Dëar Friend,
We have been searching the Web this month to bring you some really neat frëe tools and applications that you will want to check out and download.
Some are cool and some are just neat applications that will speed your efficiency.
We hope that you enjoy these downloads and also get a chuckle out of the digital photographs of our guinea pig found in our first article, Sharing Digital Photos.
Best Regards,
Nancy McCord
Sharing Digital Photos (excerpts from the full article by Michael McCord)
Since our transition to digital photography, I haven't made more than a couple of dozen prints. Instead, our best photos are collected in digital photo albums and shared with family and friends via CD's. There are several software packages that feature digital photo albums but in this article I'll present a basic technique on creating a slide show using PowerPoint, a Microsoft Office application. Go to that section in the article.
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n this new Tech Note, you will learn how to share your photos on a self starting CD using PowerPoint as the application. To help you understand some of the functions and possibilities, McCord Web Services has created a highly entertaining show of our family guinea pig modeling the newest pig-wear and accessories. If you need a chuckle today, you won't want to miss this little presentation. We have created a special show of our guinea pig wearing clothes. Clicking the link will open up a new browser window. You will not download any viruses, spyware or other noxious items, but you will get our humorous fashionable guinea pig show. Just click Run to view the show now or Save to view later.
Visit our Tech Notes section to read the full article on Sharing Your Digital Photographs. You will learn not only how to make the CD ROM self-starting show, but the best sizes for sending your photos via email, how to calibrate your monitor, and much more.
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Frëe Downloads
We have tested these downloads and found them to be helpful or just plain cool. Read our review and then decide if you want to download it too.
• GMail Notifier
This is a cool little utility. We have a GMail account. No longer do we need to log in to our GMail account to see if someone has sent us mail. This cool little app., resides in the tool bar on the bottom right and shows a small envelope. Lay your mouse on the icon and find out if you have mail. When you do have mail, double click on the letter icon and go right into your GMail account.
• Acrobat Reader 7.0
This newly updated version of Acrobat Reader just became available this past month. If you do not have the full version of Acrobat to make your own PDF files, the Reader allows you to open, view, and print PDF documents.
• Acrobat Reader Load Speed Up
We found this cool utility. We have tested it and swear by it! If you have hated how Acrobat Reader was always slow to load, now is the time to load this very small utility that really speeds up Acrobat's load time. Our Tech director had continued to use Acrobat 5 due to a speedy load time, and after loading the Acrobat helper, he now has been able to upgrade to the new Acrobat Reader and view PDF files very quickly. Definitely check this one out!
• Want to Make Cool Custom Icons?
What a neat tool! Now you can make icons for your desktop or your website using any image file. You can check out our web icon by going to our website www.McCordWeb.com and bookmarking our page into your favorites. You will then see the icon we made for our website using Icon Image Converter.
Now you can produce an image icon that will be the envy of everyone else with Icon Image Converter. Simply select your image and then the size. Use 16 pixels by 16 pixels for a web icon. Save your icon as favicon.ico and install it in your website's root or www directory. Voila! You have an icon. Super easy and fabulous looking. It could not be easier with Icon Image Converter. This software is free for 30 uses and then $20 to buy. After 3 uses, we think that you'll be buying it too!
• Microsoft Anti-Spyware
Microsoft bought the anti-spyware software code from Giant and has just released it as a free download. We checked out this anti-spyware software and like it. Used in conjunction with Spybot's Search and Destroy, you are sure to stay protected.
The interface is slick and well thought out. The auto-scan option is very nice, and it runs in the background without driving our computer to a near halt like Adaware does. We also like the feature that creates an automatic system restore point for XP users before it remove the offending item. A really nice handy tool.
• Google Software Downloads
From one page you can now download all of the cool and free Google software applications. Visit this page and with one click you can download all 4 plus the GMail notifier. Or visit each link for a separate download by item.
The Google Search Tool Bar
Now you can search Google from any web page by installing this tool that resides on the top tool bar of your browser. It is used only for web searches. It contains a nice form filler feature, pop-up blocker, link to your Blogger.com Blog, page rank indicator, and more. We use it for easy access to Google web searches and to update our Blog on the fly.
Google Desktop Search
We love this one! Search all your local files quickly and find what you want easily. This tool is a must have, it will help you navigate files on your own computer with one click.
Picasa2 Photo Organizer
Wow this is great! This is another must have tool. We are still learning how to use it, but so far, it passes our test. It has a really nice one click interface to email photos and set up albums. We loved the photo archive feature so we can view all the photos on our computer in a cool date arranged format. For people looking for an easy to use tool, this is But don't wait, there is talk that it won't be free much longer.
Google Deskbar
This tool resides in the bottom right program bar. It is used to be able to search the web using Google anytime. It has a nice feature that open a small customizable window with the results. This is the only tool that we installed and then uninstalled. If only Google would have tied it to the desktop search, we would have kept it.
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Microsoft Desktop Search
We tested the Microsoft (MSN) Desktop Search Toolbar and want to let you know that it is a fabulous idea, but in the beta version it is crashing our Windows XP Professional system.
We really love many of it's cool functions and the slick interface. We thought that it would replace our choice of Google Desktop Search as our preferred application. Here are the great things that Microsoft Desktop Search offers.
With the introduction of a password protected feature to add to your site logins and passwords you are certainly more secure than ever! We like the integrated form filler with options of different identities; one for Home and one for Business or whatever you would like. We like the highlight your search terms options, and we really like the find as you type feature.
Microsoft does a nice job of integration into Office applications as always, this is one of their strengths. We liked the seamless integration into all of our Microsoft tool bars; in all Office products, in Outlook, and Outlook Express. We did not like the search box that sat on our bottom program bar as it took up too much real estate, but with a right click we were able to delete it and then dragged the icon from the desktop into our quick launch menu instead.
In regard to the technology used, the speed of indexing was good. We were up and running in several hours. When we tested the search function, we were impressed that it found our word document and email that we wanted out of 35,000 documents indexed in one try.
There are so many things that we really like about this product, that we will definitely try it again in several months, we really think that it is a winner. We simply do not know why it did not like our computer system.
We run many more data intensive programs than normal users, so we do not want to discourage you from trying it. In fact, we will be checking it out again soon.
We expect that it is a work in progress and will continue to be fine-tuned. In the meantime, you may want to check it out as it is guaranteed to make your like easier in finding items, managing your online passwords, and site logins.
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Google News
Verrry Interesting...
Keep an eye on this one, Google has registered the domain name www.GBrowser.com. Although Google has denied that they are planning on launching their own browser recently, we think that the reality is that a browser launch will happen this year.
Google has recently hired several programmers who have been integral in the creation of the much touted and well received Firefox browser. They have registered a domain name GBrowser -- GMail -- what's next GOffice? They've got to spend the billions they earned from their IPO and what better way than to create a super computer suite with the Google name.
Google does a nice job on it's tools and we really like Firefox, so we'll keep you posted. We are already using GMail, Google Desktop Search, and Google Web Search, so we may be using GBrowser next! We'll let you know.
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