Wednesday, December 04, 2013

I had a cheerful email from F. herself yesterday. She is full of praise for the care she has had, and the speed at which it was delivered.

Computing

Judith, I think you've cracked the pop-up problem! Many, many thanks! I clicked that symbol with the three horizontal lines and wandered about – it was much as you said, but not quite. But just as you said, wandering about exploring the functions of various buttons finally produced the suggestion that I reset everything – Chrome had imported all my settings from the other computer. That seems to have done the trick. Although Old Slowcoach was never afflicted with pop-ups.

My sister suggested much the same thing, with the reminder that I could always switch browsers (to Firefox).

My practice is to compose off-line, save, paste into Blogger. Yesterday I couldn't even edit the end of the entry because of the obtrusive ads. Today all seems well.

The next serious problem is photography. I have been using, for years, a free program from Kodak called OfotoNow. It doesn't seem to be around any more. It lets me rotate pictures, and crop them, and save them with a lot fewer pixels (for the sake of speed, and not using up all my free space on Blogger too soon). That's really all I need. Suggestions?

For the sake of those blasted ducks, I had to fire up Old Slowcoach yesterday and deal with the pictures from there. It took far too long.  For the moment, we'll have to make do with downloads.


Yesterday was my sister's birthday. She is not as old as I am, but catching up fast.

No word from the Computer Man.

Knitting

...and no yarn for the Sensible Christmas Project, either. It had better turn up today, if it knows what's good for it.

I have, for the moment, laid Rams & Yowes aside to concentrate on Milano. I have my reasons. There's not much time for concentration, anyway, because of Christmas-card-writing.

I often worry – Cat and others – about what these weeks must be like Down Under. They're awful, here, but at least I have darkness outside the window as I write those cards, and the comforting promise of the return of the light if I can just stick it out. But you have to faff about writing cards and hanging up decorations when you'd rather be out in the garden with your beans, or down at the beach with a barbie. Or does summer make it easier to bear?

Non-knit

Today's excitement is a routine (diabetic) appt at the Eye Hospital for my husband. I won't be particularly needed so I should be able to finish turning the heel of that Pakokku sock. We'll have to take a taxi – no known parking in the vicinity. That makes things easier, in a way.

Three years ago, when my sister-in-law was dying, the winter was savage already, by this date. This time, we've had it easy so far. Long may it last.

9 comments:

  1. Good news about F. She sounds very positive.

    I often think how much nicer it would be to have Christmas in the summer. Longer days and easier travel for those who journey to their relations for the holiday. I'm quite OK with no celebrations here now. With nine siblings, all in middle/old age, I only do presents for my grandchildren and their parents. The card list is getting shorter too. I find the mountain of "stuff" for sale at this time of year quite upsetting.

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  2. I host the pictures for my blog from flickr online, it also does my ravelry pictures. You can copy the code for the picture from flickr into the blogger page and edit them if you want.

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  3. Patience11:58 AM

    If you're looking to do simple photo editing, I use GIMP. Free from www.gimpl.org It will do a lot more, but I tend to open file, Image, transform to rotate if needed, then select the crop rectangle, apply to the bit I want, then Image, crop to selection, then Image, Scale Image, put the numbers in the boxes, then Save. Done. Himself on the other hand, also uses it, all the different bits to do fancy things to his photos that he thinks needed. Suits us both.

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  4. If your new computer is using Windows 8 nthere is a very good photo editor built in.

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  5. I just clicked on your link to the Knitting Curmudgeon and apparently that site is not active any more. Did it move or?
    I hope your yarn comes today. Glad to hear F is doing well.

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  6. Google has the free program for photo editing and storing called Picasa. I have used it 7 years, intuitive with good results.

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  7. Online photo editor I use is called Picmonkey - extremely easy to use. Gale Zucker, photog extraordinaire, recommended it and I use it all the time. Nice part is that because it is online there is no loading software, but all the photos are saved on your computer, not in the cloud.

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  8. for photo editing in windows 8 - use the photo editor that is already installed. you can right click on your photo and it should give you options to open - look for OPEN WITH and then as you hover your mouse pointer on the words there will be a list to the right with a list of programs you can use .. PAINT should be one of them. That will let you edit and crop and save the photo.

    however, flickr is a great investment - you can upload all your photos and they will be stored in their cloud (they are giving away 1T of free space to all free users... those of us who have paid for the sub plan for years... well, sigh. we can use more than 1T ... still it rankles that they didnt give us something in return. however...)

    anyway, you can upload your photos to flickr and then edit them and then grab the url as mentioned in the comment above and paste that url (or insert it).

    since you blog everyday you may want to consider a program like blogjet which is an actual editor that allows you to save your posts as drafts and see how they look including inserting photos etc. and then you can publish to your blog - it works with all flavors of blogging sites. the beauty is that you are working offline and wont lose your work. as well as having access to more sophisticated editing options.

    ah well, maybe more info than you wanted.. but well thats the problem when you work in tech support.

    good news from F. will keep her in our prayers.

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  9. I have not really had time to think about Christmas! We usually have to go backwards and forwards watering things in an attempt to keep them alive in the heat - some things need watering three times a day, most only twice. Summer is no fun here if you have a garden and want it to stay alive. (I also loathe hot weather.)
    I have never yet had a BBQ on the beach!

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