Computer question. . . .

[mgwin]

OK Charlie, now I have Vueprint. Educate me on how to resize small enough to post, without making it the size of a thumbnail. I'm not a genius on this Windows 8 mess!

 

[aschumacher]

Marty, the instructions are included but, you need XP or lower to open. If Charlie or Kraig don't get you something soonI'll see if I can get off my other laptop.

 

[kmcconaughey]

VuePrint should open just fine in Win8. If I was on my PC I would give more detail on how to resize with VuePrint but I'm posting from an iPod touch and I don't recall the exact steps. Next time I'm on my PC I will give details.

 

[jchamberlin]

Marty, if you can open VuePrint in Win8 and use it's file menu to open the file you want to resize and you're finally looking at your picture in VuePrint . . .

Simply type the letter "Z" on your keyboard and a dialog box pops up (or again from the VuePrint file menu choose "Resize" and the same dialog appears). Choose to either make your image 800 pixels wide OR 600 pixels high and leave the checkbox labeled "Preserve Aspect Ratio" as you find it, that is checked (you want to preserve the aspect ratio). After choosing 800 wide or 600 high, if you then hit the Tab key (with "Preserve Aspect Ratio" checked), you will see the new value for the dimension you did not change before you click OK and the image is resized for you on the screen. You must still save the file under either the same name, or using "Save As" with a different name (you will wind up with two files using the second option, but the first is preserved as the file you started with.

In order to be uploaded onto the Forum, the image must be no larger than 600 High by 800 Wide AND be no more than 100 KB in size. Actually, anything over about 95 KB seems to trigger the "File too big" warning. So what I do is go out on the VuePrint file menu again to "Open" a file, and change the "View" to give me the details on the file size. If it isn't small enough after I've resized to 800x600, I'll either crop some of it off, or resize again at 550 high, 500 high, etc. etc. until the file will upload to the Forum.

Good luck, I'm sure you'll figure it out if you haven't already. Kraig may add some advice for running under Win 8; I'm still running Vista.

 

[mgwin]

Thanks Jeremiah, I will try that. Yes, I had Vista on the old puter and could resize fine. I hate Win.8!

 

[mgwin]

Jeremiah and Charlie,

Thanks! You can teach an old dog new tricks! Here's my first try.

 

[jchamberlin]

Looks really good, Marty. I reckon we'll see those pics over in the motorcycle thread.

 

[wshytle]

Does anyone have a good way to clean up a computer at home? I have run CC Cleaner but apparently have some serious bugs in this thing. I also know about Geek Squad but they don't come cheap...and I'm cheap.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Wayne, I typically use the free version of Malwarebytes.

Malwarebytes

 

[wshytle]

Thanks Kraig...I tried the free version and it seemed to help a bit.

I figure I was born about 10 years too late when it comes to computers.

 

[sgalante]

Wayne,
There is a website called SecurityTango.com
There are directions and links to download all free versions of applications for each step. I do recommend having a full functional "real" virus protection program, but even for that, they have free versions. If you log onto the page and got to the top under "Lets Dance" there are directions for each OS. I am going to assume you want Windows. If so, you will want the Windows Waltz.
You will need a bunch of time to do all these things, and you MUST follow the directions to the T. It takes me about 4+ hours to run the full gambit or more, depending on how critical I want the virus stuff to run. I have an external drive in my setup, and that alone take a couple of hours due to the size of it and the fact that it is only connected via a USB 2.0 cable.

Once you run this once, you probably only have to run it once a month or so.

Hope that helps.

 

[wshytle]

Thanks Stephen-

That sounds like good advice. I tried Kraigs suggestion and it helped some but this laptop is really poisoned with something. It still freezes ever so often and the internet will stop working probably 3 or 4 times a day. It's also very slow now. It would really help if I weren't so computer illiterate.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Wayne, sometimes if your computer is really infested with viruses it can take more than one antivirus program to get it all sorted out. A few years back one of my daughter's classmates had a laptop that was given to her because it had a bunch of viruses on it. She brought it to me and I tried everything I could to clean it off. The various antivirus programs that I tried found almost one hundred thousand different viruses on it!! They would not all clean off instead they would reinfest it. I ended up wiping the hard drive and doing a clean install of the operating system. Of all the PCs I have worked on, that one was the only PC that I ever gave up on. Thankfully I had a spare license for Windows XP that I was able to use.

 

[cmcleod]

I was having issues playing videos in IE so I downloaded Mozilla/firefox and then it worked fine. Now, I can't get into any videos to play by either browser. Does anyone know what the problem is.?

This is so odd. Our desktop DIED and so we had a computer specialist pick it up to attempt to fix it. He took a lot of trojans, virus and such off the comp, but then there was something hanging on at the beginning at the hard drive,and he couldnt get anywhere further with it, such as using any browser. They would come up can't find site, you do not have an internet connection. So, he took our photo's and such off the desktop and said that it needed to have a full restore. I thought instead of him doing that, I could do it myself. Not a problem. So we got the desktop back and I was going to start restoring it this morning and low and behold everything is pretty much working fine..except can't play videos. I'm sure trying to figure out why the comp is working again but guess it is better to just let it be. But I do need to play videos. LOL. Crazy stuff.

 

[jchamberlin]

Cathleen: Make your your Adobe Flash Player is up-to-date. I fixed a similar problem for a friend of mine by updating his Flash Player (more than once). You should see a notice that an update is needed, but be sure to carefully follow the instructions and don't just click through stuff --read it first and follow the steps as prescribed. (You may not have an issue with clicking too fast, but my friend certainly did.)

Not sure if this is what's wrong in your case, but I thought I would offer a tip which may help. Good luck.

 

[kmcconaughey]

Cathleen, I think Jeremiah may have nailed it. A month or so back I was delinquent in updating the flash player in one of my PCs, I don't like things updating automatically and I kept seeing the notice but ignored it. Short story long, eventually videos would no longer play. I updated the flash player and all was well.

 

[cmcleod]

Thanks Jerimiah and Kraig for your suggestions. I managed to actually download Adobe for both IE and Firefox/Mozilla. In the past I didnt have any luck downloading. Infact our comp guy said that these " update" Adobe flash that will appear kind of randomly actually are fake sites where hackers/trojan type things get on your comp. That is what happened to us. I found different page/methods this morning, surprize and both downloads went off without a hitch. Thats a relief. thanks Again

Cath

 

[kide]

Cathleen: Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'd recommend a different tech in the future....

 

[cmcleod]

Thanks Gerry for your opinion. i suppose it sounds crazy that you can get infected by using a NOT authentic Adobe Flash site. But long before the comp tech fixed things, I did get infected with junk using a pop up that would come up telling me I had to download Adobe Flash and then when I tried...NOTHING other then rogue programs downloading onto my comp. Noah said a lot of people are staying away from Adobe flash for that reason. my comp did NOT download the program but it did download programs which were If you do a search there are tons of sites that say you can download adobe flash from their site. Are they legit..some aren't.

was this link..the offical Adobe Flash site and were I was able to download it cleanly. Make sure you select your operating systen AND the download for specific browsers, IE, Firefox, etc.
Make sure you have your virus protection and firewalls disconnected before downloading .
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/

I had read on line last year about getting infected due to using Adobe Flash ad-ons. That happened to me and I did manage to get all the junk off the comp that had been put there without my knowing. You can read about this issue here: http://www.spywareremove.com/avoid-malware-version-adobe-flash-player-adobe-flash-exe.html

Our comp guy works for the state of Iowa. His job is to restore any operating systen that isn't fuctioning correctly. His area is courts and judges in a 8 county area.

Maybe I am saying something wrong that leads you to believe the tech doesnt know what he is doing.?

 

[jchamberlin]

Cathleen: Glad to hear you got it working.

I think Gerry is saying that you shouldn't have to post a computer question AFTER visit from a tech.

I'm sure your friend is competent in areas he needs to be; the system he supports may not allow videos to be played. And you are right to be wary of the Flash player updates; trouble is, you need the player to view videos on the web.

If your friend got the viruses off your computer, he did his job; we were able to help you here, so, as the Bard said, "All's well that ends well."