Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Making a Movie using Windows Movie Maker (WMM)

WMM comes together with your Windows Operating System. You went for a vacation, took many pictures. Now how do you show your friends and love ones your experience and observations. The most practical way is to make a "movie" out of it and later can even burn to CD and distribute to your love ones.

The way to go about making a movie using WMM ...

1) Select all the images required for the movie.
2) Select a background music or song for the movie, in "wma" format.
3) Put all of the above in one new file folder.
4) Sequence all your images accordingly.
5) Open the windows movie maker (WMM) program.
6) Save as a new project via: File - save project as -
7) Import all the prepared images and song file to the WMM.
8) Drag and place the song file to the "audio/music" timeline.
9) Highlight all the image files and drag the "lot" onto the "video" timeline.
10) Save your project file frequently.
11) Check whether the total images timeline is shorter or longer than the song file.
12) If the images < song, you can either add more images or "extend the time for some of the images.
13) If the images > song, you can either add another song or remove some images.
14) After the images=song timeline, do a check with playback.
15) What you have done so far is only the "basic" movie.
16) It will be more interesting if you continue to fine tune the movie with the following:
a) Effects - fade in/out, ease in/out, etc.
b) Transitions - how the images present itself.
c) Titles and credits.

17) After everything is in order, go to "publish" the song in "wmv" format.
18) One movie with about 2+ minutes duration requires about 9MB of memory.

View Sample No:1 - Butchart & Japanese Gardens

View Sample No:2 - Flowers

How to make a Karaoke Song using Windows Movie Maker

In one of my earlier posts, I described how to make a karaoke song using Microsoft PowerPoint.
You can also use Windows Movie Maker (which comes together with the Windows Operating System software). Here is how you go about it ...

1) Prepare one or sufficient quantity of images to fill up the complete song.
2) Embed song lyrics to each image by using PowerPoint program.
3) Find one song file in "wav" format.
4) Put all these raw files in one new file folder.
5) Open the windows movie maker (WMM) program.
6) Save as a new project via: File - save project as -
7) Import all the prepared images and song file to the WMM.
8) Drag and place the song file to the "audio/music" timeline.
9) If you have a title slide, put this one first onto the "video" timeline.
10) Check the time required before the song "starts".
11)Drag and place the first song slide after the "title" slide.
12) Check the time required for all the words sung and adjust the timeline accordingly.
13) Repeat process with the second and the third song slides and so on until the complete song is sung.
14) Check completed song on timing and fine tune when necessary.
15) After everything is in order, go to "publish" the song in "avi" format.
16) One song with about 3+ minutes duration requires about 1GB of memory.

View sample: click link Whispering Hope

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Beware of Fake Anti-Virus Softwares

Beware of Fake Anti-virus (AV) software either given free or download with a fee. These fake AV normally frighten visitors with pop-up messages warning that the free scans have found dangerous malicious software on your machine.

Such transactions can also leave credit card information in the hands of cyber crooks. Surprisingly, many users fall victim to these attacks and pay to register the Fake AV.

To add insult to injury, Fake AVs often are bundled with other malware, whcih remains on a victim’s computer regardless of whether a payment is made. Source – AFP/il.

Using Excel - Sorting

If you are working on an Excel sheet and you have a column with many categories (i.e. every row has a different category or type or value). You can add a “sorting” or filtering to the column. Ensure the row directly on top of the first category entry is the Title of the column. Next place the cursor on the title of the column you wish to have this filtering feature. Go to Data on the menu bar and click “Filter”. That’s it. If you wish to remove this feature, just place the cursor on the title of the column and press the “Filter” one more time. By the way, I am using Excel 2007 to explain this. The following exercise is good for the teachers. You are entering the marks of every student and their performance in every subject. You can, by sorting, find out which student is all-rounder the strong/weak or some students are good in a few subjects and particularily weak in certain subjects.

For those using XP operating system and Excel 2003, the only step different is from “Go to Data” – click “Filter” then one more step – click “Autofilter”. Happy computing!

Home Networking

You have more than one computer at home and would like to share the files between or among them. This is how you can go about it. Here, I am describing it using Vista and Windows 7 O.S. For the two or more computers, configure each one as follows:

1)First set a common Network Name. Go to Control Panel – System – change settings – then change the “Workgroup” to any other unique name, e.g. “joy123″.
2) Next, in each computer, click the bottom left hand corner Windows icon – Computer -then right click the drive or drives you allow to share the files. Click Properties – Sharing – then click “Advanced Sharing”.
3) Check “Share this folder”.
4) Next Set the Share name. Normally, the Drive letter will come out. You can add a few more letters to the Drive letter, e.g. ”c-120gb”
5) Limit the number of simultaneous users to 1.
6) Click Apply then OK.
7) Repeat Steps 2 to 6 if you have another Drive in the same computer for sharing.
Repeat Steps 1 to 7 if you have another computer to configure.

Now after the above is done, you have to log on to each computer to allow networking to work.

1) Click the bottom left hand corner Windows icon – All programs – Accessories – Windows Explorer.
2) Then click Network and choose the computer & Drive you would like to share with your computer you are now working on.
3) When you click the Drive of another computer, a User name and password will pop up.
4) Key in the Computer User Name (without the -PC) and password.
5) Then you can access all the files in this computer.
6) You can repeat the above for another computer.
7) That’s all folks.

Happy Networking !

Laughing is Healthy

IF YOU CAN’T LAUGH
YOU CAN’T LIVE

Laughing is healthy.

You need to laugh.

Humor is healty.

Do you think enough about this aspect of your health?

If all your anxieties give you wrinkles in your heart, you will soon have wrinkles on your face.

Laughing frees you.

Humor relaxes you.

A laugh can free you from needless intensity.

A laugh is the best cosmetic for your outside and the best medicine for your insides.

If your laugh-muscles work regularly your digestions will improve, your appetite will be stimulated and your blood pressure will stay down.

Humor gives you a sense of proportion.

Laughter and fun don’t only influence your metabolism, but also your surroundings.

They lessen the tensions and the tears.

Laughter and fun free you from that deadly earnestness about leaden problems, free you from that miserable daily drag.

Laughter and fun are the best remedies for the drugging of your heart and mind.

Laughter and fun open out new spaces for the still known joys of life.

A day when you don’t laugh, is a lost day.

Speakers Have No Sound

Under Vista OS, sometimes the speakers suddenly have no sound.
One possibility is ….. follow the steps to verify:

1) Open the windows media player
2) Click “Now Playing” and click “devices”
3) Select “speakers” and click “Properties”
4) Click “advance”
5) Ensure the check (tick) is on “Speakers” and not on the “Digital output”
6) Click “OK” this normally will solve the problem

Burning a DVD Using Vista OS

The latest Mircrosoft Operating System (OS), Vista, comes with many features and sub-programs. One is the Movie Making – a program which you can collate all your tour pictures and present it as a Slide Show – just like using Mircosoft PowerPoint in Microsoft Office. The other useful feature I found out is burning data or pictures onto a blank DVD -R disc. Here is how you go about it:

1) First, organize all your data or pictures into a “Folder”, preferably in My Document Folder.
2) Next, ensure you have a DVD Re-writerable CD-Rom.
3) Put a blank DVD -R disc into the CD-Rom drive.
4) After a short while, a menu will pop up, called AutoPlay.
5) Select “Burn files to Disc – using Windows”
6) Next, “Burn a Disc” menu will come out – change Disc Title as required and click Next.
7) Computer will then automatically “format” the blank disc and when completed will bring you directly to the File Directory.
8) Go to the Folder where you have stored the data or pictures and click on the Folder.
9) All the files in this Folder will be transferred to the Right Hand Side of the page.
10) If what you wanted to burn (all the data and pictures) is all included, you then can click the word “burn” on the top of the menu bar.
11) Once completed, you can eject the Disc and re-insert into the CD-Rom drive to check that the Disc is burnt correctly.

How to Burn a DVD Movie Disc

You bought a camcoder, took some movies in an event. Now you want to burn your movies into playable DVDs on standard DVD players. Here is one of the ways to achieve it.
Download your video movies from your camcoder

1) Make a new folder in My Videos in My Document Folder, say call it “Birthday Party”.
2) Put your camcoder disc in CD-Rom drive and copy and paste it into the Folder you have just created in My Videos (in My Document). [If your camcoder storage media is not on CD but on tape, then you have to connect your camcoder (with a suitable interface cable) between the camcoder and the computer to allow proper transfer of the movie files from your camcoder to the computer.]

Burning a Movie copy onto a blank DVD-R disc

1) First you need to have a DVD writer installed in your computer together with a proper “burning” software program – normally a free copy is given together with your purchase of your DVD writer [a Nero program].
2) Put a blank DVD-R disc in the CD-Rom drive.
3) Open “Nero” program by double clicking the Nero icon.
4) From “CD/DVD” option, change to “DVD” option.
5) Select “Photo and Video” and “Make your own DVD-Video”.
6) Close the “Tips” page (if any).
7) Select “Add video Files”
8] Go back to “My Document” and “My Videos” and select the video file or files you have earlier put in the new Folder (called Birthday Party).
9) Open up until you can see all the video files. They look like the following (in some models of camcoders):

VIDEO_TS.VOB
VIDEO_01_1.VOB
VIDEO_01_2.VOB … and so on.

10) Make sure you have selected ALL the video files by left clicking the mouse on the first file and then press shift + left clicking mouse on the last file [in this way, you have selected or highlighted in blue ALL the files], then click OPEN.
11) When asked under “Nero Vision Essentials, answer Yes.
12) The computer will so some conversion [writing] for a few minutes – depending on size of files in the movies.
13) When finish, click Next.
14) When “Tips” menu appears, close it and click Next.
15) Another “Tips” menu appears, closed it and click Next.
16) Nero Vision Essentials page comes out, click Yes and close “Tips” menu.
17) You can click (select) “Volumn Name” and change to any name you wanted, say you name it “Birthday Party” [note no spacing].
18) Now, you are ready to burn disc by clicking “Burn”
19) After sucessful burning, you can test the DVD-R disc on a standard DVD player. It should work with sound and pictures.

Happy recording !

Surfing the Internet (Offer of Free Services)

Internet surfing is like travelling around the world – you go from country to country, town to town, shop to shop, places of interest, etc. The only difference is; you are not there in person.

Nothing is free – as the saying goes. So, while you are surfing the Internet, something just “pop-up” and offer you a “non-solicited” offer of a “free-scan” – will you accept it? After all, it is just another computer scan done by another service provider.

You may be in for a surprise! Once you allow the outsider (this service provider) to take control of your computer system, they can say what they want to say to you – like “your computer is infected with da-da-da-da number of viruses, to remove them, it will cost you $xx”. You don’t believe your computer is that bad, so you ignor the comment. Next day, you turn on your computer again, it behaves differently, worst off then before (you accepted the “free service”). You try to find the last thing you have done and to delete it – you couldn’t find or delete it.

Sometimes getting a proper anti-virus program may help to remove the problem. Sometimes you are not that lucky, you may have to get someone to re-install all the programs in your computer again. One of my friends actually got caught this way.

Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Make a Karaoke Song

You can make an english or chinese karaoke song by using the PowerPoint (PP) Program. First you need some images, the song lyrics, the song file (in wav format) in addition to the PP program.
Follow the steps below:

- Create a folder in your hard disk directory.
- Put all your pictures (images) and the song file in this folder.
- Open up the PP program.
- Select “blank” presentation; save file with a suitable file name.
- Create as many blank slides as required.
- Choose color of background for all slides.
- Use first slide to write the title of song.
- Insert picture to each slide and type the lyrics.
- Insert song in the 1st slide.
- Put a “tick” on “Automatic after” only and enter transition time required.
- Check and fine-tune the timing of lyrics to song timing.
- Put an “End” slide to show end of song.
- Playback song to confirm timing of lyrics to song is OK.

View Sample: click link and view Funny

Understanding Images

Pictures taken from digital camera are in the format of digital images. Every image has the following details:
Image size in kB (kilobytes) or MB (megabytes). kilo=1,000 and mega=1,000,000. 1 byte= 1 unit of information.
Image size can also be described in pixels, e.g.

3008 x 2000 pixels
800 x 532 pixels
600 x 399 pixels
OR

Re-size to any physical dimensions (Width & Height) in inches
Next is the image resolution – pixels/in.
(normally is between 72 and 300).

Sending & receiving images as attachments to emails:

You have to “re-size” all digital images to suitable “pixel” size before sending out as attachments in email. If not, the recipient of your email may not be able to view, conveniently, the full picture you have sent.

If you are the recipient of such a large image file and can only view a portion of the picture, you can overcome it by selecting “view” picture instead of “downloading” and open the picture. Also, at the bottom right hand corner of the picture, there is a value of “100%”. Try reducing this value to say 30% or 25% – now I think you can view the full picture completely.

Making Movies (or Slide Shows)

Playing a movie in the computer is different from making a movie in the computer. Playing your own movie in the computer is simple, just make sure you have the right movie player installed.

Making a movie requires a movie making program. The latest Microsoft Vista (Home Premium Edition) Operating System has included a Windows Movie Maker Program. It is a good start using this program to learn how to make movies. See example in this blog.

Movie making is grouping a set of pictures to form a movie or slide presentation show with background music. To make the movie more interesting, effects and transistions can be added onto each picture. This is one major difference between movie slide and PowerPoint presentations. The movie made can further be burnt into DVD – playable in standard DVD players or in the computer.

The movie made can also be published in the web or upload to youtube.

Some common movie players include:

1) Windows Media Player
2) QuickTime Player
3) RealPlayer
4) DivX Player
Others like iTune, etc.

Digitized Signature

How do you send by email, a letter or a document with signature on it?

The normal way is to type the letter or document on Words, print out the letter or document and sign on it. Then use a scanner to digitize it into an Adobe document or just a jpg file, before attaching it to an email. Or you can simply fax it over, provided both parties have fax machines.

Alternatively, you can get an external writing tablet to input the signature into your computer. With the help of a simple image editing program, you can make a (properly sized) digitized signature. Under Words program, use insert to place the signature to the proper place within the letter or document.

Online Transactions

Online transaction is transaction through the Internet. Examples include buying an airline ticket, paying your monthly household bills, buying and selling online, etc.

For buying and selling (goods and services) online, there are two types of transactions -

(1) buying/selling through a service provider (e.g. eBay, Yahoo, etc) and (2) buying/selling through the Internet, with the seller (a Company) having its own dedicated web site.

In buying or selling, it can be through a fixed price or through an auction bidding (with a closing date). If you are the seller, you need to provide details of your offer. This may includes starting price (if by auction) or fixed price and state all other fees applicable (e.g. posting and packing fees, etc). As a buyer, you need to satisfy yourself all costs applicable and to ensure that you will get your good/service after the money is handed over to the seller.

If you are new to this way of online buying or selling, I would suggest you start with the simplest way (sell/buy locally) - and that is for the buyer to meet up with the seller. The buyer examine the goods and if satisfied, pay directly cash to the seller. This we termed it “Cash on Delivery” (C.O.D.).

If you are doing some other forms of online transactions which requires you to enter sensitive information (like your visa card details) – please consider the following:

a) The computer you are using to perform the transactions – is it free of viruses and spywares, phishing, etc.?

b) Are you sure you are transacting with the genuine or right Company – have you typed the correct URL (web address) of the Company.

c) Have you accidentally gone to an imitation or fake site? (a web site that pretend to be the real one and with the aim of “stealing” your sensitive information - we called this phishing).

d) In Internet transactions, be careful also of fake emails that pretends to be from someone you know or someone you can trust and asking for your confidential information. Never trust any email that give you or inform you something that is too good to be true. Are you that lucky to have won something and have to be told just by an email?

e) Are you transacting on a secured web site provided by the Company? All reputable Company will provide a secured web site for you to transact with.

Configuring Vista system to Write Chinese

1) First go to control panel, Regional Language Option.

2) Click Keyboard and Language and Change Keyboard.

3) Then click Add

6) and select “Chinese PRC” for Input Language

7) Further select “Chinese Simplified – QuanPin – Version 6″
Click apply and OK – OK

9) Use Hanyu Pinyin to input Chinese (Using Microsoft Words)

Note: EN:CH change-over = shift + alt.
+/- to change “sets” of words

Configuring XP Operating system to Write Chinese

1) First check whether the East Asian Language package has already been install to your computer hard disk. If not, install it first by going to control panel, Regional Language Option, click “Install files for East Asian language” – restart computer and then …

2) Go to Control Panel and select Regional and Language Options

3) Under Regional Option, check selection is English (United States)

4) Go to Language – click Details

5) Under Settings – click Add

6) Select “Chinese PRC” for Input Language

7) Select “Chinese Simplified – QuanPin” for keyboard -OK

Click apply and OK – OK

9) Use Hanyu Pinyin to input Chinese (Using Words 2000)

Note: EN:CH change-over = shift + alt.

+/- to change “sets” of words