How to Use a Graphics Tablet
It is kind of a silly question really to ask How to use a graphics tablet, but some people may be interested in the process of using the tablet or pen display to make digital images. I guess the best way would be to break down the process into a series of steps.
1. Get connected! Some graphics tablets connect using a serial connection or Bluetooth, but the majority of modern devices communicate with the PC or Mac via a USB cable. Make sure you have the tablet plugged in and powered on.
2. Choose your weapon! The tablets can be used with various styluses, pens, mice and input devices. Even the pen and stylus supplied with most modern tablets will also be supplied with a range of nibs or brushes which will make the strokes on screen different. The stylus or pen supplied with the graphics tablet will most likely be covered in an array of buttons and selectors which you can use to perform functions within the application you are using. Familiarize yourself with these too.
3. RTFM! Make sure you read all of the documentation that comes with your graphics tablet. It will tell you how to use and adjust the tablet to your needs. Some graphics tablets or interactive pen displays will allow you to adjust the angle at which you use them. Just this simple adjustment can make all the difference when using the device. There will also be software settings that can be tweaked and changed to make the experience more authentic.
4. Install the disks! As some of the popular graphics programs such as Adobe Photoshop come with a plethora of tools, settings, brushes and effects it is important that you install the drivers or plugins for your graphics tablet before you start. If you are using a software package that does not have a plugin supplied by the tablet manufacturer there will most likely be a system wide set of parameters and settings you can adjust to allow you to create better images.
5. Create! This is the most obvious part of the series of steps. Once you have installed the device, installed the disks and software and chosen the correct settings for you, the next part is to open the application you wish to use and get busy. Try choosing different brush sizes and shapes if the application supports it and also experiment with the levels of sensitivity that the graphics tablet and stylus allow you to use. These are perfect for making a nice watercolor painting or building up an image in layers.
The author runs a website where you can read a graphics tablet review on products such as Wacom, Vistablet and Genius. You can also read several more guides on getting the best out of your graphics tablet and which one to choose if you are buying.
Picasa is a Great Pick For Photo Enhancement, Printing and Sharing
Digital cameras let you easily take lots of pictures, giving you the freedom to experiment without racking up film processing fees. And there’s a perfect digital camera out there for everyone-from ones that comes with mobile phones to the fanciest digital SLRs. The real challenge for most people comes in finding an easy way to download, store, edit, organize, print and share those photos.
Picasa provides a perfect do-it-all solution that’s FREE! Forget about the software that came with your camera, it won’t come close to doing what Picasa can do. Neither will most of software in fancy boxes on store shelves. If you already have uploaded photos to an under-performing program, installing Picasa will instantly and automatically find and organize those and any photos on your hard drive. And, if you have KodakGallery.com, Snapfish.com or shutterfly.com accounts, Picasa works seamlessly with those and many other photo-printing sites, too.
What is it?
Picasa is free photo editing software that helps you manage and share photos and videos. You can download Picasa to your Windows XP, Vista or Linux desktop, or get a beta version for Macs. Launching Picasa immediately finds and organizes all the photos on your hard drive. Plug in a camera, phone or memory card and Picasa will automatically recognize the device and help you import those pictures and videos, too.
Popular Features
Picasa’s powerful editing tools let you do basic touchups or perform more advanced enhancements. Just a few of the popular features you’ll find, include:
- Cropping, rotating or straightening
- Retouching images with red-eye correction, brushes and more
- Adding text or watermarks
- Adding printable captions
- Adjusting light and shadows
- Applying effects like black & white, sepia tone or soft focus
- Creating and editing movies that combine photos, videos and music
Working within Picasa, you’ll also find easy-to-use options for arranging photos into collages, mosaics or contact sheets; custom-designing screen savers; exporting to make your own photo CDs; or printing photos on your own printer.Photo Sharing
What makes Picasa especially impressive is its intuitive navigation for uploading and sharing photos and videos. With a single click, you can upload selected photos to Picasa Web Albums for private online storage, sharing with friends and family, or public posting (which may elicit comments and ratings). You can store up to 1 GB of photos on Picasa Web Albums for free, and then you have the option of purchasing additional storage space at reasonable rates.
If you prefer to print your photos or you already have accounts at sites like KodakGallery.com or Snapfish.com, select your best photos then click the “Shop” button. You’ll be able to choose from about 15 different vendors that offer photo printing for in-store pick-up or at-home delivery as well as other photo-related products and services.
Picasa also makes it unbelievably easy to email pictures to friends using Gmail, Outlook, Outlook Express or Apple Mail. Again, you simply select your pictures then click one button to launch a new email with your photos already loaded and properly sized to ensure delivery. You’ll also find one-button options for uploading photos to Facebook and Blogger.
Good to Know
With so many features and options in Picasa, you may go a little crazy editing and manipulating your photos. But, never fear. Picasa always retains the original photo file regardless of how many alterations you make. In fact, you could go back and undo every change you’ve made to a photo two years after the fact.
Uploading photos to Picasa Web Albums is one way to save a backup copy, but after a few vacations and birthday parties you’re likely to run out of free storage space. Make sure you have another plan for backing up your photo files as well as all the other files on your computer. Carbonite is a good option or you can use the “Backup Pictures” tool in Picasa to quickly save files to an external hard drive or CD/DVD.
Patric Welch, also known as “Mr. Noobie,” empowers people to confidently approach technology and use it to enhance their lives. He has a passion for understanding and answering your technology challenges. You can find Mr. Noobie on the web at http://www.noobie.com.
How to Decide – Custom or Template Web Site Design?
How to Decide – Custom or Template Web Site Design?
If you’re starting a web site and planning to make some money from the site, you have to design on the design of your website, custom or template designs.
What is a template web site design and how different is it compared to a custom design?
For those who are not particular about the design about their website and is more concerned with the content and ranking of their web sites in search engines, then custom web site design is probably not necessary.
This is especially true if you have just started out in your business and don’t have a big budget for the design of your custom web site.
Without a single smidgen of a doubt, the design and structure of your web site is very important to the success of your online business. If the design is good and easy to navigate, you will eventually find more repeat customers. If the design is hard to navigate, you’ll lose customers even before they have a chance to see the potential of your products and services.
So, templates are good too if you have only a couple of pages and don’t have a lot of sections. Sometimes, the simpler the design is, the more customers you will get.
When is a custom design web site necessary for an online business?
It’s advisable for you to get someone to come up with a design unique to your web site if you plan to have an informational web site. A web site with reviews, information, articles and plan to attract your customers into buying from you by using the ‘stickiness’ technique.
Because I am assuming that you’re going to have a lot of information that is categorized into different categories, you need a clean-cut and professional looking web site design. Therefore, get someone to customize the design for you.
A custom design is also advisable for people who are planning to sell products and services from lots of categories, like beauty products, softwares, PC, games…etc. As you can see, they are all not related to each other in any way at all and they have to be separated into their own category. In such a case, I think it’s best that you invest in a separated design.
How to find people who are willing to custom design my web site or me cheaply?
Granted, we’re all working at a very low budget and cannot afford expensive design services from advertising agencies or web design companies that have lots of web designers who can custom design your web site for you.
You’re not alone. There are lots of us who are low on budget and big on dreams.
But don’t let our budget be an obstacle to our dreams of making some money on the internet via our web site.
You can find lots of freelance or contract workers who are willing to design your web site for you for below $100 from freelance websites. Some of them are college students who are looking to make some extra pocket money or fatten up their portfolio. Some of them need the experience and money to get them through college. So, making use of them is a good idea.
If you don’t think you can rely on people whom you can’t personally see, you can ask around and see if anyone knows of anyone who can offer you custom web site design services at an affordable price.
– Marsha Maung
Web Host – Host Yourself..!
You Can Be Your own Web Host
Nowadays it is possible for you to become your own web host. Machine prices are down. Web servers have become much faster with the new technology. You know a large number of websites use only a small portion of a web server’s resources and so a single web server can nowadays host a large number of web sites on it without any performance degradation. To become a web host for yourself, you must be a technologically sound person and you must know the basic concepts of setting up web servers.
You also must have a high speed dedicated Internet connection to your web server and as a webmaster you have to go for high band width (Band width is the measurement of data that is sent from the web server down to the visitor’s computer). Functioning as a web host is really time consuming and so you must have enough time to dedicate for this. And finally, you must be able to solve different problems that may occur in web servers.
If you don’t meet the above requirements, you may drop the project of becoming your own web host and consult a web hosting service.
Web Server Requirements for Web Host
The major points to be noted for setting up your own web server are
(1) You should have a computer dedicated as a web server,
(2) You must have a high speed broadband Internet connection for faster data transfer and a Network Interface Card (NIC),
(3) A computer that will be enough to keep up with server requests because many web sites hosted on the servers need high end performance capabilities,
(4) You should have an installed copy of Linux OS since Linux is one of the most popular server operating systems (You can also opt for Windows operating system for the server purpose),
(5) An ISP or Internet connection that can support web traffic and that can allow users to run web servers on it’s connection.
Linux OS Web Server for Web Host
Linux web hosting has become very popular nowadays. There are a number of Linux flavors to choose from. They include RedHat, Slackware and Debian. Before going for this, you need to learn Linux operating system thoroughly. The Linux operating system is freely downloadable from the Internet. You can make a thorough study of Linux operating system by visiting at the following websites.
1) Debian Server
2) Slackware Server – There are other Linux learning sites and they are “www.yolinux.com”, and “www.isolinux org”.
Windows OS Web Server for Web Host
Windows OS is, of course, quite a good operating system to act as a web server. Like Linux, Windows operating system has different versions.
Microsoft Project 2010 – Do You Need to Upgrade?
The internet age is characterized by fast technological change and constant updates and advances. Ten years ago, nobody had heard of Facebook or Twitter. Five years ago most people still thought a Blackberry was a fruit. Two years ago, just a decade after Jorn Barger coined the term “web-log”, blogs written by Buddhist monks constituted the primary news channel during the Burmese protests.
And now, yet again, Microsoft is marking a shift in way that the internet community works by launching a new generation of MS Office products, including Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft Project 2010.
What’s changed?
The main focus of the Microsoft 2010 products is on the increasingly blurred boundaries of work/home and computer/phone, the consequences partly of technological advances and partly of the changing business environment. Customers, suppliers and even employees are drawn from across the globe, necessitating flexible working hours and locations.
The Microsoft 2010 suite integrates various forms of communication, allowing users greater control over what, when and how they talk to one another.
MS Project
The first version was released in 1984 by a company working for Microsoft. Since then, users have seen a revolution in project management software. The latest edition, 2007, enables project managers to create complex Work Breakdown Structures, estimate costs and resources, experiment with “what if” scenarios and create comprehensive project documentation at a mouse-click, using templates.
The 2010 version will be released in the first half of 2010. Apart from the initial press release on April 15th 2009, Microsoft are keeping quiet about the specific features of the new product, which will be unveiled at the Microsoft Project Conference in September 2009.
Which version should you use?
Some project managers still use early versions. However, for most projects and project managers there are clear advantages to upgrading to the latest edition:
• Enhanced features enable more efficient planning, monitoring and control
• Optimized compatibility between MS Project and other software programs
• Up-to-date training ensures users can work with any edition of MS Project
Summary
The release of 2010 version will not necessarily entail throwing out 2007 version and retraining every staff member from scratch. However, it is in the interest of every project manager to remain informed about the new capabilities of MS Project 2010, and to update their knowledge through training-courses and tutorials. In the changing world of modern business, keeping up with technological advances is essential to survival and success.
Simon Buehring is a project manager, consultant and trainer. He works for KnowledgeTrain which offers ISEB training courses in the UK and overseas. He can be contacted via the ISEB business analysis website.
Simple Solutions to Windows Media Player Problems
Over the years I have used many of Microsoft’s products on a daily basis. I also like Windows Media Player and all of the features it has, but the other day I started to get error messages and did not know what to do. As it turns out I had a problem with my registry.
Apparently every time a program is installed or uninstalled the registry is changed. These changes can greatly affect the performance of every computer. Sometimes these changes get corrupted and the damaged files can cause the processor to work overtime trying to figure out what is going on. All of these things can slow down a computer and create errors.
I don’t really know that much about how a computer works or even how to edit a registry. Every website I went to for help would tell me all kinds of technical things about going into the registry and deleting this entry or that. I needed a program that I could install and it would do the rest. I needed a program that would speed up my computer and fix all of the errors with just a few simple clicks.
After a bit of research I found out that I could optimize my PC with a simple registry cleaning program and once I installed one of these programs, it did the rest. The program I used cleaned the registry and removed all of the old computer data that was slowing down my computer and giving me errors.
Every program I use seems to be running better and I have not gotten any error messages for Windows Media Player since I cleaned my registry. Before I used this program to clean my registry I would sometimes wait forever to get a program to start. I would click on my Windows Media Player and I could walk off to the kitchen; when I came back it would just be starting. Now I click the icon to start it and it is running before I even get out of the chair.
Thanks to the program that optimized my PC I have been able to learn more about my computer than I had in the past. All this time I thought that just like me, the older a computer gets the slower it runs, but now I think that if I just find the right program I can fix most computer problems on my own.
Optimize-Your-PC can help you, with its advanced registry cleaning technology; it will scan, diagnose and fix all erroneous Windows Media Player registry entries, leaving you with nothing but a highly-optimized PC.
Microsoft Access Tutorial
When determining your information needs it is important to select the correct tool for the job. Microsoft Access is the most popular desktop database in the world and is part of the Microsoft Office suite of programs. It is possible to create simple Microsoft Access databases by picking up bits of information from the internet and also books. Like anything, there are good and not so good ways of learning to use a product. Microsoft Access is ideal for a beginner to use as it has built in wizards to walk you through many aspects of creating a database. Whilst the wizards are powerful, there will be times when you want to tailor your systems and introduce new functionality. This is when you need to have more than an understanding of the basics. Take for example an invoicing system where you will have totals for unit price, sub total, grand total, package price, tax rates etc. This type of functionality will take skillful programming or development skills which the in built wizards cannot handle.
Would you want just a database for entering and displaying information or a complete integrated solution. One of the great things about Microsoft Office is that all the components can communicate with one another. You could have an Access database running on an overnight scheduler which then spits out a list of today’s sales figures into an Excel spreadsheet. That same spreadsheet could be automatically emailed overnight to the other side of the world or be available for accountants to look at in the morning. This is all possible with customization of your Microsoft Access database system.
Many find database theory difficult. There is a lot more to a Microsoft Access database than simply entering and displaying information. For example, database design involves removing the possibility of duplicate data, relating tables together, setting indexes to speed up searches as well as choosing the correct data types to hold information. How will you get answers quickly from your database? You will need to design Microsoft Access queries to extract the data from the tables. Say for example you want to know how many subscribers you got in the month of April.
It is important to have user friendly well designed screens to enter your information to your database. Screen design, whilst not exactly an art, still requires a good understanding of what does and does not look good. Reporting is another skill worth learning. The ability to get data into printed format is essential for example in producing timely management information.
Learning Microsoft Access takes time, but is worthwhile. In difficult economic times, the more computer skills a person has the better. Some of this information can be found on the internet if you are prepared to hunt around in the dark. Alternatively you could get yourself onto a comprehensive Microsoft Access tutorial class.
The #1 solution for total MS Access mastery
http://access-databases.com/ms-access-tutorial/
What is Svchost?
Svchost stands for Service Host. At startup svchost checks for services in the Windows XP registry that must be run through svchost.exe. Svchost is crucial to checking the Windows registry and loading the services from the dynamic link libraries (DNL) on your computer. The processes are grouped together to allow for easier control and debugging.
You can see the services that are running in svchost by
1. Click Start, then Run.
2. In Open box type CMD; then press Enter
3. Type Tasklist/SVC; then press Enter
Tasklist shows the active processes, and /SVC shows the active services. Tasklist is shown only on Windows XP Professional Edition and Vista.
Use Process Explorer in Windows XP Home Edition.
Svchost files are controlled by the user or administrator within the operating system’s registry, and are located in different locations, depending on the type of operating system. Several Svchosts will be running at the same time.
Hosts can block or filter online advertising, malicious spyware, adware and other unwanted intrusions in email. When the user directs a site to be blocked, the host assigns an invalid IP address which returns the message to the sender. However, there are clever trojan viruses and worms that can bypass the security system, so anti-virus software should be updated periodically to insure that a computer remains safe from hackers. An easy way to protect your computer is to set the file permission to “read only.”
Another way to protect your computer is to:
• install firewall protections
• reconfigure security settings
• update systems when prompted
• install spyware programs and run frequently
• open only sites that you know and trust
• periodically run a registry cleaning program
Svchost.exe errors will be eliminated, and your computer will show an increase in speed at start up and when running programs. A knowledgeable user or tech is able to disable unnecessary services that do not need to be running on start up. The casual user can easily fix svchost errors by using registry cleaning software that is able to organize and trim down svchosts to the most used services. A simple download of a good registry cleaning software will eliminate obsolete or corrupt drivers, partially installed or uninstalled software and malicious spyware and malware.
Periodic registry cleaning and updating installed software and anti-virus software will keep your PC running smoothly
With its advanced registry cleaning technology, Optimize-Your-PC can help you fix PC errors, including svchost, and have your PC running like new in under 2 minutes.
SaaS System Top 10 Design Issues
Software as a Service (SaaS) is a new software delivery and business model for ISV’s.
The SaaS delivery model involves delivering the application as a service, over the Internet.
The SaaS delivery model requires that the application either be designed from the beginning as a Multi-Tenanted (MT) SaaS application, or be a Single Tenanted (ST) application re-engineered for Quasi-SaaS operation. These features differentiate SaaS applications from the legacy ASP/Hosting model. They also differentiate SaaS applications from the Virtualization model, which has very little to do with SaaS and is more concerned with datacenter efficiency.
The SaaS business model involves an agile, Internet application based business that leverages advanced software architecture to quickly build a large user base at relatively low initial cost per user.
Taking a conventional application package and providing it as a hosted service (legacy ASP-Hosting model) is not SaaS. Even adding Virtualization does not constitute SaaS. If a hosting company hosts 100 separate instances of a software package, there are 100 software instances to install, maintain and (worst of all) customize. This model is not scalable and fails at low numbers.
The importance of SaaS is that it represents a complete paradigm shift that gained momentum around the year 2000 for the development and delivery of application software. SaaS is now reshaping the ISV landscape, leading to considerable re-organization within the software package industry.
To realize the SaaS opportunity, SaaS System designers/developers have to overcome the following, Top 10 design issues/challenges:
1. Multi-Tenancy
How to design an application that supports hundreds/thousands of companies.
2. Security
How to ensure that customer data is secure and that there is complete separation of data from one Tenant Company to the next.
3. Scalability
How to develop an application that can cope with say, 1,000 companies and 30,000 individual end users.
4. Availability
How to develop an application that can consistently delivers 99.5+% availability.
5. Performance
How to develop an application that can deliver < 500 ms transaction processing times, at the data centre.
6. Extensible Data Model
How to develop an application that can accommodate say, 1,000 system administrators. Each administrator being able to tailor the database to the needs of each company without affecting the others.
7. Customizable GUI
How to develop an application that can enable tenant company system administrators to customize the GUI that their end users see.
8. Customizable Business Logic
How to enable individual tenant companies to add their own business logic.
9. Workflow
How to design a system, so flexible, as to allow customers to add their own workflows to the application.
10. Internationalization
How to develop an application that can be used by companies and end users around the world.
Once the challenges have been overcome, the ISV has a scalable, flexible, secure, performance SaaS application, powering an agile SaaS business. Typically the SaaS model offers the following benefits:
Efficiency
Enables hundreds or thousands of companies to access centralized application software.
No Distribution
Avoids the need to physically distribute software to hundreds or thousands of customer locations.
Lower customer support costs
Ensures that all customers use the latest copy of the software. Eliminates the need to support previous versions of software. Provides substantial savings in customer support.
Lower barrier to entry
Lowers the entry level for customers and transforms a substantial investment in a perpetual software license fee to a modest monthly rental fee. Enabling the rapid building of a large user base.
Business Agility
Provides the basis for unparalleled business agility. A successful ISV can scale quickly and achieve global reach, without all of the costs and delays associated with conventional software houses.
In addition to challenging software development issues, there are also operations issues, arising because the customer no longer has responsibility for providing server-side infrastructure. The SaaS application runs on a central system, controlled by the ISV.
Similarly, whereas a traditional ISV may have experience of developing an application with an acceptable level of performance when being used by say 50 users in each customer company. In the SaaS model, the ISV must gear up to having a centralized n application supporting, say 500 companies having 50 users each = 25,000 users. That is a full two orders of magnitude difference in scale.
Understandably, few conventional ISV’s have the necessary experience and skills required to meet all of the primary design challenges. Most ISV’s will therefore need external help to design a SaaS application.
The Author is a independent SaaS development consultant providing SaaS design service and SaaS development to know more about the service please visit http://www.saas-attack.com
Basic Computer Security
Basic computer security is essential as the internet is constantly expanding and as it does so do the threats from malware, viruses and rogue programs. There are many ways that hackers and well organised criminal gangs will try to infiltrate your system so you need to take a pro-active role in defending your computer against such threats.
Whether you use a dial up connection or high speed, you need a good firewall which will monitor inbound traffic as well as outbound. The built in firewall offers little protection but it is better than no firewall at all and if you have a wireless router, many of these have a built in hardware firewall which can be configured to add another layer of security to your system.
Some advocate that with a router you don’t need a software firewall, but the advantage of a software firewall is that you can easily monitor inbound and outbound traffic. If you use a router, how often do you check your router logs?
You need a reliable antivirus program. The majority of computers come with pre-installed trial versions of Norton or McAfee but these can be a resource drain. There are many free firewalls and antivirus programs which offer excellent protection as well as the option to upgrade to the pro version.
Check your firewall at Gibson Research. This will check your firewall for vulnerabilities, open ports, file sharing and messenger spam, not to be confused with Live Messenger but the inbuilt Windows Messenger service.
Also direct your browser to pcflank where you can run several tests, scroll to the bottom of the page and look at the options recommended based upon your level of experience.
Anti-Virus
Many users have their own preferences and stick with what they know, this is not necessarily the best that is available. AVG has been the most popular for some time, but it has also encountered many problems and has become more bloated but there are many alternatives.
Essentials:
On your Desktop, create a New Folder and rename it ‘Downloads’ so that ALL program downloads are in one easy to find location.
One Firewall, One Antivirus, generally TWO Anti-Malware programs.
Bear in mind that each PC is configured differently, and there is no ‘one size fits all’. What works for one user may not work as well for another, because they have different programs and configurations, so you need to play around to find out what works best on your system.
Tweaking programs allows you to create a balance between the best protection against the minimal intrusion which constantly asks for permissions . It may take a few days for you to get the settings to your liking, but it will be worth it.
Prevention and taking a pro-active role in protecting your PC is the best way to deal with many of the threats from spyware and malicious downloads. Stopping it is much easier than removing it once it has installed itself.
DO NOT click unknown links on websites or in emails and DO NOT be fooled by the promises of programs that can scan and clean your computer or clean your registry, many contain malware and do more damage.
Also ensure you back up your registry in the event you need to restore from a good working copy. Go to Start > Run and type in regedit which will open the Editor, click on ‘File’ and then ‘Export’.
Whatever programs you use, they should prevent spyware installation and virus infections. If they fail to do so, then change programs to ones that will protect your system. Once malware gets installed, eradication can become time consuming and difficult and prevention is much easier than cure.
http://freepcsecurity.co.uk/2009/05/05/basic-computer-security
Colin Richards