Computer and Web Articles

I recently had an ergonomics expert visit my office and adjust my workstation.

She adjusted my chair, moved my monitors, mouse, and keyboard, and gave me suggestions on types of furniture and equipment I could purchase in the future to help me feel even more comfortable as I work.

Here are four tips (of many) that she shared with me; you can make each change on your own at your desk or workstation:

1. While you’re working on your computer, lift up one arm and reach it straight forward.Do your fingers touch your monitor without you leaning forward in your chair? If so, that’s great. If not, you need to move your monitors closer.
2. When you’re sitting in your chair, your keyboard surface should be at elbow height — your forearms shouldn’t be angled upward or downward from your elbows when you’re typing — think 90 degree angle here. If your keyboard isn’t at elbow height, try adjusting the height of your chair.
3. Your feet shouldn’t dangle! Make sure your feet are either flat on the floor or that you use a footrest.
4. Many people set up their monitors so that the screens are too high.The top area of your monitor screen should actually be around eye level to reduce neck strain caused by tilting your neck back.

I hope these tips help you feel more comfortable when you work at your computer.

If you need additional assistance, drop me an e-mail and I’d be happy to share the contact info of the ergonomics expert who helped me out.

A short while back I answered a reader’s question regarding easy and free ways to set up a blog.

Since then, I’ve actually found what I’d have to say is by far the *easiest* way of setting up a blog I’ve ever, ever seen. It’s so easy it’s almost frightening. (But not quite, so don’t worry.)

Posterous allows you to have your own blog without even having to sign up or set up an account. It’s incredible; all you need to do is type a blog entry into an e-mail and send it to their e-mail address.

You’ll receive an instant reply with a link to your new blog. In the future, you just e-mail content to the same address and your blog is automatically updated.

In sum, if you have an e-mail address and know how to send e-mails, you can have your own blog. For free.

Try it: www.posterous.com.

• www.superest.com — Love it. The Superest website exists solely to try and answer the question “Who is the superset hero of them all?” With the occasional assistance of guest artists, two ridiculously talented illustrators (one of them being Kevin Cornell, whose work I absolutely adore) battle it out, back and forth, back and forth. One draws a character with a super power. The other illustrator then draws a character with a power than cancels the power of the previous character. The cycle is repeated over and over and over again for your ongoing entertainment.
• http://flickrvision.com — A great site to visit when you’re on a boring phone call, in the mood to zone out a little, or feeling like you need a break. Head over to flickrvision.com and do nothing other than sit back, relax, and watch your monitor. You’ll see a moving slideshow of the most recent photos that have been uploaded to Flickr — from across the world.  As I’ve sat here typing I’ve seen a photo of a genuinely interesting tree (uploaded in Malaysia), a baby drooling on the funniest stuffed alligator I’ve ever seen (uploaded in Calgary), a dirty motorcycle (uploaded in Ohio), and a shot of what appeared to be some sort of crazy-looking horse race (uploaded from Argentina).
• http://www.givethegiftofsight .org/ — A family of charitable programs providing free vision care and eyewear to underprivileged individuals in North America as well as developing countries around the world. Won’t you donate and help give the gift of sight? Even just $10 helps to hand-deliver a pair of glasses to a fortunate recipient. Your donation is tax-deductible, of course.
• http://www.taxiwiz.com — Know your taxi fare before you go! Taxiwiz.com calculates fares and provides you with estimated costs for taxi rides in 21 major cities, including San Francisco, New York City, Chicago and Boston. I’ve tested it out and must say that it works like a champ.
• http://www.teakwarehouse .com — A nice online store selling high-quality, handsome teak furniture, including loungers and sunbeds for summertime relaxing.

Recently, while browsing Etsy.com (definitely one of my favorite sites), I found myself impressed by the sheer number and variety of handmade products offered on the site these days.

With summer here, perhaps some of you gals out there have found yourself looking for pretty notecards to use for your non-e-mail correspondences. If so, here are links to an assortment of handmade notecard packs on Etsy.

1. http://tinyurl.com/6h8rf9
2. http://tinyurl.com/6do3v5
3. http://tinyurl.com/5audae
4. http://tinyurl.com/5r96jg
5. http://tinyurl.com/5v8gz4

Don’t care for any of these styles? Just head over to the Etsy.com home page and do a search for “notecards” — you’ll have hundreds of options to look through. Have fun!

Few people wouldn’t like to free up hard disk space and have their computers run faster. Enter: CCleaner.

CCleaner not only cleans away traces of your online activities, it removes unused files from your system, which frees up valuable disk space.

A cursory skim through its features list shows that it cleans up old files and settings left by standard Windows components, checks for problems and inconsistencies in your computer’s Registry, and cleans out temporary files left behind by Firefox, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, and Adobe Acrobat. And that’s just for starters.

CCleaner is a 100 percent-free download guaranteed not to contain any spyware, adware or viruses. Interested? Visit www.ccleaner.com to learn more.

• http://symptoms.webmd.com/ symptomchecker — Not sure what’s causing that tingling in your leg? Experiencing an odd sensation in your neck? Try out WebMD’s Sympton Checker; answer a series of questions and learn more about what might be causing your symptoms — and whether or not you should consider seeking medical attention.
• http://tinyurl.com/2uvwen — Study this post and learn the “four noble truths of blogging.”
• http://tinyurl.com/47norn — Send in your photo and these guys will create an illustrated caricature that you can use on your website, MySpace page, blog, business card, etc. $39 for your face or $89 for your face and body.
• www.photowow.com — PhotoWow creates large framed canvases, wall posters, photo invitations, holiday cards, sign-in boards and more — all from your personal photos.Just send in or upload your photos, choose the product you’d like to order, make your payment, and look for your final piece in the mail in about one week (give or take, depending on the shipping option you choose).
• http://www.marumushi.com/ apps/newsmap — A neat online application that “visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator.”

Ever since I ran across this little gem of a site a few weeks ago I’ve been regularly recommending it to clients. It’s so darn useful that I highly recommend anyone who works on a computer bookmark it (www.zamzar.com).

Zamzar is a super-simple, free online conversion tool.

This means it can take your .docx files and turn them into .doc files. It can take your .jpg files and turn them into .png files. It will happily take your .ppt files and turn them into .pdf files.

The entire process consists of four ridiculously easy steps. One, upload the file you want to convert.

Two, choose the format into which you wish to convert the file. Three, enter your e-mail address. Four, click the “convert” button.

The free version of Zamzar converts files up to 100MB in size, but if you need more horsepower (as in you’d like to be able to convert files up to 1GB in size), paid options exist as well.

Question: Hi Erin. I have a question relating to technology.  I was wondering what is the easiest and cheapest way to start a personal weblog/blog? Thanks.  -Tara

Answer: Two of the quickest, easiest, cheapest options to start your own personal blog would be:

1. www.wordpress.com (see the big shiny “sign up now” button?)
2. www.blogger.com/start

Both options are totally free.

Just take a look around the two sites to determine if one solution appeals to you more than the other.  And when I say these options are easy, I mean e-a-s-y.  You can have your very own blog up and running within minutes. Have fun.

• http://oca.microsoft.com/en/ windiag.asp — A Microsoft tool that tests the RAM (memory) on your computer for errors by running a series of comprehensive checks.
• www.101cookbooks.com — A great recipe blog featuring healthy, vegetarian recipes alongside gorgeous food photos. Heidi, the author, also includes recipes for dishes that are gluten-free, high-protein, low-carb, whole grain, vegan, and (most importantly, of course) based on chocolate.
• www.ioweyou.co.uk — This free “innovative expenses sharing system” includes features such as expense logging, instant reports, and access from any computer with an internet connection.
• http://tinyurl.com/hrf8s — Animals that clean your computer screens. (Pretty girly.)
• http://tinyurl.com/4ema7j — Ever wondered how websites actually work?