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:

Make your own Windows 8 Start button

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

In a virtual machine certain support programs are required to make everything appear like a normal computer. For VirtualBox this software is called Guest Additions, it is installed in the guest, in this case Windows 8. Without the Guest Additions the virtual machine is extremely limited, and in the case of Windows 8 substantially useless.

The current version of VirtualBox is 4.2.4 (November 2012). If you have an earlier version click the image at the right to download the current version. Be sure to select the package appropriate for your system.

There is a command in the Devices menu to install, or re-install, the Guest Additions. It takes Windows 8 several seconds to respond. When it does it shows a message dialog (in the upper right area).

The message instructs to “Tap to choose what happens with software and games”. The message is displayed for just a few seconds and then disappears. If you click on it in time you get a dialog where you can select “Run VBoxWindowsAddtions.exe…”. Clicking that gets the installation of the Guest Additions underway.

If you missed the initial dialog, clicking “Install Guest Additions…” in the Devices menu may not have any apparent effect, and the dialog does not come up again.

For this situation here is the way to install the Guest Additions.

Launch File Explorer in the Windows 8 virtual machine (that is Windows Explorer to us oldtimers). Click the CD Drive entry in the navigation pane. Then double-click VBoxWindowsAdditions. Be sure to select the version appropriate for your version of Windows 8 (64-bit or 32-bit).

Installation will proceed from there. At one point you will asked “Would you like to install this device software?”. Click the checkbox to “Always trust software from “Oracle Corporation”.” so you will not see this repeatedly, then click Install.

With the Guest Additions installed you have a beautiful version of Windows 8. You can resize the window to any size and use the clipboard for moving material between the host and guest system (with limits).

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck

I am proud to announce that my new book is now available at Amazon.com, Senior Academy, and other sites. This book is aimed at seniors but can be a great learning resource for all. Please take a look.

Learn to use Windows Photo Gallery effectively.

This might be a great gift for someone who likes to take and share pictures! Check it out.

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck

Here are the steps for arranging a SkyDrive album

Sign in to your SkyDrive and navigate to the album you wish to arrange. In the upper right click the Sort order link. In the drop-down menu click Arrange. 

A new page opens showing the pictures in thumbnail view. The pointer will be the familiar four-pointed “move” shape whenever it is over a thumbnail.

Just drag any thumbnail into another location. As you drag other thumbnails separate to make room for the moved photo. Just drop it in the place you like.

But wait – there is more!

When you hover the pointer over a thumbnail a “select box” shows up in the upper right corner of the image. Just click to select it. After the first selection all the other thumbnails display their select boxes. Click on another thumbnail to select it. Click a selected image and it is unselected. Drag any one of the selected thumbnails to a new location and the other selected ones come along.

When the order is as you want it, click Save sort order in the title bar. You are now ready to share your album and your viewers will see it in the order that you have defined.

.:.

© 2012 Ludwig Keck