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Issue 407 - August 02, 2006

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements © 2006
==== 1581 Subscribers in 52 Countries ====

Welcome to the 407th issue of the PC Improvement News. PCIN consists mainly of news and tips. There is something for everyone, and if this is your first issue, I'm sure there will be something for you. If you give me two or three issues, I know that you will come back for more!

You can reach me at editor@pcin.net with any suggestions or comments.

Support PCIN at http://PCIN.net/donate.php

CONTENTS

Opening Thoughts

Last week I mentioned the dog days of summer. If the weather last week made me think of that, I don't know what you call this week. Like much of North America, we've had unbelievably warm temperatures lately. There have been a couple of days this week that have had real temperatures of 35° C (95° F) and the humidex (similar to heat index) has made it feel like 45° C (113° F). Phew!

Andrew had a great birthday. He managed to drag it on for 3 days. I'm not sure that he even knows which day was his birthday :-) He went out with a friend, went out with his Grandma and Grandpa, had his Nanna and Poppa come over with other family members, and had a sleep over with one of his Aunts. Good times!

Graham editor@pcin.net and Chris chris@pcin.net

The NEWS

Study: Women like tech toys more than shoes

Is a plasma TV a girl's new best friend?
An Oxygen Network survey released Tuesday found that more than three out of four women said they'd choose the TV over a diamond solitaire necklace. Women preferred a top-of-the-line cellphone to designer shoes by a similar margin. And a little white iPod narrowly trumped a little black dress.
These are among the results of the Girls Gone Wired survey by market researcher TRU for Oxygen. TRU surveyed 1,400 women and 700 men 15 to 49 years old to compare tech attitudes among the sexes.

Read the USA Today article...
Leave a comment...

Internet users do fewer household chores: study

Heavy Internet users spend less time with their partners and children and are less likely to help with household chores, a new study suggests.
Statistics Canada says people who spend more than an hour of personal time a day on the Web tended to stay at home more and showed less interest in outdoor activities than non-users.
They also spend less time sleeping, relaxing, resting or thinking and spend a "striking" amount of time alone.

Read the CTC.ca article...
Leave a comment...

Why employers are cracking down on e-mail

Employers are quite concerned about the legal and financial risks caused by inappropriate employee electronic communications. In fact, they are firing employees who violate workplace computer policies.
I recently wrote about how employers face considerable challenges figuring out to handle employees' electronic communications, such as blogging and instant messaging.
According to the 2006 Workplace E-Mail, Instant Messaging & Blog Survey by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute, 26 percent of employers have fired employees for misuse of e-mail.

Read the TechRepublic article...
Leave a comment...

PCs dream of electric sheep

Scott Draves is tapping the spare processing power in PCs for the sake of art.
Draves is the artist and computer programmer behind the 7-year-old "Electric Sheep" project, a free, downloadable application that combines art, interactivity and distributed computing. It's a bit like the SETI@Home project, which harnesses PCs around the Internet to search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
But with Electric Sheep - the name, of course, is an homage to Philip K. Dick and his novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" - the extra processing power of all the networked PCs is being used to do the heavy computing needed to render the eye-popping screensavers that appear on the participating PCs' screens. A high-definition, big-screen version of the project, "Dreams in High Fidelity," will be shown in the art gallery at Siggraph, a computer graphics and interactive techniques conference that starts Sunday in Boston.

Read the TechRepublic article...
Leave a comment...

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Digital Photography Tip of the Week

PCIN.net Update - Filing your Photographs - Keep it Neat - Digital Photography Tip of the Week

I have been active with computers for many years, and much of that I was also active in photography. Organization of my personal space, work space and life are all pretty haphazard, but my photography has always been very organized. I started in photography many years ago, and soon after began developing my own 35mm black and white film, and later, bulk loading it as well. I have binders filled with negatives, all neatly organized. Each sleeve of negatives neatly labeled with the date of exposure, date of development, the developer I used as well as the concentration and time of development. When I added transparencies (slides) to my film arsenal, I begin cataloging those the same way. When I finally moved into the digital photography realm, my experience with computers paid off. I could now file all of my digital images in such a way that they were neat and organized, even if the rest of my computer wasn't. I previously wrote about software that will help you organize your photos by adding keywords to them so that you could easily search for a particular subject. But what about the files themselves? For many people, this is solved by using the software that came with your camera. Once the camera is connected to the computer, your digital photos are automatically downloaded to a predetermined location on your hard drive, often located under the My Documents/My Pictures folder. I like to keep my photos separate from anything else I do. My photographs are organized using the following directory structure:

D:\CanonPics\
2004\
2005\
2006\
20060102\
20060107\

As you can see, I organize my photographs by date of capture. I retain the original file names that the camera assigned them, otherwise I would have to spend extra time renaming them, even if using an automated software package to do so. Additionally, I have not been able to arrive at a naming convention that will fully explain each photo, or set of photos, that would be consistent with all others. This is why I make use of the tagging function found in many software packages.

To get my photos into the directories, I work manually. I use a compact flash card reader which is provides faster transfer than directly connecting my camera to my computer. I sort my files on my CF Reader by date, then create a new folder under the current year on my hard drive for each new date .I use the date format YYYYMMDD which visually lets me sort the directories in order regardless of when they were created. I usually transfer my photos after each shoot, so even after a trip, I have only a few folders to create. I then copy all the photographs on my compact flash card to it's appropriate directory on the computer and repeat the process for each of the new dates on the card.

Once all of my photos are copied to the computer, I then remove the compact flash card from my reader and verify that I can read the photos I have copied over. At this point I now have two copies of my photos, one on the hard drive, and one on the memory card. When I am sure that everything has copied successfully, I can then put the card back in the camera and format it.

This process seems a little confusing, but my files are all neatly organized, and it really takes very little time. I have just begun to test Adobe's new product, Lightroom, and have found that software has an image downloader that works exactly the same way as my manual method, but also allows for adding keywords as part of the import process and for those who wish to do it, renaming of files at the same time.

Keeping your digital photographs organized can help you retrieve them quickly when the time comes. My method may not suit your needs but does use a few key points:

  1. keep you photos separate from other images
  2. keep different shoots or events separated on disk
  3. use a filing system that is intuitive to you
  4. make sure your images have been copied over to your computer before formatting your memory card.

I hope this long winded tip has helped a few people file their digital photographs.

Leave a comment about this week's Digital Photography Tip of the Week...

The digital photography tip of the week is written by the PCIN Assistant Editor, Chris Empey. Chris is a long time photographer and is currently the President of the Niagara Falls Camera Club. You can see more of his photography at his Photo of the Day website.
If you have a tip to send Chris, or a question about digital photography he can address in the newsletter, send it to chris@pcin.net.

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PCIN.net UPDATE

Check out these new or updated pages on the PCIN.net site:

Update PCIN.net home page with "Top 10 Most Popular..." features
http://PCIN.net/

Microsoft Digital Image Suite Plus Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/msdimagesuiteplus.php

Omega One Software Battery Pack Pro 2.1 Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/bpp2.php

Makayama Interactive DVD to Pocket PC 3.0 Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/dvd2ppc3.php

Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/elements40.php

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THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF

Gmaps Pedometer

Gmaps Pedometer is a handy site that lets you map out your router for walking or running. It provides you with overall distances, the distance of the last "leg" and a calorie counter. You can even save the route and let others see it. The site describes it this way:

What is this?

This is a little hack that uses Google's superb mapping application to help record distances traveled during a running or walking workout.

Why?

As a runner training for a marathon for the first time, I found myself wishing I had an easy way to know the exact distance a certain course is, without having to drag a GPS or pedometer around on my runs. Looking at Google Maps, and knowing there was a vibrant community of geeks hacking it, I knew there had to be a way. So here it is.
Note that there's a reason this is called a pedometer. Considering that you have to choose all the points in your route individually yourself, it's probably not suitable for driving trips and the like. But I've found it suits my purposes pretty well for getting running distances.

Leave a comment...

blufr trivia game

Welcome to blufr, a free, addictive trivia game challenging you to identify statements as true or false. Answer below to get to the next bluf!

Answers.com has created a trivia game called blufr that is essentially asks you if a statement is true or false. But these certainly aren't your standard questions. I played for a bit, and you are given statements such as:

* The word "nerd" is actually derived from spelling "drunk" backwards.
* Coffee comes from cherry pits.
* Freckles are technically tiny benign tumors.

It's fun. Check it out!

Leave a comment...

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PCIN.net AFFILIATED SITES

Both of us have other sites other than PCIN.net. These are all sites that we are actively involved in (they aren't client sites). Don't forget to check them out from time to time for updates:

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DISCLAIMER and OTHER STUFF

PCIN is brought to you by Graham Wing. The opinions expressed are those of the Editor, Graham Wing and the Assistant Editor, Chris Empey. Graham Wing and Chris Empey accept no responsibility for the results obtained from trying the tips in this newsletter.

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Graham Wing can be reached at editor@pcin.net
Chris Empey can be reached at chris@pcin.net

Copyright 1998-2006, Graham Wing. All rights reserved.

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