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I always find something I didn’t know I need to know, and I am always happy to discover some new information: what is a cloud computing, how to choose and use certain software, how to choose a camera, how to calibrate a monitor for correct colors…

 
Some things are too advanced for me or I don’t need it (yet), but at least I know where to find an answer or ask a question, when I need arises.

 
Today’s column is not an exception.  You may find it here: Computing Q & A.

 
I hope you find it interesting and will visit it often.  Happy Learning.

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As for those of you who are wondering how to make a color photograph look black and white, a photo to resemble a sketch, how to mute a background, how to distort a face, so the wrinkles are not so prominent: you got something to explore, to learn and to enjoy working with.

 
“Even users with limited photo editing knowledge can simply select what looks best from a line-up of sample photos with visual hints showing different variations of the added effect.
…Photoshop Express allows users to store up to 2 gigabytes of images online for free, make edits to their photos, and share them online in creative ways, including downloading and uploading photos from popular social networking sites like Facebook.”

 
The landing page of this trial version has “a test drive” feature, so you can see all the tricks and get a feeling of this product. What’s most important: the program is not in your computer, so you can’t break anything.

 
It works with all major browsers, including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and others. (You need to have an up-to-date Flash® Player 9 for APE to work).  As of now, Photoshop Express is available to US residents-only in English.”

 
Now, go to Photoshop.com/Express landing page and have fun removing red eyes effect from from your favorite picture, make the edges of that photo jagged, and make your cat smiling, too.

 
Read Adobe’s Press Releases for more info.

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How Does it Work?

 
How many times, upon seeing some unfamiliar technology, process or product, have you asked yourself a question: “How does this stuff works?”
When interested in how the election works, how the computers work, how the espresso machine works, how America’s army works, etc. find all the answers in one place: www.howstuffworks.com. You may sign up for a free delivery of new articles every day.

 
Don’t forget to tell your teenager about this site. Knowledge is power.
I am sure you’ll become a frequent  visitor and learn a lot of interesting things.

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1. What is a blog.
Blog is a type of a web site. It contains information on a certain topic (niche), it could be just a plain diary, a collection of stories, written by the owner of the blog, or, as in my case, mix of topics (news, helpful tips, useful information), which I choose to highlight. The blog may or may not contain pictures, video clips, offerings of various products. Blogs are maintained by one or more individuals, or they may be an extension of a large newspaper, where sometimes, readers need to log in order to participate in discussions on  different topics.

 
2. Articles in the blog.
The articles in the blog are called posts. Sometimes you can see a post in its entirety, sometimes just a few lines, followed by the word “more”. Click on the word, which is a link, to see a whole post. Posts are posted by the blogger, (the proprietor of the blog) with a frequency they choose: daily, a few times a day, weekly. Sometimes, the blogger invites other people, who are experts on a specific subject, to write a guest post. This action often brings a new prospective to a subject, attracts attention to the guest writers, who, in many cases, have their own blogs, encourages people to ask questions and participate in the discussion. 

 
3. Links in the Blog.
When bloggers refer to someone else’s opinion, published somewhere else or offers to the readers to check out a book from the Amazon, they do it by posting a link to that page. Links, as you know, are usually long, may contain a lot of characters, differ from the regular text in color (blue, red, green), and look very unsightly. In order for the link to look better, the blogger can camouflage it. For example, if I include a link and write “click here”:(don’t click yet, do it later) http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/02/05/what-is-a-blog/, you would know what to do. But I may write it like this click HERE, where the word “here” is in blue, and contains a link. If you hold a cursor over this word without clicking, you’ll see it become a hand, and in the horizontal bar at the bottom of your screen you’ll notice a line, containing the address of a link. The link may be hidden under any word or phrase a blogger chooses: a book title, a site address, a person’s name, etc.  Once you click on the link, usually a new browser window will open up. Pay attention, because it may lead you away from the original site. In this case, after reading the info, click the back arrow at the top of your browser.
One more thing: sometimes you receive an E-Mail with a link in it. Upon opening the post you see, that it’s already 3 months old. How do you find the newest post? Go to the address bar and erase all the characters after the extension .com, .net, .org or .info and click on the new shortened link.
Now you know how to recognize a link, follow it and come back.

 
4. Orienting yourself in the Blog.
Each post is usually posted under a particular category or a tag. Depending on the design of the blog, the categories’ list may be positioned on the left or the right sidebars of the screen, or at the bottom of the screen, in the “footer”. You’ll have to scroll down to see it. Categories or tags contain lists of posts, which belong to a certain topic. For example: “Wine”, “Cheese”, Glasses”.
If you click on the title of the category, you’ll see all the posts of the month (in chronological order), written about this topic.
All the older posts are saved in the archives, where they are filed monthly. The archives may be positioned on either a side or at the bottom of the screen.
In many cases you may find a “Recent Posts”, “Most popular posts” or “Read this First”, categories, which is self-explanatory.
Blogs also have pages, which are usually positioned somewhere closer to the top. Pages contain more info, and you can see what they are by the title: “About” (info about the blog and/or the blogger, “Contact Us” info, “Pictures”, etc.

 
5. Searching and Finding Info in the Blog.
Most blogs have a search bar, where you may search for the info within this particular site or on Google. The search bar I have on the left side lets you search Google only. (I am working on adding an option to search within my site, too). Why and what would you want to search on the site? Well, if you visit this particular site often, you may want to retrieve some information you remember seeing a few months ago, or you may guess, that a health site should have some info on “treating a cold” and search for this topic.
If a site doesn’t have an internal search option, then you should try your luck by checking the categories. The last thing you could do, is search Google by listing the “required words+site name”. It might work.

 
6. Getting the Updates.
Once you find the blog you like, you may want to get the updates every day or as soon as they’re posted. There is an easy way to achieve it.
Somewhere on the screen, usually at the top (in my case it’s on the left side, under the header) you’ll see a variety of the icons, which represent many ways of receiving the updates. The easiest is to sign up for the free E-Mail delivered to your inbox. To do that you click “Sign up by E-Mail” line, fill out the short form (your E-Mail address and answer to an easy math exercise), which appears on your screen and click “Submit”. A few minutes later access your inbox, open the verification E-Mail, which you’ll find there, and click on the long link to confirm your subscription. That’s it. The process is completed. You’ll be receiving the updates (one or a few posts) as soon as they are posted or at the intervals, set by the blogger (once a day). If you find more than one blog, which you like, you may sign up for the updates from all of them.
When you receive your updates by E-Mail, I recommend clicking on the title of the blog to get transferred to the site. Sometimes the E-Mail contains not one, but a few posts, and you may miss it.
If you didn’t receive the verification E-mail, it means you made a typo somewhere in the form and now you can’t be reached. In this case repeat the process of signing up again. 
The RSS Feed button (options appear when clicked on) lets you sign up for updates by Google Reader and other channels. Often, some symbols are displayed outside too, as on this site. If you don’t know what a RSS Feed or Google Reader is, don’t despair, you’ll learn later. Try googling it or ask a friend. It’s simply other ways to get updates.

 
7. How to E-Mail a Post.
It happens to all of us: we like an article or a post so much, that we want to send it to all of our friends. For example, you are reading a blog, which has a few posts. The post you like, is second from the top of the screen. Click on the title of that post and have it opened by itself on the screen. Next, right click, copy the link, shown in the address bar (it will display a site, a title and/or a date of the post).  Then open a new browser window, go to your inbox, compose a new E-Mail, paste the link in there and send it to all of your friends. Done.
When you are reading a newspaper on line, under an article you wish to share, you may find an option: “Send E-Mail to a friend”. It pertains to this particular article only, and in this case you don’t have to copy or paste anything: just send it from yourself to yourself. You’ll decide what to do with it later. 

 
8. How to Comment on the Post.
In the end of each post (or sometimes right under the title) you’ll see a word “Comments” with or without a number. If you want to leave a comment, click on it (it’s a link), see a short form, fill out your name or nickname, E-Mail address, (it will not be published), enter your comment and submit.
You may (or may not) immediately see another form pop-up on the screen; answer a simple math question posed in there and submit again. It’s a security process that some sites employ. Sometimes your comment doesn’t appear on the screen right away, because many sites put all the comments thru a screening process first.
You may also click on the comments field (if it has a number) to view what other people said about this particular post.

 
9. The Forum.
Some sites in addition to comments run a Forum. This way any discussion raised may be continued and saved separately from the comment field.

 
10. Social Media Sites.
This explanation is very general.
Very often when reading a blog, you’ll notice a row of small icons underneath each post. . Those are Social Media Sites’ symbols. There are many Social Sites on the Web (Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Technoratti), where people belong to some on-line community, and whose members have many interests. When one of the members finds on the Web an interesting article or the post, they click on the symbol, corresponding to a certain Social site and send it out there for all to read. You don’t have to be a member to visit and read those sites.  It’s a kind of a popularity contest for the member who finds a lot of a good info, and for a blogger who is honored by the attention of the flocking to his blog members of the Social sites. To get a feel for it, click www.digg.com and see what’s there. That’s the basic idea.
Here are the definitions of a few Social Media Sites:
Wikipedia about Digg 
Wikipedia about StumbleUpon 
Wikipedia about Reddit 

 
11. What’s with the Ads?
The ads you see on the screen are usually related to a content of the post you are reading. If the blogger writes about gifts or the purses for rent, then you might see an ad from the company, which sell similar items.

 
12. Coffee Cup or a Beer Mug.
Bloggers spend a lot of time and put a great effort in maintaining their blogs. And while they do it, because they like it, the comments and little tokens of appreciation are always welcome. If you see an icon, depicting a coffee cup or a beer mug, and are moved enough to send some funds to a blogger (click on the icon, send via Pay Pal) you may just do it.

 
13. Enjoy your new knowledge, share it with friends, and happy surfing the Net!

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And, by the way, if your browser is blocking cookies, it will try to block the pop-up window of the M-W dictionary with the word you are requesting. Nothing to worry about, there is a solution: while holding down Ctrl button, click the M-W button. You’ll get your word.

 
Please visit Miriam-Webster OnLine Dictionary and enjoy the experience.

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The dictionary has 20,000 words with contextual definition and 6,000 color images for variety of objects. Now you can find the word and successfully unite it with the image. Or, if English is your second language and you don’t even know the word for that small part of whatever object, now you know where to look for it.
I think, that this type of dictionary may be a great tool to teach your child new words. Actually, there is a tab for school lesson plans, but it’s under construction. There is also a “Game of the week” feature, where you “Play by associating words with images”. You may subscribe to it and get it by E-Mail.
Here is the link to this wonderful tool: visual.merriam-webster.com.
Too bad I could not find a bar to install this dictionary to my browser, as I’ve done with the regular www.M-W.com dictionary.

 
As I also found out from that same article, there is another type of the dictionary, where “Alternatively, you could try looking up a word by its definition with the Reverse Dictionary.” That is “One Look Reverse Dictionary”, where “you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept… The OneLook Reverse Dictionary search is a good one to keep in mind when you’re having one of those days when you just can’t think up a word.”
See for yourself here: www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml

 
(Via http://lifehacker.com/)

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Have you ever heard of Tafiti? Now you have. It’s a searching tool with an unusual presentation.
Learn more here:
 
http://www.wikihow.com/Research-Using-Tafiti
 

Gift of the Day 

Tent with lighted walls…in the middle of nowhere…Just plug in your computer…and work!  $199.90
www.luxist.com

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The physical and mental benefits of daily meditation. Read the article here:
www.pickthebrain.com
(via www.dig.com)
Info of the Day

 
For your travel consideration: underground wonders of the world
www.weburbanist.com
(via www.dig.com)

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