Monday, April 15, 2013

Back-up day - and a birthday card

Today my main objectives are to back up my Blogger blog to Word Press, which is where I copy over all my blog posts so I'll have a back-up - just in case.  I haven't done that in about a year, so I was waaaaaay overdue.  I just finished doing that and the back-up worked fine.

Next I'm going to do a "Restore Point" for my Windows PC.  That's something I always have in the back of my mind, but don't usually take the time to do.  Everything is working great on my computer right now, so this is a good time to do the restore.  If things start not working they way they should in the future, I'll be able to go back to today's computer system and restore everything back to this point.

Don't forget to back up your blog and also set a restore point for your computer from time to time.  Luckily I also have a few other back-ups of my documents and files in case my computer crashes, like it did while I was in Vacaville in February.  I lost my programs, but I own most of what I had, or had free programs, and was able to recreate the old computer pretty well.

Then I'll get down my printer, set it up (hopefully it will work) and print out some birthday cards for my grandkids.

It's going to be a "computer day." My favorite kind of day.

People have asked me how I put the copyright line on the bottom of my photos.  Well, I'd guess there are a lot of different ways to do it, and I think Picasa has an easy way of inserting a copyright line in your photos, but I don't use Picasa, so I'm not sure.  You can check that out if that's the program you use for your photos.  I use a program called Serif CraftArtist Professional 2, which I downloaded from the Internet years ago.  I had the first version which is no longer available (Daisy Trail Scrapbook Artist); CraftArtist is the current program Serif offers.  You can get a free program that does a lot of things, which is what I did in the beginning, then I bought the full program so I would have all the bells and whistles.

I use CraftArtist for digital scrap booking, greeting cards, Christmas cards, some photo manipulation when needed, copyright lines on my published photos, and lots of other things. I think I've posted about this program before, most of the silly graphics that I post were made in that program.  They have around 50 free digital kits available to download and use in the program, and you can also import any element or photo.  I've found it works for anything I need.

If you are interested in the free program to see what it's like, click on this link.  It will take you to the Daisy Trail website where the free program and kits are available.  I used the freebie for a long time before I broke down and spent money on the full version.

Here's the birthday card I've made for my youngest grandson using CraftArtist - I'm printing it today and mailing it in Deming on Thursday:

Front of card

Inside of card - folded in the middle
Back of card

Birthday cards are really fun to make for my GrandKiddles - those are the only ones I make, except for my Dad - I send him a homemade card every year, too.  Sometimes I have great ideas and the creative process goes fast, other times I make more than one before I'm happy with the final product.  I also have issues with my printer - it doesn't seem to like being on the road, and stored away.  In my condo I used my printer frequently and it always worked fine, but since I've been traveling, not so much.  I hope my birthday cards print out all right today - then they will be ready to mail.

I'm afraid this year Graydin's card, and also Drew's - his birthday is a day after Graydin's - might be late. I'm mailing them Thursday, so I'm not sure they will be on time.

I have to say, I'm getting used to this larger blog post format and photos and I think I really like it.  At first it looked too big and the photos looked huge, but after working with it and viewing the posts for a day or so,  I like it.  Thanks for your feedback, I'm glad you like it too!

Here are a couple of pics from last night's sunset:


It's amazing how the colors change to a bright orange when I zoom to a close-up.


From Me and Katie, have a great Monday, everyone!  :)

12 comments:

  1. Just FYI - to make the © symbol type ALT+0169. (trying this again since it did not go the first time) You are visiting some interesting places. We are checking out some state parks in east Texas but beginning to get a little warm for us. We live in the Panhandle where we do not have this humidity! Accch. Give me the mountains. Anyway, good travels!

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  2. Thanks Becky - yes, that is how I got the © symbol. Using the keypad, not the numbers over the alphabet. I did a search to find how to get it from my keypad instead of using a graphic. Thanks for commenting on that, other readers may find it helpful.

    I love New Mexico, you should come here and enjoy the State Parks in NM. :)

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  3. Happy Birthday to Graydin!! It was a great card !!

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  4. Love the card! I use two different photo programs. adobe photodeluxe, which is obselete now, but I have the disk. And photoscape, free download from cnet.com when my adobe gets too fussy and doesn't want to load.

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  5. I like the wide format of your blog and may steal this idea for my blog someday. Is it a choice from blogger or did you import it from another program? Thanks.

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  6. I thought your blog looked different. I am always behind now on reading. Love the larger photos. And thanks for posting about all the free sites.

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  7. I have never backed up my blog.....didnt know I needed to. Thanks for sharing!

    Beautiful sunset!

    Really cute card for Graydin!

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  8. Teri - I did it in Blogger - just went to the Design area, click on Template, at the top right under Save Arrangement, click on Template Designer.

    There are various options, one deals with adjusting the width of your columns. That's where I widened everything.

    Then I just put the photos in as Extra Large.

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  9. ºººººª0¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡º¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡§ªªªªªªªªªªªªª§

    That's what I got with ALT+0169 on my MACbok

    º¡§ª

    But I didn't give up I kept the ALT down and tied all the other buttons.

    ⁃ §¶•ªº–≠•¶§∞¢££™¡«‘“πøˆ¨¥†®´∑œÅÍÎÏ©©

    I FOUND IT!!!

    For the MAC without a keypad: alt + g ©©©©©©©©©

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  10. I love reading blogs with large print as well as large photos. My eyes are not what they used to be so it is a lot easier for me. My blog photos are always posted as extra large.

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  11. Good thing you're blog data survived a whole year safely. I had Blogger that was hacked. And I completely felt powerless that time because I was taken away the power over my data. My data! That was a learning experience though. If that didn't happened, I wouldn't be as cautious about my files. Ruby @Williams Data Management

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  12. I like to run a free program called CCleaner to clean up junk files and then I run Windows Defrag. When you save a file, if the computer can, it will put it on one section of your hard drive. If it can't it will split it up on various parts of the drive, that will slow down your computer when you access that file. Defrag will consolidate those. After that, I run a back up.

    I also run a back up before I add any new programs to my computer and put a Restore Point on my computer. That way if something is wrong with the new program, just go to the Restore Point and you just got rid of every bit of it.

    When I get a new computer, after I put all of my programs on it, I create a Restore Point there. That way I don't have to download them again if I have to use my earliest Restore Point.

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