Instructions For Idiots: August 2008

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Picasa: How to edit captions

Go to the album you want to add captions to in Picasa (The photos link from your Gmail account will take you to Picasa).
Click "edit captions" at the top. You will see something like this:
Edit Captions: Teachers at Howard Hall Farm

Click to add a caption

march 10, 2008. plaster, library
Click to add a caption

Type in captions and click Done.

Now you can use this album to create a slide-show that has captions with the photos.
Here is a sample of what that looks like:

Click here to learn how to embed Slide-shows in a Blog

That's it!

Picasa: Slide-show: How to use photos from different Picasa albums in a slideshow

In Picasa (which you get to by clicking the Photos link in your gmail account),

click New Album (near the top on the right)
Fill out the form that appears (Enter a title for your new album, you can enter a description if you want. Since you are going to use this album for a public slide-show, you will choose Public.)
Click Create.
Now you have an empty album. You can click the link to upload photos from your computer, or you can get photos from other albums you already have online. Here's how:
Click My Photos to go back and view all your albums.
Scroll to an album that has pictures you want and double-click to open it
Click the button at the top of the album labeled "Organize"
Click on the thumbnail of the picture you want and then click copy (on top of the box with photos in it)
It will say Copying items to album:
Enter details for a new album below or choose an existing album .
Click choose an existing album .
Select the new album you created to use for the slide-show.
Click Select Album.
It will copy it into your album.
(Rinse and repeat)

Good Job! Once you have all the pictures you want in your new album, you can create a slide-show. If you can't remember how to do this, click the link below for instructions:

How to embed Slide-shows in a Blog

Here is a sample of the new album's slide-show:

Blog: How to embed Slide-shows in a Blog

go to your gmail account and log in, click Photos at the top. It will take you to your Picasa photo albums. (If you need help before getting to this step, click here: How to get photos from your camera onto the computer (Windows))
If you want to embed an entire Picasa album into your blog as a slide-show, scroll down to the album you want and double-click it. You are now looking at everything in the album.
In the left sidebar, click Embed Slideshow.

A box pops up that says "Create a portable slideshow for your website, blog, Myspace, etc."

Slideshow preview appears on the right:

Need help putting this slideshow on your website?

An example of what a slide-show looks like once you have done this:

icontact: How to send a message to your mailing list

enter your username and password, and click Log in
Click the navy blue tab at the top left labeled "Create"
In My Messages, You can create a new message or work from a saved draft.
You can:
Create a Message
Re-Use a Sent Message
My Messages
My RSS-In Feeds
TO USE A MESSAGE YOU HAVE CREATED ELSEWHERE, CLICK Create a Message, then click Create a New Email from Scratch

All options:

Create a New Email using MessageBuilder

If you like a little hand-holding, our MessageBuilder is your best choice. MessageBuilder will allow you to select a template from our library and will walk you through creating your email with no HTML coding required. Templates are also available.
To do this, click "Create a New Message from Scratch"

Create a New Email from Scratch

Choose this option if you'd like to begin creating an email from scratch using our WYSIWYG editor.
To do this, click "Copy & Paste a Message"

Copy & Paste an Email

Select this option if you're using Dreamweaver, FrontPage or any other HTML editor. It's the perfect choice if you write your own HTML because you won't be given a WYSIWYG editor—just a place to paste your HTML code. Use the preview function to see how your email will appear before sending.

For email type, choose HTML Message (which means there can be pictures, and you can copy/paste links, etc.)
For Email Subject, type what you want to appear in the subject line of your newsletter/ press release, or whatever it is you're sending out.
Please Wait...
- You will see a box like this:
Just copy and paste the message you created in Google Docs into the box.
You must compose a plain-text email for contacts who cannot view HTML emails. This is easy: Next to where it says " Create your Plain-Text Email", click the yellow button:
A bunch of text will appear in the box. That's fine. You can edit it or ignore it. You can ignore this button also: (if you push it, it will tell you whether your email will look like spam or not)
Press Quicksave to save our work at any time:
Send a Test Email: Test emails differ from the emails your contacts receive in two ways: the test email will not have a footer, and subscriber and custom fields won't be populated. Enter your email address,__________________click:
Check your email inbox to make sure the test email looks okay.

will save your message.
Once, you have clicked save, it will take you to a new page, where you will see a list of your saved messages. Find the one you want to save, and click the image to the right of it that looks like an envelope and has a green arrow on it.
Choose Destination:

This is where you can choose who to send your email to:
Click the box next to the list or lists you want to send to.
Scroll to the bottom of the page, and click the green box labeled "Proceed to Send"

icontact: How to create a list

iContact is a paid service that we use for our mailing list. Click the picture below to go to their site:

enter your username and password, and click Log in
Click the navy blue tab at the top left labeled "My Contacts" My Lists

Lists help you organize your contacts. For example, you can create one for each of your newsletters. Click either Create a list or My Lists.
They will walk you through it from there.

icontact: How to add contacts to a list

iContact is a paid service that we use for our mailing list. Click the picture below to go to their site:

enter your username and password, and click Log in
Click the navy blue tab at the top left labeled "My Contacts"
You will see 4 boxes with different things you can do.
In the box on the top right called "Add Contacts" it's easy to add contacts. Import using a CSV file, copy and paste, or add them one at a time. You can also create a sign-up form to post on your website.
Click the link that describes how you want to add contacts. Your choices are:
From File
One at a Time
Copy & Paste
Sign-up Forms
Icontact will walk you through the process from there.

Gmail Document Transfer: how-to

If you have documents in one gmail account, and want them to appear in someone else's gmail account instead of yours, you can transfer ownership of the documents by:

Login to your gmail account
Click Documents in the upper left-hand corner
Click the check-box next to all documents you want to transfer to your other gmail account (er...I mean to someone else's gmail account...)
Click the "More Actions" tab on the right side of the blue navigation bar, scroll down down and click "change owner"
A box will pop up and ask you to select the NEW OWNER of these documents (You can choose from your contacts)
Click CHANGE OWNER
It will take a moment to load. Be Patient. You can tell it's loading because you will see a red tab at the upper right of the screen that says "Loading...."
When it's done, your Google Docs page will be the same as before, except the documents you transferred will all be at the top of the page with check-marks next to them.
At this point you can do nothing, and they will stay in your Google Docs folder, even though someone else is the owner. You will be a collaborator, which means you can edit them, but the owner will see all your changes.
You can also delete them if you no longer need access, without taking them away from the owner. To do this, Click "Delete" in the blue navigation bar (it has a picture of a trash can next to it). You're done!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

How to insert a picture into a document to email it .

Log into your GMAIL account.
Click the Documents link at the top of the page.
Click the button that says NEW in the blue navigation bar.
Scroll down and click Document.
A new window opens with this at the top left corner:

Type in any words you want in the message.
When you are ready to insert a picture, click Insert (in the blue navigation bar), scroll down and click picture.

Choose one of the following:

If you want to upload a picture from your computer, click "From this computer", then click the browse button, and use it to open the picture you want to use.

If you want to use a picture you saw online somewhere,
click "From the web (URL). Open a new window and go to the website where you saw the picture. You can copy and paste it, or you can right click the picture with your mouse, click copy image location, then go back to the window in Google Docs and right click with your mouse, scroll down, and click paste (to paste the location of the picture). Then click insert, and the picture magically appears within your message.

Example of a picture in with the text:

historic house
(image courtesy of Howard Hall Farm)

When you are happy with what you've written, and are ready to send it, click the blue SHARE button (upper right side of your google doc), and scroll down to "email as attachment". A little window pops up.

In the To: section, enter the email address you want to send it to.

Click "Paste the document itself into message".

You can type in a subject and extra message, or leave it blank.

Click CC me if you want a copy sent to yourself.

Click SEND.

You're done.

How to get Picasa and Gmail (completely free):

If you are using a computer that does not have Picasa, and you want it, sign into your gmail account, click Photos in the upper left-hand corner, and download Picasa. It will walk you through the setup.

OR YOU CAN CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PICASA.

WHY YOU WANT PICASA:

So you can say, "Wow, Picasa found all my photos!"

"When you install Picasa, it instantly goes to work, organizing all the pictures on your hard drive by date in the "Folders on Disk" collection. " You will never have to search through your entire computer hunting for pictures.

Need help using the software?

Visit Support to reference the Picasa Getting Started Guide and helpful FAQs.

If you don't have Gmail, you can get it by clicking here: GET GMAIL

WHY YOU WANT GMAIL:

Find out how you can communicate better with Gmail, a free webmail service from Google.

	Get less spam Gmail blocks spam before it even gets to your inbox.
	More storage Over 7047.815956 megabytes (and growing) of free storage so you will never need to delete another message.
	Never lose a message again Google search technology means you can easily find any email or chat.
	Un-clutter your email Gmail organizes and automatically groups emails into conversations.
	Chat immediately Talk to the people you email with built-in chat.
	Mobile access Read Gmail on your mobile phone by pointing your phone's web browser to http://gmail.com/app Learn more


	Create an account

How to get photos from your camera onto the computer (Windows):

plug in white usb chord to the camera and the computer
move camera switch to down position
push button on top of camera to turn it on.
Camera window opens automatically.
Scroll down and choose Microsoft scanner and camera wizard
click ok
camera wizard opens automatically
click next
all thumbnails show up and are automatically selected
-uncheck the ones you don't want
click next
type in name for this group of pictures (I enter the full date unless they are all from one place, in which case I use the format: date, location)
click next
The window will copy the pictures onto the computer
Then click Nothing
Click next
Click Finish.
The folder on your computer will open, and you can view the pictures.
NOW TURN OFF THE CAMERA TO SAVE THE BATTERY!

How to get lots of pictures from your computer to other people in the real world who are nowhere near your computer:

HOW TO USE PICASA

If you are using a computer that does not have Picasa, and you want it, sign into your gmail account, click Photos in the upper left-hand corner, and download Picasa. It will walk you through the setup.

1.To upload photos from camera:

plug in white usb chord to camera
move camera switch to down position
push button on top of camera to turn it on.
Camera window opens automatically.
Scroll down and choose Microsoft scanner and camera wizard
click ok
camera wizard opens automatically
click next
all thumbnails show up and are automatically selected
-uncheck the ones you don't want
click next
type in name for this group of pictures (I enter the full date unless they are all from one place, in which case I use the format: date, location)
click next
The window will copy the pictures onto the computer
Then click Nothing
Click next
Click Finish.

The folder on your computer will open, and you can view the pictures.
NOW TURN OFF THE CAMERA TO SAVE THE BATTERY!

You can close the folder, unplug the camera and do any of the following things:

2. WORKING WITH PHOTOS IN PICASA (ON YOUR COMPUTER)

DELETE PICTURES FROM THE CAMERA ONCE YOU ARE SURE THEY'RE ALL ON THE COMPUTER: turn on camera, press menu button on bottom right of camera, scroll down to "Erase All", press circle button called func. set. Erase all images? Click okay, then func. set again. It will erase. When it's finished, it will say "No Image". Turn off the camera.

SORT THE PICTURES ON YOUR COMPUTER: Go to the folder of pictures that opened automatically. Click the icon at the right that looks like a box, scroll to "thumbnail' and click. Now you see thumbnails of all the pictures. If you want to select some to move to a new folder, click the first image you want, hold down the shift key, and click the last image you want (you can de-select by holding down control). Click Edit, scroll down to "move to folder". Scroll to location you want to move them or make a new folder. (Usually in My Documents.) Select the one you want and click "move".

EDIT AND ROTATE THE PICTURES: Open Picasa (rainbow icon). It will take a second for picasa to automatically detect the new photos. The name of your new folder will appear in the left of picasa under 'Folders" and it will be at the top of the list. Click that when you see it to view the pictures. To edit a picture, first click file, and scroll down to "save a copy", then you can edit using the buttons on the left. When you like the way it looks, click "file", and scroll down to save.

TO EMAIL A PICTURE DIRECTLY FROM PICASA: Select the one you want, click hold, then click the email button at the bottom. Enter your gmail password for the account you want to use, and create the email, then send it as usual.

TO SEPARATE PHOTOS INTO FOLDERS FROM WITHIN PICASA: Select first and last of the photos you want using shift and press hold. You know you've got them when they appear as thumbnails in the lower left with green dots on them. To de-select a picture, press control and click the one you don't want, then press clear. Once you have all the ones you want selected in he box on the lower left, click File, then scroll down to "Move to Folder". Name the new folder and date it, then click okay. The new album you have just created will automatically appear. To clear the tray to the lower left, click CLEAR, then yes. IF YOU MISS SOME, IT'S FINE. Just select the ones you forgot to copy to the new folder, and drag them into the folder on the left.

TO CHANGE FILE NAMES OF A GROUP OF PICTURES AT ONCE FROM WITHIN PICASA: Select the pictures you want (again, using shift click), then click Picture, scroll to "batch edit", scroll to "RENAME". A window pops up. Change names to anything you want. Click include date in filename. Click rename. You're done.

TO VIEW A PICTURE IN ITS ORIGINAL FORM: Right click on the picture. Scroll down to "Locate", Choose either "file on disk" (for edited version), or "original on disk" (for the original version).

TO UPLOAD TO AN ALBUM ONLINE: Select the photos you want and click hold. Click the button that says "web album". You can create a new album just by typing in what you want the album to be called or: Choose "Add to an existing album." Select the album you want. Click okay. You will know the upload is finished because a new button will appear that says "VIEW ONLINE". If you click the button, you can see the whole album that you added those pictures to.

TO SHARE AN ONLINE ALBUM: Look at the album online. On the left side, click "link to this album". You want to Paste link in email or IM, so copy the text there in the white box, and paste it into your email. To do this, highlight the link in the white box under where it says paste link in email. Hold down the Control (Ctrl) button, and type the letter c. Then go to the email you are writing in a new window, place your ,pointer in the section where you type your email message, and hold down the control button again, and type the letter v. the link will appear in your email.

IMPORTANT: NEVER EVER CLICK WHERE IT SAYS "DELETE ALBUM" OR THE PICTURES ARE LOST FOREVER.

One great thing about having picasa on your computer is that once you have uploaded pictures to your web album, as long as you are still logged in (which you are automatically if you have been uploading pictures), you can tell which pictures you have uploaded because there will be a small green arrow on all the thumbnails of the pictures you have stored online. This is very useful because you can use it to avoid uploading duplicate photos.

Instructions For Idiots

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Google Docs: How to Share a document

GMAIL: How to copy an email into a google doc

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Picasa: How to edit captions

Click here to learn how to embed Slide-shows in a Blog