July 22/29 at 10:00AM - Sharing Photos by Using a Picasa Web Account

Instructor: Jim Evans

The Course Outline:

We will have two sessions, one on July 22 and the second on July 29.  

We will set up their Picasa web accounts after the first session and then show them how to use the account during the second session.  so Here is how I plan to organize the sessions. 

First Session: July 22nd.

        Downloading the Picasa program (if you don’t already have it)

        Setting up a Picasa web account
        
        Organizing photos for sharing
        
        Editing the photos

Second Session: July 29th.

        Uploading the photos to your Picasa web site

        

        Organizing the photos on the web page

        

        Labeling the photos

        

        Sharing the photos by emailing a link to your group of recipients

Using Picasa to Send a Large Group of Photos to Friends or Family

Picasa has a feature that allows you to send out a large group of photos via e-mail. 

It does this by having you upload your photos to an album that is created in the Picasa Web Albums online site.

The Picasa Web Albums site is part of the larger Google website that also 

contains G-mail – it is one of the options available to people who have a 

G-mail account.  

To do this you need first to have a G-mail account.  If you 

don’t already have one, you need to follow the instructions in the Senior Center 

“E-Mail” Training Manual  to get one.  It is free.

After you upload a group of photos to the your Picasa Web Albums site, you 

can then share them via e-mail to any e-mail user, and that user can view the 

photo as a slideshow and can view and/or download the photos individually. 

It is important to understand that when you upload selected photos to your 

Picasa Web Albums site, the photos will then reside on both your own 

computer and your Picasa Web Albums site. 

When you share to photos via e-mail, the photos are not actually attached to

the e-mail, but rather you are sending the e-mail recipient a web link to you 

Picasa Web Albums site that allows the recipient to view the photos on that site.

Share.

Instructions for Uploading, using the Picasa Program on Your Computer

1.   Open the Picasa program on your computer.
2.   Find the folder that contains the photos you wish to upload.
3.   Select the photos you'd like to upload by holding down the “Control” 

      button on you keyboard and left-clicking on each photo you wish 
      to upload.
4.   Once you've selected all of your photos, click the Upload button in the 

      Tool Bar at the bottom of the page.

5.   A panel will come up that gives you option for naming the album on the 

      website (default is the title of the folder where the photos currently 
      reside).  

      If you’re OK with that title, leave it alone, if not change it to whatever 
      you like.  

     Then left-click on the “Upload” button on the bottom of the panel.

6.   Another panel will come up which shows the progress of the upload. 
      It will take a while, particularly if there are lots of photos being uploaded.  
      After it says “Finished”, click on the “View Online” button at the top right 
      side of the panel.

7.   Your Picasa Web Albums online site will come up and display the 
      album of photos you just uploaded.

8.   You can share this album with anyone you have an e-mail address for 

      by clicking on the “Share” button on the right side of the page.  After 
      you do this a new page will come up that allows you to enter e-mail 
      addresses.  

      You can type these in just like you type in addresses when you send 
      e-mails in your G-mail account. 

9.   You should also type in a message to send with this e-mail that 
      explains what the photos mean and why you’re sending out the 
      photos.

10. You complete this by clicking on the “Share via Email” button at the 
      bottom of the page.

11. You may wish to put captions on your photos before you share them.  
      To do so you will need to do the following before you click on the 
       “Share” button (Step 7):Right above the photos there is a tool bar 
       that has the following headings: Slideshow, Share, Add Photos, 
       Prints, Actions; Organize.  Click on “Actions” and select “Captions”.  

       Then add appropriate captions for each picture, as you wish.  Click 
       on “Done” and then proceed with sharing.

      Right above the photos there is a tool bar that has the following 

      headings:     Slideshow, Share, Add Photos, Prints, Actions; 
      Organize. Click on “Actions” and select “Captions”.  Then add 
      appropriate captions for each picture, as you wish.  Click on “Done” 
      and then proceed with sharing.

13. You may wish to share the photos only with yourself (enter only your 
      own e-mail address).  Then you can forward the resulting e-mail to 
      anyone you wish from your own e-mail account, including any 
      special message that you like.  This is particularly helpful if you use 
      a program other than G-mail for most of your e-mails.

     You may go to your Picasa Web Albums site at any time from your 

     G-mail   account site.  Your G-mail account page has a tool bar at 
     the top which contains “Photos”, among other things.  If you click on 
     “Photos”, your Picasa Web Albums site will come up.  It will display 
     all albums you have uploaded and give you the option to share any 
     of them and to manipulate them in many ways.  You can also upload 
     photos from any of the folders on your computer by clicking on the 
     “Upload” button at the top,  clicking on the “Select photos from your 
     computer” button, and then finding and selecting the photos you 
     wish to upload.

June 3, 2014 at 10:00AM Blogging

Blogging 101 – June 3, 2014 at 10:00AM

Instructor – Jerry Ronan

Navigating the Senior Center Web Page

We will surf the pages of the site for the Activities

and other Information about the Senior Center.

Introduction

What is a Blog?

A blog is a type of website that is updated regularly with new content. 
We will review how to:

  1. Create a Header.
  2. Choose a Template.
  3. Layouts.
  4. Gadgets.
  5. Directory.

Most blogs contain short, informal articles called blog posts. These posts usually contain some combination of text, photos, videos, and other media.

If you spend much time browsing the web, you've probably read a blog post before, even if you didn't realize it at the time. Some of the most-read blogs are a bit like online magazines, as they're written by a team of people who are paid to update the blog with new posts several times a day.

However, the majority of blogs are written by one person. As a result, the average blog is fairly personal, reflecting the interests and personality of the person who writes it. This is the type of blog we'll focus on in this tutorial.

To start a blog with Blogger

On Blogger.com, enter your Gmail Username and Password, and click Sign in.

Enter a display name and accept Blogger's Terms of Service. Then click the Create a Blog link and get started!

Pick an address (URL) and a blog title. Then, choose your favorite blog template (this is how your blog will look when you publish it). Now get creative, add information to your personal profile, and customize how your blog looks, if you feel up to it. Start blogging now!

Customizing your layout

Your template is a fun way to customize your blog. When creating a new blog, you're first asked to choose a default template, this is the basic design of your blog. You can choose from many templates for your blog; simply pick the one that best fits your needs.

In addition, you can customize your blog's design using. You can also add powerful gadgets such as slideshows, Changing the fonts and colors on your blog is easy, too.

Click the Layout link from the drop-down menu on your dashboard below the blog you would like to customize.

Click on Edit Header and you can make changes to the Header at the top of the page.

From there, click Edit to edit existing gadgets, or Add a Gadget to add new ones.

To add a new gadget after you've clicked Add a Gadget, simply click the plus sign next to your desired gadget. You can choose from gadgets by category, or search for a specific gadget in the top right of the pop-up window.

We will select the Text format by clicking the + sign.

Once you've added the necessary information to your selected gadget, click the orange Save arrangement button. Your layout changes will appear instantly.

Write your post

Once you've signed in to Blogger, you'll see your dashboard with your list of blogs. Here's what you need to do:

Click the orange pencil icon to write a new post, and enter anything you want to share with the world.

     

          Next, you'll see the Post Editor page. Start by giving your post a title (optional), then enter the post itself:

  

When you're done, click the Preview button at the top to make sure it's ready to go, and then

click the Publish button to publish your post.

Add an image

You can add an image from your computer or the Web to your blog. Click the image icon in the Post Editor toolbar. A window appears prompting you to browse for an image file on your computer, or enter the URL of an image on the Web.

Once you've selected your image, you can then choose a layout to determine how your image will appear in your post:

The 'Left', 'Center', and 'Right' options allow you to customize the way your blog text will flow around your image.

The 'Image size' options will determine how large the image will appear within your post.

Click UPLOAD IMAGES to add your image, and then click DONE when the notification window appears telling you that 'Your image has been added.' Blogger will then return you to the post editor, where you'll see your image ready to be published to your blog.

You can also publish images to your blog using Google's free photo software Picasa.

Add a video

To add a video to your blog post, click the film strip icon in the Post Editor toolbar above where you compose your blog text. A window appears prompting you to 'Add a video to your blog post.'

Click Browse to select the video file from your computer that you'd like to upload. Note that Blogger accepts AVI, MPEG, QuickTime, Real and Windows Media files and that your video must be less than 100MB in size.

Before uploading your video, add a title in the 'Video Title' box and agree to the Terms and Conditions (you'll only have to do this the first time that you upload a video with Blogger). Then click UPLOAD VIDEO.

While your video uploads, you'll see a placeholder in the post editor showing where your video will appear. You'll also see a status message below the post editor letting you know that your upload is in progress. Depending on the size of your video, this usually takes about five minutes. When it is complete, your video will appear in the post editor.

Privacy and permissions

By default, your blog is completely public, and can be read by anyone on the internet. However, if you want to keep it private, you can do that, too. You can change these settings on the Settings |

Basic tab.

Under the 'Blog Readers' section, you'll probably see 'Anybody' selected as the default. When you change this to 'Only these readers,' you'll get an Add Readers button.

Click the Add Readers button and then enter the email address of a person to whom you'd like to grant access to your blog. To add multiple people, separate their addresses with commas.

For each address entered, the Google Account associated with that address will be given access to view your blog. If an address is not associated with an account, that person will receive an invitation email with a link allowing them do one of three things:

Sign in to an existing account.

Create a new account.