News from us

We haven’t been blogging as much this past week or so. I had gotten into a habit of blogging most every day. This past week Heidi & I were distracted.  She has blogged for you though.

So what were we doing?  We have been working on a new project.  I had decided that I wanted a personal blog where I could expand on my ideas about social media, tools, building community, web strategy & whatever else I want to blog about. Awhile ago I had purchased the URL ‘conniebensen.com’, so last weekend Heidi went to work building a blog. She said last night that it’s ready to launch! So I’m pleased to announce my new blog, My Conversations, at www.conniebensen.com You’re welcome to come over & say hi.

I plan to continue sharing new information here & posting tutorials just as I have been, then linking from over there. We value our readers here & enjoy all of you. That blog will have more in-depth information & you’re welcome to read there too!

Heidi is working on another video for ACSDee 9. The first four have been well received.

We’ve been busy with ACDSee chats & have had 3 this past week. We don’t have anymore scheduled now, but I have requests, so I’ll be posting them when they get scheduled. And I’ll also post them at the ACDSee group at Facebook.

What have you been busy with? Heidi noticed that our forums have been quiet.

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Cleaning up your Facebook Profile

Is it a mess? Are there applications everywhere? Is your right column really long requiring the visitor to scroll? Have you succumbed to Facebook addiction & you’re ready to take control again? (well at least of the appearance! we won’t go into time management here ).

Here are some tips for getting your profile under control.

• Delete app’s that don’t have any value for you (even if your best friend sent them).
• Most of the things in your profile can be collapsed or minimized by clicking on the arrow.

• Move items around to bring the most important ones to the top for priority in viewing
• Move items to left column to equalize the space.

There are 2 ways to move panes:

1. Click on anything & drag it to a new position. Items can be moved into the left column this way which shortens the length of the page considerably. (The mini feed is static).

2. To right of Applications click on ‘edit’
Rearrange app’s using arrow icons on left.

Tip I just figured out tonite:
To reduce items in the mini feed -
Under Privacy tab - News Feed and Mini-Feed Privacy
(I unselected many there which should clean up that area). It also allows you to leave a group in stealth mode!

Have you found ways to simplify your profile? Do share, please!

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Emailing Images from ACDSee Photo Manager

Did you know that it is really easy to email images from ACDSee Photo Editor? The email tool works with Outlook, Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird (my favorite) and Eudora. Here is how to do it:

Just select the thumbnails of the images you wish to send.

The first time through it will take you through an email wizard. Here you can Add or Remove images or change Options.

Here are all the options that can be adjusted:

How do you know what to change the settings to? You need to consider the image size and what the emailed user is going to do with the photo.

• If the emailed user is just viewing a photo onscreen, then move the slider toward best compression and 600 pixels x 600 pixels is a good setting for reducing large images.
• If the emailed user wishes to print the photo, then move the slider toward best quality and increase the pixel size to about 1024 pixels x 1024 pixels. (That will maintain a good enough quality for printing a 4×6 photo.)

If you are getting email returned to you saying sender cannot receive that large of a message. Change maximum email size to a smaller number. If you are sending multiple images, then this tool will split the photos up and send multiple emails to the user.

After clicking Apply and Next, you will be asked how to send.

Most likely, if you are using one of the above listed software for your email, just chose default e-mail client and click Next.

The images will be adjusted to match your options that you chose and a blank compose email message will appear.

Just address, type in subject and a message if you want and click Send. It’s that easy.

The next time, it won’t use the email wizard but will take you from the first step directly to the last step. If you wish to change options, just follow these steps:

1. Do not select any images.
2. Go to File | Email Images
3. Click Next in the wizard.
4. Select the Options button.
5. And adjust settings accordingly.
6. Click Apply
7. If you are not going to email images, just cancel out of the wizard. The above Apply button will save the changes even if you cancel the wizard.

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Party time at Facebook!

Less than a month ago I started a series about Facebook. And in browsing around there tonite, I see that the digiscrappers have quite a party going on over there!

Do you ever get a funny feeling when someone asks you a question? Well, yesterday Heidi asked me where all her new friends were coming from. I never did it! *looking around innocently* Instead, I asked her, how many? and she said 15… umm I think they want to be your friends, Heidi! I never did anything. *still innocent here*

So I need to put something constructive here, then we’ll go back to the partying. I do have some serious thoughts for you. Mish Gasser asked me this:

Hi Connie,
I am wondering if you have had any feedback from designers who have tried this method. I added a product to the marketplace just now, promoting it in my network from my hometown. Do you believe this is a valuable thing to do? I’d be interested in your opinion.
Thanks!
Mish

And I’ve been so busy this week, I haven’t had time to reply. But tonite I came across the answer. Do you read your Home page & keep up to what your friends are doing? I try to browse it ummm what should I admit to? a few times a day, lets say, because it doesn’t archive. So today I saw that Traci Reed had posted a comment about a coupon in Marketplace. The power of the Home page is that it collects all the updates of all of your friends, so you don’t have to visit each of their pages! I have our blog feeding into my notes, so you should be getting that update every time we post here & you can click back to read here. I can tell how to set it up if you’d like.

I saw that Traci had posted this:

Exclusive Coupon on all my products for Facebook users through the month of September because I’m so happy you’re all my friends!! You can find my marketplace listing

So how to find her coupon? Go on the left & click on Marketplace. Click on My Friends’ Listings:

Now you’ll see that Traci has put in 3 products, a coupon code for FACEBOOK friends! (Traci WANTS friends! ok, *maybe not so innocent here*) and a link to her store. Absolutely brilliant Traci! We all thank you! Especially me in that I didn’t have to figure it out myself. Mish asked about using her regional network. I think you may not want to limit it like that. But experiment with it & let us know!

So I really have to talk about Traci’s profile. WOWSERS! that girl’s having a PARTY! On the left side of her profile I saw our blog post there. She’s using the Blog Friends app & I really like it. You can put in topics & friends & it will pull in their posts. I saw my friend, Krista Mettler & popped over to read her blog post, I’m addicted to Facebook. How could that happen I ask myself? *looking innocently around again*. Krista’s post is fun! pop on over & read it. Maybe we should all do a meme (list of things with a meaning) about the Facebook groups we belong to?

So should you join Facebook? That’s up to you. Maybe you need to go throw a cow?! If you do, feel free to add me as a friend. But I’m totally innocent! How are you having fun over at Facebook? You can tell me there too. I’m trying to get out and answer more questions & write on walls.

Update: I forgot to mention that Lie Fhung did a creative thing by sending out a message to her friends in Facebook with a hint about where she hid a coupon (hint - go join the Ztampfans group!). So that’s a fun way too.

You can see another creative ex by Tracy Lykins of Retrodiva Designs is doing a challenge in her Facebook group.  Her group has 234 members! Rock on Tracy!

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Three ACDSee chats this week!

Lots of options to join us when you can!  Heidi & I will answer questions.  And ACDSee provides some copies of the software for doorprizes!  So join us for the fun@

KJoiStudios.com

3Scrapateers.com

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Windows Liver Writer Updated for Blogger

The power of blogging is so amazing to me. Heidi & I are enjoying our blog’s ability to teach & share information. The feedback from our readers is fabulous & motivates us to provide more! So I’m really excited to share some news that I received today. The significance is that as blog readers you can make a difference!

Remember when I blogged about Windows Live Writer & everyone agreed it was THE BEST blogging tool?!! Well, some people asked me for help with troubleshooting & some of you provided your comments. I posted a culmination of that information, which was noticed by Sean O’Driscoll, GM of Marketing from Microsoft. He forwarded it to the development team.

Today I received a personal note at Facebook from Joe Cheng, a Microsoft software developer on the Live Writer team saying:

Hi Connie, I wanted to let you know that Beta 3 of Windows Live Writer was released yesterday. Two things I want to make sure you’re aware of. 1) Images can now be automatically uploaded with Blogger blogs, via Google’s Picasa service. I know a lot of scrapbookers are on Blogger and have been waiting for this. 2) Beta 2 and earlier made screenshots pretty blurry; I noticed you have a lot of screenshots on your blog lately.
As always, let me know if you have any questions/comments! Thanks!

Isn’t it nice that Microsoft is worried about scrapbookers and takes the time to send a personal note to us?!! especially scrapbookers using Blogger?!!! like my techie friend Hummie! And I can’t wait to see the improvement on the screenshots. Heidi & I enjoy throwing up tutorials here quickly in Live Writer. It’s a great tool. I also compose our newsletters in Live Writer and copy/paste into the software because Word kind of mungles it. So a big thanks to Joe & your team!

What are you waiting for? go get the 3rd beta of Window Live Writer! Here are the new features:

So dear readers, give it a whirl & let us know how it goes! Microsoft is paying attention & looking forward to your feedback. That’s pretty exciting, don’t you agree?

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Using ACDSee Photo Manager with a challenge

One of our ACDSee users is in a digital scrapbooking contest where they need to only user certain designers’ work in the challenge. She already had the kits tagged with the designer name but was trying to figure out how to easily find all eligible kits quickly.

The Solution:

1. Create a tag called Challenge (or whatever you like)
2. Search for all the designers (or kits) that eligible to be used in that challenge.
3. Select the results and tag with them with category Challenge.
4. Repeat until you find all the kits that can be used in the Challenge.
5. Now when you are working, you can easily retrieve everything eligible to be used in a challenge by clicking on the Challenge category!
6. When the challenge is over, right click on the category “Challenge”, delete the tag and it’s gone. Any images having that category assigned to them automatically lose the “Challenge” tag.

You can be quite creative in how you use Photo Manager and the categories don’t have to be permanent.

Some other ideas:

• When you have used a digital kit, tag the preview with a category called “Used Kit”
• When you find a kit you really want to use, tag it with category called “Must Use Soon”
• For your photos, tag the photo with “Want to Scrap It”

What unique ways have you used ACDSee Photo Manager to scrap with?

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Seeing what categories are assigned to image in ACDSee Photo Manager

A question frequently asked is how can I tell what categories are assigned to an image in ACDSee Photo Manager. There are 2 ways. If you have problems seeing any images in detail, just click on an image to see a larger version of it.

The first way is by looking at its Properties.

1. Go to View | Properties to bring up the Properties Pane
2. Select a thumbnail.
3. Click on the Database tab
4. In the grayed box under Organize: you will see all the categories assigned to that image.
5. 

The second way is in the Organize Pane and it is a little less obvious to see all categories assigned.

1. Go to View | Organize to bring up the Organize Pane
2. Expand out your categories.
3. Select a thumbnail.
4. In the Organize pane, look for the green little squares over the right of the icon next to the category. Those are the categories assigned to it.
5. 
6. Note: If my frames category wasn’t expanded to see my sub-categories then I wouldn’t see the green squares. But then I would see a blue square assigned there to show that there is some subcategory assigned to it.
7. 

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Making a Paperclip look realistic in ACDSee Photo Editor

Today I had a request for a tutorial. Please ask when you’re wondering how to do something in either ACDSee Photo Manager & Photo Editor. With Live Writer I can create these quickly! When I started digiscrapping, I would see techniques & then try to figure out how to do them.

I must give total credit to Hummie & her awesome tutorials! Have you seen them? ACDSee has the same tools as Photoshop Elements & I can convert them. But I do need to give Hummie the credit as being the expert. I like scrapping with ACDSee Photo Editor because it’s so user friendly. And ACDSee Photo Manager is a great organizer. So, when you become familiar with the tools in ACDSee Photo Editor, there are many PSE tutorials that you can adapt.

To make a paperclip look realistic, layer your items & put the paperclip on the top.

1. Make a group of the paper & photo if you wish

• select both in the object palette by holding the shift key
• right click & choose Group
• items can be individually adjusted even when grouped!

2. Select the paper clip & rotate it a bit to make it look more realistic.

3. Add a drop shadow to the paperclip

• Select paperclip
• Under Object | Drop Shadow

4. Select the paper clip. Under Create | Eraser Tool

4. Under Navigate, move slider to right to zoom in on paperclip.

5. Use the pull down menu, move slider to right to make brush harder.

6. Carefully erase the inner or outer part of the paperclip - your choice.

Tip: Do little separate motions, so that you can use undo if needed.

7. For this part we’re going to add the realistic aspect of the paper being crumpled by the metal under the paperclip

• Using the Dodge tool - lighten the areas raised by the paperclip
• Under Fix, Select the Dodge Tool
• Select the photo layer, Click in the top left corner near the handle (it took me awhile to figure this out.  Clicking on the paperclip selects that.)
• Brush over where the metal would be underneath - this will lighten the area & it will seem as if the photo is lifted up there.  Mine is more pronounced.  To adjust the color, adjust the Exposure (higher # for more color).
• Select the matte.  Click in the top left corner near the handle to select it
• Brush over the matte on top of where the paperclip is underneath
• Using the Burn tool - darken the areas around the raised areas - the crumpled part
• Under Fix, select the Burn Tool
• Follow the instructions for the Dodge Tool
• Adjust the Exposure to adjust the color (lower # for less color)
• Keep using the two options until you get a realistic effect.  I found that making the brush size larger for the burn tool helps blend the effects.  It takes some practice. I’m sure that you can do better than my example!

8. Click on Fit to Screen - just to left of % box in Navigate

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Routinely visiting Facebook & turn off the email notifications

Many of us are using Facebook now. Every once in awhile someone says, “so I’m here, now what do I do?”

Since time is at a premium, I’ll share my system for how I routinely ‘read’ Facebook.

My profile is bookmarked in my daily reading group in Firefox’s tabbed browsing. (are you using that yet? People agreed that it’s a MUST have!)

That opens to my profile in Facebook in a tab:

• Im my Inbox on top has a number on it, I read the messages first.
• I scroll down to check my wall posts.
• Then I click on home (top right)
  • Requests are on right - Add friends is on top if there are any
  • I tend to ignore the app’s & periodically go down & take action on them, but it’s infrequent. Facebook shouldn’t rule your time.
  • Then I skim the News Feeds & see what my friends are up to. If I see people joining a group, I go check it out & ponder joining

• If I have time, I click on Groups on left
  • • by scaning the right column, I can see changes highlighted
      • It’s a good reminder to visit my ACDSee group!
      • If you have a group, please keep tabs on it.

So if you have a system like that, then you can turn off the email notifications. There isn’t much information in them & sometimes they’re delayed. Here’s how to disable them:

Click on Account | Notifications

Turn off as many as you’d like. Note - I did leave the notification on for “Replies to my discussion board post” because I comment in so many places & like to know when people respond so that I can continue the conversation in a timely manner.

One last Facebook tip: When you want to message a particular friend, rather than surfing thru their photos, click on Friends & type in part of their name in the search box on the right. That will bring up their photo & the option to message them. It’s so much quicker!

How do you ‘read’ at Facebook? Is there a faster way?

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