Computers For Real Folks

Archive for the ‘Articles’ Category

I put my computer geeky skills to work over the past week and set up a new website for the “Helping Our Heroes” project. This project is sponsored by my friends, Mary and Art James, who own HAYS Cleaning, Inc.

HAYS Cleaning, Inc. launched the “Helping Our Heroes” promotion for Memorial Day 2010. It was repeated for Veterans Day 2010 and Memorial Day 2011. The promotion has been so successful that it is being offered again for Veterans Day 2011.

This complimentary service provided up to three hours of residential cleaning for local veterans, active service men and women, and their families.

Along with the complimentary cleaning services, HAYS Cleaning is also collecting care package items to send to troops overseas. For details visit the Press & News page or download the information flier here.

Visit the new website at http://www.helping-our-heroes.com.

Those who know me well know I hate shopping. Most of all, I hate grocery shopping. For the last couple of years, I have used Peapod, an online grocer. I select my items and Peapod delivers them. The prices, especially the sale prices, are competitive with some of the chain grocery stores in my area. The quality of the food, even their “store brand,” is outstanding. Peapod also accepts coupons.

It is quite easy to see everything available. The online store, at www.peapod.com, is arranged by “aisles,” Specials, Lists and even recipes. Once you place an order, Peapod saves your shopping list. I find this helpful because on future shopping trips I can load the list of a particular order, or even everything I have ever purchased on Peapod, and select some or all of the items for my new order.

Try Peapod today and get $10 off of your order. If you follow this link, it will give me a coupon for future orders, too: http://peapod.tellapal.com/a/clk/Jprm

“Music speaks what cannot be expressed, soothes the mind and gives it rest, heals the heart and makes it whole, flows from heaven to the soul.”

Over a year ago, my sons turned me on to a lovely little program called Pandora. If you have ever been a student in one of my classes, chances are you have heard music streaming from Pandora through my computer. Pandora is an internet radio service which takes music you love to listen to and creates personalized stations based on your tastes. A free account offers up to 30 hours per month of music; if you subscribe, your listening time is unlimited.

How do I get my account?
Go to the Pandora website at http://www.pandora.com and create an account. Your username will be your email address.

Creating Stations
Once you sign up, you will be able to enter in the name of an artist, song or composer; this will create a personalized radio station which will play this particular song or genre and then find other similar music. For this demonstration, I entered “John Denver” and clicked the arrow to the right of the entry field. Almost immediately, Pandora began playing my first song, “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” Since I like the song, I clicked the “thumbs up” icon in the lower right hand corner of the song window. Note, also, that Pandora provides an opportunity to buy a copy of the song and also gives a biography of the artist. Look to the left side of the window and you will now see that I have a station called “John Denver Radio.” If I click on the “options” tab, I can rename the station, share it, edit the station details, find other folks who like this artist or even delete the station. You can create up to 100 different stations on your Pandora account.

Ads on Free Pandora
As with many free products, Pandora is advertiser supported. Every so often, you will hear an ad on your free Pandora account. You will also need to click a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” at least once an hour on a free account. To avoid ads and clicking thumbs up or thumbs down once an hour, you will need to upgrade to the paid account. At $36 for a full year, it is well worth the money if you listen to music all day long. You cannot beat the variety

Listen Everywhere!
You can listen to Pandora from the website, on your mobile device and through many other devices, such as TV’s, Tivo and WD TV Live. If you have a paid subscription, you can also download Pandora One; this is a desktop application that allows for better audio, no advertisements and unlimited listening. Instead of the web interface, you use Pandora through a tidy little application (see image to the right). You can still “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” a song. You also get all song and artist information right on the application.

Is it for me?
If you are still not sure if Pandora is for you, sign up for a free account and give the service a try. They offer thousands of songs and many genres. You will be hardpressed not to find music you would enjoy listening to on your computer or other device. It is easy to use and you certainly cannot beat the price. Shoot me a message with your email and I will even share some of my stations with you!

Happy listening!

~Karen

A few months ago, I started using a snappy little application called Dropbox. This service provides an online folder where I can store and share files. I can access the files in my Dropbox account from  my desktop, my laptop, my netbook and from any other computer connected to the internet. I have also installed a Dropbox app on my HTC Evo Shift smartphone.

Since I teach many computer classes and work with many private students at various locations, this little tool has become quite useful. I can create and share files with any of my students and clients, without having to rely on emailing files. It has made for simpler collaboration, as well as peace of mind knowing my files are backed up.

So far, I am using the free account. This account offers up to 2 gigabytes of storage apace. As a bonus, if you refer friends to the service and they sign up, you will be gifted with more space on your Dropbox account.

If you are using Dropbox on your own computer, I highly recommend installing their application on your system. It will make the file sharing seamless because the Dropbox folder will look like just another folder on your computer. When I make a file on my desktop computer, I store it in my Dropbox folder. Later, if I am working on my laptop, I can access the same file that I created on my desktop. If I happen to be at a client’s office, I can login to my account at Dropbox.com and access any pertinent information through the web interface.

Using Dropbox has allowed me to give up my addiction for flash drives. And really, who needs a flash drive when you have Dropbox?

Try Dropbox by going here: http://db.tt/86l92b0. If you use this link, it will also give me a bit more storage on my own Dropbox.

Enjoy!

~Karen

“You will never be able to leave that dog alone with your pet rabbit,” said the Veterinarian. She had spoken those words to me on the day my husband and I adopted a 3-year-old greyhound we named, Rosie.

Not only was our veterinarian wrong, she was VERY wrong. Within a year, I was able to leave Rosie alone with my pet rabbit, Billy. Why am I writing about my pets on my computer blog? The short story illustrates the point that you can teach an old dog new tricks! It is never too late, and one is never too old, to learn something new!

I often receive calls from adults who have received a new electronics device and are convinced they are either too old to learn something new or that it is too late for them to bother learning how to operate this new equipment. Just as I taught my old dog, Rosie, to learn to live in harmony with Billy Bunny, anyone can be taught how to use that new digital camera or laptop. The key to discovering all that your new toy can do might be as easy as spending some time with your device and the manual. Or, you may prefer to review online tutorials, take a group class or private lesson to grasp all that your device can do for you.

Check out some of the online tutorials below. If you still need help, contact me to set up some private or group lessons!

Digital Camera Tutorials:

• eHow  offers a nice video series on using a digital camera: http://www.ehow.com/videos-on_4423_use-digital-camera.html
• Photo.net has a nice beginner’s guide on digital cameras: http://photo.net/equipment/digital/basics/
• Short Courses has a nice guide to great photographs: http://www.shortcourses.com/use/

Laptop and Desktop Tutorials:

• Selecting a Laptop: http://compreviews.about.com/od/buyers/bb/NotebookPCs.htm
• How to use a Laptop Touchpad: http://www.itbuddy.org/how-to-use-a-laptop-touchpad.html
• Basic Laptop Tutorial: http://www.gcflearnfree.org/computerbasics/7
• Basic Computer Tutorial: http://www.gcflearnfree.org/computerbasics
• Geek Girl’s Plain English Computing: http://www.geekgirls.com/

Have fun learning a few new tricks!

~Karen

I am always doing that which I cannot do,
in order that I may learn how to do it.
~Pablo Picasso

I am a firm believer in learning something new. I have been dabbling with Blogger software for a while now and have decided to explore WordPress, another popular blogging site and also popular blogging software.

You see, there are two ways to use WordPress. The first is to begin a blog at WordPress.com, where you set up a blog there similar to here on Blogger. The second is to download the WordPress software from WordPress.org, and then install it on your own host.

I headed to my local library to check out books on WordPress. My favorite is Head First WordPress, by Jeff Siarto. I ended up purchasing my own copy at Barnes and Noble (my favorite online book supplier, since I acquired the Nook e-reader this past July).

After a bit of studying, I decided to take the plunge and opted to download and install the WordPress software on my own host here at http://www.karenzhoogland.org. So far, so good! I have successfully downloaded and installed the WordPress software on my host. This is my first post using the new program.

Over the next weeks, I will be testing the WordPress waters. Of course, I intend to swim and not sink. I am interested in learning the differences between WordPress and Blogger so that I may pass that on to my students.

What are you using for your blogs? What do you like? What do you hate? Do share!

~Karen

As a parent, I know well that I have taught and shared quite a bit of knowledge with my three sons. Those who know me well also know that my three sons have passed on their knowledge of all things geeky to me.

Last fall, my son, Jeff, wrote a thorough article on his blog, Thoughts on Technology, which outlined some of the most popular open source software available. He provides a quite succinct description of the various applications, from the previously mentioned OpenOffice Suite, to antivirus programs to graphics software that rivals the popular programs.

Read more about these software products, along with links to download them, here: http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com/2009/10/computer-applications-everyone-should.html.

If you have comments or questions, please post them!

Happy computing!
~Karen