|
DADDY BOB'S COMPUTER Q & A
March 18, 2007
Q.
I have created several shortcuts on my
desktop to various programs. How can I
assure that when they are clicked that the
program will always open to a full screen?
A.
Windows is supposed to remember the setting
for any window when it is closed but this
does not always happen. So, here is how you
can easily set any shortcut to always open
full screen. This will work for any shortcut
whether they are on the desktop, in the start
menu, or on the Quick Launch toolbar.
Right
click on the shortcut icon, and select
Properties, then the Shortcut tab. About in
the middle of the dialog, there is a space
labeled "Run". Click the down
arrow "V" on the
right of the space, and select Maximized.
Click OK, and then whenever you click on
this icon, it will open the associated
program at full screen.
Q.
Sometimes when I get a picture in an email,
it is so big that I cannot easily view it.
Why does this happen and how can I easily
reduce them?
A.
Most pictures that you receive by email will
have come from a digital camera. In order to
get the best quality, digital cameras are set
by default to capture a picture at a very
high resolution, and most users will never
change this setting. This means that their
pictures will be quite large having a high
resolution. OK, so what is resolution?
Resolution refers to the number of pixels in
an image and is usually referred to by the
width and height of the image or the total
number of pixels in the image. For example,
an image that is 1600 pixels wide and 1200
pixels high would have a resolution of 1600
X 1200 and contain 1,920,000 pixels or
almost 2 Megapixels.
Now,
suppose someone took a picture at this
resolution, 1600 X 1200, and sent it to you
in an email. Unless your monitor screen is
set to a resolution of 1600 X 1200 or
higher, which it is probably is not, this
picture will not fit on your full screen,
let alone in a part of the screen used by
your email program. (To
see what your screen resolution is set to,
right click the desktop, choose Properties,
and the Settings Tab. The resolution is
displayed on the left and the color depth on
the right.)
Common
screen resolutions range from 1024 X 768 to
1280 X 960 or higher, but some older
monitors may have resolutions as low as 800
X 600. So, trying to view the above 1600 X
1200 picture on a monitor with only an 800 X
600 resolution will display only half of the
picture and require scrolling to see it all.
There are
many photo handling programs available, some
costing near $1000 that will resize a
picture, and all cameras come with one
albeit it of questionable value.
Fortunately, there is a very easy way to
reduce the size of any picture and it is
free. It will easily allow viewing received
pictures or sending your pictures as email
attachments to your friends and they will be
able to easily view them. This program is
one of Microsoft's XP Power Toys called
"Image Resizer", and it can be downloaded
free by clicking
HERE.
After you
download and install this PowerToy, RIGHT
click on any picture or group of pictures
and you will get a menu similar to this
displaying "Resize Pictures" near the top.
Choosing Resize Picture from this menu will
display a dialog like this:
You can select any of the pre-sized choices
or set one of you own. Normally, the 800 X
600 would be about the right size to attach
to an email. When you click OK, all the
pictures you selected will be resized and
saved with a name similar to their original
name, but have the word (small), (medium) or
(large) appended to file name. These new
pictures will be saved in the same folder as
the originals.
Unless you check the last item in this
dialog, the original pictures will not be
replaced, but new ones will be created. This
process takes place fairly quickly.
These new pictures will be much smaller than
the originals, possibly by a ratio of 10 to
1 or more. Whether viewing pictures that you
received, or preparing them to send to
someone, handling these resized pictures
will be much easier and faster.
|
