In September we spent some time at the New Jersey shore - LBI. This is where Jim spent his high school years and it's a special place.

Then we went to our last rally for the summer season, the Gypsy Gathering Eastern Rally in Celina, Ohio. In addition to our regular seminars, we taught advanced sessions in both Picasa (digital photos) and Blogging. Each one took 1.5 hours, but it was obvious that we could have gone on for days! It was fun and people told us that they learned a Lot.

September Articles

So you don't miss anything, here are the other articles we've written this past month.
Streets and Trips 2010 (with free video)
Are you online while driving?
Free Anti-Virus Programs
Kindle Book Reader is Perfect for RVers
New Picasa 3.5: Geotagging (with free video)
New Picasa 3.5: Face Recognition
Picasa: Backup, Backup, Backup!
Picasa: Combining Stars and Tags

In this newsletter

• Facebook and Blogger
• Picasa 3.5
• Windows 7 Question and Launch Event

www.GeeksOnTour.com  
An online classroom offering Computer Education for Travelers with 'Show-Me-How' Video tutorials on Picasa, Blogger, Google Earth, Basic Windows Computing and more. Includes a Members Only Q&A forum.

Join Today! $39 for one year. If you get one question answered in our Q&A forum, you've surpassed the value!

Facebook and Blogger

At the Gypsy Journal Rally we taught a class called 'Blogging: Beyond the Basics." We asked for a show of hands for how many people in the audience used Facebook. We were astonished that over half raised their hand! We are just blown away by the popularity of Facebook - even in the Senior community. The main attraction is the connections you make there. SO many people use it, and it's so good at making suggestions for other people to use it, that you can connect to anyone and everyone in your life thru Facebook.

Many travelers that we know are on facebook because their grandkids are there. Many others have reconnected to high school friends from 30, 40 or even 50 years ago!

Facebook isn't the easiest system to figure out however, so we still think every traveler should have a blog, and Blogger is the easiest way to make one. Then, it's a simple matter to share your blog posts with your facebook friends. All you have to do is to view one blog post that you want to share, click the share link at the top of the page, and select Facebook.

It will ask you for your Facebook name and password, then you'll have an opportunity to write a few words describing the post. Once you're complete, your description and a thumbnail will appear on your Facebook 'Wall' for all your friends to see, along with a link to go to the blog post.

Picasa 3.5 Import screen

The latest upgrade to Picasa came out on September 23. They're calling it 3.5. The biggest change is in the 'Import Photos' screen. In the prior version, Import was on 2 screens; first you selected what you wanted to import (All, or Selected, Exclude duplicates or not) then the next screen asked where you wanted them - the folder specification. In Picasa 3.5 it's all on one screen. So, you have to specify the target folder before you click 'Import All' or 'Import Selected.'

Notice in the screenshot below the Import From, Exclude Duplicates and Progress note are in the upper left. Everything else is at the bottom. Your procedure, therefore, goes from top, to bottom - then left to right.

A couple things to notice:

• Picasa creates a folder name for you with the current date (2009-10-05 above.) You don't have to accept that - and you probably shouldn't. You can delete 2009-10-05 and type anything there that you want. I usually put all pictures in a folder for the month, so I put 200910 in that place. In the older version, it would remember the folder name where I put the last imported batch of pictures - I could just select 200910 from a dropdown list. It doesn't seem to do that anymore, but I can just type it in again and the pictures all go to the same place.
• There is a new option to 'Upload.' This means that you can upload to your web albums at the same time that you import to your pictures on your computer. I would never do that, because I like to look at the pictures and do a little editing before uploading.

For more information on the new Picasa, see our dedicated website - PicasaTutorials.com, there's even a free video on the fabulous new Geotagging feature.

Q&A from our Members

One of the benefits of becoming a Geeks on Tour member is the private Q&A forum. Here is a sample Q&A from the past month:

Upgrading to Windows 7 - and Launch Party:

Q: Finally got a chance to read your article on upgrading to Win 7. As I understand it, to go from WinXP to Win 7 one has to do a clean install but if going from Vista to Win 7 you can do an "upgrade" and you do not need to spend a day or two re-installing all your software.

A: I don't usually recommend upgrading from XP to Windows 7. Look into getting a new computer. New computers are being built to take advantage of Windows 7.

A clean install is recommended because it gives you a chance to get the best performance from your computer. Upgrades might be alright for a newer computer. Yes, you can upgrade to Vista and then up to 7. Upgrades require more time to install. I have heard of installs taking over 4 hours, and still there were problems.

You should download the Vista Upgrade Advisor to be sure your hardware is OK for Windows 7.

New operating systems are released to take advantage of new hardware. A computer even a couple of years old was designed for using XP, and often has problems upgrading. Much depends on the age and condition of the XP computer hardware. Vista has been criticized for lack of device driver support.

Launch Party: We are preparing to host a Windows 7 Launch Party, October 22 in Fort Lauderdale. Anyone in South Florida can join us at Paradise Island RV park. You can also join us online: Geeks on Tour Windows 7 Launch Party.

Microsoft is sponsoring these parties all over. I am learning a lot about the product to prepare for ours. I like Windows 7. I've been using the Release Candidate version for several months. I will get a new release version to load before the party. I plan on doing a clean install.

Jim Guld

That's all for now. We hope you learned something. Your next issue will be next month. Any questions, please email us. If you like this newsletter, please forward it on to your friends! If you received this issue forwarded by a friend you can subscribe to get your own copy delivered to your in box - it's free. To see the archives of past newsletters, go to www.geeksontour.com/newsletters.

Happy Computing!

The Geeks on Tour website is an online classroom for Travelers who want to learn to use their computers for managing digital photos, making blogs, using maps and other online resources. Anyone can watch our free sample videos, read articles on our Articles and Links Blog, sign up for our free monthly newsletter, or Picasa weekly tips. A small fee makes you a 'member' and you can then view any of our 140+ video tutorials on these subjects.