Computing Workshop

www.RockCreekComputing.com

Bill McArthur

Session 2 – 1/12/11

 

Day and Time: Wednesdays 6-7 PM in the Clubhouse.

 

Your Questions and Concerns:

 

Topic 1: Digital Photos

 

A digital photo is a computer file. There are a mind-boggling number of different photo file formats, but the most popular ones are the "jpeg" and "GIF" formats, universally recognized on the Internet. Digital cameras most often produce "jpeg" files for their photos.

 

Most digital cameras have removable memory cards, which can be of several different types, leading to a Tower of Babel-like situation for transferring photos from a camera to a computer. To help in transferring photos, most cameras have a USB port, which looks like a small trapezoid.

 

Similarly, most personal computers have a USB port, which looks like a skinny rectangle. A USB cable is used to connect a camera to a computer. What happens next depends on the particular camera, the particular computer, and what software programs are installed to deal with transfer of photos. In any case, photo files usually end up on a computer, organized into folders. For example, I keep my photos in sub-folders of the folder C:\data\Camera.

 

Photos on a computer can be viewed individually or in a slideshow. People can share their photos with others this way just as if they were paper photos in a photo album.

 

Many people want to share their photos to a wider audience by using the Internet. This can be accomplished in many ways:

Using a photo album website (Snapfish, for example)

 

Using a social networking program (FaceBook, for example)

 

Using an online journal (CapeMayBeach.net, for example)

There are numerous computer applications for editing and manipulating digital photos. The most famous and expensive is PhotoShop. I have used Paint Shop Pro for many years and use it on a daily basis.

Topic 2: Digital Videos

 

A digital video is a computer file. There are several different photo file formats, but the most popular one is the "mpeg" format, universally recognized on the Internet. Digital cameras often produce "mpeg", files for their videos.

Digital videos can be transferred to a computer in the same ways as for photos. Video files on a computer can be viewed by the use of one of the popular players (Windows Media, QuickTime, ...).

 

Almost everyone who works with digital videos uses YouTube for online storage and sharing. This is the main source for the "viral videos" that are discussed on TV news and talk shows.

 

 Topic 3: What's in a Name?

 

Here are the names of some files found in the c:\data\personal folder on my computer:

Hynes.jpg, JamisCometLog.xls, Computing Workshop.doc, BoardingPass20101130.pdf, USAT.txt, signature.html

Each filename, for example "Hynes.jpg", is composed of three elements: a base name ("Hynes"), a separator, ("."), and an extension ("jpg"). Different computer systems (PC, Mac, Linux, ...) use the extension to identify the type of file and the way that the file will be interpreted. For example, on my PC laptop, the extention "jpg" indicates that the file is a jpeg image (photo) file. On my laptop, double-clicking on the file "Hynes.jpg" will display it in a photo viewer. The "xls" extension indicates a spreadsheet, "doc" indicates a Word document, "pdf" indicates a Portable Document Format file, "txt" indicates a text file, and "html" indicates a web page.


Files on the Internet with extensions will also be interpreted according to their type. Click on the following URLs (if you are viewing this document online) to see how they are interpreted:

Hynes.jpg, JamisCometLog.xls, Computing Workshop.doc, BoardingPass20101130.pdf, USAT.txt, signature.html

Questions: Please help to make this workshop relevant by submitting your computing questions and concerns either on paper or online for future discussions.

Thanks for your interest.