Watermark your photos, free October 13, 2009
Posted by Kathy in Internet, Software.Tags: digital photography, images, watermark, copyright, dmca, digital millenium copyright act, media
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Due to copyright concerns many photographers add a “watermark” to their digital photos — a faint logo or text notice overlaid on the image (here’s an example). However, the basic photo management software that came with your computer or camera doesn’t necessarily include this capability.
Rather than buying a new program, you can try PicMarkr.com, a web site that watermarks your images for free. You can upload up to five images at a time from your computer, Facebook, Flickr, or Picasa and watermark them with text or a custom image in the position you choose. Then you can upload the results back to one of those online services or download onto your computer.
If the free Web version doesn’t do enough for you, you may be interested in the PicMarkr Pro desktop software for Windows at $39.99.
Google Stuff and Google Clout August 27, 2009
Posted by Kathy in Internet, Software.Tags: acquisition, applications, google, Internet, microsoft, online, webapps
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Have you noticed all the free applications Google is giving away?
Of course, there’s the popular Gmail. But there’s also Google Calendar for online calendars, and Google Docs for online document storage and sharing. Recently Google came out with a new web browser called Chrome to compete with Internet Explorer and Firefox. And that’s not all; if you want to see everything Google has to offer, check out this page.
But these applications aren’t feature-bereft, get-what-you-pay-for offerings slapped together by a programmer with a little free time. They are robust. Google Docs reads PDFs and Microsoft Office documents and allows you to share and collaborate with them. Google Analytics plugs into your web site for no-cost statistical analysis of your traffic. Google Earth has literally revolutionized the way we see the world. And can anyone say YouTube?
Granted, Google acquired most of these technologies rather than inventing them. Who can blame them? It’s pretty darned good stuff, and I realize I’ve come to rely on many of these products almost exclusively.
People think it’s Microsoft that dominates the computing landscape, but it’s not. If Microsoft owns your computer, Google owns the Internet. Hmm: Which would I rather have?
Test Your Anti-Virus July 28, 2009
Posted by Kathy in Internet, Software.Tags: anti-virus, avg, eicar, firewall, infection, malware, mcafee, norton, security, sotware, spyware, worm
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Have you wondered whether your anti-virus is actually working while its little icon is sitting in your system tray? Did you know you can test it?
EICAR, a European organization involved in virus research, provides a downloadable file which is harmless, but which all major anti-virus software recognizes as a virus for testing purposes. If your anti-virus program is working, you should receive an alert as soon as the file is downloaded. (Remember, it’s not a real virus!)
Visit the following link and scroll to the bottom of the page to download the test file, which is available in four versions. The first and the third (a compressed ZIP file) should suffice. If your anti-virus product doesn’t react to these files, then your real-time protection isn’t working. As always, you should keep your software up to date to ensure protection against the latest threats.
Control fan speed on Intel-based Apple laptops March 28, 2009
Posted by Kathy in Software.Tags: apple, computer, CPU, fans, heat, hot, laptop, macbook, portable, processor, temperature
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Does your MacBook run hot enough to fry chicken thighs — or your thighs, for that matter? If you have an Apple laptop with an Intel processor, you can actually change the speed of the fans, thus better controlling the overall temperature.
One program that allows you to do this is called smcFanControl, and it’s free (my favorite). It’s a very simple app that runs as a menu bar icon. The current version as of this writing has the ability to continually display both fan RPMs and temperature. You can even automatically load saved fan settings based on whether the laptop is running off battery or AC power. This software is very cool… and now so is my MacBook.
