Computer Info September 19, 2001
This Weeks Meeting
We will finish looking at Netscape
6.1 discuss about putting a password on a document file and the regular
question and answer session.
IrfanView
This is an freeware program and you can download it from
http://www.irfanview.com
ACQUIRE (FILE-ACQUIRE)
This command will access
your scanner interface so that what you scan will be brought directly
into IrfanView.
CROP (EDIT-CROP)
You have the ability to
CROP your picture. To do this, you will first have to draw a box (where
you want to crop the picture to). You do this by holding down the left
mouse button and dragging it to form a box. If the box is not exactly where
you want it just draw another box. When you have your box drawn, then
from the EDIT menu, choose CROP.
PASTE (EDIT-PASTE)
If you have something on
the clipboard, the PASTE selection on the EDIT menu will be black (and
not grayed out). The PASTE works a little different in this program. If
you choose PASTE, your entire picture will disappear and be replaced with
the contents of the clipboard. If you wish to paste the contents of the
clipboard into your existing picture, you must first draw a selection box
(by holding down the left mouse button and dragging a box on your picture).
Then when you choose PASTE, the contents of the clipboard will merge with
your existing picture.
INFORMATION (IMAGE-INFORMATION)
Information gives you much
more information than you ever wanted to know about a picture. This information
includes NUMBER OF COLORS, ORIGINAL SIZE, NEW SIZE, FOLDER WHERE IT IS
STORED, etc.
ROTATE AND FLIP (IMAGE)
These are both useful commands
to use. You will find them under the IMAGE menu.
CONVERT TO GRAYSCALE (IMAGE-CONVERT TO GRAYSCALE)
This will make your colored
picture into a black and white (grayscale) image.
ENHANCE COLORS (IMAGE-ENHANCE COLORS)
This seems to be a great
feature. This allows you to change the brightness contrast and color
balance.
SCREEN CAPTURE (OPTIONS-CAPTURE)
This feature allows you
to retrieve a screen picture of something that you have open.
WALLPAPER (OPTIONS-SET AS WALLPAPER)
This allows you to make
any picture that you have opened in Irfanview into your desktop wallpaper.
CHANGE ICON
Many people have ask how
to change the icon that represents IRFANVIEW on your desktop. Right-click
on the IrfanView icon on your desktop and choose PROPERTIES. On the SHORTCUT
tab click on CHANGE ICON. This will give you a few other choices besides
the red splat that everyone is use to.
BACKGROUND COLOR (IMAGE CREATE NEW IMAGE)
The default background color
when creating a new image can be changed. To set this, from the IMAGE menu,
choose CREATE NEW IMAGE. Here you will see a button called BACKGROUND COLOR.
You have the option of any color.
Remember File Extensions
Why Dont All Of My Pictures Open My Photo Pgm When I Double Click On
Them???
Photo programs and Windows
recognizes that a file is a picture file by the three characters after
the file name known as the file extension. If you do not give a picture
a file extension, then Windows and other programs do not know what to do
with it.
Usually, if you are saving
a picture from a photo editing program, the program would automatically
place a file extension on the file. BUT, if you are saving a picture from
the Internet and the name of the picture is not something that you think
you will remember, then you might be tempted to rename it --- there is
no problem with that BUT, first look at the extension that the file has
and when you rename the picture, be sure to give it the same extension.
Password on Document
To restrict access to a document,
you can place a password on the file when you save it. In Word, under FILE-SAVE
AS, you will find a OPTIONS button. On this screen, you will find the place
to put the password. This information will be saved with the file. BUT,
YOU MUST REMEMBER THAT ONCE YOU DO THIS, YOU MUST REMEMBER THE PASSWORD
IN ORDER TO OPEN THE FILE. This password will protect the file from being
opened in any type of word processing program.
To remove the password,
first you must remember the password so that you can open the file. Once
you have the file opened, you can re-save it by using FILE-SAVE AS and
again choose the OPTIONS button and remove the password before saving
the file.
Article from Canadian Newspaper America: The
Good Neighbor
Interesting to note how many
times we received this article via email during this past week. What isnt
stated in the emails is the fact that this article was broadcast on June
5, 1973. The statements in this article do seem to be timely and fit the
circumstances of today; BUT I believe that the emails should state where
this information is from and when it was written.
You can read it yourself
or listen to the original audio at this web address ---
http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/schools/rta/ccf/news/unique/am_text.html
Nostradamus
We also received many emails
telling us about a prediction that Nostradamus wrote. Who was Nostradamus?
He was a French physician and astrologer who lived between 1503 and 1566.
He wrote numerous predictions that people have attempted to fit to the
events of their times. These predictions can often ring somewhat true in
that the images employed are so general they can be found in almost every
event of import, but by the same token, the prophecies are never a dead-on
fit because the wordings are far too general.
BUT, Nostradamus did not
write the quatrain now being attributed to him. (One wonders how a guy
who died in 1566 could have written an item identified as being penned
in 1654 anyway.) It originated with a student at Brock University in Canada
in the 1990s, appearing on a web page essay on Nostradamus. That particular
quatrain was offered by the page's author, Neil Marshall, as a fabricated
example to illustrate how easily an important-sounding prophecy can be
crafted through the use of abstract imagery. He pointed out how the terms
he used were so deliberately vague they could be interpreted to fit any
number of cataclysmic events.
You can read about it at
this web site.
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/predict.htm
America's tragedy is felt by all the world
This is a good web site that
shows pictures of people around the world expressing their sorrow at the
tragedy that hit America.
http://coo.stonekitty.net/thankyou/index.html