Personal Technology Tips in Plain English
Websites I Like
Free Screen Capture Software That Clicks With Me
Jul 11th
More and more, I’m find the necessity to create screen capture images of my desktop or a portion of a browser window more and more.
Typically, I’ve used the actual “Prt Sc” Print Screen button or the SHIFT+ALT+PRT SC combo to capture just the active window. This puts the screen grab into the clipboard memory.
From there, it’s an easy paste into MS Paint to resize or annotate with arrows, callout boxes, etc before saving it as “screen-URLorPROGRAMNAME.jpg” to use elsewhere – on blogs, twitpic, email, etc.
I’ve used a couple of Windows screen capture apps but none does what I want without cluttering my icon tray and hogging up resources. Recently, I’ve been testing out browser-based apps that do pretty much all I need. . .
One of them is called FireShot Pro and I used it with FireFox:
It’s been an easy-to-use screen capture program that works as a live browser plugin. The free version does most of what I need and even does Read the rest of this entry »
DIY Passport Photos for $0.19
May 22nd
If time flies when you’re having fun, I must be having a heck of a time.
It’s been 10 years already, and now it’s time to renew my passport.
In the past you would go to a photo booth or a local pharmacy photo center and get a passport photo made up for 10 bucks or so for the duplicate photos you need to submit with your US Passport Application at the USPS post office or through the mail.
But these days, you don’t have to cough up that much money to get the photos done with all the digital magic we have available at our fingertips.
Here’s how I got my required duplicate passport photos created and printed for a mere $0.19. You can too!
First, I got out my digital camera and computer and went to work (well, it wasn’t really much work at all actually).
While in the past I used manual online passport photo generators to create the photo image, this time, I relied on a fully automated face-detection enabled website to properly crop the headshots for me.
IDphoto4You.com does it all. Just upload a decent headshot with enough background to play with and it automatically crops the photo and creates a single 4×6 photo file for you to download and bring to the photo store. They even have options so that you can have it sent online to get printed quickly for you as well.
I opted not to print out the photo at home on my photo printer and instead wanted a “real” photo that came out of a photo processing machine at Walgreens. $0.19 and the single 4×6 has the required two copies of the photo on one photo sheet.
It won’t be long till I get my passport back I hope – or at least track. . .
QUESTION: HOW MANY COUNTRIES HAVE YOU TRAVELED TO IN TOTAL?
How To Transfer Big Files To Co-workers, Friends, Family Via Email
May 15th
These days, sending big files to other people via email (or even yourself!) is becoming more and more common.
Any video file, or those huge 12-15 megapixel photos of the kids’ soccer game, etc sometimes exceed the email attachment limits of your email provider.
Most of the popular web-mail email services like Gmail, Yahoo!Mail, and AOL all have file size limits of 25 MB or so for attachments. This means that you may have to send multiple emails, each with the various files you want to send, or you may even be prevented from sending the file at all if it is a large file. Video files typically encounter problems when trying to send through email.
So what can you do besides invoking snail mail? or waiting to hand over a CD or DVD the next time you see the other person?
There are free services online that let you upload files, and then simply send a download link that are live for a limited period of time – many times just a week or less, giving the recipient enough time to retrieve the file before the file become unavailable. Although there are services which let you transfer files via peer-to-peer, so that you don’t have to upload and leave your file in the hands of someone else, most people will want to use web-based services which temporarily hold onto your file until the recipient grabs it at their own convenience.
One of the services I’ve recently been using has an upper limit of 1 GB of file size, deletes the file after 5 days, allows up to 20 downloads of the file and is free. . . Read the rest of this entry »
How To Schedule Meetings Without Pulling Your Hair
Apr 1st
“Let’s do lunch sometime…”
“Do you want to grab some coffee soon?”
“When can we get together?”
This happens all the time. And of course, it never happens…for the majority of people you hear this from.
Here’s a neat little web app that’s good at what it does. It is simple and straight-forward. Introducing. . . Doodle.
A cute little, easy-to-remember name too!
Basically, you go to www.Doodle.com and set-up a mini “poll” where you can enter the topic, location, and then as many options as you want – with a label for the day & time. It auto-generates a neat little web-form that your friend or associate can respond to with their best options available.
What I love about Doodle.com is:
- It allows you to ask the receiver about a *more than one* potential meeting times
- It allows the receiver to input *preferences* for each time proposed that’s very easy to do. No more strings of back-up options explained in long, lengthy, sometimes confusing emails (I can do Tuesday from 1-2p and then again from 3-3:30p but if that’s doesn’t work, Wed and Thurs from 10:30-11:30, and Wed only at 4pm-5pm. . .yada yada yada)
- It’s easy and free.
You can probably see how practical this is for setting up your next meeting, group/committee session time, etc. No more hair-pulling stress going back and forth and back and forth between the team members. Hope you can find some good use for Doodle.
Try it, you’ll like it!
Here’s some more reasons why you’ll like it!
- There’s an iPhone app
- You can use doodle from within Facebook, iGoogle, and other places
- Words with Outlook Calendar, Google Calendar, iCal, Lotus Notes, Y!Calendar and more.
QUESTION: What group or meeting do you think this service could help out with in the next month?
Email Super Powers
Mar 26th
Are you being slayed by your inbox or are you successfully slaying your inbox?
There’s a big difference between the two. Productivity these days goes to those who understand how to manage their email inboxes effectively.
People have tons of different approaches and strategies to win the war on the overflowing email account that we all deal with in today’s world.
Check out some of the neat little tips for becoming more proactive and productive with respect to your email life on The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur’s site.
While you’re there, can you spot MY TIP amongst that list? 
 That’s right, Michael Michalowicz featured my contribution on the site.
How To Download YouTube Videos
Mar 6th
Sometimes you need a video clip that’s available online for offline use – like using it as an example for a class or workshop.
Other times, you may want to be able to play it offline for your own review at a later time when it’s more convenient for you, or when you know you won’ t have internet access (like on a plane).
There’s definitely a bunch of sites available now that let you download videos from YouTube and other video sharing sites out there.
Usually all you have to do is copy/paste the video page URL from Youtube, MetaCafe or other video site into the form on the video download site and you’re all set to go.
But once in awhile, your favorite Youtube video grabber site can’t download the video file. That’s when you have to go looking for other options.
Other than Kisstube and Vixy, I found another favorite that seems to work for me . . .
SaveVid.com works just the same. This site does give a couple of download options including flv format, mp4 as well as HD video which YouTube presents sometimes.
SaveVid.com also shares some of the videos that others have used the site to download so you can get a sense of what people are watching and downloading.
Do you have any other favorite sites to download videos from online video platforms? Please add them in the comments below.
Full Screen Countdown Timer
Mar 3rd
Today, we have an event where several groups will be going back to back giving presentations.
Time is of essence, so we’ll have to tend the clock closely. The question is how to do it so that each presenter can be aware of it and not get the gag-music as they do at the Oscars.
We won’t have or need the music cue, but a countdown timer would be nice so they are not caught off guard.
Here’s a neat web-based countdown (or count up) timer that is also able to go full screen. So all we need is a laptop in the room and we should all be ok.
The site is clean and intuitive for both counting up (stop watch function) and counting down. Below is a walk-through of the simple steps to getting it to work. . .
The max is 99 HOURS of counting down. That’s a couple of days worth of waiting! But for our own use, we set it for a 7 minute countdown. . . Read the rest of this entry »
I love tech, gadgets and the web. Hope you pick-up a useful tip or two here today that helps you use technology to your advantage! Better yet, why not share your own expertise in a comment on a post today to help the other readers that land here for answers!