Computers 101

Q:
Sometimes when I scroll over a picture on a web page, a little box comes up with four icons in it. What do they do?

A:
Before Internet Explorer 6, if you wanted to Save, Print, or email a picture you would need to follow the variouse procedures for each. But with IE6 the Image Toolbar comes up, giving you a few options.

The symbols are not too mysterious: the first icon in the toolbar looks like a little floppy disk, which seems to be the universal symbol for "Save"; the second looks like a printer (guess what that does?); the third looks like an envelope (another obvious one); and the last one opens your "My Pictures" folder.

Now, you may notice that the Image Toolbar does not always come up when your cursor is on a picture. I'm not sure why this happens—just blame Microsoft and use the old methods for saving, printing, and emailing pictures from websites.

~ David

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Tip of the Day

Making Pictures the Right Size

What's the "right" size for a picture? Well, that depends on the photo. Most monitors display at 72 dpi (dots per inch). So, if you want the picture to be 5 inches wide (probably about the biggest you would want for an e-mail message), the picture would be 360 pixels wide (5 inches x 72 dpi = 360 pixels).

Pixel is short for "Picture Element" and is the smallest unit of visual information used to build an image. If you have ever zoomed in on an image, Pixels are those little squares that you see. The more pixels in an image, the better the resolution.

So, how do you make the picture the right size? Use your imaging software! Most scanners and digital cameras come with some sort of imaging software that will allow you to resize an image.

Open the picture in your imaging software and resize the image to your desired resolution. You can usually do this via an Image or Edit menu. Your menu style and commands may vary depending on your software.

Usually, you'll get a screen that lets you input the image size in pixels. If there's a checkbox that allows you to constrain proportions, make sure that's checked (this insures that when you change the height or width the picture remains proportional).

That should do it. Since you've changed the picture size, you may want to save it under a different name. Use the Save As command under the File menu of your imaging software.

This comes in handy when you want to place a picture on your desktop or if you send it by email. Now your friends won't wait forever to download a 10 meg picture file that is WAY too big when it could have been 10K and just the right size.

~ Steve

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Amanda's Cool Site of the Day

Internet Sacred Text Archives

This site is very much what the title says. It is an archive of texts, that are online, for anyone to view without establishing nation or creed, to promote religious tolerance and scholarship.

You can read up about everything from myth and folklore to the major religions. If you want to read the Bible, the Koran, or myths about Atlantis—they are all here. On their main page, scroll down and you'll have find a listing of subjects to read about.

You can then choose what in that topic you would like to read about. All this information is really well written and they will even give you titles of books on the same subject you can read for more in-depth information.

All in all this site is a gem.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm

Do you have a cool, non-commercial site that you want to share?
Send it to Amanda at amanda@worldstart.com