Mrs. Mecombers Scrapbook A blog about computers, sofware, programs, downloads, tips, and tweaks-- for the average user. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 29 3610

Articles from Mrs. Mecombers Scrapbook

Coming Soon 2007-12-08 20:38:00 I'm in the process of blogging a few tutorials about how to customize your blog. I know the past few posts have been about free programs- I've had these ideas for a while and I wanted to get them off my chest! I'll be posting a large series of tutorials as soon as I have them together. Stay tuned! ...

Free Educational Software for Children 2007-12-08 20:29:00 Outstanding. Incredible. Spectacular!I'm talking about the lists of free educational software to be found at Owl & Mouse. We have downloaded all their programs and my kids have benefitted from it in innumerable ways.We really enjoy their geography programs. I have the children go over them from time to time, even when we are not doing geography lessons. The programs are so simple, yet so customizable. You can have the child practice his skills locating continents, countries, states, capitals, landmarks, physical features, and more. The game is played like a jigsaw puzzle, and the child drags and drops the puzzle piece on the map where it belongs. There are different settings where you can make the game harder (for example, by eliminating borders) which makes it great for older kids. I can't rave enough about the geography programs.Owl & Mouse also have other programs for little learners, and some are online games. There are letter-learning games, reading games, build a mediev ... Children

Flying High with Google Earth 2007-12-08 20:17:00 If there is one Google product you had to have, it would be Google Earth. I thought everyone had heard of Google Earth, but I was talking to some folks recently who'd never heard it! I like the program so much that I wanted to be sure to mention it.The family has used it countless times. My kids are geography experts now. I have used it to map our travels, and my husband likes to look at air bases around the world. It is truly an amazing program.You can find anywhere in the world (even your property). I love looking at other countries and cities, like the city of Amsterdam in Holland with its gorgeous canal system, and the Thames in London.Google Earth has many other features besides looking at the earth's surface. You can skew your view to look across (it's a little cheesy looking because it's computer generated, but the Grand Canyon and Rocky Mountains still looked neat). You can zoom all the way out and spin the earth with your mouse cursor (fun). You can track your journeys, as ... Google

The Gene Pool 2007-12-08 20:04:00 When the family members are home for the holidays is the perfect time to accumulate and organize genealogy information. I'm the big family researcher, and I've got tons of papers, files, folders, photos, and documents. My grandmother left behind reams and reams of all the information she'd uncovered. I have slowly, over the course of five years, been going through it and trying to digitize it to share with everyone. It's a long process.I've tried a couple of geneaology programs-- I even paid for one-- but the one I've been happiest with is the free PAF, or Personal Ancestry File. There's a new version out (5.2.18.0), which has multi-language capabilities, and even gives you the ability to download the stuff onto a PDA.PAF is GEDCOM compatible-- a must for any serious genealogy program. I've been pleased with PAF. I've been able to upload my PAF/GEDCOM files onto RootsWeb easily, too. You might like this if you are still pencilling things into charts and notebooks. :) ...

Let It Snow with Desktop Snow 2007-12-08 19:43:00 I downloaded this last year and had the happiest time with it! It's Desktop Snow for Windows. It's a "free trial" program (the program costs $10). It has no limitations but it does have a nag screen. It is customizable-- you can have light snow or blizzard snow. You can choose the have the snow build up on the bottom of your desktop, and have the wind blow it away. It really is adorable.I had it on a computer with barely enough memory, and the program ran OK. But when I had several big programs open (like Firefox, OpenOffice.org, and a media player), the snow stuttered a lot. You can shut it off or turn it on at will. Whoever made this program did a really good job. Fun! ...

Desktop Utilities, Part 2 2007-12-08 18:35:00 In Desktop Utilities, Part 1, I quickly breezed through some of my favorite programs for everyday computing, and offered a review and a link. In this post, I'm continuing the saga.1. AdFree 3.2.This is a teent-tiny little program that takes charge of your HOSTS file. If you go to the website, you'll see that the creator is not supporting AdFree anymore, because the Firefox browser has some ad-blocking features built in. However, what if you use Internet Explorer? The intrusive and sometimes obscene ads are the main reason I left IE and never went back. However, some of my family members still use IE, and for them I have AdFree.It downloads on your computer and reconfigures your HOSTS file. Your HOSTS file in your computer is the first thing Windows checks before getting an IP number. If your computer receives information to block (not show) a certain IP number, it won't. In this way, AdFree (and other such ad-blockers, like AdBlockPlus in the Firefox browser) tell your computer to b ...

Desktop Utilities, Part 1 2007-12-07 10:50:00 This is the first installment in a series of helpful desktop utilities you can find for free. There is a ton of high-quality, good performing free software programs out there. But finding them is not so easy. This is why I am here. :D1. Desktop CalendarI've used this free program for many years now (almost 6 years!) and I have been very happy with it. If you click on the link to the homepage, and then choose the "Screenshots" tab, you'll get an idea of what it looks like.I've tried dozens-- yes, dozens-- of desktop calendars, both free and trial use. Nothing I've found really compares to the Desktop Calendar. It's simple. It's customizable. It's retractable. It's movable to different places around your desktop. It has automatic reminders when you boot up that day (or you can disable this feature). It can remember events on a yearly basis, too.The only complaint I really have is that I can't enlarge the boxes to fill my entire desktop or decrease the font type. Sometimes I have ...

Emails You'd Want to See in Your Inbox 2007-12-06 17:52:00 Ever since I was a newbie, I've been interested in forums, tech help sites, and tutorial sites. It wasn't too easy finding them, though. It took a lot of searching back then to find good sites.Nowadays, there's a glut of help and tutorial sites (of which I am thankful). But did you know that you can receive great information in your email inbox? I'm talking about subscribing to computer "e-zines." My two favorites are the daily emails from Kim Komando and WinXPNews.I loved Kim Komando's Tips email-- I looked forward to them every morning. Now that I have a lot of years and experience under my belt, they aren't as helpful. But they are still very good, and I try to read them when they interest me and when I have time. They are excellent for newer computer users. Kim keeps things very simple, and she makes herself personally available to help out users with specific problems. You can sign up for her free emails at her website. There are several to choose from, or get all of them! H ...

Freeing Yourself From Microsoft Office- It's OpenOffice.org 2007-12-06 16:01:00 For many years, I suffered under the grips of the only real word processing and spreadsheet program out there: the Microsoft Office Suite. At least it was better than Microsoft Works, ha ha. But Word and PowerPoint always crashed on me a lot. I learned to save my documents at every single change or line of new type (so MS Office did do one good thing for me-- gave me a good habit). But the constant crashes and the burden it put on my laptop processor had me longing for something else.I found it with OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org, like Firefox, is an open source program. This means that the making and the "engine" of the program is not a stealthy secret hidden in the confines of large file cabinets in Seattle, Washington. Open source means that everyone can see what the code is that makes up the program, and you can even contribute to it to make it even better. Ah, the beauty of the Internet.I first became familiar with OpenOffice.org several years ago, when I had dial-up service. It t ... Microsoft

Foxit PDF Reader- a Great Adobe Replacement 2007-12-06 08:47:00 It's time has come. Finally! A worthy PDF reader has replaced Adobe Acrobat! I can't rave enough about Foxit PDF Reader. It's light, it's easy, it doesn't track my every online move, and--most importantly-- it doesn't make my computer crash when I start it up (unlike other PDF readers, ahem). For the novice, it is a little complex with its updating features. When I updated it today, it asked me all these questions that I didn't know how to answer! I just went with it, and it did fine. The update (the newer version, Foxit 2.2 for Windows) speeds up the program even more, and I love the "minimize to tray" option when I right-click the titlebar.From the Foxit website:Incredibly small: The download size of Foxit Reader is only 2.1 M which is a fraction of Acrobat Reader 20 M size.Breezing-fast: When you run Foxit Reader, it launches instantly without any delay. You are not forced to view an annoying splash window displaying company logo, author names, etc.Annotation tool: Have you e ...

Flock for Social Networking 2007-12-05 20:02:00 I've been slow to join the social network. I only recently joined MyBlogLog yet I still have no MySpace or Facebook profile. I've loved blogging and I do love to interact with people, but I prefer forums and emails to the fluffier MySpace place.There's a browser out there specially designed for cyber-socialites. It's the Flock Browser. I downloaded long ago when it was first released. I really liked it then, but it was a little too slow. Flock is a Firefox shell-- it runs with a Mozilla Firefox machine but has Flock fenders and fins. I'd heard that a new release of Flock was out, so I wanted to try it.I'm very impressed with its social networking capabilities. I can log into my accounts at Blogger, Wordpress, Flickr, Photobucket, and etc with a few easy clicks. Talk about convenient! With Firefox, I have to individually go to each account and manually log in-- not fun. I like Flock because I can log in to everything so easily.I'm not terribly impressed with its appearance and in ...

Working With Images/Photo Resizing 2007-12-05 16:19:00 I have been visiting some local blogs recently, and was a little surprised to discover that some folks on computers are using an impractical method for resizing images (emailing them to themselves, using the email program's automatic resizing feature). Using email to resize photos is easy, and I used to do it myself when I first started computing (9 years ago now!) but it is wasteful of resources and wasteful of ISP bandwidth. Not to mention very inconvenient.What surprised me most of all is running into so many computer users who still do this and are not aware of the basics of photo alteration. I can understand this with the older generation (computing can be confusing even for younger folks) but especially for people who lead extremely busy lives and do not have the resources or time to discover new and improved methods. Yet staying in touch with their friends and family via email and photos is probably the most important use for their computer. They just aren't aware of anything ...

SlimBrowser 2007-12-05 15:31:00 I tried SlimBrowser after reading another blogger's success with it. The download went quick and easy, and the importation of bookmarks was much easier than what I've experienced with Opera and Internet Explorer. Still, the browser is an Internet Explorer skin. The tabs (a good feature) were a little clunky. I was too impatient to try to learn all its idiosyncracies. It felt a little foreign (a lot like how I felt when I first switched to FF from IE, actually). I knew that if I used it every day I'd get used to it soon enough, but I am not displeased with FF to dump it just yet.If Firefox wasn't so good, I just might have stuck with SlimBrowser. I intend to keep it handy for times when Firefox gets too big for its britches (FF does crash and does make my laptop processor work hard when I run videos). It's a better browser then Internet Explorer, overall.If you use IE and are sick of it, and don't want to switch to FF, SlimBrowser is a good alternative. ...

Changes 2007-12-03 19:00:00 I have been working on so many other projects, that this scrapbook blog has received little attention. I have a new template, and this needs work, so I will soon be working more on this blog. I'm aiming for having daily (or semi-daily) updates on new software programs, websites, and etc. ...

The Scrapbook 2007-10-15 12:50:00 Well, this blog is finally starting to come together. It's been lying dormant for months! I've posted my "best of" resource links. I have a large list of very useful, free programs that I have yet to build into this blog. I intend to update this blog periodically, and keep you up to date on new programs, issues, and other "scraps." Stay tuned for more! ...