Make your own Windows 8 start button

Windows 8 does not have a start button as it comes. Friends of mine with Windows 8 computers have been asking me about how to get a START button on their taskbar.

It is a little cumbersome to get to the list of programs: Press the logo key, right-click in an empty space on the start menu, then click All apps in the lower right corner. There is a quicker way: Hold down the logo key and press F. 

Since the classic start button shows programs and a search box the Windows 8 closest equivalent is the Apps screen with the search panel showing. The shortcut for that is this: Hold down the logo key and press Q. 

This last keyboard shortcut can be assigned to a desktop shortcut and the shortcut can be placed on the taskbar. So this is what I tell my friends to do and here is the procedure for doing it:

On the desktop right-click on an empty space. Select New and in the secondary menu click Shortcut.

In the next dialog you will be asked what to make the shortcut for. Enter this text (select it and copy it from here):

%windir%\explorer.exe shell:::{2559a1f8-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}

Click Next and give the shortcut a name, I use START.

The resulting shortcut will show the folders icon. You can do better than that. So right-click the shortcut, select Properties.

Then click Change icon… You can pick an icon from the displayed dialog but none of these are particularly suitable for a start button. I picked a nicer one  – an up arrow – from another group. To get to that one click Browse…

In the new dialog scroll down until you see shell32.dll. That has a wider selection of shortcut icons. Click on that and then Open.

Pick an icon you like then click OK and again OK to complete the changing of the icon.

Drag the resulting desktop shortcut to the taskbar and move the icon to the left-most position. Now you have a poor-man’s Windows 8 start button. Click on it and it will get you to the full-screen “Apps” page with the search bar open.

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck

Technorati Tags: Windows 8,Start Button,start button substitute,shortcut icons,shortcut

Adding an interactive map to a WordPress blog sidebar

Many WordPress users have made their blog the website for their business. WordPress has been supporting this use with many carefully crafted Themes. Many a theme might be a perfect match in look and feel but not offer all the features appropriate for a business. Having directions and a map to the location in the sidebar may be one of those desired features.

Windows Live Writer to the rescue! The blog Live Writer Basics has a post that includes instructions for inserting an interactive map to a specific location in a sidebar Text Widget.

Clicking in the little map brings up a Bing map of the area with all of the features that Bing Maps provides. The illustration here gives you an idea of what such a sidebar looks like. The image here links to a demonstration website where you can try out the sidebar map.

The how-to article is Live Writer for WordPress Blog Post, Pages and also Sidebar – it might be just the ticket.

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck

Technorati Tags: WordPress,blog,business website,sidebar,sidebar map,insert map,Live Writer Basics,Windows Live Writer

The march to oblivion for Picasa Web Albums continues

For some time Google has been pushing users of Picasa Web Albums to switch over to Google+.  Picasa, the desktop photo organizing and editing program, some time back changed the upload button to read “Share on Google+”.

The Picasa Web Albums were replicated in the Google+ Photos look, and now the Picasaweb Albums addresses started to redirect to the new Google+ addresses. When before you had a nice web address for your albums, like picasaweb.google.com/yourname – the new address is more reminiscent of the earliest of email addresses, a long number. Except that Google+ id numbers are twenty-one digits long. My album address changed from an easy to remember picasaweb.google.com/ludwigkeck to plus.google.com/u/0/photos/116009988727944699627/albums That is hardly a way to tell folks how to find my photos.  Good going Google!

Both of those addresses take you to my Google+ Photos page. For a while, at least, there is a way back to the old Picasaweb style albums. Lance Whitney in a post at CNET provides more details. See his post “Google now redirects Picasa Web Albums to Google+ Photos”.

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck

Technorati Tags: Photography,photo sharing,Picasaweb,Picasaweb Albums,Google+

Importing Photos in Windows 8

Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying, “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Microsoft in developing Windows 8 has not heeded this advise and attempted to make it simpler still. As least concerning importing photos from a camera to a Windows 8 PC this over-simplification has resulted in at best a toy. A toy, to borrow a phrase from Consumer Reports, “not suitable for a child that is being punished.”

For many years Microsoft has provided an outstanding tool for managing, enhancing, and sharing photos, Photo Gallery, formerly known as Windows Photo Gallery. This is still a member of the Windows Essentials suite that is available as a free download and already installed on many new Windows 8 computers.

So what happens when you plug your camera into your PC?

You get a little popup in the upper right corner. If you notice it and are quick enough to “tap” it – that is “click” for PC users without a touchscreen – an option dialog shows up there.

In the illustrations here the title is “D60” – that is my camera. The options are rather surprising. I have Photo Gallery installed on this PC and also Picasa. Picasa shows up but Photo Gallery does not.

Why Microsoft would show a competitor’s application but not their own will not be explored in this article, but that is an interesting question.

The problem is, Photo Gallery is not available as an import option. So what does the “Photos” option do? It searches the camera and then presents all the photos that it finds on the camera.

You can select all or none with a command at the top. You can select one by one the photos you want to import. No grouping as with Photo Gallery, no automatic naming of folders, no option to add tags. You can see that I had 561 photos in my camera. Most people have a lot of photos in their cameras. This app is clearly a cheap toy. Don’t bother with it, it will only make you mad.

There is a way to use Photo Gallery, but it is not as simple and easy as in Windows 7.

Go to the desktop and start Photo Gallery. Then plug in and turn on your camera. Ignore the inane “tap” option. (You can set the AutoPlay defaults to “Take no action” so these will not come up in the future.)

The camera will be recognized and shown in the Devices section of the Photo Gallery navigation pane. Note the screen tip. It advises that you can click the devise icon to start the import process. You can also get there with the “Import” option in the upper left on the ribbon.

The Photo Gallery importer – that fine utility that has served users for so many years – will now run normally, providing all the options that make the use of Photo Gallery such a joy and so convenient.

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck

Technorati Tags: Photos,Photography,digital pictures,import,import photos to computer,Photo Gallery,Windows 8

2012 in review

Happy New Year to all my readers!

Here is the “annual report” from WordPress. Many, many thanks dear readers!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 110,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

How to use Windows Live Mail as the mail client in Windows 8

Windows 8 does not come with a desktop mail client installed. When you right-click on a photo and select Send to > Mail recipient, you get to an error message that tells you that “There is no email program associated to perform the requested action …”

What to do? Install Windows Live Mail. This program is part of Windows Essentials and can be downloaded from download.live.com. Click Download now on that site. Then click Run in the download pane, then give your permission for the installation. When you get a choice, click “Choose the programs you want to install”. Make sure Mail is checked. Uncheck any you don’t want. The installation will proceed and a few minutes later will be ready to use.

Here is how to set up the mail client.

• Press the Windows key on the keyboard to get to the Start screen.
• In a space where there is no tile, right-click.
• There will be a bar at the bottom with just one link at the right end, the All Apps link. Click that.
• You will see a large array of app tiles and may have to scroll (to the right) to see them all.
• Find the tile for Windows Live Mail and click on it.

You will be taken to your desktop and Windows Live Mail will open. Since you have not used it so far, it will walk you through the signup. If the sign-in dialog does not come up, click on Sign in in the upper right of the Mail window.

• Go ahead and sign in.

The Mail window will likely just sit there and stare at you. You are not done yet.

• Click the Accounts tab, then click the Email icon in the New Account section to add your account.

The “Add your email accounts” dialog will come up.

• Enter your email account. Enter your password and your name the way you want it to show on your emails.

If your account is also a hotmail.com or live.com or outlook.com address (or one of several others) you do not need to “Manually configure server settings”. If you are using another email service, you will need some technical information from your email provider to complete the setup (if you need help with that and can’t figure out how, you can Ask Ludwig).

• When you get to the “Your email account was added” dialog, click Finish.

Your emails will start coming in and your mail client is ready.

Now when you try to send a photo to an email recipient, Live Mail will come up. It just might try to send it as a “photo email”. There is much charm in that, but if you want to do it the old-fashioned way and send the photo as a attachment you can proceed as follows:

• Click on the thumbnail of the photo. This will select the “photo album” and you will see a Photo Album Tools tab.
• Click the Photo Album Tools tab.
• Click the paper clip icon. See the numbered arrows in the illustration to help you with these steps.

You photo is now going to be sent as an attachment, just the way you used to.

Finish your email normally and send it on its way.

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck

Technorati Tags: Windows 8,mail client,Windows Live Mail,Mail,attach photo,send photo email,email attachment,setup mail client,associate program

Updating drivers for Windows 8

Windows 8 brings with it a set of drivers that might not provide the best performance. I had that happen when I installed Windows 8 on an ancient HP laptop. The native Windows 8 driver could not set the screen to its native resolution. Searching the HP site told me that no graphics driver was available for Windows 8. Finally, after much searching and cussing, I came back and downloaded the most recent driver for my dv8000 – it was a Vista driver from 2007. (Yes, I am talking about an ancient machine!)

Well, that antique Vista driver works just fine in Windows 8. My native screen resolution is back and all the various features seem to work. Plugging in an external projector changes the screen resolution automatically and returns it when I am finished. All is well.

If you have driver issues with Windows 8, take a look at this post: Why, how and where to update your Windows 8 drivers by Alex Castle on PC World. He provides a very extensive list of resources.

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck

Technorati Tags: Windows 8,drivers,update drivers