Number 244 - September 2003

Sharing - Thoughts of a PC Novice
by Lois Claus, HHICC - Island Computing - July & August 2003
If you find that sending a photo by E-mail always seems to present a challenge, see if my latest discovery, however accidental, may be helpful. At a party recently our hostess took our picture (digitally, of course; she's a computer whiz). The next day we were able to bring it up on her web site and print it out. Since it was generally flattering, I thought I would send it out on the Internet to friends and relatives.    Usually I go through a trial and error period, trying to find out where it is stored, (or if it is stored) on my computer, opening it as an attachment, etc. But this time I just clicked on the red heart at the top right of the photo and up popped some options. I could have checked the usual "Add this to my favorites" but behold, there was another option I had barely noticed before: "Send this by E-mail."    I checked that one and, like magic, there was a Send To: window on my screen. All I had to do was go through my address book and click on the names I thought might enjoy seeing the picture. It was so easy I could have sent it to my whole Christmas card list. And now I'm getting a response from several of them. What a treat.	Editor's Note:    Unfortunately it's not always quite that easy. Recently I shared, with several of my e-mail pals, not just one but about 20 of the photos I took at my high school reunion . I took them with an "old-fashioned" analogue camera and scanned them into digital images. Usually, because the files are so big I compress them with WinZip and send them as an e-mail attachment in a much smaller ZIP file. Then the recipients can put the zip file into whatever directory they want and unzip it there. One alumnus, although a clever Chemical Engineer, was particularly naive when it came to such arcane stuff as Zip files, so I sent him the files in the "self-extracting" format. All he had to do was click on them to extract them in viewable form. I just hope he has some smart kids, or grandkids around to show him how to handle them.    If you don't know about using file compression (e.g. WinZip or PKZip) or how to place files in a separate directory ask about it at the next meeting. Then try it a few times so that when or if you receive a Zip file, you'll know what to do with it.
Number 244 - September 2003