A helpful warning from a reader and my favourite program for editing photos this time. Oh, and a quick word about what I’m up to…
A warning from a reader – a new scam
This is a scam I hadn’t heard of in quite this form – worth warning you so you don’t get taken in if they try it on you:
I have been the victim of a scam run by several firms who are targeting the elderly promising that they have won a lot of money and/or expensive presents such as t.vs or computers and all they have to do is to send in an order, which goes on and on, and you never get any money sent to you and your name and address is sold on to other firms who do the same. As you are in contact with many older people I am wondering if you would be willing to put a warning in your email letters so that other people do not find themselves in the same position.
Thanks to Kathleen for letting me know – the more people know about things like this, the more people will know it’s a con if someone tries it on them!
My favourite program for editing photos
I wrote about my favourite program for word processing a couple of weeks ago. This time I want to write about my favourite program for editing photos.
Sometimes I edit photos quite a bit or combine several to make a sort of collage. But most of the time I just crop in a little to cut off an ugly pylon at the side or to zoom in a bit on someone’s face – that sort of thing.
I’ll also use it to brighten a dark photo or the other way round and to remove “red-eye”
I’ve used several programs (including the expensive full version of Photoshop, which is the one magazines tend to use to touch up people’s photos for the covers) but the one I use nowadays is called FastStone image viewer. It’s an odd name – I’ve no idea why it’s called FastStone and it’s not just an image viewer – it lets you edit as well. But there you go!
More importantly it does everything I want to do with my own photos. It’s not as powerful as PhotoShop – it would be hard to fake a photo convincingly, for example, which PhotoShop often gets used for. But the fact that it’s not as powerful and has fewer features can mean it’s less confusing to use.
Anyway, if you’re after a program to let you edit photos and don’t want to pay anything for it, then the one I use is FastStone Image Viewer and you can get it here: http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm
What I’m up to…
I’ve been busy over the last few weeks working on something new. I’m not quite ready to announce it just yet (just in case there are any set-backs along the way!) but should be in a week or two. What I can say is that it won’t be just relevant to PCs and laptops, but will also be useful to people who want more help with other gadgets you use for accessing the internet – tablets like the iPad and smartphones that can use the internet.
I’d best stop before I say more than I meant to!