How to Change the Date of a Picture Using Google Photos

 File Management, Google Photos, Organizing  3 Responses »
Mar 112016
 

 

You can change the date of a photo using Google Photos Web version
We recently presented a Google Photos seminar to a Genealogy group. We used our smartphone and snapped pictures of old photos in a photo album. These were pictures of my Great Grandfather, Charles Noyes, and my Great Grandmother, Mae Manning Noyes. Charles was born in 1869 and Mae was born in 1872, yet when I snap a copy of their photo – the resulting picture will be dated in 2016!

Photos are Automatically Sorted by Date

In Google Photos, your library of pictures is kept in order by date – period. You can make albums to group selected pictures any way you want, but the library of all your photos is viewed in a dated stream with the most recent on top. It is wonderful to view the pictures of my life in order like that, and with just a little bit of work, the photos of my Great Grandparents can also be put in order where they belong – in the 1800s.

Use a Computer to Change the Date

Google Photos can be used on an Android device or an Apple iOS device, but for this particular feature, you need a computer.

  1. On any computer, open a web browser (preferably Chrome) and go to Photos.Google.com. Be sure you’re logged in with your account
  2. Find the photo that needs a date change and click it
  3. Click the i button in the upper right. That stands for Info and it will open a right sidebar
  4. Hover over the date and a pencil will appear – click on the pencil and you can edit the date
  5. Enter the desired date, then click Save.
  6. Added Aug 2016: you can now select multiple photos then change the date for all, just click the 3-dot menu – Edit Date and Time

You picture will be instantly relocated, in the stream of all your photos, to it’s proper date ordered position.

This article is by Chris Guld, of GeeksOnTour.com. To learn more, see the Google Photos Tutorial Video page, and consider becoming a member in order to view all the tutorial videos.

Note: Thanks to Connie Bradish for the research to tell me when my Great Grandparents were born! You may get me into genealogy yet!

Your Pictures in the Cloud? Using Google+ Photos with Android and iOS

 File Management, Google+, Organizing  3 Responses »
Nov 072014
 

imageMany of us are using smartphones and tablets as our primary cameras these days. And, many of you may not even have a computer – finding that the smartphones and tablets meet all your computing needs. But what to do with all those pictures? I know that a lot of you just keep taking pictures until one day, your phone displays a message that it is full and it can’t take any more. Now what?

Even if you do have a computer, you may find that storing your pictures in the cloud is more convenient. If you don’t have a computer, it’s the only way to get them off your phone and into more permanent storage.

Don’t get me wrong. I do have a computer, and I love Picasa – the computer software. I will keep importing the pictures from my phone and tablet to my computer, and using Picasa for organizing, editing, and uploading/sharing them. I just want to recognize that there is another way to do things now, and one future day, it may be the only way.

1. Upload Pictures from devices to the Cloud

The easiest way to do this with Google+ is to install the Google+ App on your phone or tablet, then turn on the option called “Auto Backup.” I wish they had named it “Auto-Upload” instead of Auto Backup because something called “Backup” implies that there is a way to “Restore” your system to how it was when you backed it up. That is not what this does. What Auto Backup does is to notice every photo taken by the camera app on your device (smartphone or tablet, Android or Apple) and automatically upload it to your account in Google+.

After installing the app, find the Settings option and turn Auto Backup on. Then there are options for the size of the uploaded photos and the connection used to upload them.

  1. Size for uploading: choose between
    -Full Size: uploads the fullsize original picture. Use this if you need the original resolution but realize that it will be using up your storage allotment in Google+
    -Standard Size: downsizes your photos to no more than 2048 pixels. This is plenty big enough for any viewing on a computer and it enables the unlimited free storage option for Google+
  2. Connection used for Uploading
    -Over Wi-Fi or mobile network: this will use your data plan (mobile network such as Verizon or AT&T) If you have a limited plan, you could incur substantial charges
    -Over Wi-Fi only: this will only upload your pictures when your device is connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot. We assume that the Wi-Fi is free
  3. Delete the photos from your phone or tablet. This is a decision for you to make, but realize if you never delete pictures that you take with your phone or tablet, it will fill up.

2. View the Cloud Pictures from your device

The Google+ App on your phone or tablet will allow you to view all the photos that were uploaded to your account. You can also select pictures to be organized into Albums, so you can then browse pictures by album. As long as you have a data connection on your phone or tablet, you can view all your photos online – no need to have them on your phone.

 

2014-11-07 18.55.43

Every week Geeks on Tour presents a free web-show where we explore features and uses of smartphones and Tablets. Episode #19 will focus on your pictures in the cloud. It will air live this Sunday, November 9 at 2pm Eastern time. If you watch it live, you will be able to leave comments that we will answer on air. If you don’t watch it live, it is recorded as a Youtube video and will be available below. To get the links for watching live or later,  see our Geeks on Tour Weekly Show page.

Migrate your iPhoto Library to Picasa Now

 File Management, Macintosh  23 Responses »
Oct 212014
 

iPhoto App is disabled in iOS 8In case you haven’t heard, iPhoto is going away. Apple is putting all your photos into one basket called simply, “Photos.”  It will no longer be offering either of its current photo management tools, iPhoto or Aperture. The iPhoto App on the iPad is already disabled if you upgraded to iOS 8. The Macintosh version will wait till sometime next year when OSX Yosemite is released. I can’t find any information on whether you will still be able to use the iPhoto you currently have, or whether it will stop working like on the iPad. Of course, Apple is providing a migration path to its Photos app and, with full integration of iCloud Photo Library, I expect that this is going to be a very good option. It sounds a lot like Google+ Photos actually, especially the Auto Backup part!

I recommend following this procedure now just to be sure that your pictures are not held hostage by iPhoto. You see, iPhoto keeps all your pictures in its proprietary library structure. If you look at your Mac’s folders and files (using Finder,) you will only see one – very large – file for your iPhoto LIbrary. All your pictures are inside that ‘package’ and you can only view them using iPhoto. Picasa, on the other hand is not a container for your photos. It is a tool for viewing, organizing, and editing that works with the individual .jpg files in your computer’s filing system. So, this process of “migrating from iPhoto to Picasa” is really just copying all the pictures out of your iPhoto library and putting them into folders where Picasa – or any other program that works with .jpg files – can see them.

If you’ve been thinking about using Picasa, the announced end of iPhoto gives you the reason to do that now.  Picasa for Mac provides the tools to do the work quite easily. This video shows you the process: (please note the comment by Michele below – make sure to check that all your pictures did, indeed, get imported. If not, use iPhoto’s export function)

This tip, and the whole website PicasaGeeks.com are brought to you by Geeks on Tour. We’ve been teaching Picasa since 2004 and have nearly 100 tutorial videos available in our Learning Library.

Moving Pictures from a PC to a Mac for Picasa

 File Management, Picasa  Comments Off on Moving Pictures from a PC to a Mac for Picasa
Oct 072014
 

imageQuestion from a subscriber:

I love Picasa and I am grateful for the service you provide.  I want to get a Mac computer and I want to know how to transfer all my pictures from Picasa (with edits) to Picasa for Mac.  I know (from you ) that the pictures are really in the files in My Pictures but they are not with the edits.  I have been to the Apple store and a computer Tec department in a computer store and nobody seems to know the answer.  I can’t seem to find an answer on the Web either.  Can you lead me in the right direction?  Thanks for you great work. Linda J

Great question!

Picasa keeps the edits in the file called picasa.ini. This file is located in the same folder as the pictures. So … if you just copy the complete folder of all your pictures from your PC to your Mac, then tell Picasa where those folders are with Folder Manager – you’re all set.

Step by Step

  1. Copy complete folders of pictures from PC to an External Hard Drive
  2. Connect that hard drive to your Mac
  3. Do NOT “Import” pictures from the Hard Drive to your Mac using Picasa – that will get the original pictures
  4. DO either 1) copy complete folders to the Mac using Finder OR 2) Leave hard drive connected to Mac and use Picasa Folder Manager to work with them there

Here’s the member video I recorded that shows exactly how to do it:

357. Picasa: Transferring your Picture Library from Windows to Mac (this was recorded for members, but I really want you to see it, so I’m making it free for the first 10 days)

See this video on Folder Manager. It was recorded on Windows, but it works just the same on Mac:

  1. Folder Manager #233 Free

Picasa Tutorial Videos

If you are a Geeks on Tour member, we have nearly 100 videos – over 10 hours worth of training – on all aspects of using Picasa. Here is the complete list of videos, even non-members can watch the ones n the Free section.

Picasa Tip: Photo Workflow

 File Management  8 Responses »
Mar 112014
 

picture-workflowDo you have a photo workflow?

What’s that you say?  You don’t work any more?  You’re retired.  You just play and travel.  I hear ya!  We want to erase the word ‘work’ from our vocabulary, but, if you don’t have some kind of process for managing your photos – they’ll just get lost.  We take all these great pictures for a reason: to preserve the memories and to share them.  You can’t do that if you don’t know where they are!  For me, there are 3 reasons to have a workflow;

  1. To make sure I collect all the pictures taken with various cameras.
  2. To winnow them down to just the best, and make sure those best photos are great!  I also want to have some labels, captions, keywords, or filenames on my best photos so I can easily find them.
  3. To share just those best photos, making sure they’re easily accessible to me at any time.

Showing Pictures of Alaska

A couple of weeks ago, we were in a campground with some friends who are planning an RV trip to Alaska this summer.  I told them how I lived in Alaska for many years when I was a kid, and my first RV trip was from Alaska to Guatemala.  I love telling that story of my first RV trip, I like it even better to show pictures!  I was able to grab the smartphone from my pocket and quickly find pictures of that 1962 trip.  How did I do that?  I certainly didn’t take that picture using my phone!  Well, actually I did!  I found an old photo album on the shelf at my Mom’s – it had these Alaska pictures so I took out my phone and snapped pictures of the pictures.  I plan to do a lot more of that.

2014-03-11 10.46.55I take a lot of regular pictures with my phone and I have a process where I import them to my computer and then erase them from my phone.  That way the phone never fills up.  I also use my phone to snap pictures from old photo albums – like the ones from Alaska.  After a little bit of editing in Picasa, they’re looking good and I upload them to Google+ Photos.  At least, that’s what it’s called now.  It used to be called Picasa Web Albums and I’ve been uploaded there for many years.  All my best pictures from the last 10 years are there.  All I need is the Google+ App on my phone, and I can easily pull up any of my photo albums from Google+ Photos.

 

My Complete (current) Process

I’ve developed my Photo Workflow over the years to match our photo-taking style.  I often revise it to take advantage of new tools that are available as well.  Your system will probably be different.  My goal in detailing my process is to get you to think about it.  Do you have access to all your pictures regardless of what camera took them?  If your computer with pictures on it crashes, do you have those pictures somewhere else – backups?  Can you find a picture from any given event in your life?  If you’re visiting a friend and want to show them pictures of that event, can you?  If you can answer yes to those questions, then you have a good system.  If not, perhaps reading thru my process will give you some ideas.

1. We take pictures with multiple cameras, then collect them all on one computer.  For cameras with SD cards, I import directly from the SD card to the computer.  For cameras from mobile devices, I install Dropbox on each device and set it to automatically synchronize to a ‘camera upload’ folder on my computer – then I move them from the camera upload folder to the My Pictures folder.  Once the pictures are safely on my computer, I erase them from the camera card or phone/tablet.  I normally put pictures into folders by the month they were taken.  Sometimes I find an event deserves it’s own folder.  Each year, I move that year’s folders off my computer and onto a USB External hard drive.  I use Picasa to browse all my pictures.  It can include the folders on the external hard drive , as well as the folders on the computer in its library.  I call this my master library.

2. I recently turned on the new Google+ Auto-Backup feature and set it to automatically copy every photo on my computer’s My Pictures folder.   I use the Standard Size option to reduce the pictures to 2048 pixels so I have unlimited free storage of these backed up pictures.  Realize that, if I have followed my #1 step correctly, this is only backing up my last year’s worth of photos because the others are on an external hard drive.
3. Picasa manages my master library.  I use it to view my pictures, make them look good, add captions, add tags, make collages etc.
4. Also using Picasa, I upload my best pictures to Google+ photo albums, and I share them publicly
5. Once a month / quarter / and year I backup that month/that year to DVD and put those DVDs in a separate location – a family members house.  I may stop doing the monthly or quarterly backups and only backup to disk at the end of each year since Google+ Auto-Backup is already making one backup for me online.
6. Install the Google+ App on all my mobile devices so I can view my entire life on Google+ photo albums from any device.

The Biggest Mistake You Can Make with Your Pictures

 File Management  36 Responses »
Jul 312013
 

recycleWe’re worried about you deleting your pictures unintentionally!  We think this is the biggest mistake you can make with your pictures.  We’ve seen grown men cry when they realize their pictures are gone.  Imagine learning that it was your fault!  If you haven’t already taken our quiz, and you’d like to test your own knowledge before reading this article, you can take our Picasa Quiz #1 here.

The majority of people who took our Picasa Quiz got the wrong answer when asked about deleting pictures.  Here’s the question:

image

If you take a look at the results, you’ll find that 57% of the respondents answered d. You’ve only deleted the Picasa copy, your original is still on your computer.  710 people have taken the quiz to date, that means 404 people (that we know of) are in danger of accidentally deleting their pictures because they believe that they are only deleting ‘Picasa’s copy.’ 

If you answered D, you’re wrong! 

Picasa does not have an extra copy of your pictures.  Picasa is not a container.   When you first installed Picasa, there was a message that we emphasize in our classes, “Scanning for pictures never moves or copies files to new locations.  You can choose which folders are displayed by Picasa using the Folder Manager tool (available from the Tools menu)”

Picasa is your faithful servant, doing whatever you ask to the pictures on your computer.  If you ask Picasa to delete a picture, it DELETES THAT PICTURE FROM YOUR COMPUTER.  Just as if you had seen the picture listed in Windows Explorer, or Macintosh Finder, and deleted it yourself. 

Everybody reading this, I want you to do something right now.  I want you to open Picasa, click on a picture and then press the Delete key on your computer.  You should see this warning message:

picasa-delete

If you now click on the ‘Delete Image’ button, your selected picture(s) will be deleted from your computer (so please press ‘Cancel’ this time!) ) If, at any time you have checked the box for ‘Don’t ask again …’ your pictures will be deleted immediately upon pressing the delete button. 

In case you don’t understand the ‘Recycle Bin’ concept, here’s an explanation: in both Windows and Macintosh, whenever an item is deleted from the computer, it is sent to the Recycle Bin (Windows) or Trash (Macintosh).  It stays there until such time as you empty your trash/recycle bin.  This is just a standard operation of your computer, it has nothing to do with Picasa.  In any case, the picture has been deleted from it’s location and you will not be able to see it using Picasa or My Pictures, or any other photo management program.  It’s gone.  Unless you manually open your trash/recycle bin and use the Restore command to get it back.

Where to Learn More …

 Geeks on Tour includes over 80 different Tutorial Videos just on Picasa.  We also have a discussion forum and we’ve added a topic which discusses this quiz.  If you view this topic, you will  learn which Videos teach the answers.  We’ve included notations for which videos require a membership and which are free for all to view.

Picasa Challenge: Can you Find Pictures from a Vacation 10 Years Ago?

 File Management, Organizing, Picasa  4 Responses »
Jul 092013
 

imageQuick!  Can you use your computer to pull up a slide show of a trip you took 10 years ago?  If you were using digital photography then, you should be able to see them now.  I keep all my past pictures on an external  hard drive.  Picasa can span both the USB hard drive and my computer’s internal C drive to display all the pictures I see in the Library.  When I use Tree View in Picasa and look at my Folders collection, it reports that there are 48,612 pictures total on my computer.  11,460 of those are in the My Pictures folder on my C drive and 35, 291 of those are on S:, which is my external USB hard drive .

image

The other day we were chatting with our new friends, Don and Kim from Harvest Hosts.  We love talking about travel with them because we have never met anyone who travels more than they do.  They’ve even traveled by RV in Africa and Asia!  So, when they mentioned river barging in France, we were excited to say, “We did that too!”  To prove it, I sat down at the computer, opened Picasa, and searched for France.  Within seconds the computer was playing a slide show of all our pictures of a River Barge trip to France in 2001.  Kim was impressed, but she asked, “Where’s a picture of the boat in fog with a swan swimming by?  That’s what I remember about barging in France.”  I told her to wait, and after a few more pictures … there was the swan in the fog!

Picture Filing Procedure

Here’s the procedure I follow:

  1. File by Month: After taking pictures with a digital camera, I import them all to my computer, in the My Pictures folder, and a sub-folder by month.
  2. Backup to CD/DVD: Each month or so – lately I’ve been backing up by quarter – I use Picasa’s backup tool to burn DVDs of all pictures taken since the last time I backed up.
  3. Move to USB Drive: After a folder is backed up to disc, it is fair game to be moved from my C drive to the external hard drive.  I do this using Picasa, so it retains the location information in its database.  It’s easy, just right click each folder and choose “Move Folder” – then specify the drive letter and folder location you want, e.g. S:\Old Pictures\.  I usually leave a year or two on my internal hard drive, just because I don’t always have the USB drive plugged in.  But, when it is plugged in, Picasa is working with a library of all 48,000 pictures.

If you are a Geeks on Tour member, you can watch tutorial videos of all of these processes:

  1. Tree Folder Structure
  2. Move Folders of Pictures to an External Drive
  3. Backup Monthly to Disk (CD or DVD)
  4. Searching for Pictures
  5. Picasa Short Course on Organizing your Pictures – 8 Videos

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, using Smartphones, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

Picasa Tip: Using DropBox to get Pictures from your Smartphone

 File Management, Organizing  22 Responses »
Jun 262013
 

imageIf you’re like us, you find yourself taking more and more pictures with your smartphone instead of your normal camera.  That really messes up our procedures of getting the pictures from the camera to the computer and organizing them there.  How do we get the pictures from the smartphone to the computer?  If you are a Geeks on Tour member, you can watch some past tutorial videos on how to transfer pictures by attaching a cable from the phone to the computer: Import Pictures with Android and Import pictures from an iPad/iPhone.  But now, there is an even easier option.

Dropbox, is the indispensible Cloud storage and synchronizing utility.  We’ve written about it several times, and mention it in almost every seminar since it’s our Dropbox folder where we store all our seminar materials!  Dropbox also has a special feature called “Camera Upload.”  It is nothing short of magic!  Now I take a picture on my phone and the next time I sit down at my computer, that picture is there in the Dropbox/Camera Upload folder.

Add More Dropbox Storage Space by Using Camera Uploads

The Free version of Dropbox starts you out with 2GB of storage space.  If you’re going to upload pictures from your smartphone to your Dropbox account, you’ll need more!  The folks at Dropbox realize this.  If you install the latest version of the Dropbox App on your Android or iPhone, you will earn up to 3GB in additional storage.  You will earn the additional storage for every 500MB that you actually use in Camera Uploads.  Once you’ve used it, you can delete the photos from your dropbox folder and you still have the extra storage available to you.

Steps to use the Camera Upload Feature

  1. dropbox-androidYou must already have a Dropbox account.  This means you have an account on www.Dropbox.com and you also have downloaded the app to your computer and have a Dropbox folder on your computer.
  2. Download and install the latest Dropbox App on your phone.  Get it from the App Store on your iPhone or iPad, or the Play Store on your Android phone or tablet.
  3. Make sure the Camera Upload option is turned on for the App on your mobile device.  Notice in the screen image at right that you have the option to allow the uploads only when your phone is connected to WiFi.  This means that it won’t use up the GB on your data plan.  It also means that the upload may not be instant.  If you want the upload instantly, and don’t mind using your cellular data plan, then choose the second option.

That’s it!  From now on, when you take a picture using your phone, it will automatically be uploaded to your Dropbox account online, AND synchronized with your dropbox folder on your computer.

We have such fun showing this in our seminars.  I feel like a magician.  I take a picture of someone in the front row of our seminar using my phone.  Then I immediately set the phone down, raising my hands in the air.  “Look Ma, No hands!”  While Jim is sitting at the computer, which is projected onto a big presentation screen, he opens the Dropbox Camera Upload folder and voila! the picture I just took is there.

Viewing the Camera Uploads with Picasa

The Camera Uploads folder on your computer, is within the Dropbox folder.  You can view it using Windows Explorer (or Macintosh Finder) just like any other folder.  I check it regularly and move the pictures from the Camera Uploads folder to a current folder in My Pictures.  This leaves the Camera Uploads folder empty for receiving new uploads, and Picasa will see the new pictures in My Pictures the next time you open Picasa.

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.

Forget about Picasa and Learn Files and Folders

 Computing 101, File Management, Organizing, Picasa  14 Responses »
Nov 302011
 

In Windows it’s called ‘Explorer’, in Macintosh it’s called ‘Finder.’  It’s the computer’s way of storing and organizing files and folders.  Picasa is software that sits on top of the files and folders.

“Picasa does not store your pictures, it is a tool for working with the pictures that exist in your computer’s folders.”

filedrawersWe’ve said those words literally thousands of times in teaching Picasa over the last 6 years.  We’ve written articles about it, we’ve recorded videos to explain it, we’ve taught it in hands-on classes and in seminars for hundreds of people all across the country. Yet, after every class, after every seminar, and after every article, we still get questions like, “How do I use Picasa without duplicating all the Pictures in My Pictures?”  or “I only wanted a few pictures in Picasa, so I deleted the rest, why did Picasa delete them from my Hard Drive?” or “If I lose some photos from my computer but they are in Picasa can I retrieve them from Picasa?”

We weren’t born knowing this stuff!

We finally realized that we were assuming people understood how their computer stores files in folders and how to view and understand that folder structure, all we were teaching is how Picasa works with pictures in their computer’s folders. You all know what happens when we assume right?(we make an ‘ass’ of ‘u’ and ‘me’) It’s like we are teaching how to take the short cuts to drive to your destination without realizing that the student didn’t yet know how to drive.

For those of us who started with computers back in the DOS days, it’s hard to understand *not* knowing about files and folders.  But, if you got your first computer in the 21st century, it’s very possible that you skipped right over all that basic stuff!  Before you’re allowed to drive a car, you have to take driving classes and pass a test showing that you understand the rules of the road.  There is no similar class/test for your first computer. Nowadays people just dive right in and start clicking away!  But, I’m here to tell you that it is important to understand the basics!

car-accident“Trying to organize your pictures using Picasa without first understanding your computer’s filing structure is like trying to drive a car without first understanding the rules if the road. You’re going to have a wreck!”

How Picasa Works

Picasa (and all modern software) tries to hide some of the complexity of files and folders.  For example, it will search your entire computer for pictures and then display them all for you to see in it’s ‘Library.’ You don’t have to know where on your computer any picture exists to be able to see that picture in Picasa.  You might assume (there’s that word again!) that Picasa is showing you just the My Pictures folder – that is where all your pictures should be, right?

Picasa will show you the folder of original wedding pictures that you stored in the My Pictures folder.  It will also show you the copies of those wedding pictures that you resized for using on the Web and put in the My Documents/Blog/ folder and the backup copies you have stored on an attached USB drive.  If you understand those folders, you will simply tell Picasa not to show the resized-for-web folder, or the backup folder, by using Picasa’s Folder Manager to exclude them.  If you don’t understand folders, you may decide to delete duplicates.  I’ve heard this tale too often, where people mistakenly choose the originals to delete rather than the resized-for-web duplicates because they didn’t check the folder locations.  That’s the car wreck! Now your original photos are gone … and you blame Picasa.  Picasa was just following your orders.

Picasa also has capabilities that your files and folders system doesn’t have.  It can show you groups of pictures that are gathered from multiple folders and make them appear to be in one folder all together – it calls that an ‘Album.’  But an album only contains pointers to the actual pictures that still reside in your computer’s folders.  This is a wonderful feature but only if you understand what it’s doing.  I know so many people that thought Picasa stored those pictures in the Album, so they deleted the pictures from their original folders.  Guess what? Those pictures are gone!

I will concede that Picasa is not blameless in these car wrecks – see my past article “Picasa, I Love You … Now Change! – but these are your precious pictures.  It behooves you to understand exactly how they are stored on your computer.  And, it won’t be just your pictures you’re learning about, but all the files and content of your computer.  Having a computer and not understanding files and folders is like taking a suitcase traveling and not knowing what’s in it!

How do you Learn?

So, if you are not already conversant in the language of files and folders on your computer, it’s time to learn.  A few times during the year we teach a hands-on Computer Bootcamp.  If you’re lucky enough to get in on one of them, it will be good, but it’s still just a start.  Our Geeks on Tour Member’s Learning Library has a few videos on Windows Explorer (Basics #27-31) and our Boot Camp workbook has one section devoted to it (pages 23-35), but It’s a big topic,  Macintosh users can start with this Apple Tutorial on The Finder for Macintosh Files and Folders.

Although you can start learning by watching videos, reading, or taking classes, it’s important that you get help on *your* computer with *your* files.  Modern computers are extremely customizable, so the files and folders on your computer may look very different than any teaching samples.  See if you can find a knowledgeable friend or a computer tutor that will sit with you as you find your files and practice moving them, copying them, and just locating them.  If anyone reading this has recommendations for a good book or tutorial, please leave a comment.

You should be able to find and understand:
 My Documents / My Computer / My Pictures / as well as different drives for Disks or USB drives
 View, Create, Delete, Rename, Move folders
 Know the difference between files and folders, how to put files into specific folders and how to nest folders
 File Save vs. File Save As
 Finding files with Search
 File Extensions – know how to see them and how to interpret them
 Backing Up!

And, probably the first thing you should learn – and do – is make a backup!  If you want an easy way to do that before you start experimenting we recommend the ClickFree USB hard drive automatic backup.  You just plug it in to the USB port, click OK a couple times and it starts backing up all the data files on your computer.

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

Geeks on Tour is a membership website with hundreds of Tutorial Videos on topics of interest to travelers, such as managing digital photos with Picasa, Route-Planning with Streets and Trips, and sharing your travels with a website using Blogger or with friends on Facebook. You can subscribe to our free e-newsletters, or become a paid member and be able to view all of the videos in the Learning Library.