In case you’ve missed it before (here and here), my ever-so-giving and super-smart brother Kevin does “Tech Friday” on my blog once in a while. Why? Sometimes you ask me tech-related questions. I’m not a tech expert. Kevin is. Kevin’s very generous with his time and loves to help others understand technology.
Here is the latest round of tech Q+A. He’s answering the questions you asked on facebook + twitter. Feel free to leave more questions here and he can add them to the cue for the next time. Thank you, thank you, thank you Kevin. Isn’t he just super?
……….
Q: @MotherWifeWoods asks, What’s the best & least expensive way to get my screen to match what I print? My pictures come out too warm.
A: If you are comfortable with using the built-in calibration tools in OS X (sorry Windows users, no built-in tools), you can go here and run a quick calibration. It’s free and works pretty good.
If you’re looking for something a little more complete, you will want to check out the Spyder calibration tools. Prices range depending on the version you purchase, but they start under $100.
Once you have calibrated your screen, you will want to download the appropriate ICC profile for your printer. For example, if I were using an Epson inkjet printer, I would go to www.epson.com and locate/download the ICC profile for your printer. By doing this, the computer and printer will now be fully in sync, and colors should match exactly.
…..
Q: Donna asks, I have recently had a lot of trouble with the storage devices I have used to backup the almost 50,000 pictures I have. I would like to know if you could tell me the best and safest type of storage out there so I can stop worrying about losing all of my pictures.
A: One of the problems with backing up a LOT of large files is the time it takes to transfer from media to media (i.e.: hard drive to cloud storage or even hard drive to hard drive). The easiest form of backing up your data is by using a service like Carbonite. It’s a no-brainer solution because it handles everything automatically. It’s still a valid solution if you have a lot of data, but it will take longer and eat up your bandwidth.
My personal backup solution involves a high-capacity Drobo storage device that I have at home. In addition, I have a copy of that same set of data made each week, and leave that copy at the office (in case something happens to my house). It’s not as convenient as a cloud back-up solution, but definitely faster. You may also want to consider an occasional dump to a series of DVD to store at a friend’s house.
…..
Q: Karen says, Yay for Kevin!! My question is that with my “time machine” on the Mac. How can I make it only save certain files I want to be backed up such as pictures instead of everything on the Mac?
A: Although you can’t be selective with Time Machine when it comes to file types, you CAN be selective when it comes to selection. Open your Time Machine preferences (System Preferences | Time Machine), and you will see an “Options…” button. From here, you can choose which directories to exclude from your backups. That’s all the control you have in Time Machine, for now.
…..
Q: Nanci asks, I would love to know how Kevin keeps track of his commitments? What software or online system does he use to track his to-do’s, promises, misc info?
A: Life is crazy! And my life/schedule is no different. I usually have a lot going on all the time. Before I tell you how I manage MY time, I need to remind you that everyone is different, and this is a very personal question. My answer may be unique.
Having said that, I use … iCal and Mail. Yup. That’s it. It’s simple and effective for me. I’ve tried several other task management solutions like ToDo. TaskPad and Task ToDo. The problem I found with all of these is they attempt to do more than I wanted them to do. Between using iCal for calendar items and tasks, and Mail for email, it’s the perfect solution … for me. As an added bonus, I’m a big fan of “Zero Inbox”. Google it to learn more.
*** Added note from Becky: Same here, Nanci. It’s iCal for our family. ***
…..
Q: Brittany asks, I’m wondering how I can email groups from my iPhone. I love to send pics to grandparents but there’s got to be a better way to do it than adding each off their email addresses separately.
A: Unfortunately, sending to a group you already have established isn’t a native feature … at least not yet. I am hoping that when iOS 5 comes out later this year, this will be a feature that is slipped in, because I want it just as bad as everyone else.
For the time being, there are two ways around this. The first option is to manually choose your recipients. Rather than having to filter through your entire contacts list, however, you can filter to just the group you want to send to. This isn’t bad if you only have a small handful of recipients to send to (less than 10).
The second option is to download a utility app from the iTunes store to do the job for you. One that I use occasionally is called “GroupEmail”. It costs $0.99, and gives you the ability to send to groups. This is one of many that are available.
…..
Q: Stephani asks, I’m looking for decent priced video editing software that is compatible with iTunes to edit our home movies. Just to make it even more confusing, I have a PC. 
A: Video editing on a PC?? Noooo!!!! Just kidding. Not only is it possible to do this, but a lot of people still do. You’re not alone.
There used to be two solutions to check out: 1) Avid and 2) Pinnacle Systems. However, if you visit the two sites, you will realize they are both now owned by Avid. So, just to make it easier, there is one real option to consider … Avid.
…..
Q: Melissa says, I would love some iPhoto basic info to go along with the time machine questions below on how you organize photos, sort them, tag them, back them up, etc.
A: Tagging photos is a great way to keep your library organized, but it’s time-consuming. If you love your photos enough to keep them “OCD organized”, definitely get in the habit of tagging. If you haven’t tagged before, start now. Albums and Smart Albums are good to, but tagging is awesome, and those tags are also backed up to Time Machine (as part of your overall library). iPhoto also has a really cool facial recognition engine built-in, and it actually works pretty good.
…..
Q: Jennifer says, Would love to know his thoughts on a good point & shoot camera. iPhone is not an option … initial cost is OK but not willing to pay more monthly to have one so need a one time cost point and shoot camera worth the $$$.
A: I’ve always been a big fan of Canon, and still use nothing but Canon. My point & shoot is the SD900, but it’s showing it’s age now (I use it less and less, and my iPhone 4 more and more). If I were to get one today, it would probably be the Canon ELPH 300 HS. Price ranges from $300-400.
…..
Q: Joanne asks, Should my first Apple computer be an iPad or a MacBook Pro? I’m leaning towards an iPad 2 because of its portability.
A: If you plan on using it for just basic tasks (email, web, games, etc), the iPad is awesome. One thing to watch out for is that the iPad is still somewhat limited in what you can do with it. It’s a GREAT companion to a laptop. When you want to do light lifting on the go with great battery life, the iPad is where you go. When you want to do some heavy lifting (photo editing, video, etc), the laptop is the place to go. If you can only have one or the other, I would strongly consider picking up a MacBook Pro now, and adding the iPad when you can later.
…..
Q: Sabrina asks, I’m thinking about jailbreaking my iPhone. Besides losing the support from Apple, do you know of any drawbacks? Have you heard horror stories about the phone locking up or losing functionality?
A: I’m personally opposed to jailbreaking because once you hack away at Apple’s software, you can no longer guarantee that things will run smoothly. I jailbroke my iPhone 3G back in the day, and after 3 or 4 days, reversed it because it was too unstable. Having said that, I know plenty of people who have done it and are happy. Those people are usually tech geeks though (just to give you an idea).
…..
Q: Melaina asks, Why can’t I delete just one individual phone call on my iPhone? It either all or none.
A: Unfortunately, I don’t have a good answer for you on that one. “It is what it is”, as I am finding myself say more and more often these days. I’m not sure why Apple doesn’t allow you to do that, but I can’t think of what it could be. Try again when iOS 5 comes out later this year to see if they sneak that feature in.
…..
Q: Jennifer Wells asks, Sometimes when I am reading a blog or website, in the place where the photo is supposed to be, a blue box with a question mark shows up. What gives??
A: Usually, that is because the one updating the web site hasn’t done all the clean-up they needed to, and left some unfinished business. Short of refreshing the page to force a reload, there isn’t a lot that can be done on your end. I would be interested to know if it happens on some computers and not others, though.
…..
Q: Margie asks, I would like to move all of my photos from iPhoto to Lightroom without losing my most important metadata (mostly keywords & ratings). Do you know the easiest way? The latest idea I’m considering is trying out the 30 Day free trial of Aperture and using Aperture as the go between, i.e., iPhoto>Aperture>Lightroom. Any thoughts or experience about this? I know this is a rather specific question so no worries if it is too “out there”. Thank you.
A: You’re actually on the right track by considering the iPhoto -> Aperture -> Lightroom approach. That’s valid and should get you where you want to be. If you end up going this route, be sure to clean up after yourself so you don’t have 2 or 3 copies of everything scattered all over the place.
Another option to consider is an app called Picture Sync. The idea is that it syncs your metadata. Two things to be aware of: 1) it’s no longer supported, so you may get mixed results and 2) it’s no longer updated, so it may be a good one-time approach.
…..
Q: Michelle asks, Just purchased a new Macbook. What would be the best software to use for photo editing that includes adding text. iPhoto is great for everything else apart from that.
A: When you say “adding text”, are you talking about adding text on top of an image? If so, you are correct in that iPhoto doesn’t allow for that. Primarily, iPhoto is a photo management tool, and secondarily, an editing system. PhotoShop is the opposite. You can look at using Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe PhotoShop Elements, or Pixelmator. These apps can be relatively expensive, but remember … you aren’t just getting the ability to add text. A whole new photo-editing world will be opened up to you.
…..
Q: Dawn asks, How can I find the date that I took a picture on my iPhone?
A: It would be nice if you can do this right on the iPhone (and maybe you can with a 3rd-party app somewhere), but right now, that’s not the case (as with other iOS features, check on this after iOS 5 is released later this year). What I do is import my photos into iPhoto (or any other photo management app), and then expose the metadata that way.
…..
Q: Sandy asks, How do you add a playlist to your blog? So many people have that, it’s so cool!
A: I actually have never seen that before, but after doing a quick Google, it looks like a lot of people are doing this (wow, the wording of that makes me sound like an old fart!). It depends on where your blog is hosted as to whether it will even work, and then how you add it. Do a Google on “add playlist blog”, and you should get some good answers out there.
Tags: kevin, technology
Kevin, you commented on “Zero Inbox” in your reply to Nanci’s question concerning tracking schedules. My Google search results had lots of entries for “Inbox Zero” from Merlin Mann and some entries for “Zero Inbox”, a product from Paul Puckridge.
I’d like to verify that you’re recommending the product “Zero Inbox”.
Great catch! Sorry for the typo. It’s actually “Inbox Zero”. Here are more of my thoughts related to this:
http://www.kevinallgaier.com/kevin/blog/Entries/2009/9/9_Managing_the_Inbox_Madness.html
Thank you for being so generous with your time! I didn’t get this quesiton in before, but if you have time, I would love the answer:
I am tying to load all my CD’s into Itunes, so I can get rid of the physical CD’s and just play music thru my Ipod Touch and a dock.
Sometimes when I Import a CD that has the main artist featuring the another srtisit, those songs end up in a different file? This is really annoying. I tried to use the Consolidate Tracks feature, but then it became one long file, not 12 sepate songs.
I am sure I am doing something wrong-can you help a girll out?
THank you again!
Hey Michelle. Sorry, I’m a little confused. Are you saying that when you rip some CDs, it results in a single, LARGE file, which includes all the tracks on that CD as a single track??
Kevin- you are awesome! Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. I appreciate the input.
such great insight & help. always love this Q&A
THANKS!!
Kevin, I have a question:
What is a good camera for taking action shots? Particularly of fast moving sports.
Thanks,
Alissa
Midland, MI
If you want great-looking shots in either low-light or high-speed action, you definitely want to consider a DSLR (Digital SLR). With a DLSR, you’re not stuck with a single built-in lens, but can swap out lenses, depending on what your environment requires. A low-light birthday party would require a different lens than a daytime football game (for example). As I said before, I love Canon, so my specific recommendation would be along the lines of the EOS 50D, which is what I shoot with. There are better bodies out there, but they get really pricey.
ok. i went to hp to search for the icc profile for my photosmart c6350 all in one. lots of stuff came up but nothing match it. now what? btw – i am the inverse of a tech geek.
Wow! Thanks for taking the time to answer all of these questions. I am lucky enough to live with my own version of you! Seeing how many people need help just makes me realize how lucky I am to live with a techie (actually 2, our 12 y o son is quickly passing me in tech use). We are anxiously awaiting Lion and iOS 5 (wasn’t the Keynote great?!). Can’t wait to look for all the new features!
Suzette
P.S. Old farts usually don’t “Google.” Don’t you love how that is a verb now?
P.P.S. You’re great, too, Becky! Is your entire family this talented?!
We have an iMac desktop and MacBookPro laptop, we have our email accounts synced/shared so we can see our emails on both computers. Although mail is being received onto both computers, we still have to “touch” each email on each computer, e.g. move to folders, reply, delete, etc. Is there a way to manage email on one (or the other) computer and have the corresponding computer mirror the action? We love the convenience of sharing the emails on both computers, but not the duplicated efforts it takes to maintain them.
It looks like we’ll be able to do this with iCloud and iOS5, but only if we use apple mail and not an email account associated with our service provider. We’d love to not change our email addresses if we don’t have too, but maybe we should? Your thoughts/advice?
Also, will the iOS5 upgrade be free/automatic or will we have to purchase?
Thanks so much for your time and answering all of our questions (I have bookmarked quite of few topics for future reference)!
-valerie
Hey Valerie. It sounds like you are using a very old mail protocol called “POP”. We (as an industry) started to move away from that many years ago because of the very issue you are experiencing. Gmail, MobileMe, etc use a newer set of protocols that allow everything to be in sync. For example, if you send an email from laptop A, it shows up in the Sent Items folder on Laptop B. When you delete something on Laptop C, it’s also deleted on your iPhone. You get the idea.
I would look at either iCloud (the new MobileMe-like service from Apple) or Gmail.
Thanks Kevin! Yep…POP is what we use. We’ll definitely explore iCloud and Gmail….any little thing to streamline and make our lives easier is a good thing.
Oh man. I forgot to post my questions before now and MAYBE it’s already been answered. I am NEW to this whole iphone craze and just purchased the 3GS because it was a great price. Anyway, what do you feel are some MUST HAVE apps on your phone? Thanks!!
Check this post (scroll down about 1/3 of the way):
http://www.kevinallgaier.com/kevin/blog/Entries/2011/4/15_Questions_and_Answers.html
Check this post (scroll down about 1/3 of the way):
http://www.kevinallgaier.com/kevin/blog/Entries/2011/4/15_Questions_and_Answers.html
I’d like to respond to Sandy’s question- I suggest she not do that. It drives me crazy when I open a blog and their music starts, because either I have music on already or am watching TV or a movie, and their music interferes. It’s especially annoying when I have a lot of tabs open to look at the pages later, and one of them has music- I have to go through all of the tabs to figure out which one it is, and make it stop.
I agree!! I actually opened the comment section to say the exact same thing.
I’ve been to some blogs with a play list but the ones I’ve seen actually don’t open until I press play and you can press pause to stop it. Do you think it depends on how the play list is set up? Thanks for the input though, I might reconsider having a playlist, I would not want to buy people, ;0)
I agree, i dont care for the music on blogs. Very annoying. I would reconsider.
About a month or so ago, I started to have about a 4 inch gap between posts on my blog. Any suggestions for eliminating that? I have my blog printed in to a book each year. I don’t want the book to have gaps all over—plus I’m sure the charge is per page. Besides, it doesn’t look good on my blog either.
Thanks,
Barbara
Another answer to Michelle’s question regarding a program that puts TEXT on her pictures to use with iphoto…Have you checked out Picasa by google? (link: http://picasa.google.com/) It’s a free program that can do a LOT of COOL stuff. I’ve recommended it to a lot of my friends who don’t want to invest in any photoshop programs but still want to do fun things with their pictures. They make it for both windows & Mac.
Thanks Kevin & Becky! I’m usually pretty tech savy (& google is my friend) but I find these posts so fun to read! (& Becky…all of your blog is eye candy. Keep up the great work! We appreciate it!;-)
Happy Friday!
Judy
thanks Judy will check that out soon
When are you going to create an app for Project Life? I know a lot of us would love to have that one!
Thanks!
Thanks Kevin. One question: when importing a cd into iTunes sometimes the picture of the cd isn’t showing – there’s a logo-type of picture. Can I put my own picture there insted? Does it Make sense?
Thanks In advance.
Yes. There are two ways to do this:
1) right-click on the track, then choose Get Info. Click on the “Artwork” tab, and you can import your own artwork here.
2) If it’s a song that iTunes also sells, you can right-click on the track (or album), and choose “Get Album Artwork” (you’ll need an iTunes account to use this, but it’s a no-charge feature).
Michelle, In your macbook pro, open your picture in Preview, type your text, choose font, color, size, and take back to iphoto. Easy and FREE!!!
Thanks Candy, I have tried that but it doesnt work for me
i think i had Photoshop on my old laptop so i think i should probably get that to save anymore confusion lol already confused about some things lol
Thanks Candy for that bit of information, but I just spent 15 minutes trying to figure that one out and the first thing I had to do was figure out how to pull my picture from iPhoto to Preview. Then after figuring that one out, in Preview I needed to put the Annotate button on my toolbar (customize Toolbar). It took me a few tries to put in text because I didn’t know there was a Notes button on the pop up menu from the Annotate button.
So thank you very much because now I can do that a whole lot faster than using Photoshop Elements.
I agree! I hate it especially when I want to connect to a youtube video or something like it and I can hear someone elses music, mucho annoying!
Sorry I thought this would reply under Nicky’s comment, I mean I hate playlists on blogs. Love Tech Friday! Thanks Kevin and Becky. However after reading comments I am concerned about my planned iPhone purchase today, no groups, no deleting individual calls, no dates on photos!! Aaarggh!
Can’t you use your group lists from Contacts? That’s what I do when I want to send mass texts or emails.
Thanks Kevin & Becky, love these posts. Also thanks for letting us follow you on Twitter. Always get great info from both of you!
Becky, your brother is awesome. I love reading his tech updates. Unfortunately, the only thing we own that is from Apple is our iPhones. I have a PC laptop and an old Cannon ELPH point and shoot camera and I use Picassa to edit my photos (because it’s free). I’m unfortunately not yet in the market for a new computer so whatever I do is all on my PC. I’m wondering if Kevin could recommend a user-friendly photo editing software that would be worth a small investment. Again, my camera sucks (and I can’t yet afford a new one) so I don’t need a software that the pros use. I just want to print out nice pictures to scrapbook and occasionally frame. Maybe Kevin could help me on one of his future appearances on your blog!
Hi Amy. There are probably a hundred free image editing apps out there. GIMP for Windows is a good one to check out if you want a freebee. As with most tech stuff, you get what you pay for. If you’re willing to spend a little money, check out Adobe PhotoShop Elements. It will run about $100, but has a lot of really nice features to help spice up your shots.
Thanks Kevin & Becky
will look into Photoshop right now, i think that is exactly what im after 
On my iPod nano (5th gen- w/ video) I have it set up in iTunes to only download checked songs, but iTunes keeps loading every song in our iTunes library to the iPod. This didn’t happen with my previous iPod so I’m curious as to why it is happening on this one, and would love any suggestions to solve this problem!
Thanks!
Victoria S.
Thanks so much for responding to my question. Once we are done with all of our end of the school activities including 2 graduations, I can’t wait to get started moving my all my photos to LR (from iPhoto). I appreciate the important tips.
Cant help but notice that the bottom half of the picture is blurred here. Is anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?!!
I was thinking the SAME thing… unless it’s an old photo and not a current one… (o:
I concur. It is embarrassing when sitting in a public setting, or a break at work, and I pull up a blog and music starts blaring. Maybe a text playlist of your favorite tunes is a good alternative. That way others could see and seek out the suggestions on their own, of desired.
Kevin, Is there a way to print photos from my instagram app on our ipod touch? i love the effects and the 4×4 size. My walgreens said they could only print a 4×6, I tried that and it didn’t work.
Thanks! Kristi
Kevin, my laptop dropped (big woops!) and everything seems fine except my internet connection all of a sudden is very slow. It will also kick us out of the internet constantly. We have to repair the connection or reconnect to our wireless router all the time by right clicking on the bars on the bottom right of the screen. How can I get it back to normal? It’s driving me crazy to not have our convenient internet anymore!
Thanks a million!!
Hi Kevin,
I’m on a iMac, and have a backup question. I have moved files onto an EHD, but I hate to delete them off my hard drive in case it crashes. I have two EHD that I have been rotating backups on, but I am wondering if there’s anyway to do incremental backups of one EHD hard drive to another EHD? So if I transfer something to EHD #1, I can then back it up onto EHD #2 from EHD #1. Does that even make sense? I was using Mozy, but I need more ram on my iMac and it was slowing it significantly.
Thanks!
Laurel
Hi Kevin – was curious if you know much about e-readers. Was thinking about a nook or kindle but wasn’t sure which would be the better purchase. Any thoughts???