Cryptech V2

The Difference Between 3G Mobile Internet and WiFi Wireless Networks

Tim Cinel — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:49:52 +0000

I’ve noticed that quite a few people are confused by wireless internet media, more specifically 3G and WiFi. Every time I try and explain it, I end up drawing a rough sketch outlining the differences. Here’s a neat diagram showing the difference between the two:

Notes:

While some Internet Service Providers offer both 3G and WiFi internet, they usually consider them separate services and require separate subscriptions.
3G is almost always more expensive than WiFi connected to a fixed service, so when WiFi is available – use it!
Most 3G Service Providers offer a USB modem with their subscription services at a cost.
3G can be quite fast, but is in most cases worse than WiFi.

Convert Word Documents, Web Pages, and anything else to PDF with PDFCreator (for Free)

Tim Cinel — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:53:25 +0000

In the last five or so years, PDF format has become the defacto format for sending documents (documents that do not require editing or changing). Documents like application forms, terms and conditions, quotes, contracts, product disclosure statements – they’re almost always available in PDF format when the medium of delivery is the internet. You’ve probably wondered before, “How can I create PDF files?”

A lot of people think they need to buy Adobe Acrobat to create PDFs, but it’s not true. There’s software available that will allow you to convert practically anything into simple and compatible PDF. Better yet, you can actually continue using whatever software you want. Read on to learn how to create PDF files.

Create PDF File from Excel, Word or Anything

First thing’s first – get yourself a copy of PDFCreator from http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ and install it. (Contact me for additional assistance with installing software)

After it’s installed, you may have to restart your computer.

Now PDFCreator’s installed and you (may have) restarted your computer. Next, I want you to think about what you want to convert to a PDF; remember that it can be practically anything. In fact, anything that you can print – you can convert to a PDF. So go ahead and open the file you want to convert (in the program you usually open it with – so if it’s a Word document, open it in Word; if it’s a web page, open it in your browser.)

Remember how I said “anything you can print – you can convert to a PDF”? Well here’s why. To begin the process of exporting (converting) the PDF version, print the document. In most programs, this is achieved by clicking “File > Print”.

For this tutorial, I’m going to convert the “Disable Windows Media Player Album Art – Turn Off Information Retrieval” tutorial into a PDF.

When the print dialog appears, click the down-arrow next to the printer, and select “PDFCreator” as your printer. You can change any print preferences if you like. Then, when you’re ready, click “Print” (or “Ok”).

The computer will churn for a few seconds, creating your new PDF file.

You’ll be presented with a PDFCreator dialog which will allow you to fill in document attributes – changing these is optional. When you’re happy with these attributes, click “Save”.

Now all you have to do is choose where to save it what name you want to give it.

There’s our PDF file!

If there were any steps you find too difficult, please contact me and I will help you.

Disable Windows Media Player Album Art – Turn Off Information Retrieval

Tim Cinel — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:39:46 +0000

Windows Media Player downloads album art into the same directory as music files. As a result, your music file structure end up littered with hundreds of ugly AlbumArt___….jpg files. There’s no way to disable only album art, but you can turn off information retrieval which will stop Windows Media Player from getting new album art. Unfortunately, it will also stop Windows Media Player from obtaining meta-data for CDs that you rip. Here’s how to turn it on and off.

In Windows Media Player, click the small down-arrow beneath “Library” (Alternatively, press the ALT key, click “Tools > Options …” then go to the “Library” tab)

Check or uncheck “Retrieve additional information from the internet”

Click “Ok”.

Note that if you want to rip a CD, you should turn this back on – otherwise you’ll have to manually enter the album name, track names, artists, etc. Of course – this means the album art for the media will be obtained again. Just delete the AlbumArt____ file after ripping the CD. Better yet, use a different program to rip.

How To Share Photos with Picasa Web Galleries

Tim Cinel — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:19:30 +0000

In 2010, more photos are viewed on screens than on actual photographic paper. We’re sharing more photos than ever. However, sending large emails packed with photos is becoming too cumbersome and inefficient.

You may have noticed more and more people are now ’sharing’ their photos through an online service such as Picasa Web Albums or Kodak EasyShare. These services make things easier. For one, it’s easier for the recipients to view photos and share their photos with you. Also, having the photos online is like having another backup. The best part is that it’s much more social – people you invite to view photos can discuss and contribute to the gallery with each other.

Here’s how to share photos online using my photo manager of choice, Picasa:

Make sure you’ve got Picasa 3.5 at least, and a Picasa Web Galleries account.

If you’re not signed in to your account, click “Sign In”

When you’re signed in, your username will show up.

If you only want to share some photos from a folder, and not all, follow these steps:

Select the photos you want to share by holding CTRL key (bottom-left) and clicking on each of the individual photos or by “pinning them” to the tray.

Once you’ve selected the files you want to share (they should be in the tray, near the bottom-left of the window) click the album button to the right of the tray and then “New album”

Notice how the selected photos show up in the tray.

Enter a name for the new album and click “Ok”. You might want to give it an obvious name.

Simply find the new album in the album list and click on it. Now we can continue!

Find the folder or album you want to share, and click “Share” above the album, like so:

Enter the email addresses of the people you want to invite to view the photos:

Decide on whether you want your album to be listed publicly, not listed publicly but available to the invitees (unlisted), or only available to Picasa Web Gallery members (sign-in-required).

Click “Send” to start uploading. Obviously, the more photos you share, the longer the upload will take.

Copy or Transfer Music To an iPod from Another Computer

Tim Cinel — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:49:46 +0000

Normally, iTunes doesn’t allow you to copy music from an iPod with more than one computer without first wiping it or deleting all the existing music. There’s a way around this restriction thanks to SharePod (download it here). Here’s how to do it:

Before you get started, though, you’ll need to copy all tracks you want to transfer to the ‘foreign’ iPod to a new folder.

For example, if you wanted to transfer songs to your sister Rosemary’s iPod, you could create a folder ‘Rosemary’s Music’ on the desktop.

For each track or album you want to transfer to Rosemary’s iPod, locate the track file or album folder on your computer (eg. In your Music folder) and copy it.

Then paste in the ‘Rosemary’s Music’ folder.

Once you’ve copied all the music you want to copy to the foreign iPod, plug in your iPod – make sure it says ‘Connected’ on the screen.

Open SharePod. If you haven’t already downloaded and installed it, get SharePod here.

When SharePod’s connected to the iPod, it will show a list of the songs on the connected iPod. Click ‘Copy to iPod’

Click ‘Add Folder’, then locate ‘Rosemary’s Music’ (your folder full of music for the new iPod)

Click ‘Ok’ then ‘Ok’.

SharePod will copy the music.

How to Burn Photos to CD or DVD to Print at the Store (Using Picasa3)

Tim Cinel — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:34:13 +0000

While I love hoarding my massive cache of photos on my computer and viewing them on screen – it sure is a treat to hold photos in your hands, just like in the old days, and share them with friend, family and sometimes strangers. Here’s how to burn photos from Picasa 3 so you can get them printed at a photo kiosk or photo shop.

Open Picasa 3 and click “Tools > Back Up Pictures”

In Picasa, browse through the folder list on the left, and ‘tick’ or ‘check’ the checkboxes next to the folders you would like to burn to the CD or DVD to get printed.

Near the bottom of the screen, Picasa will give you a summary of how many CDs or DVDs will be burned.

Click “Burn” to start the burning process!

If you haven’t got a blank CD or DVD in the drive, you will be asked to insert one.

Now take your CD or DVD to the shop and get printing.

Selecting Multiple Emails for Bulk Deleting, Forwarding or Moving

Tim Cinel — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:25:10 +0000

Let’s face it. We don’t need to keep most of our emails – we almost never revisit them so they sit there and accumulate. This is how to delete (or forward or move) more than one at a time:

Outlook Express, Outlook, Thunderbird

Pictures from Outlook Express

Go to your inbox or the folder you want to select from.

Click to select the first one you want to select

Find the last one you want to select, hold the “Shift” key and then click it.

All emails between the emails will also be selected.

To deselect emails in between, hold the “Ctrl” before clicking emails you want to deselect.

To select other emails that are not in between, hold the “Ctrl” before clicking emails you want to select additionally.

At this point, you can simply press the “Delete” button to delete them all, “Forward” to forward them all or right-click one of the selected ones and click “Move to folder…” to move…

How To Save Photos from Emails to Your Computer

Tim Cinel — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:12:55 +0000

Those of us with snapshot-happy friends and relatives receive a lot of photos via email. Whilst they’re easy to view when you receive them, keeping them in an email is not the most logical way to organise them. Here’s how you can save them to your computer so you can manage them in software like Picasa.

Outlook Express

If you want to put the photos into a new folder of their own – read and perform “New Folder” first.

Open the email with one or more photos attached.

Right-click one of the attachments and click “Save All”

Click the “Browse” button

Go to the top of the list, find “My Documents” expand it by clicking the plus next to it.

Then find “My Pictures” and also expand it.

Choose a folder within “My Pictures” that you’d like to save the folders by clicking on it, then clicking “Ok”

If you want to create a new folder, see below. Afterwards, restart the entire process.

That’s it! Your photos are saved on the computer now.

New Folder

If you want to save them to a new folder, click “Start > My Documents” or find another way to get to My Documents. Then open “My Pictures”

Click “File > New > Folder” and enter the name of the new folder.

Restart the tutorial from the beginning.

How To Scan Photos in Bulk from Albums

Tim Cinel — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:01:06 +0000

Most of us save the photos we take on our computer which makes sharing photos, viewing photos and backing up photos much easier – so how do we get all of those photos we took before we had a digital camera into the computer? We scan them, and this guide will tell you how.Open “Paint” ( Can be found under Start > Programs > Accessories” )

In Paint, click “From Scanner or Camera”

Load your photo or photosheet (whole sheet of photos) into the scanner – photo facing down.

Select whether you want Colour or Grayscale. If you want, you can shrink the scan area if the photo is smaller than A4.

Click Scan to scan the photograph.

Once the photo shows up in Paint, click “File > Save As”

If this is the first photo or photosheet (page of photos), make a new folder by right-clicking in a blank space, then clicking “New > Folder”

Double-click on the folder that you want to save all of the scanned photos. (You should save them in the same folder)

Enter a unique name. You can use a base-name and a number if you like, eg. Photo1, photo2, etc

Make sure “Save as Type” is “JPEG”

Click “Save”. The photo or photosheet is saved.

If you want to scan more, click “File > From Scanner or Camera” then and repeat steps from here.

Backing Up to Multiple Memory Sticks

Tim Cinel — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 05:20:39 +0000

When you have more data to backup than you can fit on one memory stick, you can distribute the data across two or more.

To begin, open “My Computer” by clicking “Start > My Computer”

Browse to “My Pictures” by double-clicking “Stuff” and then “My Pictures”

Select about half of the folders by clicking and dragging a rectangle around them. Start dragging in a blank space (as picture suggests).

Right-click one of the selected files and click “Properties”

If the “Size on Disk” value is greater than the capacity of the memory stick, try a smaller selection. On the other hand, if the “Size on Disk” is significantly lower than the capacity, you can select more folders.

Otherwise, copy the selection to your memory stick by either:
Right clicking on a selected folder and clicking “Send To” and selecting the Memory Stick.
Right-click a selected folder, click “Copy” then browse to the memory stick and right-click and paste.