Microblogging is the practice of sending brief posts to a personal blog or a microblogging Web site. Each entry can be called a micropost. The appeal of microblogging is both its immediacy and portability.

So?

Sincemicroposts are typically very short (less than 200 characters), a microblogger can send updates often enough to keep subscribers updated as events happen, no matter if they are large or small. Even political candidates like Barack Obama and John Edwards have used microblogging to send details from their campaign activities.

How to Microblog

You can use a traditional blog, such as Wordpress or LiveJournal but you can also set up a microblog using a service like Twitter or Jaiku. Facebook and MySpace have “status updates,” which are also microblogging services. Pownce is another service, from the founders of Digg. It combines microblogging with social invitations and file-sharing. What you choose to use really depends on what you want from such a service.

Twitter?http://www.twitter.com

Twitter is one of the leaders in the microblogging scene. From their site:

A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?

It is easy to get started. Create a twitter account and then you can send your posts, called tweets to your blog using a variety of methods including:

• Cell Phone – using text messages from phone
• Web Browser – via twitter site or a plug-in (Twitbin) or your own blog feed (TwitterFeed)
  • Twitbin (firefox extension): http://www.twitbin.com/
  • Twitterfeed (feed your blog to Twitter): http://twitterfeed.com/
• Instant Messaging (IM) – like GTalk or Yahoo Messenger
• Widgets in portals/personal homepages or other third party applications

Tumblr? http://www.tumblr.com

If you want to blog mostly to provide a stream of things you find on the web rather than sending a stream about what you are doing, then Tumblr might be a better fit. From their site:

Tumblelogs are the refreshingly simple new way to share anything you find, love, hate ….

Tumblr provides a very easy way to get into blogging without the major learning curve of setting up your own blog. You can easily post links to videos, text and photos, URLs, quotes, and more.

You can post to Tumblr in several ways, just like with Twitter:

• Bookmarklet: a button you can add to your browser’s Bookmarks Bar
• Cell Phone Posting: Post text and photos directly from your mobile phone. You can use the Subject line to attach a caption to photos.
• Tumblet – Mac users, install the Tumblet Dashboard Widget

You can also view Tumblr via a mobile phone that can browse the web. To browse your tumblelog on a phone or PDA, just add “/mobile” to the URL.

Our Two Sample Sites

• ETS Tumblr Site: http://pstcc-ets.tumblr.com
• ETS Twitter Site: http://twitter.com/pstcc_ets

Other Microblogging Options

• Jaiku: http://www.jaiku.com

• Pownce: http://www.pownce.com (invitation only at this point)

• Soup: http://www.soup.io/

Helpful Resources

Your Guide to Micro-blogging and Twitter: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2007/05/for_the_uberconnectedyour_guid.html

Microblogging (Wikipedia):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-blogging

Comparing the Top 4 Mini-blogging Options (comparing Twitter, Tumblr, Jaiku and Pownce)
http://wisdump.com/web/comparing-the-top-4-mini-blog-options/

We all have TONS of passwords to remember. Email accounts, shopping accounts, banking accounts, other user accounts. But, security experts agree and common sense really tells us that using one password for everything is not terribly secure. If that one password gets “got” then your entire online life has been compromised. It is easy to go with something you know you won’t forget. But, using a family
member’s name, pet name, birthdate or easy sequence like 12345 is not terribly secure, especially for very sensitive information like grades, financial statements and other money-related activities.

So, I need strong passwords and different passwords?

That is the recommendation from security experts. A STRONG password is one that is not easy to guess. And you need different passwords for all of your accounts. Some tips to keep in mind when creating a strong password. (from the Microsoft site referenced in Resources)

• Make it lengthy.
  Each character that you add to your password increases the protection
  that it provides many times over. Your passwords should be 8 or more
  characters in length; 14 characters or longer is ideal.

• Combine letters, numbers, and symbols.
  The greater variety of characters that you have in your password, the
  harder it is to guess. A 15-character password composed only of random
  letters and numbers is about 33,000 times stronger than an 8-character
  password composed of characters from the entire keyboard.

• An ideal password combines both length and different types of symbols.

• Use the entire keyboard,
  not just the most common characters. Your password will be much
  stronger if you choose from all the symbols on the keyboard, including
  punctuation marks not on the upper row of the keyboard, and any symbols
  unique to your language.

• Use words and phrases that are easy for you to remember, but difficult for others to guess.

Some common methods used to create passwords are easy to guess by criminals.

• Avoid sequences or repeated characters. “12345678,” “222222,” “abcdefg,” or adjacent letters on your keyboard

• Avoid using only look-alike substitutions of numbers or symbols.
  Criminals will not be fooled by common look-alike replacements, such as
  to replace an ‘i’ with a ‘1′ or an ‘a’ with ‘@’ as in “M1cr0$0ft” or
  “P@ssw0rd”. But these substitutions can be effective when combined with
  other measures, such as length, misspellings, or variations in case, to
  improve the strength of your password.

• Avoid your login name.
  Any part of your name, birthday, social security number, or similar
  information for your loved ones constitutes a bad password choice. This
  is one of the first things criminals will try.

• Avoid dictionary words in any language. …This includes all sorts of profanity and any word you would not say in front of your children.

• Use more than one password everywhere.
  If any one of the computers or online systems using this password is
  compromised, all of your other information protected by that password
  should be considered compromised as well. It is critical to use
  different passwords for different systems.

• Avoid using online storage of passwords.

Eeeks! I’m convinced. But, how do I generate a STRONG password?

You can create your own. Here’s a short example using the rules above:
Use the sentence: Trix are for kids
Password could be: TrExR4k1dz

You
can make use of a common start to every password and then use a code of
some type for creating unique passwords for every site. This is a great
way to go for a smaller number of passwords to remember.

For example, start with: 1234. Then, for logging into your Yahoo account, create a password that is 1234YhO
For your bank, you could use 1234FRsTTn. And, so forth.

You
can also use a password generator program to help create these strings.
There are several free ones available. You can get a standalone program
or an extension for the Firefox browser.

PasswordMaker (standalone program and extensions): http://passwordmaker.org/
QuickPass (Mac standalone program): http://www.sourcebricks.com/page/quickpass.html

Secure Password Generator (Firefox extension): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/135
Magic Password Generator (Firefox extension): https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/874

How in the !**#$@ am I supposed to remember all of those passwords?

Well,
that can be a problem. This is where a password manager comes in handy.
These are often called password “keychains”. Apple includes a
program called Keychain with its operating system that can do this
activity for you. There are others for Mac and Windows as well. The
basic principle is a database that keeps your login data organized.
This can be unlocked or accessed by a MASTER PASSWORD. So, you remember
one password and the keychain does the rest.

The two most frequently recommended are:

KeePass: (http://keepass.info/) KeePass is a free/open-source password manager or safe which helps
you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your
passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a
key-disk. So you only have to remember one single master password or
insert the key-disk to unlock the whole database. The databases are
encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms
currently known”

KeePass secures a database
of your username/password information. When that database is unlocked
by your master password, you can use it to have the rest of your login
data easily accessible. It also has a separate toolbar available that
will integrate with IE and autofill data and send back
username/passwords from IE.

RoboForm (http://www.roboform.com/) Freeware (10 logins) and Pro (unlimited logins, free updates, toll-free technical support. – $30) From their website:

• Memorizes your passwords and Logs You In automatically.
• Fills long registration and checkout forms with one click.
• Encrypts your passwords to achieve complete security.
• Generates random passwords that hackers cannot guess.
• Fights Phishing by filling passwords only on matching web sites.
• Defeats Keyloggers by not using keyboard to type passwords.
• Backs up your passwords, Copies them between computers.
• Synchronizes passwords between computers using GoodSync.
• Searches for keywords in your passwords, notes and Internet.

Take RoboForm with you on USB disk . NOTE: You can use RoboForm2Go
with less than 10 passwords for free or buy it for $40. You can also
buy a RoboForm2Go Key ($10) that is a USB key that works with the
software.

RoboForm works in a similar manner to KeePass but it
is a little more polished and integrated with IE and Firefox via
extensions and toolbars.

Other Resources

Billeo From their website: “Whether you’re paying bills, shopping online
or need help managing passwords, Billeo combines three great tools into
one convenient package to make your online life easier and more
secure.”
http://www.billeo.com

You can get really serious and use a fingerprint login manager:
http://www.fingerauth.com/

Helpful Resources

Password Strength & Password Security – Microsoft Security
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/create.mspx

Choose (and Remember) Great passwords – Lifehacker
http://tinyurl.com/ppdpy

KeePass – http://www.keepass.info

RoboForm – http://www.roboform.com

While Internet
Explorer (IE) does enjoy the market lead in browsers online, there are
some browsers that offer more options and customization and other tools
designed for specific users and types of activities. One of these
browsers might really fill a need for you so it is nice to know what is
out there.

One of the first reasons many left the IE boat was because of tabbed browsing. Tabbed browsing
allows the users to open multiple pages in one window on their computer
making it very easy to move between several sites without getting
confused about what window needs to be opened next.

What is out there?

There are more browsers out there than you might realize. Some of their names might sound familiar such as:
Firefox, Mozilla and Opera.
There are others that you may have never seen before, like: K-Meleon, Shiira and iCab

We will focus on two browsers for our demonstrations this month: Flock and WebRunner

Flock?

Flock is based on Firefox and has a lot of Web 2.0 functionality “baked in” with the browser.

If
you have accounts on sites like Flickr, Photobucket, del.icio.us,
YouTube or blog, you will find Flock to be very helpful for many of the
activities you do on those sites.
After downloading Flock, you can
set up the information for any of the services you use and it supports.
Then, you are integrated with those services from the browser itself.

WebRunner?

On
the “bleeding edge” of alternative web browsers there is WebRunner.
WebRunner is a build of Mozilla that is designed as a Single Site
Browser (SSB) or what is also called a Distraction Free browser.
Download the WebRunner application and then download “bundles” that are
tied to a single site. When you start one of these x.webapp files, it
will load that site in WebRunner. There are builds for applications
like GMail and Google Calendar as well as some popular productivity
sites like 30Boxes and Remember the Milk.

WebRunner
is still very much a beta product and there are some security issues to
consider if you choose to download and use individual’s webrunner
bundles. It is an interesting concept, nonetheless.

Helpful Resources

Flock: http://www.flock.com
Flock Quick Start Guide: http://www.flock.com/welcome

WebRunner: http://wiki.mozilla.org/WebRunner

Alternate Web Browser Alliance: http://www.alternativebrowseralliance.com/

Comparison of Web Browsers (Wikipedia): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers

Well, most email programs work okay with files of 1 MB or less. With today’s digital cameras shooting images at 3 MB or more as well as videos, PowerPoint files, large databases and more information being shared between folks, it is important to have other ways to send files to folks besides as an email attachment.

What options do I have?
If you have your own server, then FTP to that server and sharing from there is the best way to go. If you don’t have then, then there are several online sites that offer ways to share or send large files. We will cover two approaches: sending one file and online file storage. Which approach you want to use depends on your needs.

SENDING A FILE ONE TIME

If you just need to get this presentation/video/soundfile/insert file type here to someone, then an “email a link” service like might be the best option. With this kind of service, you simply go to the site:

1. Upload your file, enter an email address,
2. The service sends email to the address with a link to file.
3. Recipient downloads the file from the link.

The file stays on the service’s server until a certain criteria is met (days, number of downloads or lack of activity).

EXAMPLES

YOUSENDit: http://www.yousendit.com
Free plan: limit of 100 MB for the file size (can pay up to $9 to send a file up to 2 GB)
Pro plan: $10/month for files up to 2GB that are kept for 14 days and can be tracked.

MailBigFile: http://www.mailbigfile.com
Free plan: limit of 100 MB file size but only 3 downloads
Pro plan: $19/year for files up to 2GB in size

TransferBIGFiles: http://www.transferbigfiles.com
Free plan: limit of 2 GB file size. Files are available or a minimum of 5 days or up to 30-days if you upload through a registered DropZone account.

Digital Fastball: http://www.digitalfastball.com/
No limit to file size and requires a login to both send and receive a file. This allows you to track if/when somebody gets the file Might be a better option for more sensitive files.

SHARING LARGE FILES WITH OTHERS

Sometimes you have large files that need to be shared with others over a longer period of time. A file storage/sharing service would be a better option for this need.

EXAMPLES

DivShare: http://www.divshare.com
Free, unlimited storage supported by advertising. Automatically creates flash slideshows from uploaded photos and flash videos from uploaded video files. API so it works with Facebook, iPhone and others applications. View documents via Flash Paper. File size limit 200 MB.

DropSend: http://dropsend.com/
Free, A hybrid of the two approaches. You can send a file or upload it to online storage. You can send files up to 1 GB and can store up to 250 MB.

eSnips: http://www.esnips.com/
Free. Up to 5 GB of space to store files. You can share with friends, family, co-workers, collect files or showcase your work.

MediaMax: http://www.mediamax.com
Free Plan: 25 GB of storage. 25 GB of secure online storage, Download or share 1GB/month, Send files up to 10 MB in size
Premium Plan: $5/month. 100 GB of secure online storage, Download/share 10 GB/month, Send files up to 1 GB in size. (Also have Elite and Pro plans up to $30/month for 10000 GB storage)

CONVERTING FILES

Sometimes you just need to change a file from one format to another. There are online sites that do this as well. The most popular are:

Zamzar: http://www.zamzar.com
Convert files up to 100 MB in size. Can convert YouTube videos to another format.

Media Convert: http://media-convert.com/
Can upload and convert sound, text, movies, images. Allows for splitting audio files and capturing a web site as an image.

YouConvertIt: http://youconvertit.com
Similar to the above, you can convert documents, images, audio and video to different formats.

If you want to convert files on your own computer rather than an online service, there is a free tool that does a great job of converting files: SUPER Converter (Windows only): http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

These are both sites that provide a way to share online presentations but, really they do a whole lot more than that!

Slideshare

From their site:

SlideShare is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations & slideshows.

You create presentations, tag them, embed them into your blog or website, browse others’ presentations, and comment on individual slides.

What file formats does SlideShare support?

1. PowerPoint (ppt, pps)
2. OpenOffice (odp).
3. Portable Document Format (PDF)
4. Maximum allowed file size is 30 MB.

It also allows for linking to an online MP3 file (have to have it online) and then synchronizing it to the slides. This is called slidecasting.

EXAMPLE: http://www.slideshare.net/pstcc.ets/password-keychains-153468

USES: Share presentations with others. Create slideshows with music.

SIMILAR SITES:

Zoho Presentations, Google Docs

Voice Thread

From their site:

A VoiceThread is an online media album that allows people to make comments, either audio or text, and share them with anyone they wish. A VoiceThread allows an entire group’s story to be told and collected in one place.

Supported Formats:

• JPEG
• GIF
• BMP
• PNG
• document types: PPT, PPS, PDF, DOC, XLS
• varying video formats

The process is pretty simple:

• 1. Create an account
  2. Upload files or import from Flickr or Facebook
  3. Add narration, text, scribbles
  4. Make sharing selections to allow others to see and comment on your thread.

Example: http://voicethread.com/share/9366/

USES: Storytelling, Audio/Image Presentations, Reactions to a presentation by recording in the thread, Foreign Language practice

SIMILAR SITES: Vuvox: http://www.vuvox.com/ and Flektor: http://www.flektor.com

Helpful Resources

SLIDESHARE FAQ: http://www.slideshare.net/faqs

VoiceThread FAQ: http://voicethread.com/faq/

We put ourselves on the line and asked you to ask us the questions you wanted answered. Here is a short summary of the questions and answers…not in any particular order.

What is the difference between a blog and a web page

Technically, a blog page IS a web page. It is just a specialized one. Typical web pages and web sites are built in HTML. Things like navigation, organization and images are all controlled by the webmaster of the site. Blogs (which is short for web log), started out more as online diaries and have grown to become even more.

Blogs are usually edited by a single author or a small team and what makes them different from traditional web pages is that they are powered by blog software, which controls how the information is presented and organized and simplifies the process of publishing content online. For sites that have periodic updates of information, blogging software makes that much faster and easier.

Blogging Software

At PSTCC, we use Movable Type as our blogging platform. Other popular blogging platforms include WordPress and Textpattern. Each has their own plus/minus aspects. Here is a “smack down” review of all three.

Blog Examples

Blogs can be personal, topical and marketing oriented. Here are some blogs and a directory of how to find all kinds of blogs.

• PSTCC Blogs – all of our blogs linked in one place
• BoingBoing – a blog of “wonderful things”, great time-waster
• The Apple Blog – guess!
• D’arcy Norman dot net – a personal blog of a educational technology guy in Canada

What is the advantage of using Picasa over Photoshop?

It really depends on what you want to do with your digital pictures. For basic editing and organization of your digital photos, you cannot beat Picasa’s feature set for the price (FREE!) on the PC. (Mac users already have iPhoto available)

If you want to make more complex collages with your photos, erase things like powerlines (or people), then you will have to use a more high powered editor like Photoshop Elements or Photoshop. The PS Elements package is affordable and offers a good deal of options for doing a lot with digital images.

I need to edit some text in Photoshop?

Photoshop text is always placed on a separate layer. You can edit the text by either double clicking on the small “T” that is on the layer in the layer palette (top figure) or selecting the text tool in the tool bar palette.

How can I remove the border in a table in PowerPoint ?

To remove a border in a table, select the table and then right click. From the contextual menu, select Borders and Fill. Make your changes and click OK to close the dialog box.

How can I animate one cell in a table in PowerPoint?

To animate a cell in a table, first complete the table with data and formatting. Then, right click on the table and select “Ungroup”. This converts the table into individual objects for each cell.

Then, you can select each object and apply custom animation to it that fits your needs for the presentation.

How can I start a program while I am in a PowerPoint presentation – without leaving the presentation?

Stump the Chump shoutout goes to Greg Walters of CSIT, who asked this and then answered it himself. You can use the ALT+TAB key combination on both Macs and PCs to toggle between open programs on a computer but if you forget to start a program and want to get to the Start button on a PC without having to quit the presentation, the elegant approach is to right click on the slide and choose “Switch Program” from the Screen menu. This will open the task bar on the PC and give you access to the Start button to start another program.

How can I share a Distribution list from Outlook with Someone Else

We had a lot of discussion on this and our friends at Vanderbilt have a nice page with step by step directions on doing this very task.

Helpful Resources

Folks always ask how we keep up with stuff here in ETS. Some favorite techno-resources include:

Engadget – a blog about personal electronics, computers and other gadgets

Wired Blogs – news and opinions about all kinds of technology topics

Reading MacAddict, PCWorld, Presentations and Campus Technology magazines

Well, break it into the two words as they do on portableapps.com:

portable – carried or moved with ease
app – short for application, a computer program like a web browser or word processor

So, a portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you.

Carry it around? How?

Most
folks use a USB flash drive (AKA thumb drive). But, you could use a
portable hard drive or an iPod. Once you plug in the device into a
computer, a portable application will give you the application software
and your data just like you were sitting at your own PC. The best thing
is that when you unplug the device, no personal stuff is left behind on
the computer!

Why would I want to do that?

Well, you can do things like this:

• Have your favorite bookmarks always with your browser
• Have a personal calendar and todo list always with you
• Carry your email client with all your contacts and settings
• Carry your instant messenger and your buddy list
• Do work on the road with a portable office suite on any computer

So, what’s with the U3 Smart Drive?

U3
is a new open standard developed by SanDisk and M-Systems. They are
different from traditional USB drives because they have a program
installed called U3 Launchpad. This acts like the Windows Start menu and helps users run their portable apps easily.

What portable apps are out there?

More than you might realize. For example:

• Portable Firefox- web browser (also in U3)
• Portable Thunderbird – email client for POP email (also in U3)
• Portable Sunbird – calendar and todo list
• Portable GIMP – photo/image editor
• Portable Audacity – audio editor
• Portable FileZilla – FTP client
• Portable Nvu – HTML editor

There are also portable utilities for zip/unzip, media playing, instant messaging, sudoku, anti-virus and more.

The site PortableApps
offers a PortableApps Suite which will fit on a 256Mb USB thumbdrive.
It includes the list above (except for GIMP and Audacity) along with:

• Portable OpenOffice.org (office suite),
• Portable AbiWord (word processor),
• Portable Gaim (instant messenger)

There is a light version of the suite that doesn’t have the OpenOffice.org installation. It will fit on a 128 MB drive

So portable, you don’t need to carry anything

Ifyou don’t even want to carry around a USB drive but need to work ondocuments while traveling, you could also consider these Web 2.0
services:

Writeboard: (http://www.writeboard.com) create a word processing document that is online and available from any online computer or AJAXWrite (http://www.ajaxwrite.com)
Gliffy – (http://www.gliffy.com) online drawing tool
NumSum (http://www.numsum.com) online spreadsheet tool

If you have Google Account, there is also Google Documents and Spreadsheets and Google Calendar to consider.

Helpful Resources

The best place to start is with PortableApps.com: http://www.portableapps.com

Mac OSX users are not out of this, either. Visit the Portable Site for OSX:
http://www.freesmug.org/portableapps/

For U3 Drive information, visit: http://www.u3.com/
and the U3 Newbie Guide: http://www.everythingusb.com/u3.html

The Wikipedia entry on portable apps has a lot more to explore:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_portable_software

For the Wiki/Personal Organizer, visit:
http://www.tiddlywiki.com

Other portable apps sites:
http://www.usbspace.com/

http://portable-apps.subiectiv.com

Netvibes is one of the leaders of the pack in webtops – a web based desktop. Another way to look at it is a personalized homepage. Webtops provide you a way to keep updated with all kinds of things inside your web browser.

From their initial launch materials, Netvibes described themselves this way:
The aim of it is to provide a place on the internet where you can set just the content you like, a super easy way of building your personalized homepage, available anywhere, anytime. No registration is needed, however if you want to access your page from another computer you’ll be able to do it by registering with your email address and a password.

So?

It is an easy way to have the same information available from any internet connected computer. You can add modules for different news feeds, Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, weather, blogs and more. Adding tabs to the page allows you to continue adding information without getting too cluttered.
It also makes it very easy to search for and listen/watch/view podcasts, videos and photos

How do I use it?

You pretty much can set up Netvibes however you like. Add widgets from the sidebar and move them around on the page or to another tab for organization. Then, when things are updated, you will see that indicated in the widget title and you can act on it accordingly.

Um, widget?

A widget, in this context, is a window or other element on the webtop that contains either content or some way to interact with site. You can generally move widgets around on the webtop to organize as you like.

Why Netvibes?

Netvibes has gotten a lot of startup funding and has well over 5 million users so it is very popular and has 200+ modules like email, webnotes, RSS feeds, Flickr photos, chat and more.
It has also really developed into a strong RSS reader that is online and available from any computer. Many other readers are installed programs so you have to be at a certain computer to read your feeds. Netvibes gives you the same environment at any computer.

Other Webtops:

Protopage: AJAX enabled homepage that allows users to customize the look and content as you like.
From their website: “Protopage = personalized news + sticky notes + photos + email + weather + bookmarks, all on one page.” http://www.protopage.com

Pageflakes: Also AJAX powered and driven by modules and tabs. http://www.pageflakes.com

NOTE: Both Protopage and Pageflakes have some public capabilities, which allow you to share your personalized pages with others. With Protopage, you do not even need to have an account to see the public pages. You can share tabs publicly in Netvibes EcoSystem.

Google Personalized Home: If you have a GMail account, you can customize a Google search page to include information you want to have on the page as well as how it is organized on the page.
http://www.google.com/ig/

30 Boxes: This one looks the most like an actual computer desktop. http://30boxes.com/webtop/

Helpful Resources

Tutorial made by a Netvibes users: http://eco.netvibes.com/help/masey/

Netvibes EcoSystem, where you can customize Netvibes and share your work: http://eco.netvibes.com/

We did this session with a PDF. You will need the free Adobe Reader to view and/or print.

That new digital camera you got last winter is pretty cool. But, some of the pictures you take have problems that you would like to clear up. Here’s some tips and tricks to fix digital pix.

Some common tasks for working with digital pictures include:

• Adjusting color
• Fixing crooked pictures
• Cropping
• Using filters to enhance the subject

Adjusting Color

In Photoshop Elements, Picasa and IrfanView, you can adjust the color of digital images to help improve or change the look of the image. For example, photos taken under office lights can be color adjusted. Some of the terms you will see are these:

• Saturation refers to the intensity of color. Many digital pictures can have a bit more “pizazz” by upping the saturation a bit

• Hue refers to the color value of the image. Think of hue as a colored filter that you look through to see the entire image. As you adjust the hue of an image you shift the entire color spectrum. This can be very useful for creating special effects.

• Color balance refers to the relative intensity of colors in your image. A picture taken at sunset can seem too yellow or orange. A picture taken under fluorescent lights might seem too green. By adjusting color balance you can correct the overall color tone of an image. The colors are divided into three pairs: Cyan and Red; Magenta and Green; and Yellow and Blue. As you increase the amount of one color, you also automatically reduce its inverse.

Working with Color Adjustment

Picasa’s Color Adjustment Options

Photoshop Elements’ Color Adjustment Options

IrfanView’s Color Adjustments Options

Rotation or Crooked Pictures

Use the rotation or transform tool to straighten out crooked pictures or even to turn regular pictures on an angle to make them more interesting.

Cropping

Many pictures can be fixed by just cropping them to cut out extraneous background and change the focus to the subject of the picture. Cropping tools are available in Picasa, iPhoto and Photoshop Elements.

Example:

Retouching and Filters

If you use iPhoto on the Mac, Paintshop Pro on the PC or Photoshop on either, you can use the retouching tools and/or the filters to work with digital images for special effects or to get the look you want.

Popular retouching includes using the clone tool to remove unwanted background “noise” like power lines or electrical outlets.

Before (notice the plant holder “growing” out of the owl’s head):

After (planter is gone!):

You can also use blurring to emphasize the subject even more.

Before: Darth Tater Cowgirl is lost a bit:

After: Darth Tater Cowgirl stands out:

In Photoshop and Paintshop Pro, you can use the “layers” option to create collages or sandwich different exposures of the same scene to create the “perfect” shot.

Resources

Editing your digital images without the mystery:
http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/mystery.ars

Fast Fixes for Your Pictures
http://www.microsoft.com/canada/home/photosandmusic/2.0.23_fastfixesforyourphotos.asp

Editors:

Photoshop Elements ($70-$100): http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/main.html

Picasa (free, limited): http://www.picasa.com

IrfanView (free, limited): http://www.irfanview.com