a treat to be able to access the Internet while we were driving down the highway, compare hotel prices and availability, and make a reservation. I tried the card again two days later in Louisiana and the results were just as good.
It did take us an unusually long time to get through Louisiana — amd that is because the van broke down again in Baton Rouge on Sunday. On Monday a GMC service center was finally able to diagnose and repair the problem and we got on our way again in the early afternoon. Since then we have used the wireless card several times, and every time we were able to connect to the Internet without a hitch.
If you need to be able to connect to the Internet wherever you travel, I strongly suggest you look into getting a wireless card from your cell phone provider. While the service is costly, it does give you piece of mind knowing that you can connect from just about anywhere.
This is the last OnMouseClick for the year. I wish everyone happy computing, and a safe and healthy summer!
Friday, March 16, 2007
Friday, March 02, 2007
Keeping it personal — Part II…
In last week’s OnMouseClick I outlined methods of avoiding Internet fraud and identity theft. This week I am going to focus on using a firewall to keep your computer safe from outside intruders if you use a broadband network to connect to the Internet.
In the real world, a firewall is a partition that inhibits the spread of a fire. In cyberspace, a firewall is metaphorical; instead of protecting against fire, it protects your computer from unauthorized access. An even better analogy would be to think of a firewall as a receptionist who monitors all visitors (Internet traffic) to your computer. Without the proper clearance, the receptionist will not let a visitor enter.
You might be wondering why anyone would want to gain access to your computer. There are two main reasons. First intruders, also known as computer hackers, are looking for sensitive information that may be stored on your computer, such as credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and passwords. Second, your computer hardware can be commandeered for remote use in hacking other computers. To minimize the probability of such a breach of your computer security, it is imperative that you have firewall software installed and turned on.
Where do you get firewall software? If you use Windows XP — Service Pack 2, Vista or Mac OS 10, there is a firewall built into the operating system that is turned on by default. With both Windows and Mac, the most recent versions of the operating systems, OS 10.4 for Mac and Vista for Windows, are purported to be the most secure. Regardless of which operating system you use, be sure to keep it up-to-date. Most operating system updates are released because of newly discovered security breaches and subsequent repairs.
If you use virus protection software — and you should — a firewall may also have been installed on your computer as a component of the software. If this is the case, you will need to select which firewall you want to use. For most people, the obvious choice will be to use the firewall that is integrated with the virus protection software. Whatever your choice, you should only have one of the firewalls enabled.
Firewall software can be customized, although most novice users will stay with their software’s default settings. If you want to learn how your firewall is working, or you want to be able to do your own customization, there are several web sites that provide useful information.
One excellent resource is www.cert.org/homeusers/HomeComputerSecurity. This web site, sponsored by the Carnegie Mellon University, is one of the best compendiums on Home Computer Security I have come across. Another web site of interest to Windows XP users is www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Customizing-Windows-Firewall.html. This web article gives step-by-step directions on different ways to customize the Windows XP firewall.
As for users of the brand new Windows Vista operating system, I was not able to find any web sites with directions for customizing the firewall — although my research suggests that the Vista firewall is not very different from the firewall in Windows XP. If you use a Macintosh, you can learn about the firewall settings on your computer with a search for FIREWALL in the Apple Help Menu.
Next week OnMouseClick concludes the series on computer security by exploring a variety of antivirus software and the importance of backing up your critical data.
In the real world, a firewall is a partition that inhibits the spread of a fire. In cyberspace, a firewall is metaphorical; instead of protecting against fire, it protects your computer from unauthorized access. An even better analogy would be to think of a firewall as a receptionist who monitors all visitors (Internet traffic) to your computer. Without the proper clearance, the receptionist will not let a visitor enter.
You might be wondering why anyone would want to gain access to your computer. There are two main reasons. First intruders, also known as computer hackers, are looking for sensitive information that may be stored on your computer, such as credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and passwords. Second, your computer hardware can be commandeered for remote use in hacking other computers. To minimize the probability of such a breach of your computer security, it is imperative that you have firewall software installed and turned on.
Where do you get firewall software? If you use Windows XP — Service Pack 2, Vista or Mac OS 10, there is a firewall built into the operating system that is turned on by default. With both Windows and Mac, the most recent versions of the operating systems, OS 10.4 for Mac and Vista for Windows, are purported to be the most secure. Regardless of which operating system you use, be sure to keep it up-to-date. Most operating system updates are released because of newly discovered security breaches and subsequent repairs.
If you use virus protection software — and you should — a firewall may also have been installed on your computer as a component of the software. If this is the case, you will need to select which firewall you want to use. For most people, the obvious choice will be to use the firewall that is integrated with the virus protection software. Whatever your choice, you should only have one of the firewalls enabled.
Firewall software can be customized, although most novice users will stay with their software’s default settings. If you want to learn how your firewall is working, or you want to be able to do your own customization, there are several web sites that provide useful information.
One excellent resource is www.cert.org/homeusers/HomeComputerSecurity. This web site, sponsored by the Carnegie Mellon University, is one of the best compendiums on Home Computer Security I have come across. Another web site of interest to Windows XP users is www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Customizing-Windows-Firewall.html. This web article gives step-by-step directions on different ways to customize the Windows XP firewall.
As for users of the brand new Windows Vista operating system, I was not able to find any web sites with directions for customizing the firewall — although my research suggests that the Vista firewall is not very different from the firewall in Windows XP. If you use a Macintosh, you can learn about the firewall settings on your computer with a search for FIREWALL in the Apple Help Menu.
Next week OnMouseClick concludes the series on computer security by exploring a variety of antivirus software and the importance of backing up your critical data.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Keeping it personal…
You would probably be surprised to know how much personal information is stored on your computer. Every time you use your computer for online shopping or bill paying, personal information is stored in you computer’s memory — information that can put you at risk.
According to the Better Business Bureau web site (www.bbbonline.org/Idtheft), identity theft, also known as identity fraud, is access to personal account information that leads to fraud. The web site also states that 90% of identity fraud does not occur online, and only 2.3% of victims are over 65. While these statistics are encouraging, anyone who uses the Internet should be vigilant about security. The following are simple guidelines that will help protect you and your sensitive information.
1. When logging on to secure web sites, choose passwords that are not easy to figure out. Don’t use obvious words like birthdays, your mother’s maiden name or the name of your pet. Change passwords often, and don’t use the same password for all the web sites you visit.
2. Do not respond to e-mails that appear suspicious. If you do not know who sent an email, delete it.
3. Never open an email attachment unless you are sure of its origin. If someone you do not know sends you a photo, music file, or any other type of attachment, delete it before opening.
4. Consider having more than one email address. Use one for corresponding with friends and family and another one for online shopping. If you have a problem with an email address, delete it and create a new one.
5. When completing online purchases, check for https at the beginning of the address in the address bar. This denotes a secure, encrypted web site used for transferring personal data. If are not sure you are on a secure site, do not enter your credit card information.
Even if you observe all of the above guidelines, you have to be wary of Phishing scams, one of the most popular methods of perpetrating online identity fraud. Unsavory individuals send email to the customers of financial institutions or ecommerce web sites (such as Paypal or Amazon.com) asking for a review or update of account information. The email will look legitimate and include a link to a web site that will be a replica of the company’s real web site. Once on the fake web site, the victim will be asked to enter personal information such as account numbers, social security number and passwords.
Reputable institutions and ecommerce sites will never ask for personal information via email. If you receive such an email and you think it might be legitimate, contact the purported sender by telephone before acting upon the email.
While personal vigilance is the first line of defense against online fraud, it is also important to keep your computer up-to-date with software that will help protect against computer invasion and fraud — which will be the subject of next week’s OnMouseClick.
According to the Better Business Bureau web site (www.bbbonline.org/Idtheft), identity theft, also known as identity fraud, is access to personal account information that leads to fraud. The web site also states that 90% of identity fraud does not occur online, and only 2.3% of victims are over 65. While these statistics are encouraging, anyone who uses the Internet should be vigilant about security. The following are simple guidelines that will help protect you and your sensitive information.
1. When logging on to secure web sites, choose passwords that are not easy to figure out. Don’t use obvious words like birthdays, your mother’s maiden name or the name of your pet. Change passwords often, and don’t use the same password for all the web sites you visit.
2. Do not respond to e-mails that appear suspicious. If you do not know who sent an email, delete it.
3. Never open an email attachment unless you are sure of its origin. If someone you do not know sends you a photo, music file, or any other type of attachment, delete it before opening.
4. Consider having more than one email address. Use one for corresponding with friends and family and another one for online shopping. If you have a problem with an email address, delete it and create a new one.
5. When completing online purchases, check for https at the beginning of the address in the address bar. This denotes a secure, encrypted web site used for transferring personal data. If are not sure you are on a secure site, do not enter your credit card information.
Even if you observe all of the above guidelines, you have to be wary of Phishing scams, one of the most popular methods of perpetrating online identity fraud. Unsavory individuals send email to the customers of financial institutions or ecommerce web sites (such as Paypal or Amazon.com) asking for a review or update of account information. The email will look legitimate and include a link to a web site that will be a replica of the company’s real web site. Once on the fake web site, the victim will be asked to enter personal information such as account numbers, social security number and passwords.
Reputable institutions and ecommerce sites will never ask for personal information via email. If you receive such an email and you think it might be legitimate, contact the purported sender by telephone before acting upon the email.
While personal vigilance is the first line of defense against online fraud, it is also important to keep your computer up-to-date with software that will help protect against computer invasion and fraud — which will be the subject of next week’s OnMouseClick.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Staying Connected — Part II…
The day after writing last week's column we visited the Cingular store in New Tampa and signed up for an unlimited Data Connect plan with a two-year contract. We have been using the service for almost a week and it has proved to be a reliable Internet connection, but at Travelers Rest it is not very fast.
The three major cell phone carriers, Cingular, Verizon and Sprint, all offer Internet connect service, and the services are broadband in most metropolitan areas. Cingular's broadband network is known as 3G, and promises connection speeds rivaling the speed of a cable modem. When not in an area serviced by 3G, the connection is made through Cingular's Edge (2G) network, which operates at speeds faster than dial-up but slower than DSL.
Immediately after signing up for the service, we headed to a coffee shop near the Cingular store to try out our Internet connection. The greater Tampa area is covered by 3G-service, and the connection was lightening fast. The New York Times home page, which is graphics intensive, loaded seamlessly and fast, as did a financial management program, Active Trader Pro from Fidelity Investments. Active Trader monitors the stock market in real time, and worked flawlessly on the 3G network.
Back at Travelers Rest we are connecting to the Internet through the Edge network, and download speeds are considerably slower. The biggest disappointment for us has been Fidelity Active Trader Pro, which does not work well on the Edge network. The stock prices do not update in real-time, and it is not possible to use the program for trading. A call to Cingular support told us that they do not recommend using Active Trader over the Edge network. On the plus side, the connection through Cingular has been reliable, while the connection through the TR wireless network has not!
On balance, we still haven't made up our minds whether we are going to keep the service or not. With a thirty-day window for cancellation without penalty, the clock is ticking, and we have to make a decision in the new two weeks. By then we will be on the road, making our trip out to Tucson, and we will have the opportunity to test the network in a variety of locations - most of them outside of metropolitan areas.
What we are hoping for is this: If we find ourselves in a traffic delay we can go online, check the traffic report, and find a way around the tie-up. When we need gas, we can check for the lowest prices in the area*, and we can check restaurant and hotel reviews on the fly. We will also have access to Weather.com, MapQuest, Google Maps, and Google Earth when we need them. All-in all it should be a good test and I will report back to the TR Times readers in a future OnMouseClick column.
*Did you know about finding gas prices on the web? Do a Google search for "Gas Prices" and you will find a list of web sites that provide real-time information.
Some of the sites I have tried are:
www.gasbuddy.com
gasprices.mapquest.com
www.gaspricewatch.com
www.fuelgaugereport.com
www.fuelcostcalculator.com.
The three major cell phone carriers, Cingular, Verizon and Sprint, all offer Internet connect service, and the services are broadband in most metropolitan areas. Cingular's broadband network is known as 3G, and promises connection speeds rivaling the speed of a cable modem. When not in an area serviced by 3G, the connection is made through Cingular's Edge (2G) network, which operates at speeds faster than dial-up but slower than DSL.
Immediately after signing up for the service, we headed to a coffee shop near the Cingular store to try out our Internet connection. The greater Tampa area is covered by 3G-service, and the connection was lightening fast. The New York Times home page, which is graphics intensive, loaded seamlessly and fast, as did a financial management program, Active Trader Pro from Fidelity Investments. Active Trader monitors the stock market in real time, and worked flawlessly on the 3G network.
Back at Travelers Rest we are connecting to the Internet through the Edge network, and download speeds are considerably slower. The biggest disappointment for us has been Fidelity Active Trader Pro, which does not work well on the Edge network. The stock prices do not update in real-time, and it is not possible to use the program for trading. A call to Cingular support told us that they do not recommend using Active Trader over the Edge network. On the plus side, the connection through Cingular has been reliable, while the connection through the TR wireless network has not!
On balance, we still haven't made up our minds whether we are going to keep the service or not. With a thirty-day window for cancellation without penalty, the clock is ticking, and we have to make a decision in the new two weeks. By then we will be on the road, making our trip out to Tucson, and we will have the opportunity to test the network in a variety of locations - most of them outside of metropolitan areas.
What we are hoping for is this: If we find ourselves in a traffic delay we can go online, check the traffic report, and find a way around the tie-up. When we need gas, we can check for the lowest prices in the area*, and we can check restaurant and hotel reviews on the fly. We will also have access to Weather.com, MapQuest, Google Maps, and Google Earth when we need them. All-in all it should be a good test and I will report back to the TR Times readers in a future OnMouseClick column.
*Did you know about finding gas prices on the web? Do a Google search for "Gas Prices" and you will find a list of web sites that provide real-time information.
Some of the sites I have tried are:
www.gasbuddy.com
gasprices.mapquest.com
www.gaspricewatch.com
www.fuelgaugereport.com
www.fuelcostcalculator.com.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Staying Connected…
Like it or not, we are living in a digital world. Information flows across an invisible “super-highway” called the Internet, and in one way or another it connects us all. Do you want to see photographs of your grandchildren? Open the latest email from your son or daughter and the photos appear on your computer screen. Do you want to track down your best friend from high school? Use one of the many search vehicles on the web and you may be able find where they are living now. Need to pay a bill? Sign-in to your bank’s web site, make a few clicks, and the check is in the mail.
If you are not sure how all this works, you are not alone. Millions of people all over the world use the Internet every hour, but most are oblivious to what is really going on. A very basic explanation is that information is entered into a computer — be it a web page, email message or online shopping cart — and then that information is converted to a format that can be transmitted over wires or through a wireless network. If the information is of a sensitive nature, it is encrypted before it the conversion. The information is then broken down into smaller pieces, called packets. The packets are routed over the Internet to the designated destination, put back together again and converted to a format that a computer can read. The less information in each packet, the easier it is to send. When information becomes complex, it takes up more space and thus takes more time to send.
Think of water flowing through a pipe. A quarter-inch pipe can produce a very thin stream of water, which is acceptable if you only need a little water (think text-only e-mail). If you need gallons of water you will need a much larger pipe (think of a web page with lots of photographs and other images). If you tried to put gallons of water through the small pipe, it would take a very long time.
A few years ago most people connected to the Internet with a modem and a telephone line. Information moved slowly, but it worked. When broadband was introduced (analogous to the large pipe), it became possible to use the Internet for more complex data such as graphics intense web pages, encrypted financial files, and video and audio files. It also became more difficult to use the Internet if you did not have access to a broadband connection.
For Eddie and me, being connected to the Internet is a necessity. We conduct all of our financial transactions over the web, and I conduct my web design business online. When traveling in our RV, we try to find campgrounds with broadband Internet connection — preferably park-wide WiFi. When we travel by car, we try to stay in hotels that offer in-room broadband connection. Often these features are hard to come by. We have been looking for a solution that would guarantee Internet connection wherever we are, including Travelers Rest, where the WiFi network often slows to a crawl. We think we have found the solution by adding a mobile broadband card to our PC laptop and subscribing to Internet service through our cell phone provider — in our case Cingular/ATT.
The card is a small, rectangular device that fits into the type II PCMCIA card slot on a laptop. With an antenna attached to the card, it can communicate with the Internet through the cell phone network. The service is pricey, about $60 a month, plus taxes, and as with most cell phone contracts, it requires a two-year commitment. As with all cell phone contracts, there is a thirty-day return policy, so we plan to purchase the mobile broadband card in the next few days to make certain that it works for us, before we leave on an extended trip in the middle of February. I will report on how it all works in a future column.
If you want read a more about how the Internet works I recommend http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-infrastructure.htm and the Wikapedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.
If you are not sure how all this works, you are not alone. Millions of people all over the world use the Internet every hour, but most are oblivious to what is really going on. A very basic explanation is that information is entered into a computer — be it a web page, email message or online shopping cart — and then that information is converted to a format that can be transmitted over wires or through a wireless network. If the information is of a sensitive nature, it is encrypted before it the conversion. The information is then broken down into smaller pieces, called packets. The packets are routed over the Internet to the designated destination, put back together again and converted to a format that a computer can read. The less information in each packet, the easier it is to send. When information becomes complex, it takes up more space and thus takes more time to send.
Think of water flowing through a pipe. A quarter-inch pipe can produce a very thin stream of water, which is acceptable if you only need a little water (think text-only e-mail). If you need gallons of water you will need a much larger pipe (think of a web page with lots of photographs and other images). If you tried to put gallons of water through the small pipe, it would take a very long time.
A few years ago most people connected to the Internet with a modem and a telephone line. Information moved slowly, but it worked. When broadband was introduced (analogous to the large pipe), it became possible to use the Internet for more complex data such as graphics intense web pages, encrypted financial files, and video and audio files. It also became more difficult to use the Internet if you did not have access to a broadband connection.
For Eddie and me, being connected to the Internet is a necessity. We conduct all of our financial transactions over the web, and I conduct my web design business online. When traveling in our RV, we try to find campgrounds with broadband Internet connection — preferably park-wide WiFi. When we travel by car, we try to stay in hotels that offer in-room broadband connection. Often these features are hard to come by. We have been looking for a solution that would guarantee Internet connection wherever we are, including Travelers Rest, where the WiFi network often slows to a crawl. We think we have found the solution by adding a mobile broadband card to our PC laptop and subscribing to Internet service through our cell phone provider — in our case Cingular/ATT.
The card is a small, rectangular device that fits into the type II PCMCIA card slot on a laptop. With an antenna attached to the card, it can communicate with the Internet through the cell phone network. The service is pricey, about $60 a month, plus taxes, and as with most cell phone contracts, it requires a two-year commitment. As with all cell phone contracts, there is a thirty-day return policy, so we plan to purchase the mobile broadband card in the next few days to make certain that it works for us, before we leave on an extended trip in the middle of February. I will report on how it all works in a future column.
If you want read a more about how the Internet works I recommend http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-infrastructure.htm and the Wikapedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.
The Digital Toolbox…
Over the past five years, laptop computers have become more powerful, screens have become bigger, and prices have fallen. Each year more and more people choose to replace their old desktop computer with a new laptop. The major advantages of a laptop are size and portability — big selling points for people living in a trailer or RV. If you are in the market for a laptop, there are a few things you should consider before making your purchase:
1. Screen size —A few years ago a fifteen-inch screen was large for a laptop; now it is not uncommon to find seventeen-inch screens on laptops. Many manufacturers offer models in a variety of screen sizes, ranging from twelve to seventeen inches. Laptops with larger screens cost more, but will give you more screen “real estate”. With a larger screen, you can have more windows open on the desktop, you can make the windows larger, and you can view more information at one time.
2. Touchpad or mouse? — Just about all laptops come with a trackpad (alternately called a trackpad), a rectangular area below the keyboard that takes the place of a mouse. To move the on-screen cursor you move your index finger around the pad. (A few laptops come with a pointing stick in a addition to the touchpad, which is a small stick located in the center of the keyboard that is used like a joystick.) Many people do not feel comfortable controlling their computer with a touchpad, and if you are one of them, you will want to buy a mouse to use with your laptop. A mouse can connect to the laptop via a USB port (see #4 below) or wirelessly (see #3 below).
3. Wireless connectivity — When buying a laptop, make sure it comes with an internal WiFi card — you want to be able to connect to the Internet when you are near a hotspot (a location where there is wireless internet signal being broadcast). Many laptops also come with Bluetooth, which is a short-range wireless technology meant to replace the cables connecting computers and peripheral devices, such as printers, digital cameras and cell phones. To work, both the computer and the peripheral device must have Bluetooth installed.
4. USB ports — To use cables to connect your laptop to external devices, such printers, digital cameras, external hard drives, and a mouse, you will need USB ports. Some laptops have only two such ports, while others have three or four. If you plan to connect your laptop to several devices at a time, you will need to have enough ports on the laptop, or you will have to buy a hub, which is small device with four or more USB ports that plugs into one of the internal USB ports, thus expanding the number of available ports.
5. IEEE or Firewire port — Some external devices, such as camcorders, older iPods, and some hard drives, connect to a computer with an IEEE connection. If you have any of these devices, be sure that the laptop you buy has a compatible port.
6. Finally, try before you buy — Some of the best prices for computers and computer peripherals can be found online, but I recommend “window shopping” before you buy. Visit a computer or electronic stores and tryout the computers you are considering. Stores like Circuit City, Best Buy and CompUSA carry a large inventory of windows based laptop computers, and if you are interested in a Macintosh, you can visit an Apple store. Check out the size and quality of the screen, and test the feel of the keyboard and touchpad. Once you know which computer you feel comfortable with, you can do your research and find the best price.
1. Screen size —A few years ago a fifteen-inch screen was large for a laptop; now it is not uncommon to find seventeen-inch screens on laptops. Many manufacturers offer models in a variety of screen sizes, ranging from twelve to seventeen inches. Laptops with larger screens cost more, but will give you more screen “real estate”. With a larger screen, you can have more windows open on the desktop, you can make the windows larger, and you can view more information at one time.
2. Touchpad or mouse? — Just about all laptops come with a trackpad (alternately called a trackpad), a rectangular area below the keyboard that takes the place of a mouse. To move the on-screen cursor you move your index finger around the pad. (A few laptops come with a pointing stick in a addition to the touchpad, which is a small stick located in the center of the keyboard that is used like a joystick.) Many people do not feel comfortable controlling their computer with a touchpad, and if you are one of them, you will want to buy a mouse to use with your laptop. A mouse can connect to the laptop via a USB port (see #4 below) or wirelessly (see #3 below).
3. Wireless connectivity — When buying a laptop, make sure it comes with an internal WiFi card — you want to be able to connect to the Internet when you are near a hotspot (a location where there is wireless internet signal being broadcast). Many laptops also come with Bluetooth, which is a short-range wireless technology meant to replace the cables connecting computers and peripheral devices, such as printers, digital cameras and cell phones. To work, both the computer and the peripheral device must have Bluetooth installed.
4. USB ports — To use cables to connect your laptop to external devices, such printers, digital cameras, external hard drives, and a mouse, you will need USB ports. Some laptops have only two such ports, while others have three or four. If you plan to connect your laptop to several devices at a time, you will need to have enough ports on the laptop, or you will have to buy a hub, which is small device with four or more USB ports that plugs into one of the internal USB ports, thus expanding the number of available ports.
5. IEEE or Firewire port — Some external devices, such as camcorders, older iPods, and some hard drives, connect to a computer with an IEEE connection. If you have any of these devices, be sure that the laptop you buy has a compatible port.
6. Finally, try before you buy — Some of the best prices for computers and computer peripherals can be found online, but I recommend “window shopping” before you buy. Visit a computer or electronic stores and tryout the computers you are considering. Stores like Circuit City, Best Buy and CompUSA carry a large inventory of windows based laptop computers, and if you are interested in a Macintosh, you can visit an Apple store. Check out the size and quality of the screen, and test the feel of the keyboard and touchpad. Once you know which computer you feel comfortable with, you can do your research and find the best price.
The Digital Toolbox…
Over the past five years, laptop computers have become more powerful, screens have become bigger, and prices have fallen. Each year more and more people choose to replace their old desktop computer with a new laptop. The major advantages of a laptop are size and portability — big selling points for people living in a trailer or RV. If you are in the market for a laptop, there are a few things you should consider before making your purchase:
1. Screen size —A few years ago a fifteen-inch screen was large for a laptop; now it is not uncommon to find seventeen-inch screens on laptops. Many manufacturers offer models in a variety of screen sizes, ranging from twelve to seventeen inches. Laptops with larger screens cost more, but will give you more screen “real estate”. With a larger screen, you can have more windows open on the desktop, you can make the windows larger, and you can view more information at one time.
2. Touchpad or mouse? — Just about all laptops come with a trackpad (alternately called a trackpad), a rectangular area below the keyboard that takes the place of a mouse. To move the on-screen cursor you move your index finger around the pad. (A few laptops come with a pointing stick in a addition to the touchpad, which is a small stick located in the center of the keyboard that is used like a joystick.) Many people do not feel comfortable controlling their computer with a touchpad, and if you are one of them, you will want to buy a mouse to use with your laptop. A mouse can connect to the laptop via a USB port (see #4 below) or wirelessly (see #3 below).
3. Wireless connectivity — When buying a laptop, make sure it comes with an internal WiFi card — you want to be able to connect to the Internet when you are near a hotspot (a location where there is wireless internet signal being broadcast). Many laptops also come with Bluetooth, which is a short-range wireless technology meant to replace the cables connecting computers and peripheral devices, such as printers, digital cameras and cell phones. To work, both the computer and the peripheral device must have Bluetooth installed.
4. USB ports — To use cables to connect your laptop to external devices, such printers, digital cameras, external hard drives, and a mouse, you will need USB ports. Some laptops have only two such ports, while others have three or four. If you plan to connect your laptop to several devices at a time, you will need to have enough ports on the laptop, or you will have to buy a hub, which is small device with four or more USB ports that plugs into one of the internal USB ports, thus expanding the number of available ports.
5. IEEE or Firewire port — Some external devices, such as camcorders, older iPods, and some hard drives, connect to a computer with an IEEE connection. If you have any of these devices, be sure that the laptop you buy has a compatible port.
6. Finally, try before you buy — Some of the best prices for computers and computer peripherals can be found online, but I recommend “window shopping” before you buy. Visit a computer or electronic stores and tryout the computers you are considering. Stores like Circuit City, Best Buy and CompUSA carry a large inventory of windows based laptop computers, and if you are interested in a Macintosh, you can visit an Apple store. Check out the size and quality of the screen, and test the feel of the keyboard and touchpad. Once you know which computer you feel comfortable with, you can do your research and find the best price.
1. Screen size —A few years ago a fifteen-inch screen was large for a laptop; now it is not uncommon to find seventeen-inch screens on laptops. Many manufacturers offer models in a variety of screen sizes, ranging from twelve to seventeen inches. Laptops with larger screens cost more, but will give you more screen “real estate”. With a larger screen, you can have more windows open on the desktop, you can make the windows larger, and you can view more information at one time.
2. Touchpad or mouse? — Just about all laptops come with a trackpad (alternately called a trackpad), a rectangular area below the keyboard that takes the place of a mouse. To move the on-screen cursor you move your index finger around the pad. (A few laptops come with a pointing stick in a addition to the touchpad, which is a small stick located in the center of the keyboard that is used like a joystick.) Many people do not feel comfortable controlling their computer with a touchpad, and if you are one of them, you will want to buy a mouse to use with your laptop. A mouse can connect to the laptop via a USB port (see #4 below) or wirelessly (see #3 below).
3. Wireless connectivity — When buying a laptop, make sure it comes with an internal WiFi card — you want to be able to connect to the Internet when you are near a hotspot (a location where there is wireless internet signal being broadcast). Many laptops also come with Bluetooth, which is a short-range wireless technology meant to replace the cables connecting computers and peripheral devices, such as printers, digital cameras and cell phones. To work, both the computer and the peripheral device must have Bluetooth installed.
4. USB ports — To use cables to connect your laptop to external devices, such printers, digital cameras, external hard drives, and a mouse, you will need USB ports. Some laptops have only two such ports, while others have three or four. If you plan to connect your laptop to several devices at a time, you will need to have enough ports on the laptop, or you will have to buy a hub, which is small device with four or more USB ports that plugs into one of the internal USB ports, thus expanding the number of available ports.
5. IEEE or Firewire port — Some external devices, such as camcorders, older iPods, and some hard drives, connect to a computer with an IEEE connection. If you have any of these devices, be sure that the laptop you buy has a compatible port.
6. Finally, try before you buy — Some of the best prices for computers and computer peripherals can be found online, but I recommend “window shopping” before you buy. Visit a computer or electronic stores and tryout the computers you are considering. Stores like Circuit City, Best Buy and CompUSA carry a large inventory of windows based laptop computers, and if you are interested in a Macintosh, you can visit an Apple store. Check out the size and quality of the screen, and test the feel of the keyboard and touchpad. Once you know which computer you feel comfortable with, you can do your research and find the best price.
Friday, January 26, 2007
A picture is worth a thousand words…Part III
When you go online with your computer and you want to view a web site, you enter the page address in your browser and the page opens. Wouldn’t be nice if you could put your photographs on a web page that your family and friends could view by typing in a web address! You can if you upload your photo to www.flickr.com.
Flickr is a photo sharing service that gives each member a unique web address. I store photos on Flickr at www.flickr.com/photos/eddieandlinda — type it into your web browser and you will link to a page of photos I took in New York City last May. Photos can be viewed as web pages or slide shows, with or without captions. You can choose to make your photos “public,” which means that they can be viewed by anyone with access to the Internet, or you can make your photos private, sharing them only with people to whom you send invitations.
Flickr is part of the Yahoo family of web applications, and to use it, you need to create a free, Yahoo account. A basic Flickr account is also free, and unlike most of the other photo sharing services, photos are never deleted from the Flickr server. With the basic account you can upload 100 MB (megabytes) worth of photos per calendar month, individual photos cannot be larger than 5 MB, and a maximum of 200 photos can be shown on your web pages at one time. For the price of $24.95 a year, Flickr offers an upgraded Pro Account, which allows unlimited photo uploads, an unlimited number of photos on the web pages, unlimited photo storage, and a 10 MB maximum upload size for each individual photos. Until recently, Flickr was only a photo sharing service, but a new printing service has just been added to the web site.
Smilebox (www.smilebox.com) is an innovative web site that allows the creation of postcards and scrapbooks that include animation, music and artwork and can be emailed to family and friends. You begin by choosing a design, download it to your computer, drag and drop your photos onto the design, choose backgrounds and music, and save the design for Smilebox to send as an email. The designs are free and for one-time use and come with a catch — the Smilebox email will include advertising. To avoid advertising, designs can be purchased for $1 to $2, depending upon the design. Smilebox also offers Club Smilebox for $4.99 a month, which entitles users to unlimited use of all of the design templates.
To wrap up this series of columns I want to offer a storage solution for those of you who are serious photographers. While most of the photo sharing sites offer photo storage, they all limit the size and type of files that can be uploaded and stored. If you have a large collection of photo files that you want to store online, you might want to consider an online backup service. These services will backup selected files on your computer and store them at offsite data centers for a monthly fee — typically around $10 to $15 for 5 GB (gigabytes) of storage. If you are interested in this type of storage, do a Google search for “Online Photo Storage.” Listed with the photo-sharing services of Shutterfly and Kodak EasyShareGallery will be back-up services such as iBackup (//www.ibackup.com) and AT&T Online Vault (www.attonlinevault.com) which specialize in data storage.
Flickr is a photo sharing service that gives each member a unique web address. I store photos on Flickr at www.flickr.com/photos/eddieandlinda — type it into your web browser and you will link to a page of photos I took in New York City last May. Photos can be viewed as web pages or slide shows, with or without captions. You can choose to make your photos “public,” which means that they can be viewed by anyone with access to the Internet, or you can make your photos private, sharing them only with people to whom you send invitations.
Flickr is part of the Yahoo family of web applications, and to use it, you need to create a free, Yahoo account. A basic Flickr account is also free, and unlike most of the other photo sharing services, photos are never deleted from the Flickr server. With the basic account you can upload 100 MB (megabytes) worth of photos per calendar month, individual photos cannot be larger than 5 MB, and a maximum of 200 photos can be shown on your web pages at one time. For the price of $24.95 a year, Flickr offers an upgraded Pro Account, which allows unlimited photo uploads, an unlimited number of photos on the web pages, unlimited photo storage, and a 10 MB maximum upload size for each individual photos. Until recently, Flickr was only a photo sharing service, but a new printing service has just been added to the web site.
Smilebox (www.smilebox.com) is an innovative web site that allows the creation of postcards and scrapbooks that include animation, music and artwork and can be emailed to family and friends. You begin by choosing a design, download it to your computer, drag and drop your photos onto the design, choose backgrounds and music, and save the design for Smilebox to send as an email. The designs are free and for one-time use and come with a catch — the Smilebox email will include advertising. To avoid advertising, designs can be purchased for $1 to $2, depending upon the design. Smilebox also offers Club Smilebox for $4.99 a month, which entitles users to unlimited use of all of the design templates.
To wrap up this series of columns I want to offer a storage solution for those of you who are serious photographers. While most of the photo sharing sites offer photo storage, they all limit the size and type of files that can be uploaded and stored. If you have a large collection of photo files that you want to store online, you might want to consider an online backup service. These services will backup selected files on your computer and store them at offsite data centers for a monthly fee — typically around $10 to $15 for 5 GB (gigabytes) of storage. If you are interested in this type of storage, do a Google search for “Online Photo Storage.” Listed with the photo-sharing services of Shutterfly and Kodak EasyShareGallery will be back-up services such as iBackup (//www.ibackup.com) and AT&T Online Vault (www.attonlinevault.com) which specialize in data storage.
Friday, January 19, 2007
A picture is worth thousand words…Part II
Three sandhill cranes are taking a drink from your birdbath. You rush into you house, trailer or RV, grab your digital camera and snap that once in-in-a-lifetime photo. You download the photo to your computer and it is everything you though it would be — now you want to share it with everyone you know, but how? Last week I wrote about using a variety of web sites for digital photo finishing, including four national chain-stores that provide both online and in-store service: CVS, Costco, Wal-Mart and Target. This week I expand upon the topic and write about using the same photo finishing services for online photo sharing with family and friends.
All of the web sites mentioned in last week’s column provide online photo sharing, and all of them work in basically the same manner.
It is that simple! You can even choose to share just one photograph. Photos are stored in “galleries,” and galleries can be sorted into albums, just like you do with your printed snapshots. Most of the services even offer you the opportunity to make simple edits, such as red-eye correction and cropping, right online. As an added bonus, many of the sites also allow photo storage which provides a safe place to keep backups of your photos. All of the services require users to set-up an account before uploading photos, but your family and friends do not have to have an account to view your photos. Below is a listing of the online photo services with some specific information about each.
1. Wal-Mart (www.walmart.com) — Wal-Mart’s Digital Photo Center is free to all “active” users. They consider anyone an active user who has purchased prints or photo merchandise through the online service at least once in the last 365 days. The web site says that storage is unlimited. In addition to uploading photos from a computer, photos can also be emailed to the Wal-Mart photo center.
2. Target (www.target.com) — Target does not advertise this, but their online photo service is actually Yahoo Photo Service, which is part of the Yahoo network of email services. To use the service you must establish a Yahoo account.
3. CVS Pharmacy (www.cvs.com) —The CVS service appears to be very similar to Wal-Mart. An active account is one from which prints or merchandise has been ordered within the last 365 days, and users must access their account at least once each 180 days.
4. Shutterfly (www.shutterfly.com) — The Shutterfly web site states that they have never deleted a photo, and that unlimited storage is free.
5. Snapfish (www.snapfish.com) — With Snapfish you can email or upload digital photos, and you can also mail in rolls of film for developing, printing and sharing online. Accounts stay active if a purchase is made every 365 days.
6. Kodak EasyShare Gallery (www.kodakgallery.com) — Kodak EasyShare, formerly Ofoto, is one of the best known of the photo services. The basic gallery service is free, but for $2.49 a month, or $24.99 for the year, you can have your own web page with a unique name that anyone can access by typing the URL into the address location of a browser.
In next week I will finish this three part series of columns and write about two photo sharing services that are a bit “outside the box,” as well as online storage options for serious photographers.
All of the web sites mentioned in last week’s column provide online photo sharing, and all of them work in basically the same manner.
1. Photos are uploaded to the site.
2. Photos are sorted into photo albums and displayed in online photo galleries.
3. The user provides the service a list of email address of family and friends.
4. An email invitation to view the photos is sent to everyone on the list.
It is that simple! You can even choose to share just one photograph. Photos are stored in “galleries,” and galleries can be sorted into albums, just like you do with your printed snapshots. Most of the services even offer you the opportunity to make simple edits, such as red-eye correction and cropping, right online. As an added bonus, many of the sites also allow photo storage which provides a safe place to keep backups of your photos. All of the services require users to set-up an account before uploading photos, but your family and friends do not have to have an account to view your photos. Below is a listing of the online photo services with some specific information about each.
1. Wal-Mart (www.walmart.com) — Wal-Mart’s Digital Photo Center is free to all “active” users. They consider anyone an active user who has purchased prints or photo merchandise through the online service at least once in the last 365 days. The web site says that storage is unlimited. In addition to uploading photos from a computer, photos can also be emailed to the Wal-Mart photo center.
2. Target (www.target.com) — Target does not advertise this, but their online photo service is actually Yahoo Photo Service, which is part of the Yahoo network of email services. To use the service you must establish a Yahoo account.
3. CVS Pharmacy (www.cvs.com) —The CVS service appears to be very similar to Wal-Mart. An active account is one from which prints or merchandise has been ordered within the last 365 days, and users must access their account at least once each 180 days.
4. Shutterfly (www.shutterfly.com) — The Shutterfly web site states that they have never deleted a photo, and that unlimited storage is free.
5. Snapfish (www.snapfish.com) — With Snapfish you can email or upload digital photos, and you can also mail in rolls of film for developing, printing and sharing online. Accounts stay active if a purchase is made every 365 days.
6. Kodak EasyShare Gallery (www.kodakgallery.com) — Kodak EasyShare, formerly Ofoto, is one of the best known of the photo services. The basic gallery service is free, but for $2.49 a month, or $24.99 for the year, you can have your own web page with a unique name that anyone can access by typing the URL into the address location of a browser.
In next week I will finish this three part series of columns and write about two photo sharing services that are a bit “outside the box,” as well as online storage options for serious photographers.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
A picture is worth thousand words…
In the OnMouseClick column that appeared in the December 23 issue of the TR Times, I wrote about creating hard-cover books from digital photographs — something that most people will only do for very special occasions. But what if all you want are standard snapshot prints? The easiest method is to take the memory card out of your camera and bring it to CVS, COSTCO, Walmart, or Target. At the store you put your memory card in a specially designed kiosk, use a touch screen to choose the images you want to print, go shopping for about an hour, and pick up the finished prints. Standard four by six inch prints are typically priced around seventeen cents each, but coupons and advertised specials abound.
If you are comfortable uploading images to the Internet, there are a numerous of photo-finishing service that will print your photos and mail them to your home. Four by six inch prints range in price from twelve to nineteen cents a print, with most services offering free and reduced cost prints on a regular basis. Shipping charges are low, but you can save the shipping charges by uploading images directly to CVS, Costco, Walmart or Target, and then picking up your photos the next time you go shopping. However, since most of the online services do not charge tax, the savings is negligible. All of the photo services also offer 5” x 7” and 8” x 10” prints, and some even offer poster sizes prints.
To get an idea of the print quality and other options provided by the photo-finishing service, I recommend reading some of the reviews that can be found on the web. CNET provides reviews of all things technology, and their review of photo printing services can be found at http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6451_7-6245134-1.html?tag=txt. Another web site, Epinions.com, lists many of the photo services, with links to reviews written by consumer who used the services, at http://www.epinions.com/webs-Web_Services-All-Photos.
Below is a partial listing and links to the online photo-finishing services.
www.dotphoto.com
www.imagestation.com
www.kodakgallery.com (formerly Ofoto)
www.photoworks.com
picasa.google.com
www.shutterfly.com
www.snapfish.com
www.cvs.com (choose the PHOTO tab)
www.costco.com (choose PHOTO CENTER from the menu)
www.walmart.com (choose PHOTO from the menu)
www.target.com (choose TARGET PHOTO from the top menu)
If you are comfortable uploading images to the Internet, there are a numerous of photo-finishing service that will print your photos and mail them to your home. Four by six inch prints range in price from twelve to nineteen cents a print, with most services offering free and reduced cost prints on a regular basis. Shipping charges are low, but you can save the shipping charges by uploading images directly to CVS, Costco, Walmart or Target, and then picking up your photos the next time you go shopping. However, since most of the online services do not charge tax, the savings is negligible. All of the photo services also offer 5” x 7” and 8” x 10” prints, and some even offer poster sizes prints.
To get an idea of the print quality and other options provided by the photo-finishing service, I recommend reading some of the reviews that can be found on the web. CNET provides reviews of all things technology, and their review of photo printing services can be found at http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6451_7-6245134-1.html?tag=txt. Another web site, Epinions.com, lists many of the photo services, with links to reviews written by consumer who used the services, at http://www.epinions.com/webs-Web_Services-All-Photos.
Below is a partial listing and links to the online photo-finishing services.
www.dotphoto.com
www.imagestation.com
www.kodakgallery.com (formerly Ofoto)
www.photoworks.com
picasa.google.com
www.shutterfly.com
www.snapfish.com
www.cvs.com (choose the PHOTO tab)
www.costco.com (choose PHOTO CENTER from the menu)
www.walmart.com (choose PHOTO from the menu)
www.target.com (choose TARGET PHOTO from the top menu)
Saturday, December 16, 2006
All I want for Christmas…
The holiday season is a time for family celebrations, traditional food, and Kodak moments — only today’s Kodak moments are more likely to be captured with a digital camera than on film. A major advantage of digital media over film is that you can take unlimited photographs without worrying about running out of film. If your digital memory card fills up, just download the images onto your computer, erase the card, and you are ready to take more pictures.
After the holidays are over, what do you do with all those wonderful family photos? You can make traditional style prints from your inkjet printer; upload the images to an online photo service for sharing and printing; email you photos to family and friends; or you can do something really unique. During the month of January, I will write about digital printing at home and using online photo services; in this column I am going to write about one of the more unique options — creating personal photo books.
In 2001 a company called MyPublisher, Inc. (www.mypublisher.com), unveiled a web site for creating personal photo books. A year later Apple Computer introduced the image-editing program, iPhoto, which included an option for creating hardcover books from groups of selected photographs. Since then, the idea has blossomed, and today photo books are available from a variety of sources. The standard size for the books is 8.5” x 11”, the photographs are printed on heavy weight paper and with a hardcover.
A Google search for “photo books” produced results from www.shutterfly.com, www.snapfish.com, www.imagestation.com, www.kodackgallery.com, www.photoworks.com, www.picaboo.com, www.mypublisher.com, and www.apple.com. The standard book from all of the web sites is the 8.5” x 11” hardcover book, with prices beginning at $29 for a twenty-page, linen covered book. Leather and suede covers, as well as additional pages, are available at additional cost. Several of the services also offer smaller, larger, and soft-cover books.
The book design process is similar in all venues. You choose a book style, cover style, page layouts, and drag and drop photos on the pages. Page layouts can vary from page to page, so a twenty-page book can conceivably contain over 50 photographs. The main difference between the various web sites is the ease of creating the book.
iPhoto, MyPublisher, and Picaboo use software based design. Iphoto comes installed on all Macintosh computers, while MyPublisher and Picaboo offer free, downloadable software that installs on your computer. IPhoto is Macintosh only, and MyPublisher, and Picabhttp://beta.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifoo only work in Windows XP. MyPublisher provides a Macintosh plugin that will allow uploads to their web site from iPhoto. All of the other services require you to upload photos to their server and design your books online.
As a member of the , I recently took advantage of an offer for a free book from the online service Shutterfly. Creating a book online was tedious and I don’t recommend it, even if you are working with a fast and 100% reliable broadband Internet connection. Much easier was the book I designed with iPhoto software directly on my computer — although a high-speed Internet connection is still needed to upload the finished design for publishing.
The book I received from Shutterfly was surprisingly well designed. The quality of the photos was good, and the binding was more than adequate. My only complaint was that the cover cutout was not quite large enough to display the entire cover page photograph.
Since the Shutterfly book was the only one I actually had published, I cannot give an objective review of the results as they compared to books from other companies. However, a recent Wall Street Journal article reviewed the start to finish process from three of the major players in the photo book market: MyPublisher, Apple’s iPhoto, and Eastman Kodak’s Kodakgallery. According to the article, MyPublisher was the best, while iPhoto finished second because it is not available for Windows. Kodak finished a distant third, with the reviewer finding the web-based design process tedious, the design features lacking, and the final product inferior.
If you would like to read the Wall Street Journal article, it is available on the MyPublisher web site.
After the holidays are over, what do you do with all those wonderful family photos? You can make traditional style prints from your inkjet printer; upload the images to an online photo service for sharing and printing; email you photos to family and friends; or you can do something really unique. During the month of January, I will write about digital printing at home and using online photo services; in this column I am going to write about one of the more unique options — creating personal photo books.
In 2001 a company called MyPublisher, Inc. (www.mypublisher.com), unveiled a web site for creating personal photo books. A year later Apple Computer introduced the image-editing program, iPhoto, which included an option for creating hardcover books from groups of selected photographs. Since then, the idea has blossomed, and today photo books are available from a variety of sources. The standard size for the books is 8.5” x 11”, the photographs are printed on heavy weight paper and with a hardcover.
A Google search for “photo books” produced results from www.shutterfly.com, www.snapfish.com, www.imagestation.com, www.kodackgallery.com, www.photoworks.com, www.picaboo.com, www.mypublisher.com, and www.apple.com. The standard book from all of the web sites is the 8.5” x 11” hardcover book, with prices beginning at $29 for a twenty-page, linen covered book. Leather and suede covers, as well as additional pages, are available at additional cost. Several of the services also offer smaller, larger, and soft-cover books.
The book design process is similar in all venues. You choose a book style, cover style, page layouts, and drag and drop photos on the pages. Page layouts can vary from page to page, so a twenty-page book can conceivably contain over 50 photographs. The main difference between the various web sites is the ease of creating the book.
iPhoto, MyPublisher, and Picaboo use software based design. Iphoto comes installed on all Macintosh computers, while MyPublisher and Picaboo offer free, downloadable software that installs on your computer. IPhoto is Macintosh only, and MyPublisher, and Picabhttp://beta.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifoo only work in Windows XP. MyPublisher provides a Macintosh plugin that will allow uploads to their web site from iPhoto. All of the other services require you to upload photos to their server and design your books online.
As a member of the , I recently took advantage of an offer for a free book from the online service Shutterfly. Creating a book online was tedious and I don’t recommend it, even if you are working with a fast and 100% reliable broadband Internet connection. Much easier was the book I designed with iPhoto software directly on my computer — although a high-speed Internet connection is still needed to upload the finished design for publishing.
The book I received from Shutterfly was surprisingly well designed. The quality of the photos was good, and the binding was more than adequate. My only complaint was that the cover cutout was not quite large enough to display the entire cover page photograph.
Since the Shutterfly book was the only one I actually had published, I cannot give an objective review of the results as they compared to books from other companies. However, a recent Wall Street Journal article reviewed the start to finish process from three of the major players in the photo book market: MyPublisher, Apple’s iPhoto, and Eastman Kodak’s Kodakgallery. According to the article, MyPublisher was the best, while iPhoto finished second because it is not available for Windows. Kodak finished a distant third, with the reviewer finding the web-based design process tedious, the design features lacking, and the final product inferior.
If you would like to read the Wall Street Journal article, it is available on the MyPublisher web site.
Monday, December 11, 2006
All Things Google
Google is more than a search engine:
Google Search Pages
www.google.com — click More — then click EVEN MORE: list of what you can do with Google
Put Google in you browser toolbar: toolbar.google.com
Search for blogs on a specific topic: blogsearch.google.com
Search for books titles and text: books.google.com
Search for catalogs: catalogs.google.com
Search for product prices: froogle.google.com
Search for images: images.google.com
Maps & Routing: maps.google.com
Find scholarly research articles: scholar.google.com
Special searches: www.google.com/options/specialsearches.html
Google Tools
Calculator
Currency Conversion
Definitions: define space word OR define: word
Local Search: example — pizza dade city
Movies: type “movies” or a movie title
Q&A: example, type “population of florida”
Search by Numbers:
UPS, FedEx, USPS tracking numbers
Vehicle ID (VIN) numbers
UPC codes
Telephone area codes
Patent numbers (put word patent before number)
FAA airline registration numbers
FCC equipment IDs (put fcc before number)
Stock Quotes
Street Maps: enter address or zip code
Air Travel Information
Delays and weather conditions at a particular airport: type three letter identifier & the word “airport”
Flight status: type airline & flight number
Weather: weather dade city fl
Web page translation
Google Maps Mashups
Directory of Google Maps Mashups: googlemapsmania.blogspot.com
Calculate the distance of a walking, running or cycling route: www.geodistance.com, www.gmap-pedometer.com,
Package Tracking with maps: www.packagemapping.com
Find Starbucks: www.findbyclick.com/coffee_s.html
Google Earth: earth.google.com to download
Google Search Pages
www.google.com — click More — then click EVEN MORE: list of what you can do with Google
Put Google in you browser toolbar: toolbar.google.com
Search for blogs on a specific topic: blogsearch.google.com
Search for books titles and text: books.google.com
Search for catalogs: catalogs.google.com
Search for product prices: froogle.google.com
Search for images: images.google.com
Maps & Routing: maps.google.com
Find scholarly research articles: scholar.google.com
Special searches: www.google.com/options/specialsearches.html
Google Tools
Calculator
Currency Conversion
Definitions: define space word OR define: word
Local Search: example — pizza dade city
Movies: type “movies” or a movie title
Q&A: example, type “population of florida”
Search by Numbers:
UPS, FedEx, USPS tracking numbers
Vehicle ID (VIN) numbers
UPC codes
Telephone area codes
Patent numbers (put word patent before number)
FAA airline registration numbers
FCC equipment IDs (put fcc before number)
Stock Quotes
Street Maps: enter address or zip code
Air Travel Information
Delays and weather conditions at a particular airport: type three letter identifier & the word “airport”
Flight status: type airline & flight number
Weather: weather dade city fl
Web page translation
Google Maps Mashups
Directory of Google Maps Mashups: googlemapsmania.blogspot.com
Calculate the distance of a walking, running or cycling route: www.geodistance.com, www.gmap-pedometer.com,
Package Tracking with maps: www.packagemapping.com
Find Starbucks: www.findbyclick.com/coffee_s.html
Google Earth: earth.google.com to download
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Blogging 101 — February 24, 2006
Let’s begin this week’s column with a short quiz. Are you aware of the bloggesphere? Do you know what a blog is, or a blogger? Have you ever read a blog?
For those of you who answered no to the above questions, you are missing out on one of the hottest phenomena of the information age. Blogs and bloggers have only been around a short time, but they are being relied upon as a source of information and news by millions of people worldwide.
According to Wikapedia, an online encyclopedia, URL en.wikipedia.org/:
A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called "blogging". Individual articles on a blog are called "blog posts," "posts" or "entries". A person who posts these entries is called a "blogger". A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular "area of interest", such as Washington, D.C.'s political goings-on. Some blogs discuss personal experiences.
Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting services, or they can be run using blog software on regular web hosting services. In the early 21st Century, blogging has quickly emerged as a popular and important means of communication, effecting public opinion and mass media around the world.
In a nutshell, bloggers today are the equivalent of journal writers and pamphleteers of days gone by. Bloggers can be regular people who want to share personal information, insights, opinions, and/or photos and videos, with friends, family, and strangers, on a regular basis. They can also be journalist, celebrities, or other public figures. In the year leading up to the 2004 election, bloggers gained prominence by covering political news, often spinning the news one way, or the other. During the election, most candidates, or their staffers, kept a daily blog, and some of the flashpoints of the campaign were fueled by blogs written by bloggers on the left and right of the political spectrum.
How do you find blogs that you might be interested in? You can use a blog search engines such as http://www.blogwise.com/, http://www.blogsearchengine.com/, http://blogsearch.google.com/, or http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/Weblogs/. Or, you can check a blog directory, such as http://www.blogcatalog.com/ or http://www.blogrankings.com/.
To give you an idea of the number of blogs on the Internet, a search for “senior citizens” in Google’s blogsearch yielded 110,174 results. People who blog, called bloggers, are committed to making entries on their blog on a regular basis, often one or more times a day. Most blogs allow visitors to reply to entries, either by email or by replying to a forum. Being a blogger is actually quiet easy, as there are numerous sites that will host your blog for free.
If you would like to read a blog, check out http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/wheellife/, a blog by an avid Rver that many of you will find interesting. For a list of additional blogs for Rvers, go to http://lakeshoreimages.com/rvlinks.html, where there are links to several blogs by and for Rvers.
In next week’s column I describe why you might want to become a blogger, and how to do it for free.
For those of you who answered no to the above questions, you are missing out on one of the hottest phenomena of the information age. Blogs and bloggers have only been around a short time, but they are being relied upon as a source of information and news by millions of people worldwide.
According to Wikapedia, an online encyclopedia, URL en.wikipedia.org/:
A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called "blogging". Individual articles on a blog are called "blog posts," "posts" or "entries". A person who posts these entries is called a "blogger". A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular "area of interest", such as Washington, D.C.'s political goings-on. Some blogs discuss personal experiences.
Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting services, or they can be run using blog software on regular web hosting services. In the early 21st Century, blogging has quickly emerged as a popular and important means of communication, effecting public opinion and mass media around the world.
In a nutshell, bloggers today are the equivalent of journal writers and pamphleteers of days gone by. Bloggers can be regular people who want to share personal information, insights, opinions, and/or photos and videos, with friends, family, and strangers, on a regular basis. They can also be journalist, celebrities, or other public figures. In the year leading up to the 2004 election, bloggers gained prominence by covering political news, often spinning the news one way, or the other. During the election, most candidates, or their staffers, kept a daily blog, and some of the flashpoints of the campaign were fueled by blogs written by bloggers on the left and right of the political spectrum.
How do you find blogs that you might be interested in? You can use a blog search engines such as http://www.blogwise.com/, http://www.blogsearchengine.com/, http://blogsearch.google.com/, or http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/Weblogs/. Or, you can check a blog directory, such as http://www.blogcatalog.com/ or http://www.blogrankings.com/.
To give you an idea of the number of blogs on the Internet, a search for “senior citizens” in Google’s blogsearch yielded 110,174 results. People who blog, called bloggers, are committed to making entries on their blog on a regular basis, often one or more times a day. Most blogs allow visitors to reply to entries, either by email or by replying to a forum. Being a blogger is actually quiet easy, as there are numerous sites that will host your blog for free.
If you would like to read a blog, check out http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/wheellife/, a blog by an avid Rver that many of you will find interesting. For a list of additional blogs for Rvers, go to http://lakeshoreimages.com/rvlinks.html, where there are links to several blogs by and for Rvers.
In next week’s column I describe why you might want to become a blogger, and how to do it for free.
Are You Checked Out On the Blogosphere?
Last week I mentioned the companion blog for this column, which can be accessed at onmouseclick.blogspot.com. I started the blog last season as an example for a seminar I was preparing on Travel Blogs for RVers. When I left TR for the season, I had the intention of updating the blog during the off-season, but you all know what happens to good intentions. This season, I will reprint my columns in the blog, provide links to web sites mentioned in the column, and sometimes, offer additional information than what was presented in the print column. Last February 24, I wrote a column on blogs and blogging titled “Blogging 101.” If you want to learn more about what blogging is, the column is posted on the OnMouseClick blog.
Blogs are generally more laid back in style than traditional journalism, and many are, at times, irreverent in tone. Last spring the Wall Street Journal published an article on blogs dealing with spring-cleaning, featuring blogs on the topic of house cleaning and organization. The three blogs mention in the article offer many worthwhile tips that can be very helpful for us “space challenged” motor home and trailer owners.
IT’S NOT ABOUT YOUR STUFF, at getorganized.blogs.com, is written by a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. If you do visit IT’S NOT ABOUT YOUR STUFF be aware that the author, a true blogger, also writes about a variety of other topics — some having nothing to do with organization.
A more lighthearted, a perhaps useful blog, is THE HAPPY SLOB’S GUIDE TO HOUSECLEANING at happyslob.blogspot.com. To quote the Wall Street Journal, “…this site offers punch posts and frugal shortcuts that can cut cleaning cost—in time and money.” Some recent posts include “Natural Air Freshener Recipe,” Cleaner, Sparking Glasses – How to Clean them Right,” and “A Funny Way to End Procrastination.”
Also featured in the same article is LIFEHACKER at lifehacker.com/software/cleaning. Each post offers a helpful tip on managing and cleaning your home. Some of the tips are a bit far out, like the one from November 30 titled “Turn a radio-controlled car into a dust mop,” and the September 27 tip on poaching salmon in your dishwasher. Other posts are more informative and offer tips that are both time savers and cost effective.
I want to share one more blog on a totally different topic. The New York Times publishes a number of excellent blogs, most by Times writers and columnists. However, they sometimes publish the blogs of American servicemen and women in one of the war zones. Just before Thanksgiving, MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN (http://missionafghanistan.blogs.nytimes.com) was launched. Two Navy enlisted men, an Army officer, and an Afghan translator working for the Army write about their lives in Afghanistan. If you want to feel a connection to our troops serving in the Middle East, it is an interesting, and often poignant read
Instead of linking this column to other blogs I find interesting, I decided you would enjoying finding blogs that interest you. You can search for blogs on specific topics at blogsearch.google.com.
Blogs are generally more laid back in style than traditional journalism, and many are, at times, irreverent in tone. Last spring the Wall Street Journal published an article on blogs dealing with spring-cleaning, featuring blogs on the topic of house cleaning and organization. The three blogs mention in the article offer many worthwhile tips that can be very helpful for us “space challenged” motor home and trailer owners.
IT’S NOT ABOUT YOUR STUFF, at getorganized.blogs.com, is written by a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. If you do visit IT’S NOT ABOUT YOUR STUFF be aware that the author, a true blogger, also writes about a variety of other topics — some having nothing to do with organization.
A more lighthearted, a perhaps useful blog, is THE HAPPY SLOB’S GUIDE TO HOUSECLEANING at happyslob.blogspot.com. To quote the Wall Street Journal, “…this site offers punch posts and frugal shortcuts that can cut cleaning cost—in time and money.” Some recent posts include “Natural Air Freshener Recipe,” Cleaner, Sparking Glasses – How to Clean them Right,” and “A Funny Way to End Procrastination.”
Also featured in the same article is LIFEHACKER at lifehacker.com/software/cleaning. Each post offers a helpful tip on managing and cleaning your home. Some of the tips are a bit far out, like the one from November 30 titled “Turn a radio-controlled car into a dust mop,” and the September 27 tip on poaching salmon in your dishwasher. Other posts are more informative and offer tips that are both time savers and cost effective.
I want to share one more blog on a totally different topic. The New York Times publishes a number of excellent blogs, most by Times writers and columnists. However, they sometimes publish the blogs of American servicemen and women in one of the war zones. Just before Thanksgiving, MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN (http://missionafghanistan.blogs.nytimes.com) was launched. Two Navy enlisted men, an Army officer, and an Afghan translator working for the Army write about their lives in Afghanistan. If you want to feel a connection to our troops serving in the Middle East, it is an interesting, and often poignant read
Instead of linking this column to other blogs I find interesting, I decided you would enjoying finding blogs that interest you. You can search for blogs on specific topics at blogsearch.google.com.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
We Begin Again…
Things are gearing up early for the 2007 winter season at Travelers Rest, and now that Eddie and I have settled in after our trip down from New York, I am ready to resume writing my weekly column on technology for the TR Times. For the past two seasons I have written about topics that I thought readers of the paper would find interesting and useful. Often these topics concerned the Internet — both accessing it and using it. I thought I would begin this season’s columns with some suggestions on using the Internet in the kitchen.
For those of us who spend our winters living in an RV, room is at a premium. I enjoy cooking, and one of the things I miss during the winter is my library of cookbooks. I very rarely follow a recipe exactly as written, but I do like to use cookbooks for reference. Often, when I want to make a particular dish, I like to read the recipes by a variety of cookbook authors before deciding which recipe to follow. Enter the Internet and the plethora of web sites for and about culinary arts.
A Google search for gourmet cooking produces over four million hits; cookbooks produces over fifteen million hits; and recipes finds over 126 million hits. It is impossible for one person to visit all of these web sites, but I can recommend a few that I use as my online virtual cookbook library.
Two of my favorites are Teri’s Kitchen and the Food Network. The Food Network site is the companion web site to the cable television Food Network. A recipe search on the site will bring up recipes that were presented on the network programs by various chefs. Enter a recipe title and you will see pages of recipes that match your search criteria. Teri’s Kitchen site is run by Teri R. Foster. I don’t know her résumé, but I can vouch for her recipes — they are comprehensive, well written, easy to follow, and the ones I have tried have turn out very well.
A plus to both of these sites is that you don’t have to register before using them — something that is necessary for too many web sites these days. One well-regarded web site that you do have to register for is www.chefs.com. In addition to recipes, chefs.com offers registered visitors the opportunity to email or chat with a chef.
For general culinary reference, I use www.hintsandthings.co.uk/kitchen/measures.htm, which offers a conversion chart for weights and measures; homecooking.about.com/library/weekly/bloldconvert.htm, which offers unconventional kitchen conversions; and gourmetsleuth.com/equivalents_substitutions.asp for finding ingredient substitutions.
With these web sites, and of course a copy of the recently published TR cookbook, all the cooks in the park will be ready to tackle holiday entertaining. For direct links to the web sites mentioned in this column, and links to additional culinary web sites, visit the OnMouseClick companion blog at onmouseclick.blogspot.com. (For those of you who are not sure what a blog is, I cover the topic in next week’s column.)
For those of us who spend our winters living in an RV, room is at a premium. I enjoy cooking, and one of the things I miss during the winter is my library of cookbooks. I very rarely follow a recipe exactly as written, but I do like to use cookbooks for reference. Often, when I want to make a particular dish, I like to read the recipes by a variety of cookbook authors before deciding which recipe to follow. Enter the Internet and the plethora of web sites for and about culinary arts.
A Google search for gourmet cooking produces over four million hits; cookbooks produces over fifteen million hits; and recipes finds over 126 million hits. It is impossible for one person to visit all of these web sites, but I can recommend a few that I use as my online virtual cookbook library.
Two of my favorites are Teri’s Kitchen and the Food Network. The Food Network site is the companion web site to the cable television Food Network. A recipe search on the site will bring up recipes that were presented on the network programs by various chefs. Enter a recipe title and you will see pages of recipes that match your search criteria. Teri’s Kitchen site is run by Teri R. Foster. I don’t know her résumé, but I can vouch for her recipes — they are comprehensive, well written, easy to follow, and the ones I have tried have turn out very well.
A plus to both of these sites is that you don’t have to register before using them — something that is necessary for too many web sites these days. One well-regarded web site that you do have to register for is www.chefs.com. In addition to recipes, chefs.com offers registered visitors the opportunity to email or chat with a chef.
For general culinary reference, I use www.hintsandthings.co.uk/kitchen/measures.htm, which offers a conversion chart for weights and measures; homecooking.about.com/library/weekly/bloldconvert.htm, which offers unconventional kitchen conversions; and gourmetsleuth.com/equivalents_substitutions.asp for finding ingredient substitutions.
With these web sites, and of course a copy of the recently published TR cookbook, all the cooks in the park will be ready to tackle holiday entertaining. For direct links to the web sites mentioned in this column, and links to additional culinary web sites, visit the OnMouseClick companion blog at onmouseclick.blogspot.com. (For those of you who are not sure what a blog is, I cover the topic in next week’s column.)
Saturday, March 18, 2006
MyTripJournal Discount
When I presented information about MyTripJournal, I had wondered why one would subscribe through Woodall's, rather than directly through MyTripJournal.com/. Today I found out the answer. If you are a memeber of Woodall's Diamond Club, you get a 15% off the MyTripJournal subscription prices.
The Diamond club is free, and in addition to the MyTripJournal discount, benefits include a monthly, online newsletter and discount coupons for campgrounds. If you are not a member, click on the heading for this post to go the the Woodall's sign-up page.
The Diamond club is free, and in addition to the MyTripJournal discount, benefits include a monthly, online newsletter and discount coupons for campgrounds. If you are not a member, click on the heading for this post to go the the Woodall's sign-up page.
Friday, March 17, 2006
When it sounds too good to be true...
In this week's print column I mentioned that finding places to stay in Hawaii did not always go so well. As I said in print, I learned that you have to ask a lot more questions than I initially asked.
We rented a cottage in the small town of Ka'a'a'wa, on the windward (eastern) shore of Oahu. The Web photo of the cottage looked charming, and the conversation I had on the phone with the owners went very well. While I was talking to them, I heard chicken sounds in the background, and the owner said that he wanted us to understand that they were in the country, and that there were chickens in the area. We wanted to the stay in a more rural area, so we said fine. What the owner failed to tell us that the chickens were theirs, and they had the run of the property - and the houses.
When we arrived, we found the cottage looking like it did in the photos, but the structure was not in the best shape — there was a lot of cosmetic work to make it look good. The bedroom had french doors leading out to a small deck, with a view of a backyard pond and waterfall with a mountain behind. That was good. What was not good was the fact that there were no screens in the door, and with no air conditioning, we had to keep the doors open all the time. There was a bamboo shade, but it was not secured at the bottom. On the first morning in the cottage, I went out for a run, and Eddie woke up to find a chicken in the bed with him! When we complained to the owners they were surprised that it bothered us, and told us that most of their guest enjoyed the chickens (they had only been renting since April, and we were there in June).
On the Big Island, the cottage we rented was purported to be in an orchard. In truth, the orchard was a lot on volcanic soil with a few fruit trees. The photos on the Web made it look much nicer than it was.
The condo we rented on Waikiki was fine. It was comfortable, air conditioned, had a lanai with a view of the water, and was very reasonably prices.
The moral of our story is that if you use the Web to find non-traditional lodging, get all the information that you can be for making a deposit.
We rented a cottage in the small town of Ka'a'a'wa, on the windward (eastern) shore of Oahu. The Web photo of the cottage looked charming, and the conversation I had on the phone with the owners went very well. While I was talking to them, I heard chicken sounds in the background, and the owner said that he wanted us to understand that they were in the country, and that there were chickens in the area. We wanted to the stay in a more rural area, so we said fine. What the owner failed to tell us that the chickens were theirs, and they had the run of the property - and the houses.
When we arrived, we found the cottage looking like it did in the photos, but the structure was not in the best shape — there was a lot of cosmetic work to make it look good. The bedroom had french doors leading out to a small deck, with a view of a backyard pond and waterfall with a mountain behind. That was good. What was not good was the fact that there were no screens in the door, and with no air conditioning, we had to keep the doors open all the time. There was a bamboo shade, but it was not secured at the bottom. On the first morning in the cottage, I went out for a run, and Eddie woke up to find a chicken in the bed with him! When we complained to the owners they were surprised that it bothered us, and told us that most of their guest enjoyed the chickens (they had only been renting since April, and we were there in June).On the Big Island, the cottage we rented was purported to be in an orchard. In truth, the orchard was a lot on volcanic soil with a few fruit trees. The photos on the Web made it look much nicer than it was.
The condo we rented on Waikiki was fine. It was comfortable, air conditioned, had a lanai with a view of the water, and was very reasonably prices.
The moral of our story is that if you use the Web to find non-traditional lodging, get all the information that you can be for making a deposit.
Monday, March 13, 2006
MyTripJournal
The second of the Blog options I am covering at the Monday, March 13 Computer Club Metting is MyTripJournal, at www.woodalls.com/mytripjournal/ and MyTripJournal directly at www.mytripjournal.com/. These are both essentially the same, only one goes through the Woodall's Web site. You can create a blog/journal with a 30 day free trial. If you decide to go with MyTripJournal, there are two levels of pricing, standard and premium. The cost for the standard package is $19 for 60 days, $39 for 6 months, and $59 for one year. The prices for the premium package are $29, $59, and $89 respectively.
Click on the title of this post, and it will take you to the MyTripJournal home page.
I created a demo on MyTripJournal, at http://woodalls.mytripjournal.com/quinn/. The password to enter is quinn.
Click on the title of this post, and it will take you to the MyTripJournal home page.
I created a demo on MyTripJournal, at http://woodalls.mytripjournal.com/quinn/. The password to enter is quinn.
Blogspot
One of the Blog options I am covering at the Monday, March 13 Computer Club Metting is Blogspot, at www.blogger.com/. Blogspot was created in the dotcom boom of the 1990's, and was recently purchased by Google, and is free to all users.If you want to create a Blogspot blog (like this one) click on the link to GET YOUR OWN BLOG at the top right of this page, or click on the title of this post, and it will take you to the Blogspot home page.
The blogs I have created on Blogspot are OnMouseClick, which is the companion blog to the TR Times column, and the one you are reading now, and TripDemo at tripdemo.blogspot.com.
The blogs I have created on Blogspot are OnMouseClick, which is the companion blog to the TR Times column, and the one you are reading now, and TripDemo at tripdemo.blogspot.com.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
More about searching for accommodations online...
It is amazing that when using the most popular Web sites for travel reservations, you can get different prices for the same accommodations - or one site will tell you there are no rooms available, while another will confirm a reservation. If you are researching online, don't be afraid to move past the first screen of information. You can keep "making a reservation", and getting additional information, until you are asked to enter credit card information, and then you can exit without entering the information. And don't be afraid to call the hotel chain with questions, or to confirm a rate. You may even get a lower rate with a phone call. It is also advisable to check for rates for organizations or unions you belong to - these rates may be lower than the AARP/senior rates.
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