If you would let me know what kind of tutorials you would be interested in, I would really appreciate it. Just leave your thoughts in the comment box and I’ll be sure to see them.

Until next time, 

Technorati Tags: screen tutorials, learning goals

Anyway, I found exactly what I wanted and on sale. $50 and no contract because it was with Koodo, I was all set. Or so I thought. The options I chose were available for $35 a month, no contract. So far, so good. Then the salesgirl asked me if I wanted the store’s warranty plan. At any time for the next three years, I could bring the phone in and exchange it for another one without the hassle of sending it to the manufacturer. And it was only $6.77 for the warranty. Of course, I said yes, and that’s where the story starts to go sour.

This wasn’t my first time getting a warranty. I got one at Staples for my ebook reader – no problem. Got one at the Source for my headphones and printer – no problem. But with this Best Buy warranty, there was a definite problem. You see, every other warranty I ever got was a one time fee for the length of the warranty. Not so with the one for this cell phone. That was a monthly charge, for three years!

I know, I should have looked carefully at the invoice, but I didn’t. I took it for granted it was a one-time fee like all the others. In fact, I called the other stores to make sure I wasn’t mistaken and they had never heard of a monthly charge.

So now I have a three year warranty for a phone with no contract because I didn’t want to be locked in to a monthly fee of any kind. Since I didn’t realize I was paying monthly, by the time I noticed, the 30 days to change my mind had already passed. I called customer support and was told that the warranty was transferable, so if I didn’t want a cell phone anymore, I could get someone else to take it over and pay the warranty. Or I could stop using the phone altogether and simply pay the remainder of the warranty period upfront.

Now I don’t know about you, but having to pay over $200 to get out of a warranty for a $50 phone does not appeal to me. And I doubt anyone else would be dumb enough to take it over, nor would I want to try to get them too. So I’m stuck. But I have learned my lesson and will not be getting another warranty anytime soon.

I hope my experience has helped you too. Don’t take anything for granted and read before you sign.

Technorati Tags: warranty, Best Buy

The image on the left shows some of the options available on your right Google+ sidebar.  You can send invitations to others, start a hangout, or create a Google+ page. I didn’t even notice the create a page option until today, so haven’t tried it yet. I imagine it’s Google’s version of a Fanpage, but can’t say for sure.

What I can say is how much I’ve been enjoying using the hangout feature. You can invite up to ten people for an impromptu video chat. The quality of video and audio are both clear and if you don’t have a webcam, or are in a don’t look at me mood, you can still participate and your photo will show instead. There is also a text chat feature.

Here’s a look at the first screen you’ll see once you start a hangout:

Underneath the green ‘Hang out’ button, there is an option to use ‘Hangouts With Extras’. If you do, you’ll have the ability to share your screen – great if you are trying to explain a concept to someone.

The only problems we’ve had so far are that the share screen can be a bit finicky and doesn’t always work, and once in a while one of the five people in our hangout gets booted off the call and has to re-join. For a free service, I can live with those things.

Have you tried Google+ yet? And the hangouts option in particular? Would you like me to do a video tutorial for it? Let me know by commenting below.

Technorati Tags: Google+ hangouts, Google+ features, using Google+

The trick I thought was so neat was when we were at her daughter’s wedding and she took two photos of my son and his family. In one photo, everyone but the baby was smiling nicely and in the other, the baby smiled but not the parents. There was a time we would have had to settle for those pictures.

But thanks to digital software magic, Bridget was able to take the smiling baby and put her in the arms of the smiling mom and dad. And to look at the photo, you would never know it wasn’t the original.

If you have special photos that need editing, or you need to add a person or subtract some distracting background, find a Photoshop specialist and get the memories you’ll want to keep forever. And please share with me if you’ve already done so.

Technorati Tags: Photoshop Elements, editing photos

I found this video and description that shows some of the incredible possiblities when the author touched up an old photo of her grandmother – although I’m not quite sure how they knew her hair was supposed to look like that:

photo touchup
This is a photo of my grandmother . The photo is the only one we have of her at this age . So I did a restore on the photo and increased the photo res from a very small , wallet size to a full 8×10 . This was done in Adobe Photoshop cs3 . The final picture took about 6 hours of touch up and finish work . I just wanted to show the bulk of the initial work for this vid . When I restore vintage photos or just do touch ups,they can be very time consuming . The music bed or backing track used in this photoshop cs3 example is Aerosmith Dream On acoustic version . This photo was in extreme decay and bad shape . If you would like more information about Digital Design House , please visit our website www.digitaldesignhouse.com

Note from Carol: I don’t have time to learn another software program right now, but if you’ve used an application like Photoshop to fix any of your old photos, I would love to hear what you’ve done.

Technorati Tags: Photoshop Elements, Adobe Photoshop, photo restoration