Necessary? Needed? Neglected?
How are you saving what you’re saving? Let’s take a look at the problems & possibilities. . .
Saving some information used to be done with paper and pencil. Then: onion skin paper, carbon copies, black and white photographs, Polaroid pictures, wire tape recorders. Remember? But what of that is still legible, able to be viewed or heard?
How about those floppy disks, old CDs, DVDs, even more recently, thumb drives? How long will these be useful?
Here’s what I posted to PMUG newsblog on July 4, 2012: “You didn't expect CDs and DVDs to last forever . . . but how long will they still be good? John Carter grabs our attention with this information, " Here's an interesting article that attempts to explain the reasons why you might not want to rely on CDs and DVDs for an archive of your favorite images, videos, and documents. The life span of such a media is dependent on more than just how the CD/DVD is made — mold and rot are also factors." This MakeUseOf article was posted yesterday, and it tells how to check your disks for deterioration.”
CostCo, WalMart, other stores might be able to copy from some of these for you.
So, how are you saving writing, pictures, slides, emails you’ve sent and received?
How often do you back up to Time Machine? Have you tried to copy back from Time Machine to get the practice before you actually and fervently need whatever it is?
What about scanners? Are the all-in-one printer devices better? Do you keep paper copies, too?
Mail Recipients . . . Need to Update?
You’re writing an email and start to fill in the To line. Mail guesses the wrong names. It’s time to update that list.
Mail > Window > Previous recipients. An alphabetical list comes up of people who you’ve sent to, or who have sent to you. You can sort this list by name, email address, or the date that address was last used.
There’s a search field where you can enter a word or name.
If the person is already in your address book you’ll see a little icon ahead of this person’s name. Double click to bring up that entry.
To add someone to the Address Book click on Add to Address Book.
To remove someone from the list click Remove from List.
Need more detail? Go to Mail > Help and enter a key word in the Search.
Tried the Word Clouds?
On your June handout the Word Clouds were briefly mentioned. Let’s look some more:
Here’s the website I’m using now. (Click to enlarge the screen shots posted here) http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html
Click on Word - Layout Options for categories: Word, layout, skip, advanced.
Choose colors, tightness, frequency, theme preferences, font preferences.
Under Shape you have 113 choices of shapes for your cloud. Click on Load at the top of this menu ……
Then enter the text you want the cloud to use.
When I’d done that I clicked to Save and brought it up on my screen. Command-Shift-4 lets you take a screen shot of what you’ve dragged your cursor on. That then, was what I pasted and shrunk by its handles to make the size of this illustration.
Look at Shop for gift ideas, using Word Clouds. Check out the blog, http://blog.tagxedo.com/ and also look at FAQ. How creative can you be? Try Tagxedo and see!
Using Pages go to Inspector, then Metrics Inspector and unclick Constrain Proportions. This allows you to “fatten” up your pasted illustration so you can then use it in ClickBook, the Blue Squirrel site to make booklets. That program shrinks your writing, so that’s why photos or illustrations need to be dragged wider, but not necessarily taller.
Experiment, that’s the fun of Mac computers!
Then share what you’re learning and doing!
See you in September at PMUG?
Practical. Interesting. Macintosh!
This is today's handout from Elaine Hardt.