Using Picasa

I have noted how useful the Picasa softwre is from Google. It can do a lot of editing, straightening of crooked pictures, fixing exposure and sharpness problems and so on. It can find and identify all the pictures with faces in them. All you need to do is identify a couple of them and Picasa will do the rest. You can also put a very neat caption on your photos identifying the subject matter. When you create and burn the photos to a DVDhe captions show up on the screen with the slide. You can GEO tag your photos, it will index all the photos on your computer. The list goes on.

You can spend up to a hundred bucks buying something like Roxio, or Nero and get much of the photo editing from Picasa for free. What it doesn't do however is offer a "Burn DVD (cd)" button. For that you can always look to Windows live DVD maker for help. It works well too.

Windows DVD maker will also do a lot of the things Picasa will do for your photos, plus you can burn a pretty good DVD as well.

Calgary Co-operative Memorial Society

A number of years ago, a lot of people got tired of the high cost of funerals, and some of them decided to do something about it. In Calgary the above named society was formed to allow members to have a dignified burial/cremation at a much lower cost.

Other areas of the country have similar societies, for someone who is reading this and who lives elsewhere. In Calgry he cost of joining is just $20.00 and has been for years. It is a one time only fee to join, which gives you access to one of the largest funeral homes in Calgary, McKinnis & Holloway. They are the societies provider.

For anyone interested you can call the society at 403 248 2044, or toll free at 1 800 566 9959. They have a website at www.calgarymemorial.com

We have belonged to this for years now. We expect to save not hundreds of dollars but thousands on the high cost of dying. Look them over, it costs nothing to find out what they can do for you.

CARIBBEAN CRUISE: OLD SAN JUAN

Well, we are back to the real world, for us anyway. Ariving in Calgary at night when it was 12 below zero with a little wind was a real wake up call as to what we had missed for 2 weeks. Waiting outside for a taxi did little to increase our enthusiasm for the Calgary winter, after being papmered by temperatures no lower than 78 during the day and 77 at night. Even the water temperature was well over 80!
We had a great time with a few exceptions which I will go into at later dates. The cruise itself was very nice with weather generally in the 79 to 84 degree area. Nights were as low as 77, imagine that! It was not without some rain, we had showers at times on various islands, but no real rains. Our first stop was at San Juan Puerto Rico. We got to San Juan late the night before we sailed and this tour was taken midway during our cruise.
San Juan is one of the oldst settlements in the Caribbean founded by Ponce de Leon in 1508 and was later changed in 1521 to San Juan. This is Old San Juan. There are old forts that are still in existence, along with old churches in the Old Town area. The whole thing is virtually a Unesco World Heritage site. It has been beautifully maintained today by the National Parks System. The main wall goes for miles and it is very thick and high. It's function ws to defend the harbour from invading navies. From where it is situated it looks very easy to defend any attack from the sea.
The views from the fort are spectacular. The harbour and the surrounding area scenes are hard to beat when viewed from the walls of the fort. Some of the buildings were used during WW2 as housing and offices for the US military. It is a protected tarritory of he United States. Spanish is the national language, but English is used as well by many of the residents. "Spanglish" is heard at times when an resident is speaking with a tourist.
It is warm, about 78 degrees when we are taken by our tour guide around the site. There are guard towers and gun emplacements that guard every angle of the fort and the town. The walls around the fort are 18 feet thick and 140 feet high; it took almost 200 years to complete what was started in 1540.
Today it is a tourist attraction that should not be missed if going to San Juan.

ADDRESS BOOK

I mentioned that I had a work around for the address book in Thunderbird that would make it like the one from Microsoft in Outlook Express. In the Microsoft version, you can make a small address book, like a list of names you use often. You can create names of say the people who reside in Dreamview. I have over 160 email addresses in my main address book, and sorting through all that to send something out to 10 or so people is a real pain, considering they may be all my regular email users.

So here is the deal on making a new address book. Start in Thunderbird, and click Address book. Create a "New List". Give it a name eg Dreamview. Drag all the Dreamview people into the new list. You will notice that your new list Dreamview shows up in the original Personal Address Book. At this point you cannot open it to send just to some of the Dreamview people. Clicking that name will send it to everybody! Not necessarily what you want to do.

Now comes the work around, Look on the menu bar and click "Tools", click "Export". Navigate to Documents, and give your file a name, Dreamview, Save as Type below the file name. Comma Separated or CSV. Click "Save". Now you have saved the List you created as a separate file.

Now go back to your original Personal Address book. Click Tools again and this time select "Import". When this window opens, select only the Address Books, click Next, Click "Text File", and Next. Type in the name of the file you just saved. Click Comma Separated and in this window click OK. You have now imported a new Address Book for Dreamview and it is no longer just a list.

Now finish up by deleting the old Dreamview List, leaving just the Dreamview Address Book. Check in your new book and you will see that only the people from the list you just created are all in there. You can add names to this list as many as you need as required. You can also deleted names from the list, as needed.

You can make as many of these books as you need. I have a total of 6 separate books, and it works just fine.

It sounds difficult, but it is not much different than any other cut and paste operation you would do on a routine level.

WINDOWS 7

If you are a computer user, welcome to the new way I will be handling the old "Computer Corner" that I put in the Scuttlebutt every month. Since it is only computer users who are interested, I have chosen to no longer put the information in the 'Butt. This way it will only reach those interested and those with computers. I expect to have a new item each week so it will have more information more often, I will leave a link to the blog in the paper however. I hope you like the new format, and if you have any suggestions, or questions, please let me know.

Did you recently get a new computer with the new Windows 7? If you did you will have noticed there is no longer an Outlook Express available. Windows offers up their Windows Live Mail, or Hotmail. Or you can use the ISP (Shaw or Telus) web mail. There are a couple of other alternatives for your email. One is Gmail from Google. And another is Thunderbird from Mozilla. Google the name to find it. Thunderbird seem to work OK, I have used it for a while now and I kind of like it. It is a free email program, and only takes a bit of time to get used to it.

There is a bit of a problem using the Address Book in Thunderbird, but I have discovered a work around and I will discuss it in a future Blog.

Ross

New Year's 2011

It seems appropriate at this time of year to reflect on what the old year did to us and our friends. I'm sure you will have things you love to recall and other things that are more like a bad dream.

It is time to put all the good stuff on your mental "tape" for recall, and to erase all those things that you cannot do anything about. After all we do have a brand new year to look forward to. Regardless of our age, we still have a lot of living to do, and we can decide to either enjoy our tomorrows or not. I choose to enjoy my days, activities and friends!

I read the other day that we should never worry about tomorrow, since first of all it may never come, nor will it necessarily materialize as we sometime fear. Worry will only take away the enjoyment of today as well as tomorrow! There is nothing you can do today to make tomorrow better! Also do not reflect on all the less happy things that happened in the past. It is a waste of time, there is nothing you can do to put the egg back in the shell. Look back to be sure to enjoy the memories of good times with friends and family. Forget the times that were not so good. Stay happy, smile and enjoy the moment. It will never come back. Put these good times away for later memories! Look to make today the best you can make it, enjoy it for what it is.

So as we say good bye to a year with it's ups and down, we do have a lot to be thankful for, and nothing is more important than our health. Relish it as we move forward into 2011, and resolve to enjoy every day in the New Year. It is the best resolution you can make.

My wish for all of you who read this is that you enjoy good health throughout the year. I also wish that you will be a happy person, and that you store away all those good memories. May you also have peace with your own particular place in the universe, and lastly I hope you will find the year prosperous enough that you will not have financial worries.

Happy New Year. Have a great 2011!
Ross

CHRISTMAS PAST!

I don't know about you, but this may have been one of the best Christmas Celebrations ever, at least for me.

For one thing, Joan dodged a bullet and has seemingly survived her breast cancer. One can never be certain, but all indications are excellent. God has answered our prayers, and we have a different outlook on life than we had previously. We are happy with that.

We spent a good part of Christmas Day at our daughters and her family at there home just a few blocks from Dreamview. Garrett, our grandson is developing into quite the little man, and we noted a lot of changes in just a few short months. Not only has he grown taller, he is considerably more mature.

His Mom and Dad have done well this year. We enjoyed a great turkey dinner prepared in part by Brenda who did the turkey, her mother in law who prepared a couple of great pies, apple and pumpkin. Joan did the potatoes and vegetables. I provided the wine, homemade of course. A great meal to be sure.

Pat's brother Barry was also there, and we were heartened to hear that he has pretty well recovered from his knee injury caused when he fell down some stairs on his job. The fall he took after that where he broke his wrist is coming along nicely and he expects to return to work early in the new year. Another thing he is determined to do is quit smoking! We wish him well with this.

Al and Kathy were there as well for dinner, and certainly seemed to enjoy it judging by the way they tucked in!

Presents were abundant for everyone and I was most tickled with one from our kids. It was a photo album of our grandson Garrett. Not just any ordinary album however. This one is produced on very good paper, bound with a hard cover. It is done up by an online company you may find interesting and useful. The company is http://www.mypublisher.com/products/certificates/create?gclid=CKjK3vvsiqYCFRQ8gwodogrieA
The pictures you want are uploaded and they do all the work and ship the finished product back. Excellent quality, including the colouring of the photos. I think it is so cool.

Yes it was a great Christmas for all of us, and I know we all enjoyed the day and all it means.
Happy New Year!