2012 February • David Leonard - Computer Support in London

An example of Cloud Computing - ToodleDo Task Manager

Feb 252012

Since I bought my Sony Tablet S I’ve been trying to consolidate all the different bits of software I use so that as much as possible is available on both my main Windows 7 laptop and on the Android tablet. “Android“, by the way, is the operating system on the Tablet. In other words, it does the job that Windows does on most computers. It was specially designed for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs where the screen is typically much smaller than that on a PC and where there is likely to be no physical keyboard.

So, if you want to move smoothly between a laptop and a mobile device with the same data and functionality available on each device then you have to consider:

Whether there is an identical or similar program available on both devices.
Whether these programs access the same data files so that you don’t have to worry about trying to reconcile different versions of your data.

As I said in my earlier blog on Tablet PCs, I am new to Android and I’m pleased and surprised at how good it is with these considerations. I haven’t got it all sorted out yet and some requirements are easier to satisfy than others, but so far I am encouraged and I think it is very possible for users with the typical needs and skills of my own computer support clients to get value from a smart mobile device. Some people may need some help to get started, but once things are set up they seem stable and user-friendly (Android devices, that is, not my computer clients – whose stability and user-friendliness is beyond doubt).

So, as part of that quest to get my main work needs met on a Tablet PC I went looking for a modern “Task Manager” (or “To-Do-List Manager”) that I could access from a Windows PC or Android Tablet.

I came across ToodleDo and certainly think it’s worth looking at. It works as follows:

It is web-based. You access it through a web browser (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox).
Your data (tasks, reminders etc) are held by ToodleDo on their servers.
Consequently, your data is available from any computer that can access the internet. It could be a Windows PC, a Mac, a Tablet PC, a smartphone.

This “model” or “arrangement” of working through a web browser is becoming more and more popular. You’ve probably heard the term “Cloud Computing” and this is it. You don’t install a program onto your own computer, you don’t have to back up your data (if you trust whoever is hosting your data to do it properly), and you don’t have to copy or reconcile different data files between different devices. It’s not really new, of course: web-based email programs such as Hotmail have worked this way for years. But it’s now becoming more and more popular for other types of programs and one of the reasons for the growing popularity is this need to have the same data available on lots of different devices.

There can be disadvantages to this approach:

You may need to have a working internet connection to be able to access your data (but some programs allow downloading of your data onto your own computer so as to make it available “offline” – ie available even when there is no internet connection).
You may be concerned about the privacy and security of your data as it’s online (“in the cloud”) and outside your own control.
Web-based programs are often slower, have fewer features, and are generally less pleasant to use than the equivalent “local” program would be.

A ToodleDo Screen - click on image to enlarge it.

Despite the disadvantages, you don’t have to have lots of different devices to make it worth using cloud-based programs such as ToodleDo. There’s no reason at all why you can’t use it on your one and only PC. Some of the things I like about it so far are:

It’s free (there’s a “Pro” version available that has an annual subscription fee).
There are lots of ways of classifying, sorting, and prioritising tasks.
It’s easy to use.
You can receive a daily email listing the most important tasks for the day.
You can create tasks/reminders just by sending an email to a special email address linked to your account. This is useful for creating tasks as soon as you think of them, but it also means you can forward an incoming email to this special address so that it’s on your “to do” list.
There’s a data backup/restore feature (but not, as far as I know, a method for working “offline”).

So, whether or not you use more than one computer, if you are looking for a Task Manager I recommend looking at ToodleDo. And if you are thinking you may want to be using a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet in the future then I would definitely recommend bearing that fact in mind when choosing any new program or way of working.

Automatic Updates for Internet Explorer

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Feb 182012

In the past, Internet Explorer updates were offered to the user as part of the Windows update process, but the user had to “co-operate” with the process and confirm that (s)he wished to install the new version. We all know that software updates seem like a nuisance and an interruption to whatever we are doing. It is always very tempting to click the “cancel” button and carry on as before.

The main reason why this is not such a good idea with new versions of Internet Explorer is that a large proportion of the unpleasant malware and suchlike that gets onto our computers does so by slipping past the browser and into our systems. Older versions of Internet Explorer (or, indeed, any other browser) are inherently less secure than new ones. It makes sense to update to new versions if you don’t have a compelling reason not to.

But apart from the inconvenience of stopping what we are doing so that the new version can be installed, we may also be irritated by the fact that the new version doesn’t look or behave the same as the old one. For instance, the trend in recent versions of most web browsers (including Internet Explorer) has been to go for a more “minimalist” look. This means that there is more room on the screen to display the web page we are looking at, but it’s irritating to realise that the “home” button or the “bookmarks” button has disappeared or moved somewhere new.

And when it comes to upgrading to Internet Windows Explorer 9, other irritations include:

The “download” dialog box that used to appear in the middle of the screen to confirm that we definitely do want to download the file we’ve just asked for, has moved to the bottom of the screen and became much less obvious. It now looks like this:

I wonder how many minutes I’ve wasted staring semi-vacantly at the screen waiting for that dialog box to appear, only to realise eventually that it’s at the bottom and not directly in front of my eyes (Note to my computer support clients: I’ve never ever done this on your time. I only ever waste time when I’m in front of my own computer).

Another thing that is really annoying lots of Internet Explorer 9 users is the box that often pops up at the bottom of the screen that looks like this:

What’s happening here is that Internet Explorer has noticed that one or more “add-ons” (ie bells and whistles) that you have bolted on to your Internet Explorer is slowing down the opening up of your browser. Not wanting to get the blame itself for slow opening, Internet Explorer times the opening of these add-ons and pops up the box when one of them exceeds a threshold for the time it takes to load. If you click on the button on this popup bar marked “Choose add-ons” you can see which ones are slow to load. In the example below, it is the Samsung AnyWeb Print that is causing the popup because it is taking longer to load than the threshold of 0.20 seconds

Disable Add-On Dialog Box

What’s annoying everyone is that there’s no way of turning off this “feature”. The only way of stopping the popup from happening is to either disable the guilty add-on (in this case the Samsung AnyWeb Print) or increase the threshold so high that it never gets triggered. You can change the threshold by clicking on the button that currently says “0.20 seconds”. There isn’t any way to tell Internet Explorer to just mind its own business and stop telling tales on the slow add-ons. No doubt this feature was introduced as an answer to critics who said that Internet Explorer was loading slowly, but you’d think it perfectly reasonable to be able to turn this “feature” off entirely.

Anyway, the point I was going to make – before “Mr Grumpy” took over – is that Microsoft are now changing to a system whereby Internet Explorer is going to be invisbly and automatically updated as part of the regular Windows Updates process. This means that we are going to just find that Internet Explorer looks and feels different without warning.

If you don’t want this to happen, there are “toolkits” to stop updating from becoming automatic and Microsoft say that they will be building the automatic upgrading option into the settings of the browser itself at some time in the future. See The Windows Blog for further information.

So, at any time soon (unless you install a toolkit) you may find that your Internet Explorer has been updated to version 9 without your explicit approval. My own recommendation, though, is to accept this change without thinking of blocking it. The irritations of the popups are nowhere near as serious as the possible damage that could be wreaked by something nasty getting past your older version of Internet Explorer. And looking at it from a wider perspective, if this move means that more people are better protected then that’s bad news for the malware peddlars and good news for the rest of us.

And if you don’t like it, you can always switch to Chrome or Firefox, or another browser….. See my earlier blog on browsers for more information.

Sizing Digital Images

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Feb 112012

What do we mean by the size of a digital image?

Dandelion pictures superimposed and reduced In the last week one computer client asked me why I don’t blog more on digital photography and someone else asked me to clarify how you change the size of image files. This kind of technical advice is probably better imparted in a 1:1 computer training session, but let’s see if I can help at least two clients in one go.

On this subject, it’s easy to conflate two different things and get thoroughly confused. These two things are:

The amount of information there is in the digital image and, therefore, the amount of space it takes to store it.
The physical, measurable size of the image if we print it or view it onscreen.

1) Information in an Image

As explained in a previous blog on digital images – a bitmap digital image (the more common type of digital image) can be thought of as a grid of tiny squares in which each tiny square is a single colour. A single square (known as a “pixel”, meaning “picture element”) can only be a single colour. So, if you have an image that is broken down into a grid of 1000 squares across and 1500 squares down then you have a picture comprised of 1,500,000 pixels. That figure is one way of describing the size of the image. Another way of saying this would be “One and a half million pixels” or, as you will see written on the point of sale literature for cameras, “1.5 mega pixels”.

The next aspect is to consider how much information there is in a single pixel. If the image is a “greyscale” image, containing only black, white and varying shades of grey in between, then each pixel is likely to be assigned one of 256 different shades of grey (including the black and white at either end of the scale). If we wish to record/describe the colour of any pixel then we can assign a number from 1-256 (representing each colour from white to black) to each pixel.

So, the total size of the image in terms of the amount of space it takes up on your computer or camera is the number of pixels (1,500,000) multiplied by the amount of space required to define the colour of each pixel. As it happens, it takes 1byte to define any of 256 colours so our image is going to be about 1.5mb in size. If this is a colour image in which each pixel can be a combination of any of 256 shades of red, green, and blue (known as an 8-bit RGB image) then we will need 3 bytes to define the colour of each pixel so the total size of the image will be 4.5mb.

This is a slight simplification of the actual size of the file, but the reasoning is sound. The file is likely to be slightly larger in practice because it will also contain other information known as “meta data” that doesn’t form part of the image itself (eg information about when the image was taken, the settings of the camera etc). Going in the other direction, though, if the image is a digital photograph then it’s highly likely that it will be in a “jpg” format – in which case the file will be “compressed”, thereby making it smaller (but we needn’t go into that here).

So, if you wish to email an image or upload it to a website and know that there is an upper limit to the size of the image, then it is the factors above that you need to consider – see this blog on emailing large attachments. If you’ve prepared your image in an editing program such as Photoshop and the resulting file size is too big then you need to do one or more of the following:

Crop the image (chop bits off it)
Reduce the “colour depth” (number of different colours available for each pixel)
Increase the compression at the expense of quality (if it’s a jpg, for instance)
Change the number of pixels into which the image is divided.

Photoshop Dialog Box for Image Size It is the last of these options that we are going to consider here. Look at the dialog box in Photoshop for changing the number of pixels in an image. Note that we haven’t yet mentioned “dpi” and we don’t need to! DPI has nothing to do with the size of the image as it sits on your computer or flies through cyberspace. Just change the number of pixels in the dialog box (under “Pixel Dimensions”) and the size of the image is immediately changed. And note that since we are working in two dimensions, halving the size of each dimension (height and width) would quarter the size of the resulting file. The easiest way of reducing the size of the file is to reduce the number of pixels it contains.

2) Displaying an Image

When displaying an image on a computer screen, or printing on a deskjet or laser printer, the image is made up of “dots” or “pixels” as created by the computer or printer. The density of these dots is what defines the size of the physical result.

So, if we have an image of 1000 X 1500 pixels and print it at a density of 200 dots per inch (dpi) then the printed image will measure 5 inches by 7.5 inches.

If we increase the number of dots per inch we will be packing the pixels closer together. This means that the image will (a) appear sharper (within limits) and (b) be smaller when it is printed.

So, if we print the same image at 300dpi then it will measure 3.3 X 5 inches when printed.

The crucial thing to appreciate is that we haven’t changed the size of the image itself. It’s still 1000 X 1500 pixels and it will still take up the same space on the computer. The decision to print it at 200dpi or 150dpi or 300dpi is separate from the size of the image itself. In practice, whatever your printer tells you it is capable of producing, you are unlikely to see any difference in printed quality if you raise the density (or “resolution”) higher than 300dpi but if you drop it to less than 150dpi you are likely to see the quality drop.

I’m not suggesting that there is no connection between image size and printing resolution. Clearly, whatever the resolution, the printed image will be larger if there are more pixels to print and if there aren’t enough pixels available then printing in lower resolution to get a larger print will reduce the quality of the printed result to unacceptable levels.

The important point I’m trying to make here, though, is that “dpi” has nothing to do with file size. Changing the “dpi” will not change the size of your file.

See this Wikipedia page on dpi for more detail on this topic.

You may also like to refer to these previous blog posts:

File Sizes
File Sizes – 2
Checking File Sizes

Why would I want a Tablet PC or an iPad?

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Feb 042012

Tablet PCs are like smartphones in that the main method of input is via a touchscreen rather than a keyboard but the much larger screens make using them a lot easier. They are like netbooks computers (but even lighter) in that they make “mobile computing” easier than lugging around a laptop computer.

I like computer gadgets up to a point, but like to think that my purchasing decisions have some rational basis. So, I’ve been wondering whether tablet PCs are just the latest trendy/geeky toy, or would one really have a place in my own computing life and that of my average computer support client in London. I do have a perfectly rational (if insufficient) reason for buying a Tablet PC in that a lot of them run the Android operating system (as opposed to Windows or Mac OS-X, for instance) and I need to learn about Android so as to be able to offer informed advice to my computer clients. Here’s a quick intro to Android.

Sony Tablet S

So, last weekend I bought a Sony Tablet S. The nerd in me will be happy for months. But would it have any appeal for my “average computer client” and does it serve any real purpose not covered by laptops, netbooks, and smartphones? Here are some of my first impressions:

They’re not cheap. I paid £449 – a typical price for a “good” Tablet PC. You can buy a perfectly serviceable laptop for that price and the lack of keyboard on Tablets means that I think most people would find it hard to completely replace a “proper” computer (although it’s possible to connect an external keyboard to some Tablets).
Android is easy. The Android operating system was specifically written for devices whose main method of input is via a touchscreen (rather than lots of fiddly little keys – how do people with grown up hands actually use Blackberrys?) Android also seems intuitive and easy to learn.
Android is fun. You have probably heard the term “apps”. These are small programs that perform just one function (eg display a clock, load the BBC news site, open your email program, connect to your LinkedIn account). They are very easy to find online and install. Most apps are free but have small embedded ads. There is often an ad-free version that costs all of a pound or two.

After only a few days, I am fairly sure that the Tablet will – for me – fulfil some definite purposes such as:

Browsing the internet when I’m away from a proper computer. I just can’t be bothered struggling with the mobile phone versions of web browsing.
Dealing with emails properly when away from a computer. My mobile phone includes a keyboard but it’s still not ideal for writing a long email. The touchscreen keyboard on the Sony Tablet is easy to use – a million times easier than the virtual keyboard on an iphone! You can whip a Tablet out of a briefcase and be working on it in seconds – much more convenient than getting out a netbook in a train, for instance.
Ebooks. I’ve already got a Sony e-reader but didn’t quite think it worth lugging the weight of it around with all the other stuff in my case. As far as the weight is concerned, I can think of having an e-reader with me as “free” if it’s installed on the Tablet. If your are thinking of buying an e-reader I would recommend thinking about whether a tablet would be a better buy for you.
I think I’ll be able to get things set up so that I have proper access to my most important documents when I’m out and about – thanks to Dropbox and its Android app.

There’s a chance that I may even be able to carry the Tablet around with me instead of the heavier netbook. The main problem might be the downloading and transferring of stuff to clients’ computers. Some tablets – such as the Sony – include support for SD cards for extra storage and for data transfer. This might be enough for most of my needs. I certainly wouldn’t have bought a tablet without such flexibility.

Apple iPad 2

The tablet will also become something to keep to hand at home. It gives such easy and quick access to everything you can’t quite be bothered to check on your “proper computer” and which is just too tedious to do on a smartphone – things such as checking the outside temperature just before going out, seeing what’s on telly, checking travel news, and, if you’re that way inclined, checking into social networking sites. The Sony Tablet even has inbuilt infrared so you can program it to replace your TV and DVD remote controls.

I’ve had a few moments of delighted surprise playing with this thing – such as discovering the app that measures the severity of an ongoing earthquake. OK – that’s probably not funny if you live in Japan or California, but it seems so in SW4. The biggest surprise, though, was discovering the app that relays the current information on bus services. This, of course, is the data you now get on the dot matrix boards at some bus stops, but having it on a Tablet means you can leave home at just the right moment. As someone who gave up driving round London 20 years ago but who travels a lot to clients, this is one of those marvels of modern life – like GPS integrated with the A-Z on my smartphone.

This is a highly personal view of what a Tablet PC might do better than a smartphone or a netbook/laptop. There are plenty of other directions I could have explored so far – including watching movies and TV, playing games, twittering, music etc. So far, I’ve discovered that Tablet PCs do, indeed, fall somewhere between smartphones and netbooks but that doesn’t mean they have no real purpose. On the contrary, stuff that’s mildly interesting but too tedious to access in other ways is easily accessed via a Tablet.

I do acknowledge that the current popularity (but NOT the creation) of Tablet PCs began with the release of the iPad. Pretty well everything I’ve said about Android Tablets is probably true of iPads (but all the Apps are different versions and are only accessible via Apple).

Conclusion: Tablet PCs do fill a niche, and they’re fun. Your life probably won’t become empty and meaningless without one, but If you’re at all curious about them I recommend further investigation. And, so far at least, I thoroughly recommend the Sony Tablet S.

Automatic Updates for Internet Explorer

Sizing Digital Images

Why would I want a Tablet PC or an iPad?

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