How To Send 100 Photos In An Email

If you have ever tried to ‘attach’ a bunch of pictures to an email, you have probably bumped into email’s limitations. Most Email will only allow you to send 10 MB’s of attachments, and ‘paperclip’ on 4 attachments at a time.

Those of you who have a Hotmail account can use the free (included) “SkyDrive” feature can get around these limits and send your PowerPoint slideshows and/or multiple images with a few clicks. (Yeah, I know. Bashing Microsoft and Hotmail just got a bit harder to do..)
Sharing pictures with friends and family is now a whole lot easier.

To share multiple photos:

1. Click New to create a new email message.
2. Type an email address and subject.
3. Click Photos, and then click New album.
4. Select the photos that you want to create an album with, and then click Open. Hotmail will upload and save the photos to SkyDrive.
5. Type a message, and then click Send.

Note: You need to install Microsoft Silverlight to use this feature. This feature is not yet available in all countries or regions.

A short video tutorial is here.

Don’t have a “Windows Live ID” or Hotmail account? You can sign up (free) for one here

Related: Those of you who do not want to do Hotmail/Silverlight may be interested in my How to send big files (updated)

Today’s quote: “It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor.” ~ Max Eastman

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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Quick Tip: Digitally Document Your Possessions

Photographic Proof For Insurance (Included: a good “general tip”)

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say; but if you had a catastrophe and your insurance company refuted, or undervalued, your claim – a picture could be worth thousands of dollars.

If your house burned to the ground, and your insurance company disagreed with you about the contents of your home, or severely undervalued them, or both, how would you respond? I would open my email.

What did he say?

Step 1) (Takes an hour, or two, or so) Get a hold of a digital camera, or use your cell phone’s camera if you have no other option, and photograph all your rooms in a “panorama” type perspective. Also be sure to take good pictures of all your key (valuable) possessions – furniture, electronics, appliances, jewelry, artwork, vehicles, power tools, silverware, etc. Open your closets and snap some pics of their contents (your wardrobe); and also your cabinets with all your pots and pans and popcorn poppers. Create a “visual tour” of your home/garage/tool shed.

Step 2) Transfer the images to your PC into a folder you create named “Insurance” (or.. something similar). Then apply a “batch resizer” to the JPEGs (the pictures) you just took. Digital images from cameras usually are quite large (file size, I mean) and to complete the next step, you need to ‘shrink’ them down to a smaller (file) size — say, under 500 KB each. It is easy, don’t worry; scroll down for my reco on a “resizer” tool.

Step 3) Now import (or attach) the (smaller) images to an email and send the email to yourself.
This may be easiest if you use a “zip” utility (such as Windows’ Send to compressed folder).
Now, no matter what happens to your camera or computer, a copy of those photos will be stored on your email server – ready to show to your insurance claims adjuster should you ever need them. It may take more than one email to send yourself them all..
(And naturally, I hope we never do need them..!)

And let’s face it; if we had to sit down and write out a list from memory.. how many things would we forget without that visual reminder?

(Optional Step 4) “Burn” a copy of the original “Insurance” folder to a CD/DVD (the large size images) and put the disc in your safety deposit box (or give it to a friend to keep for you.)

Walking through with a video camera is a great thing to do too. But be sure to store the ‘tape’ somewhere else.

And YES, folks: you have to do this before the tornado (or hurricane, or earthquake, or..) strikes.

Today’s free download: Batch Image resizing made easy. Fotosizer is a free batch photo/image resizer tool. It lets you resize hundreds of photos in a matter of minutes in a quick and easy way.

(The tip here can be good to know just for “GP”. You never know when you might want to email a large number of photos..)

Related: Home Inventory: How to Document Your Personal Property (there is also a link to two videos at the bottom..)

Not directly related: Back to School 2011: ‘What to buy your kid for college’ guide

“Back to School 2011: College is an investment, not just for those who go, but for parents too. Give your kid a helping hand with these tech essentials.” Read more…

Today’s quote: “My idea of exercise is a good brisk sit.”  ~ Phyllis Diller

Yes. I'd say so.

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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Ease Holiday Mailings With Word and Mail Merge

Use Word To Create Labels From Your Address Book Of Contacts

You can use Word’s “mail merge” feature when you want to create a set of documents that are essentially the same but where each document contains unique elements. For example: a letter of holiday greeting, your inserted photos and the basic message (text) will appear in each letter, but the address and greeting line will be different in each letter.

Using mail merge, you can create:

• A set of labels or envelopes The return address is the same on all the labels or envelopes, but the destination address is unique on each one.
• A set of form letters, e-mail messages, or faxes The basic content is the same in all the letters, messages, or faxes, but each contains information that is specific to the individual recipient, such as name, address, or some other piece of personal data.
• More…

Using mail merge, all you have to do is create one document that contains the information that is the same in each version. Then you just add some placeholders for the information that is unique to each version. Word takes care of the rest.

It is that first – creating address labels – that can really help if you need to send correspondence to a lot of people. Your “address book”, or “Contacts” list, can be used as the source for the label maker (see Step 2). Microsoft has a very clear tutorial on using Word’s “mail merge” feature, and here are the links:
Step 1: Choose a document type and main document
Step 2: Connect to a data file and select records
Step 3: Add fields to the main document
Step 4: Preview the merge and then complete it

When you have “merged” your address book, and the ‘labels’ (or, if your printer allows it, envelopes), you just insert a sheet of labels (such as Avery) and hit “Print”. Saves having to look up, and manually copy down each person’s address…

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Virus In My E-mail?

“A friend told me my e-mail had infected their computer.”

It is never any fun to take the blame for something you didn’t do. But that’s what happened to a recent client of mine. The call started out easy enough. When I asked “how can I help you today?”, they told me they wanted me to “remove the virus from (their) computer.”

I asked a few more questions; such as, were they running an antivirus, and what was causing them to think they were infected? (You might think it unlikely that there are people — in this day and age — who are not running an antivirus program.. but, sadly, there still are. If that be you, or you have let the “subscription” expire, please, click here!)

The client informed me that not only did they have an up-to-date antivirus but the scan was coming up clean, and that they had used the online scanner, Housecall, and it had come up clean as well.
Hmmm…
Bizarre behavior? Machine slow? Missing files? Garbled files? Odd Error messages? None.
Hmmm…

So what made this person think their machine had a virus?
Their reply, “A friend told me my e-mail had infected their computer.”

My client was very relieved to learn that not only was their machine free from viruses [Yes, I did some further checking] but that they had not even sent the infected e-mail in the first place!

What had happened was that their e-mail address had been “spoofed“. The infected e-mail in the friend’s Inbox only looked like it came from my caller, but had actually come from somewhere else.
Address spoofing is a hacker’s method of changing the code in the header of the e-mail so that it displays a (legitimate) e-mail address, but one different from the actual sender… very much as if you wrote a make-believe return address on an envelope you mailed.

Spammers and Phishers use this technique to hide the real origin (to make it seem as if the e-mail really did come from BofA, for example), and some types of malware use it to propagate and spread themselves. It was this latter use of spoofing which triggered my client’s call.
Someone (a friend or relative, most likely) – who had my client’s e-mail address in their address book — has been infected with a worm. This worm scanned the infected computer for anything resembling an e-mail address, collected them, and then mailed itself to those addresses. The recipient, thinking the poisoned e-mail came from a trusted Sender, opened the e-mail (and probably clicked on the attachment, or link). In short, my client was not infected, but someone they know is.
If you find yourself in a situation like my client, or if you get “Delivery Failure” notices for e-mails you did not send, your address may be being spoofed.

Tip of the day: Sadly, there is not a lot you can do to stop ’spoofed’ e-mails from appearing in your Inbox, but you can take preventative steps to keep from being victimized by them. (And, tell all your friends and relations they should check their antivirus…)
First of all, simply understand that what appears in the Sender box may not be the true point of origin, and exercise the appropriate caution. I have mentioned before, and repeat here, that you should not click on links you receive in e-mail. and spoofing is why. Instead, Copy the URL (the link) and Paste it into address bar of your web browser.
And if you are not expecting Uncle Joe to send you an e-mail with an attachment, ask him if he did, in fact, send you such an e-mail before you open it. And do the same for institutions, like BofA or Pay Pal: if you suspect an email reporting to come from your bank, call them and ask about it.
And, of course, have a up-to-date antivirus installed and have it set to scan your e-mail. Do not rely only on the antivirus which your ISP or e-mail service provides. Again, I refer you to the link to my prior article (I mentioned above) if you need some help or advice in this area, or need to download a free antivirus program.

Today’s free link: If you are in the market for a car, selling a car, or simply need to know the value of your vehicle, the Kelley Blue Book is the definitive place to look and is the industry standard. KBB online will give you real prices/values for new and used vehicles, offers advice for buying and selling, and has a Perfect Car Finder search engine.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Ladies, please! The right way to send me pics

It seems that not everyone saw my earlier article on the proper way to send me those pictures of yourselves, so I will repeat myself for the sake of being perfectly clear. I will start with an example of what NOT to do.

As this screenshot of my Inbox shows, when you send me your photograph using Facebook, or similar social networking or photosharing site, it looks to me like a phishing scam.. very similar to the phony Hallmark e-Card spams that try to install malware (virus, worm, spyware, etc.).

I very much appreciate the time and trouble you took to send me your photo, but I don’t touch these– except to delete! (So, if that was you Dear Reader, I’m sorry. You’ll have to try again.)

The proper way to send:
1) Write a short note as an e-mail from a legit-looking e-mail address (acd490y663A@badguys.ru is NOT legit-looking. Use your m.jones@real_ISP.com account), and put something rational in the Subject field.

2) Attach your .jpg*. Do NOT send me GIFF’s or PNG’s or PDF’s. I won’t open them.

That’s it. Sending by this method will ensure that I will see you. Tech Paul fans and loyal readers of Tech–for Everyone will know that I will treat your mailings with the utmost respect and privacy.

* More on sending images: Because digital images like .jpg’s (aka JPEG file) can be quite large, you may have trouble e-mailing them. Please see How to send big files (updated). The section specific to digital images is about halfway down.
(Short version: use an image editor – like Paint (found in the Accessories folder) and find the option labeled “resize”; and, “Save As” a JPEG.)

[note: for those of you new to my style of humor, this is an article about cyber-crime. As an Extra Added Bonus, I threw in a troubleshooting tip. To date, no fan has sent me any photos. (please make sympathetic noise here.) ]

For more on cybercrime in your Inbox, see In These Tough Times, Could You Use Some Extra $$$’s ?

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Another Photo Shrinking Tip

Sooner or later – if you haven’t already – you will try to send or receive an e-mail attachment.. and bump into the problem of size limitation. (Usually, it is photos that give us the headaches.) E-mail simply isn’t the proper method for transferring large files, but there are tricks that can help you get those files where you want them.

I provided tips and solutions for solving these problems in this prior article, How to send big files (updated); and since it is fairly “in depth”, I highly recommend you click the link and give it a look-see.
Today, I want to provide you with another little tip for shrinking the file size of photos, so they are easier to send.

Because the common image format JPEG is already “compressed”, putting your photo.jpg into a Zip file will not shrink the file size enough to make it worth the effort. So, one must then mess with using an image editing program to “resize” the image and/or change the dpi “resolution” and/or select a poorer quality jpeg setting to get the Megabytes down to a e-mail-able size.

Tip of the day: Copy > Paste the image into WordPad, and Save the resulting .rtf file (Rich Text Format). Now you can right-click > Send To > Compressed (zipped) folder.
If you have never tried this technique before, you will be amazed at the size reduction.
(I know, it is a little strange to use a text program for pictures.. but it works!)

You don’t have to worry that your recipient will not be able to Open your file either. All PCs come with a text utility that can read/write .rtf. (WordPad is a Standard part of Windows, and it can be found in your Accessories folder.)

Today’s free link: 7-Zip File Compression Utility. The main features of 7-Zip:High compression ratio
Supported formats:
Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z.
For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
Self-extracting capability for 7z format
Integration with Windows Shell

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Photoshop online– use the Web to edit pictures*

“Made You Look” is the marketing catchphrase for the new online Photoshop Website, and yes– I did take a look. Adobe Photoshop Express (Beta) is a Web 2.0 application for editing and sharing your digital images, and is seen to be a replacement for a program you buy and load onto your computer. It is — at this time, anyway — a free service (and surprisingly, has no ads).

I would be very surprised if you haven’t heard of Photoshop; it has been around so long, it has become a verb in today’s language (meaning “to create a fake image”). Photoshop is the tool which allows you to put your head on someone else’s body.. or make it look like you’re standing on the moon.. or remove your Ex from your old vacation pictures. (With the right starting photos, there’s almost nothing I can’t fake in Photoshop.)

Photoshop has long been considered the premier digital image manipulation program. As I discussed in this article, “Web 2.0” is all about us regular folks being able to ‘upload’ to the Web (and “share”/collaborate) instead of simply viewing (‘downloading’) content. And frankly, Adobe is not the first to the market of online photo sharing Websites, nor sites that let you edit your pictures once you’ve loaded them.. Picassa and Photobucket have been around for a while now (to name a few).

Considering Photoshop’s reputation, I wanted to know if Adobe’s online service had superior editing capabilities. To use Express, you must “join” the club, by providing an e-mail address and creating a user account. While you do that, you create a personalized URL (like, http://yourname.photoshop.com) where you can post your pictures in “galleries”, if you want to share them (which is not required). Once you’re a member, you “upload” your pictures, and you can now edit them, and organize them into galleries, e-mail them, or use them as images on (other) Websites.

The screenshot above shows the image editing screen. Those of you who have ever used Photoshop Elements will be very familiar with this interface. The editing options (left column) provide a thumbnail range above your original so you can see, and select from, adjustments. This makes ‘tweaking’ your image quite easy and straight-forward, and allows you to experiment without ruining your original.

Is this for you? Well, as it stands, I find that there are some basic image editing features which are missing (it is possible I just couldn’t find the menu..) such as image resizing and dots-per-inch adjustment. You can crop, but not shrink.. nor adjust file type or size. I am an advanced Photoshop user, and so I find the tools in Photoshop Elements overly simplified, and these even more so– which is precisely what many people want.

While this (at least, in its current state) tool will not let you paste your head onto a super-model’s body, or pose on the moon, it will let you smoothly and easily tweak your images, remove the red-eye effect, and share your pictures with far away friends and relatives. If you are not already using a similar service.. or are not satisfied with the one you’re using.. you should give this a tryout. It is very slick and easy to use. Click the link in the second sentence, and get started.

*Original posting: 4/14/08

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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