Geeks on Tour Blog

New Picasa Book for Version 3.5

2009-11-20T08:05:00.001-05:00

With the visit to Google, and rewriting our Beginner’s Guide to Picasa, there hasn’t been much RVing to write about here.

So let me tell you about the book. I’m really proud of it. In the process of updating it to version 3.5, I also expanded it. The previous book was 40 pages – now it’s 60. And, I recorded several new videos to go along with it. We’re selling the printed book with the DVD of videos in the back. All the videos are available to our members, so they can buy the instant downloadable eBook! I even made a video to talk about the book:

View Table of Contents and Sample pages

Buy the Book w DVD for $29.95

Buy the eBook for $9.95 with instant download

Become a Geeks on Tour Member to gain access to *ALL* our videos plus our private support forum - $39 for one year

Having worked personally with hundreds of Picasa users, I think I understand the most important things they need to know in order to be successful with Picasa. Those things are in the book. Let the orders start rolling in! :-)

Impressions of Google

2009-11-16T16:50:00.001-05:00

When you see things first hand, they’re never as good as the hype.

Except for Google! Everything you’ve ever heard about their reputation for being a good work place, a crucible for innovation, and lots of energy … it’s all true. It was a very memorable experience. What we tend to tell people about the most is the food! Every building – and there are lots of them – has a cafeteria. But, you’ve never seen cafeteria food like this. I had stuffed portobello mushrooms with goat cheese and sundried tomatoes. Jim had savory roast chicken and couscous. I had dessert pastries to-die-for. We ate in the main building’s cafeteria with I’d guess at least 250 other people, all eating this gourmet fare.

FOR FREE

Yep, if you work at Google, you eat free. So cool. And – you’re encouraged to exercise and play, and get massages! All at work, all for free or subsidized. The company puts it’s money where it’s mouth is when they say that happy, healthy employees are productive employees.

You get the distinct impression that all the employees want to do good. They want to make their bosses proud. Because I was on a panel the first day we were there – lots of people recognized us on the second day when we were at Google’s offices. They came up and shook our hands and said things like, “I’d really like to talk to you about an idea my team has …” Or, “We’d really like to know how you, and your customers, use our products.” The energy was just buzzing.

If we were 20 years younger – we’d be knocking on HR’s door – they call it People Operations. As it is, we kinda like what we do even more! But, we felt proud to be a part of the Google team even for a day! We made sure to stop by the store and get a couple of t-shirts!

The recording of the Picasa Webinar is supposed to be available by the end of this week. I’ll let you know a link then.

Google and Geeks On Tour

2009-11-13T20:54:00.001-05:00

The webinar is over, and it was a great success. Working with the wonderful people at Google was quite an experience.

If you don’t know, a webinar is a seminar presented live worldwide on the web. The technology to make that happen is quite amazing. WebEx is the company that Google uses to make that happen.

We had a run-through last night to make sure all the WebEx stuff was working and that it all worked with our computers. It did not go as smoothly as we expected, but we were assured that everything was working for today’s event.

During breakfast, several Google employees came over and thanked us for participating on the advisory panel yesterday and expressed a desire for continued discussion of some of the things that were talked about.

There were a dozen Picasa team members in the room for the webinar. Computers, headsets and phones were set up and the participants started coming online.

Jaysie from Picasa welcomed everyone and did some introductory demonstrations before introducing the star of the show, Chris.

Chris really showed her expertise during her 25 minute editing presentation. The experts in the room were very impressed.

The Q&A segment followed with many good questions from the online guests and answers from the experts, including Chris.

Pictures were not allowed inside the offices, but I can tell you, the place is really cool!

Thanks, Google!

We’re catching a plane in the morning to return to our RV in Florida.

Visit to Google

2009-11-13T10:58:00.001-05:00

What nice kids these are here in Google land! Yes, that’s right – they are kids. Our main contact has been a delightful woman named Brenna … she was born in 1983 – the same year as Jim’s son Devon, and the same year my Mom and I started our computer training business, Computer Savvy.

Here’s Brenna and another Picasa team member, Christina when they took us out to dinner at a wonderful restaurant called the Left Bank.

On Thursday morning, I was a panelist at a meeting of 3-400 Google employees who focus on the users … You. They think I know something about what you want. I felt honored, and it was *really* fun for me. Here’s Jim and me posing with my fellow panelists. From left to right -

Terry from Nortwestern University, Danny from EnergyAction.net, and Mike from Blumenthal.com.

After the conference, we all had a tour of Google’s main campus. It really does feel like a university.

'42' = the answer to life, the universe, and everything - just Google it!

Jim just had to leave a tweet using a computer in Google's lobby!

Then, last night we spent some time at Google offices getting ready for the webinar this morning. Speaking of which … *gotta go*

Fort Lauderdale to San Jose

2009-11-11T10:51:00.001-05:00

By RV, we would probably take a month to make this trip. By plane it was one day. I much prefer RV travel – but flying certainly has it’s advantages! The main one of course is that it makes short trips possible. Google wanted us here to be on a panel on Thursday, then we’ll do our Picasa Webinar on Friday, and be back home in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday.

The other advantage is the view. I always get a window seat because I love to look out and see places I’ve been from this unique perspective. I suppose I’d get tired of it if I flew for business all the time – but, as it is, I’m fascinated.

Here’s the view leaving Fort Lauderdale.

And, here we are landing in Chicago. Yes, I said Chicago! … No clue how they plan these routes …

Then comes the midwest – and I think this is the Mississippi River, around Dubuque. We were there earlier this year and visited the River Museum.

Then came Denver airport, and the Rocky Mountains.

And, last is the rolling hills of California – Mt. Diablo in the distance I think – coming in to land at San Jose.

It was a relaxing flight – we read the magazines, and our books. We had our computers in our carry-ons, but there was no power at our seats and no Wi-Fi – so they stayed in our carry-ons! Now we’re at the Santa Clara Marriot, using the Wi-Fi at $12.95/day! We’re looking forward to having dinner with the Google Picasa Team tonight. And lunch with my oldest friends – Lanz, a friend since 8th grade who lives in the Bay area, and Arynne, a friend since 9th grade who lives in Santa Cruz.

I hope we get to take a nap sometime since we were wide awake at 4:30 am! Now there’s another advantage of RV travel – the time zone changes are much more gradual!

We’ve Said it Before…

2009-11-09T11:03:00.001-05:00

… and I’ll say it again, If you really *need* the Internet, you need more than one way to connect.

Circumstances this past week really brought that home again.

We are spending the winter season at our home park, Paradise Island RV Resort. There is WiFi here, and it is pretty good right now. But as more “snow birds” flock to the park and connect, the bandwidth and speeds do suffer. And a single infected computer can really bring things to a crawl. Chris has been taking her laptop over to her Mom’s place and working there. Marilyn has cable Internet.

There are phone connections at all the sites here. I called AT&T and had our site set up with high-speed DSL for the months we will be here. They have a plan where you can get only data if you do not need a voice line.

That is perfect for us, because we use our Verizon cell phones and Google Voice.

We were very happy with the speeds on our DSL connection until the DSL stopped working Friday. I had experienced a couple of short outages previously, but this time it didn’t come back on. I finally called tech support on Friday evening and they walked me through all the things I had tried at least 3 times before.

They determined the line was bad. I figured I’d be without DSL until Monday, but they said a tech would be out in the morning.

To get work done, I connected to the WiFi. It worked pretty good, but it wasn’t as fast as our dedicated DSL.

Chris need to do some heavy duty uploading, so I took her laptop to the park office and plugged into their high speed line.

The tech didn’t make it in the morning, but he did call and said he would be out at 2pm. He was here promptly at 2 and traced the problem to 2600 feet from our site. He found the problem, connected me back up, and we were back in business!

I sure hope that doesn’t happen again. But I am prepared. If the DSL goes down, I’ll connect to the park WiFi. If that is not good enough, I’ll turn on the Verizon Cellular Broadband.

What will we do next year when we are traveling out west? Cellular and WiFi is not always available.

I will probably need to upgrade my MotoSat DataStorm satellite Internet system because Chris really *needs* the Internet.

Going to Google

2009-11-06T08:09:00.001-05:00

We’ve Twittered about it, it’s on our Facebook page, our latest newsletter, and we just sent out a notice to our complete 4,000+ mailing list (members, newsletter subscribers and Picasa tip-o-the-week subscribers) but I just realized I haven’t told you about it on this blog yet! :-(

We’re going to Google!

Google has invited us to speak at an internal conference in Mountain View, CA. No, we won't be driving the RV! They agreed to fly us out there and put us up at a hotel. We will also be co-hosting a webinar on Picasa.

On November 13, at 1pm Eastern time, you can watch a webinar (seminar delivered over the web) on the basics of using Picasa for managing your digital photos. Jaysie, from Google, will introduce Picasa, and Chris, from Geeks on Tour, will show you how to make your photos look better with just a few clicks from her favorite software. We hope you can all join in. Please take a moment now to register for the event. It's one hour long and it's free. If you can’t make the live webinar, it will be recorded. We’ll post the link as soon as it is available.

We couldn't be more excited about this opportunity. We promise to take loads of pictures so we can share the whole experience with you. Google is well-known as being Geek-Heaven, and a great place to work. We've been promised a tour of the Googleplex (Google's Headquarters in Mountain View, CA) as well as lunch in one of the many employee cafes. Oh Boy!

Here's more ... this video even says that workers at Google can bring their dogs to work! Odie says he'd like that! But then Jim told him, 'y'know, if you come to work ... that means you'd have to actually work.' "Oh ... never mind!"

Chris will also be on a panel at an internal Google conference discussing what users want by way of support from Google. If you have anything you'd like us to tell them, send us an email.

I’ve been hard at work getting our Beginners Guide to Picasa updated and expanded for Picasa 3.5 – and making new videos to go along with it. I posted a couple of them as a freebies on our Youtube account: 2GeeksOnTour (someone else actually had the geeksontour account !*@!???)

Kayak Diving

2009-11-02T10:47:00.001-05:00

What a gorgeous day yesterday. I decided to take a break from working on our new book … Beginner’s Guide to Picasa 3.5 … and go kayak diving with Jim.

What an excellent choice. Just take a look at that ocean!

We take our time getting the kayaks ready, and socializing with other Kayuba members who are also going diving.

I had a song in my heart to be paddling on this flat calm ocean. And, I might have let a few lines slip thru my vocal chords as well … sorry Jim and Bill :-) This is church to me.

Then, we went diving!

Jim caught 3 lobsters of legal size – we had a good dinner. We also saw a nice turtle, and my favorite … the yellow headed jawfish.

Here’s dinner, ready to put on the grill. It doesn’t get any fresher that this!

Happy Halloween

2009-11-01T07:53:00.001-05:00

There’s not a whole lot of trick or treating that goes on in most RV parks, but we did have one. The manager’s daughter, Marie, came to our door dressed as a black cat. Instead of saying trick or treat, she said ‘Meoooooww’. Jim gave her some candy while I put on my witch’s hat and answered with my best cackling, “I’ll get you my pretty.”

That was the second time I had the opportunity to wear my witch had that we bought at the Salem Witch museum this summer. The first was our Toastmasters meeting on Thursday, and Jim took a picture.

We’ve belonged to this Toastmasters club since the 90s and it has a history of getting dressed up for Halloween. I found this pictures from 2001. Yes, I promise that is me and Jim. Who else do you know who would dress up as Dilbert?!

Hope you had a great Halloween. And don’t forget to turn your clock back for daylight savings time. That means we’re getting an early start to go diving today! Jim’s been out kayak diving a couple times already, but this is the first time for me. And, it’s a beautiful day.

Father and Son Moustaches

2009-10-27T20:01:00.001-04:00

Devon, Jim’s son, came by today. I haven’t seen him in many months, and it’s the first time I’ve seen him with facial hair!!

He says he’s growing it for halloween.

He’s going to the party as his Dad! He looked good.

Anyone who knows Jim knows it’s ‘Love Jim, Love his moustache.’ I put together a little moustache collage by way of explanation.

Last year, on a dare, he shaved it off. That poor upper lip looked so naked, white, and vulnerable :-( I told him to grow it back right away.

Windows 7 Party

2009-10-23T11:41:00.001-04:00

What a kick! As one friend said upon receiving our invitation, “You’ll use any excuse for a party!”

Well, duh!

I can’t think of a better way for geeks to party. And, Microsoft provided some fun stuff. There was the Windows 7 puzzle.

We had a great room. The Rec hall here at Paradise Island has undergone major improvements since last year. With a ceiling mounted projector and a huge screen – it’s a great place to present computer seminars … or movies.

Everyone there was a good friend, so we also did plenty of partying.

Notice the 2 guys in the background in the photo above – we had two computers with Windows 7 for people to try. Jim upgraded his computer to Win 7, and he went out and bought me a brand new computer today. $800 for a near-top-of-the-line Sony Vaio (500 GB hard drive, 4GB RAM plus 2GB on the video card, and a Blue Ray player) … hard to believe.

Microsoft even sent us Windows 7 napkins :-)

And, everyone got a Windows 7 goodie bag.

Here’s the completed puzzle.

So, today, Jim is setting up my new computer with all my old software. So far, so good. In addition to this being Windows 7, we also got the 64 bit version. I’m expecting some of my software to have problems … Dreamweaver and Fireworks to be specific. If you’re wondering about compatibility of any of your software or hardware, you can visit the Windows 7 Compatibility Center. And, here is our take on ‘Should you Upgrade to Windows 7’

So, here’s my new computer. Isn’t she pretty?

My old computer is working just fine, but it will be 3 years old in January. Our first rule of buying a new computer is to get one *before* your old one dies. It’s just so much easier to get a new computer going when you still have the old one to work on and get stuff from. See the rest of our 7 Tips for Buying a New Computer.

Windows 7 Launch

2009-10-22T09:37:00.001-04:00

We *are* Geeks y’know. So, while we’re parked and not doing too much traveling, I’ll be writing a little more about the geeky stuff.

Today is the official release date for Microsoft’s new operating system, cleverly named Windows 7 :-) We are hosting a Windows 7 Launch party tonight. If you’re in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area – we invite you to attend. It is a free event.

Jim has been using the pre-release version of Windows 7 for several months now. He just received, and installed the commercial version this week. Tonight, he will be demonstrating the product and taking questions. We have reserved the rear Rec Hall at Paradise Island RV park for our event. It will start at 7pm and last about 2 hours. For more information, you can call us at 954-83-GEEKS.

What’s with the ‘Launch Party’? Well, I think Microsoft is trying to take a page from Apple’s playbook. They’ve been building up hype for this product launch more so than ever before. Jim visited a computer store earlier in the week and saw computers on the shelves advertised as having Windows 7 installed, but you couldn’t buy them until the launch day – today. And, the store would be open starting at midnight for your shopping pleasure!

Apparently it’s worked. We see reports from Amazon that pre-release orders for Windows 7 has exceeded the record set by Harry Potter! At least in the U.K. – we haven’t see the stats for the US yet.

What is Windows 7?

It is the successor to Vista. It looks like Vista, and works like Vista, but it works better. It’s been streamlined. See Microsoft’s website for further details. If you have Vista now, upgrading is a pretty simple matter.

If you have XP, it’s more complicated. It depends on your hardware. Generally, if your computer is more than 3 years old, we don’t recommend upgrading. Wait till you’re ready to buy a new computer with Windows 7 pre-installed. If your computer is up-to-snuff, you will need to wipe everything off to do a ‘clean’ install of Windows 7.

Deja Vu

2009-10-19T10:29:00.001-04:00

Well, we’re back in Fort Lauderdale. Same park where we’ve stayed so many times before. Different site.

We have a busy week planned already! Kayuba Dive Club meeting on Monday evening. Women’s Executive Club luncheon on Tuesday. Happy Hour on Tuesday night, Toastmasters on Thursday morning and our own event, Microsoft Windows 7 Launch Party on Thursday night. Dinner with best friend, Chris and Richard on Saturday night.

I was about to write how lucky we feel to have such strong ties to a community at the same time that we have the consumate freedom of the RV lifestyle. … but I realize that I write about that every time we come back to Fort Lauderdale. Like this past post, “The Best of Both Worlds.”

We also have a *lot* of catch-up work to do. For the last month, with my Mom with us, we’ve been in tourist mode. It was all I could do to answer the most pressing emails and get our newsletter out. Now, I really need to concentrate to update our ‘Beginner’s Guide to Picasa’ for the new 3.5 version. I’ve promised to have the new version out by the end of the month and that’s only 1 week away. Then, next month, we’ll be flying out to California and visiting Google’s headquarters! More about that later – gotta get to work now.

Sebastian Inlet – Florida State Park

2009-10-16T10:45:00.001-04:00

We’ve made this our last stop before Fort Lauderdale for 2 or 3 trips now. Florida has a lot of great State Parks and, in this one you can walk to the beach.

We took a little walk to toast the sunset last night.

There was a distant thunderstorm turning the sky all sorts of ominous colors.

Mom got all snug in her ‘room’ where she could watch the action.

Then, this morning was beautiful. I made everyone go for an early morning walk.

Ok, time to go. On to Fort Lauderdale.

Jekyll Island

2009-10-15T10:17:00.001-04:00

Well – the weather was a little dismal so we didn’t see too much here. But, I can tell you that the campground with the huge trees and hanging spanish moss is quite dramatic.

We did take a little drive to the beach in order to walk on the beach.

It’s off to Florida today. And we’ll be in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow.

Headed South

2009-10-14T21:17:00.001-04:00

All right, enough of cold weather. Seems like we’ve been a little chilly all summer long .. and the forecast is for the 40s in Virginia this weekend.

Time to head for Florida. Take Mom home and settle in to Paradise Island for the season.

It’s I-95 all the way.

We see some fall colors. We’re not going to stick around for the full show!

Our original plan for this spring was to go to Jekyll Island in SE Georgia for the Country Coach rally. That didn’t happen because of Country Coach’s bankruptcy. There’s some kind of divine symmetry in ending our summer with Jekyll Island.

Safari Class C

2009-10-13T21:36:00.002-04:00

We seldom see other motorhomes like ours. Safari only made them for a couple years … 1997-99 I believe. At Thousand Trails Chesapeake, we saw one with a different paint job.

We stopped and chatted with the owners for a while and find out that they were having the same problem that we are with corrosion on the metal sides of the motorhome. They said that leaky windows were the problem and they removed all their windows and re-placed them. Ouch.

Then they did a lot of bondo work on the sides and, finally, the paint job. They say the ‘bubbles’ are meant to disguise the bondo!

Anyway – I think it looked great!

Here are some of the other times we’ve seen Safari Class C’s on our travels:
April 2005 – with 19 comments from other Safari Class C Owners!
August 2006 – photo of another Class C in Orlando

Wedding in the Woods

2009-10-12T08:45:00.001-04:00

We came to the Chesapeake area to attend the wedding of my friend Liz’s son – Anton.

What a gorgeous setting – the family farm of nearly 30 acres on the Piankatank river right off Chesapeake Bay. We took a walk down on the beach first.

The first night was the rehearsal dinner. You had to walk down a long path in the woods to get to the ‘glade.’ On the way back the path was lit with candles in mason jars.

Here’s me and Liz

And here’s her son, Anton, and his bride, Kendall.

The next day was the wedding. You can bet we’re not going to get dressed up without taking a couple pictures!

What a setting!

and then came the party. Good food, good drink, good music, good friends. Notice the clear tent.

Thanks for a great time guys. And, Congratulations to Anton and Kendall!

Another Beautiful Thousand Trails park

2009-10-09T08:57:00.001-04:00

We belong to the membership campground system called Thousand Trails. There are about 40 of their ‘Preserves’ in the US and we’re always happy when one is near. You can peruse past blog posts where I’ve mentioned Thousand Trails.

We are currently in the Chesapeake area of Virginia because the son of my friend Liz is getting married at their family farm here. We were happy to find that there was a Thousand Trails preserve within 15 minutes of the farm.

Here’s our view when we go for just a short walk.

And, here’s Mom taking video of the scenery.

Here’s our site – you can see the water in the distance.

*Lots* of water in these here parts! We’re on a stretch called the Piankatank river.

And, what a treat to get to see my friend Liz with all her family around her. I think she likes being a Grandma!

Gorgeous Day in Washington DC

2009-10-07T10:10:00.001-04:00

Actually, we had 2 gorgeous days in Washington DC. Then we hung out at the RV park (Cherry Hill) for a third – got laundry done, answered some email, etc.

Since it was so nice, we didn’t spend much time inside the many museums. We briefly toured the Spy Museum (fun) – but spent most of our time outside. We walked quite a bit, and then signed up for the hop-on, hop-off double decker tour bus. We liked that a lot. $35 – let you ride as much as you wanted for 2 days. And, their speaker system worked well, so you could hear the commentary everywhere you go.

We took so many pictures, I can’t decide what to post here, so I’ll just give you the whole slideshow from our Picasa Web Albums.

Washington DC and Arlington

2009-10-04T22:00:00.001-04:00

By Jim

We are in the Nation’s Capitol for a couple of days to see the sights and visit my Mom’s final resting place. I miss her.

Arlington Cemetery is a beautiful place. Many of our nations finest are buried here. I visited here many years ago after JFK was buried. Now he has family all around the eternal flame.

We bought tickets for the Open Top Tour Bus. The weather was perfect and we rode topside, great for pictures. We crossed the river back into DC to see Lincoln’s Memorial and the Mall.

I really like the busses where you can get off and on all day.

We spent a lot of time in the Spy Museum, then found a sidewalk sports bar for the second half of the Dolphins game.

We’re headed back tomorrow for more sightseeing. There is too much to see in such a short time. That just means we have to return!

Our Nation’s Capitol Building and a kick-ball game.

Wi-Fi and Full Moon

2009-10-03T07:53:00.001-04:00

We were supposed to make it to Cumberland, Maryland yesterday, but the stop in Columbus to get a new tire took a *lot* longer than expected. We only made it as far as Zanesville – about an hour east of Columbus.

The park is Wolfie’s and you need to put it on your list of good Wi-Fi!! Good, Free, and Fast! Such a treat. We have been so few places this summer with good Wi-Fi. We could watch Jon Stewart’s Daily Show from the web without needing to stop and buffer a dozen times, and without exceeding our Verizon download limits.

It’s pretty here too. Mom and I took Odie for a walk on the trail.

We saw the sun set, and the moon rise. Have you ever taken a picture of a full moon and been so disappointed that it only came out as a little speck in the sky? I did that with this great pumpkin display as the foreground. You can’t even see the moon unless you look really hard. And the empty pool with chain link fence isn’t the most attractive background either.

So, I took another picture of the full moon, with the telephoto.

And, then I put them together :-) No – picasa can’t do this … I use Fireworks, most people use Photo Shop. Do we have too much fun with our computers or what? Of course, I should have been answering emails or doing our newsletter. Oh well.

Off to Washington, D.C. today.

Scenes of a Rally

2009-10-02T22:19:00.001-04:00

There were probably close to 300 people at this rally and most of them show up for Nick's welcome. To read more about the rally – check out Nick’s Blog.

It’s so nice that Nick asks the vendors and the seminar speakers to introduce themselves to the crowd, and tell about their products/seminars.

The weather was quite chilly most of the week, here Mom and I are grabbing a little warm sunshine.

Beautiful trees and early morning sunshine by our site.

And here’s our table in the vendor area:

This is Joe Kieva and Vicki Kieva (next photo.) If you’re an RVer, you probably know of them because they’ve been writing a column in Good Sam’s Highways magazine for many, many years. I found their website, RVKnowHow, very useful even before we first got our RV. We met them, very briefly, at Life on Wheels in 2004 and enjoyed their seminars then too.

I also found it inspiring that they were making a career out of presenting seminars and writing articles and books for RVers! The Gypsy Journal Rally was their only speaking engagement this year. I’m so glad we got to see them!

We presented 6 seminars during the week and had a blast at all of them, but especially the two advanced classes we taught – Picasa: Beyond the Basics and Blogging: Beyond the Basics. We could have taught several days on each, but we kept it to 1 and a half hours!

After the end of the last seminar .. who should walk thru the door but our good friends Lynne and John! They’re traveling in their motorhome from Florida to Iowa, and we’re headed back to Florida. So nice that our paths cross now and then. And, it was wonderful to see their smiling faces!

Thanks Nick and Terry for a great rally.

Well Done!

Tribute to early RVers: my parents

2009-09-30T21:10:00.001-04:00

We’ve been having a good time teaching our seminars here at the Gypsy Journal Rally … we taught one of our very favorite topics this morning: “Creating Narrated slideshow movies with Photo Story 3” We have our routine and material down pat with this one, so my mind was free to wander a bit in getting prepared.

It dawned on me that since my Mom is with us it would be cool to show a sample Photo Story movie using pictures from my family’s RV travels in the 60s. RVing in Alaska, Mexico and Canada are popular topics in RV circles – and we did it in the 60s. So, I made sure my Mom was in the audience for this seminar and I quickly put together this little movie as part of our presentation:

To learn how to make your own narrated slideshow/movie, see our tutorials at: http://geeksontour.com/photostory.cfm

It’s SOOO easy! And, Photo Story is free, just like everything else we teach.

Picasa Fans

2009-09-27T15:20:00.001-04:00

Our last session of the Computer Boot Camp was all about Picasa. Here’s some of the conversations you could have overheard,

“Oh, so *there’s* the pictures I thought I’d lost!!”

“That was SOO easy! Now that I know how to get pictures from my camera to the computer, I have hundreds of photos to put on.”

“Wow! Scanned photos from 40 years ago look great after a little editing in Picasa.”

Here’s a few new fans of Picasa: