Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 is a very handy utility for recording high-quality screencasts in Windows. A free standard version is available with a 10 minute time limit on each screencast (although most screencasts you would want to produce are probably going to be shorter than 10 minutes anyway). If you find that you need to create longer screencasts, then a paid professional version without this restriction is also available. The standard edition of Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 can be downloaded for free from www.microsoft.com/downloads and search for “Expression Encoder 4”.

I have been trying to load some photos from my laptop onto a digital photo frame. After hours of choosing and preparing an album using Photoshop Elements 7, including tagging the photos and choosing appropriate music, I found no way to correctly save this “work of art” to the “Pictures” folder on the computer. The folder only showed the photos themselves, without any of the gimmicks or additional effects (such as music). The order of the photos was also mixed-up very erratically. When I attempted to save the photos (around 1000 files) to a 2GB SD memory card, which can be connected to the digital photo frame, a message appeared saying “Error 80070052. Unable to save” and some of the photos were not saved onto the memory card. Assuming that the memory card may have insufficient space to store all of the photos, I subsequently divided the 1000 photos into 5 sections to transfer them onto the card in stages. However, the same error always appears despite there being 1.33 GB of free space on the card. In light of this information, there are two questions which arise. First, how can I transfer the photos from the Pictures folder onto the SD memory card without the error. Second, is it possible to transfer and save to the pictures from Photoshop Elements 7 in the exact way they were prepared (e.g. music, tagging, etc)? The computer is running Windows Vista Home Premium. (more…)

Occasionally I wish to display a Word document to a group of people (perhaps using a data projector). However, the Word 2007 ribbon can take up quite a bit of space, particularly when displaying the document at a lower resolution on a data projector. Fortunately there is a very easy way to minimise the ribbon. Right-click anywhere in the area around the ribbon tabs (e.g. Home, Insert, Page Layout, etc.) and select “Minimize the ribbon”. This will remove the ribbon from the display freeing-up quite a bit of space. Repeat this procedure again to show the ribbon.

My old (circa 1997) computer is experiencing some fairly consistent problems resulting in several crashes each day. There are a large number of irreplaceable files on the computer which we need to urgently transfer to another computer. What is the best and easiest method of moving files between computers? Alternatively, would it be advisable to take the computer to a professional for this task? The computer is running Windows 95 and the computer to which the files are being moved is running Windows XP. (more…)

I have been looking around the internet to find some basic publishing software for home use to make cards, etc. plus some basic photo editing software. There seems to be plenty of free software available, but when I download and double-click to install the packages a message appears saying that I should not install the software unless I trust the source. Of course I have no idea whether the software is safe or not, so could you advise how to tell whether the software is legitimate or potentially malicious? Also, can you recommend any free software for my needs? (more…)