Geeks on Tour - Articles

by Chris Guld If you’ve tried making custom Google maps in the past and got discouraged with the clunky way you had to draw your route lines …  You need to try again!  Google is continuously adding features to their web-based products and Google Maps has been the recipient of several in [...]

This is actually a Picasa tip and a Blogging tip.  Many travelers have blogs (simple, instant, websites used as journals, photo albums, or opinion pages) to share their travels with friends and family.  Two very popular (and free) blogging platforms are Blogger, and Wordpress.  I use them both.  Blogger is the easier of the two.  [...]

People tell me their computer problems … just call me Dear Abby of the computer world!  This week, I’ve had several people tell me that they’ve lost their favorites because they have a new computer, or have switched browsers.  There are several ways to backup your favorites for safekeeping and transferring, but I think the [...]

We’ve only stayed at one Corps of Engineers park that I remember, near Tupelo Mississippi.  We liked that park a lot, and we’ve talked to many people who stay at COE parks and also love them.  Always associated with water because of a Corps of Engineers dam project, many of these parks have [...]

Did you ever take a picture and you were disappointed that the sky was washed out?  You wish it was just a little bit bluer.  Well that’s the main use of the graduated tint effect.

In the example above, I selected the original photo on the left, clicked on the Effects tab and selected Graduated Tint.  [...]

If you haven’t made a Web Album yet, you really need to. It is just the best way to share photos with friends and family. Picasa Web Albums is actually a separate program. It’s a website that anyone can use whether they have Picasa on their computers or not. But, if [...]

You may have discovered how easy it is to add a few words to your photo using Picasa 3’s Text tool.  But, did you know you can write complete paragraphs?

You need to know that the text will not wordwrap, so you must end each line with Enter.  It also helps to have a solid background [...]

Yesterday, at The Rally, we presented our Google Earth seminar.

Happy faces of Google Earth Audience From Geeks on Tour April 2009

It was great fun.  Most of the people in the audience had already used Google Earth a little, but I know they learned a lot [...]

Question:  “I am new at Picasa 3. I have viewed your tutorials on the Basic editing.  I spent several hours adjusting my pictures on the computer.  This included cropping, light etc.  As advised in the tutorial, I would check apply and go back to library without saving.  When I went to close out of Picasa, [...]

Picasa’s one-click auto-correct button is called ‘I’m Feeling Lucky.’ Try it! You’ll like it. If you don’t like what it does, no problem, just click the Undo button and it will forget all about it.
I recommend *always* clicking on I’m Feeling Lucky whenever you’re editing a photo. You may be surprised [...]