How do I go about blogging?

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Ludwig

Blogging is a fine way of sharing your ideas, experience, and passions. Millions do it. It is easy and fun. One tool stands out that makes blogging easy for everyone: Windows Live Writer.

Technogran at Technogran’s Tittle Tattle has published a fine tutorial series. A post listing the tutorial posts is at Live Writer Basics – Live Writer Tutorial Series. The blog Live Writer Basics offers additional information and links to other resources.

Visit these blogs to help you get started.

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Technorati Tags: blogging,Live Writer,Windows Live Writer,Live Writer Basics,Technogran

Where does the “Original size” of a picture in Microsoft Word come from?

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Ludwig

When a picture is inserted in a Microsoft Office Word document it is scaled to fit. The size can be set to other values to suit the document. In the Size dialog window the size of the picture is shown in inches and as a percentage of the “Original size” which is also given as the height and width in inches. So, how does Word come up with the “original size”?

The EXIF data of photo files contains a couple of values name “X resolution” and “Y resolution”. In a Windows Properties box they show up as “Horizontal resolution” and “Vertical resolution” and are given in “dpi”. That last item, the unit of measure, “dpi”, stands for “dots per inch”. There is your big clue. Using “dots” was the way pictures were printed on paper in the old days. Well, if you pick up a newspaper you can still see them nowadays.

These resolution values do not describe anything relating to the picture, they are setting instructions for printers. They can be changed by a number of programs. Changing these values does not affect the picture at all. The number of pixels stays the same, the color depth is not affected. So these values can be changed at will. Several programs, in fact, do that. Cameras set these values, most to 300, some to other values. When Windows Live Photo Gallery makes a JPG copy of a photo it sets the values to 72. Some other editors use 96. I have one that uses 472, another 262. It really does not matter.

For the most part these numbers are meaningless. Microsoft Office Word, however, uses these resolution values as they were originally intended: As printing instructions specifying the dimensions of the printed picture on paper. If you have a photo that is 768 pixels wide and the horizontal resolution value is set to 96, then the picture printed size is 8 inches (8 inch multiplied by 96 dots per inch yields 768 dots – the pixels dimension of the picture).

So Word will set the “100%” size to 8.0 inch – if this does not fit in the margin settings, the picture will be scaled down and the Scale value will be a lower number.

Normally that is not a problem as most pictures have either 72 or 96 set as the resolution value. If the 768 pixel wide picture had the resolution set to 256 then Word would calculate the width as 768 / 256 = 3 inches. It would most like be set to that value and look somewhat small. It is perfectly acceptable to increase the size setting. If you want the picture to appear 6 inch wide you can set the scale to 200%. Word keeps the original number of pixels of the picture intact until the document is printed or saved with certain save or export options.

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Technorati Tags: Word,Microsoft Office,pictures,EXIF data,resolution,Photo Gallery,photography,metadata

How do I make a new SkyDrive photo album?

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Ludwig

There are a number of ways of making a new photo album or folder in SkyDrive. Here are several of the procedures.

Create new folder in SkyDrive

When you are in your SkyDrive online, that is, viewing it in a browser, there is a “New folder” link above the main pane. Click it to make a new folder or album. Instantly a new folder tile will be added in the main pane. The folder name will be highlighted indicating that you can just type the folder name. Type the name you want to assign to the folder or album.

This folder will initially be set to Folder type Documents. You can see that when you expand the Information section in the pane on the right. There will be a Change link there. You can change it to Photos, or you can just leave it as is. When a photo is uploaded to the folder it will change to Folder type Photos by itself.

Create a new SkyDrive photo album from Live Photo Gallery

Sometimes the easiest way to add a new SkyDrive photo album is to do it as you upload photos from Live Photo Gallery. In Photo Gallery sign in to your Microsoft account (upper right). Then select the photos you wish to upload to a new SkyDrive photo album. Click SkyDrive in the Share section of the ribbon. A dialog pops up with the first option being the defining of a new SkyDrive photo album. Type in the name you wish to assign to the album and click Publish. Note the Publish button is not enabled until an album name has been typed. The SkyDrive photo album will be created and the selected photos will be uploaded to the album.

Creating a SkyDrive photo folder in the desktop app

If you have the SkyDrive desktop app installed you can create a new folder for photos just the way you would create any other new album using Windows Explorer. Open Windows Explorer, click SkyDrive in the left navigation pane. Then click New Folder.

Using the SkyDrive desktop app allows you to create the new folder anywhere in the folder hierarchy in your SkyDrive. Keep in mind that you cannot upload from Photo Gallery into any sub-folders.

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