Blogdangit

How to send a large PowerPoint 2007 file via email??? Help!

Hello all. I'm throwing this out there to see if I get any response from anybody googling. I've tussled with this most of the day yesterday and tried several different online storage areas and sorts of misleading services and still came up with no real answer to my question.

I have a presentation I've completed which is HUGE (about 71 megabytes). It's a wedding project I've put together for my family. I've created a hard copy on CD and will distribute those, but I want to also share the file online to those who MAY NOT have PowerPoint on their computers. (That's where it gets tricky!)

I receive PowerPoint presentations all the time via email. I know there has to be some conversion and/or compression program to shrink the file to a reasonable size for email delivery without major loss of quality. I don't want to pay an arm and leg for the program to get this done. Are there online services which host presentations of this size whereas the viewer can open it up with autorun without all the rigmarole of links and missing files?

Can somebody help a sistah out soon?!

Much luv,

 

 

Communications 2007

How come these days I would rather email my friends or text message them than to spend too much time talking on the phone? When I was traveling a lot, I enjoyed the phone time as it kept me occupied while driving or sitting up in an airport. (To all you Po's-Po's in Illinois, I do have the Bluetooth earpiece device)

I have the Moto-Q and it is definitely a handy little device which also works well with my HP laptop. I use it for emails, text messages, media files, taking notes on the fly, viewing web pages, taking pictures (the thing has nerve to have a flash installed) and the local google web page is awesome for directory assistance. Not long ago, I added the service to use it as a modem which always leaves me with an internet connection no matter where I am.

How come an email address is more important than a phone number these days? And when was the last time you actually took time out to write someone their own personal email just between you and them? I'm not talking about those forwarding emails which are generically sent to everybody in your contact list. (Yeah I'm guilty too! As a matter of fact in another post I'll talk about those forwarding emails and how I deliberately remove all those other names before passing it on.)

I send Birthday Wishes and Thinking of You letters through email and TM. I rarely buy personal cards anymore. Damn this is bad huh? I think for someone to actually take out the time to go out and pick out and mail you a card is someone very special these days. I really use to be consistent with this. I mean my Momma still gets hers.

Have we lost it? Do some of us still have it? Anybody within reach of this post, honestly tell me when was the last time you sat down and wrote a letter (handwritten) and sent it to someone? I sure as heck don't remember the last time I did. And with kids born today, heck they'll never hand write anything….LOL. Shoot just the other day; I swear I saw computer learning software for 6-8 month old babies. I was like …yes innnndeeeeed!

Some may argue communication is so impersonal these days. Is it? I believe if it was hand delivered with a stamp on it or electronically falls into your inbox, the thought or act of communication still took place – which is the point right? These days and everywhere you go, you see everybody and their Momma's on mobile phones and with laptop lids flipped up. It's all a sign of the time. Technology is evident and increasing rapidly. (shhhhhh…don't tell nobody but my momma still don't care for or have interest in the use of a computer – she doesn't even have an email address)

On the real, I'm so behind with catching up and chatting with a good friend of mine. He and I worked out in the field and… Cliff baby I'm gon' call – I promise. Hey I can shoot you an email though…

The Wireless Internet...

..in this hotel sucks! I'm in an end room, and I know I'm having drop-outs because of some missing or faulty antenna nearby. When I call the front desk; they tell me to call the number on the card in the room on the desk. I've talked with those people 3 times. They did some type of temporary telephone trickery, but thangs aint changed. The hotel is nice and comfy, and the workers are pleasant, otherwise I'd be the heck out of here and move down the street. Hopefully they'll fix it soon.

I like my room, otherwise I'd move to another one, but they hooked me up with a hot tub in this one and I can't let that go. Not after a long workout. :)

Oh, the wired (ethernet) doesn't work at all in this room. I bet the jack's jacked up in here. :)

See ya next post.

Got...Vista?!

I bought a loaded HP notebook. The hard drive was slow and loud, software ran slow, webcam and speakers didn't work and it crashed the same night with a blue screen. The next day, I took it back to Ci.rcu.it C.ity for an identical unit and it runs flawless. Amazing isn't it?!

I love Vista Home Premium OS. I bought Office Home and Student 2007 and Outlook 2007 software before realizing that I could run Office 2003 on it. I tested Office 2007 through Beta and fell in love with it then.

I got my iPod reloaded with no problems as well as my Palm TX (may be selling the TX with a Palm keyboard if anybody's interested), and currently waiting on a Vista update at any minute for my Motorola Q, so I can use the phone as a high speed modem and drop-kick my high speed service at home, which just sits there while I'm away.

As for my studio and Vista (more info will come later in another blog and yep I'm starting my music world chatter called ProducHer's Chatter), I'm anxiously waiting on a Pro Tools update for Vista. They say a few weeks or so. I've been playing around with other computer recording software but with Pro Tools being industry standard; it's the way I want to go. I'm constantly meeting producers who also record or are familiar with Pro Tools which will make our collaboration an ease.

I've read a few horror stories about VOS, but it's all no different than when XP came out. I will say that Vista feels better and out performs XP. I guess that's the idea huh? I was warned it would take a while getting used to, but if you've done XP, you can do this. Of course there are little annoyances and there are still a few bugs to be ironed out, but IMO, it's by far the best OS 'dem folks have designed.

I wouldn't recommend upgrading if you're comfortable in your own environment. But if you're a techie nutcase who needs re-ha.b like myself, you're gonna want to do this. Adrenaline rush for sho babyeee! Vista is beautiful!

Straight Up Geek Mode!

I visited a friend last night who not only had one computer out of commission, but two. This all came to surface when I tried to get online to check email. One of the PC's was much older than the other one. As my friends chit-chatted and watched television, I went deep into Geek Mode.

I knew there were virus issues on both PC's. I started with the older one and finally cleaned it up quite a bit. It took a while too. I deleted a lot of the trash files as well. I cleaned the spyware off and removed 60 viruses. After getting the PC to run much MUCH better than it had before, I downloaded my favorite spyware and antivirus software for future protection. I discussed with my friend a few things to avoid and he got on and checked his email.

The second PC was quite troubled after looking at it for just a few minutes. It ran slow, and had several pop-ups. Since it was late, and I wasn't feeling my best with the remnants of the flu, one of my friends teased saying that she knew I wanted to take the tower home. She was right! I love analyzing and repairing computers. My other friend, (PC owner) told me to go ahead and take it home with me -- especially since he was now able to use the other one without issues.

I unplugged and grabbed only the tower. I laid it in the trunk and drove home. I got in, did my shower, threw on some jammies and was ready to get to work. I hooked up the PC to one of my flat panel monitors, keyboard and mouse. I even had a power cord. (How ya love that!) :)

I worked on this thing for a couple of hours. It was full of spyware and several viruses. Even after I cleaned everything off, the PC still ran extremely slow. There were sleepers still on it. There was nothing else to do but a system recovery. Of course, I'd already asked if there was anything on there that they wanted to keep. I always ask that question early on, 'cause if possible I would try to save certain documents or pictures to my external drive provided that the files are accessible and are not infested, then transfer them back to the clean PC.

I started the recovery process (including reformatting the partition) and went to bed. I got up a couple hours later and finished the process. After all the necessary drivers were loaded, this baby was back to life. I downloaded the spyware and antivirus protection. I downloaded a few other goodies for them too; like Picasa, and Mozilla Firefox. I've got to quit imposing my favorites on other folks. :)

I've played around on the PC most of the day making sure everything is everything! So my work here is done! I like when I get thrown into Geek Mode, as my friends and family call it. It's an adrenaline rush! It's a passion!  I can't even count the number of PC's I've had a hand on. It's what I love to do.

Next time my peoples... next time...

Good News and Some Bad News

Hello everyone. As you can see, it's been a few days since my last post. Let me tell you all about it. My laptop died on me, and I killed it.

A few days ago, while in a South Carolina hotel, just before checking out, I walked down a set of stairs with my small luggage bag and my laptop bag with wheels. The laptop bag bounced fiercely down each step until I realized that there was a freaking piece of equipment inside of it.

I'd hoped for the better but obviously after I got home, circumstances were not in my favor. I didn't unpack or do anything else until I attended to my baby. I did my normal troubleshooting of familiar messages, and nothing worked. I took the hard drive out of the computer and heard the rattling of the pin inside the drive.(That's a bad sign y'all)

I installed another drive in the computer, changed some BIOS settings, and still nothing. I won't bore you with all the details of messages and troubleshooting measures, but I ended up borrowing a friend's laptop to download missing files. Nothing still! My OEM OS didn't do the trick either. I then pulled out my computer tools and started to operate. I took the thing apart, reseated all the connectors and put it back together. Still nothing. Of course this is when I knew the motherboard had also been damaged.

I was sick y'all. The more I tried something else on my PC, the worst it became. I went to C.om.pU.SA to see if they could help with retrieving my files from the damaged hard drive. I have lots of work files, studio files, emails, contacts, notes, photoshop files, presentations, many many many pictures, iTunes music, (yes all of my 1600 plus songs) on that thing.

Since the hard drive wasn't recognizable in my PC, I just figured C.om.pU.SA could perform some type of miracle immediately. They took it to the back and returned it within 5 minutes telling me the drive was damaged and they couldn't help me. They quickly gave me a brochure and recommended I try dr.ive.sav.er.s. (hmmmm)

I called them people and they quoted me 1200 - 1500 plus dollars. I'm thinking WTH! That's a ton of money to recover data from a 80 gb hard drive. DAMN! come on now!

I decided to shop around. I did find another place which was a bit cheaper, but I will continue to look for reasonable prices. If anybody have any suggestions, please send them my way. I really need to recover those files.

I've already beat myself up for being so negligent when I rat-tat-tat-ed my laptop bag down those stairs. And the other thing is, how could I have not updated my backup for almost 3 months? (Stupid me!) You know I know better. It's the same sermon I preach to my colleagues.

The GOOD NEWS is my data is recoverable. I have been using my Palm TX for Internet and emails since my PC died. I've ordered another laptop. I plan to personally fix my Gateway -- just don't have the time now. I got a busy studio schedule while I'm home.

So that's it! Sorry about the book length here, but I had to give y'all the scoop. I miss ya.

Tootles...

P.S. I'll get back at ya later and tell what I cooked yesterday. I had a craving and you know every time I come home -- I getzzz down in the kitchen. (Update: I made some good ole' Down South Chili. I sauteed fresh ground chuck and lots of chunks of sweet yellow onions and a hint of garlic, dropped in a can of stewed tomatoes (cut in big chunks), 1 large can of cooked pinto beans, 1 large can of tomato sauce, chil seasonings, salt, black pepper, Tony Chacheres, a hint of water and then dropped in a half jar of crunchy sliced jalapeno peppers. I poured in a little pepper juice too. Simmered it up for a few, let it set and soak the flavors and then we ate that stuff like it was our last meal. I love flavorful chunky chili!

Why?

I love browsing the web. I love checking out new blogs and websites. But why is it when I open some pages, loud music hits me before the page completely loads and most cases the player is hidden and I can't turn the DAMN thing off. When I finally find  the player and turn it off and browse to another page within the site, the music is banging again once I return to the homepage. That's ludahhhh!

I'm usually out of there, and never returning at this point. I honestly think it's rude to force music down my earlobes. Give me a option once I get there. Most times I'm listening to iTunes and those types of pages are interrupting my groove. I'm jus sayin'. Oooh....Plus what's the point?!!!!!!

Myspace folks, I understand it's your space and options like these are widely available to set up your page. Plus, I only visit the pages of people I know there, but other pages with .com addresses, come on now?!

Sweet Gadgets or Too Much Baggage?

Okay everyone, look closely at the picture before you. What do you see? Go ahead, click on it to enlarge. Now what do you see?  As most of you know I travel all the time, and while clothes, shoes and toiletries are necessities, so are these. At least in my book!

Yeah, it gets pretty hectic carrying all these items around from hotel to hotel, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I use them all the time. I really do! My digital camera, phone, laptop, iPod, external hard drive, PDA, wireless earpiece and my HP Printer and Scanner which are not included in this picture are all essential gadgets for the Gumbo Gurl. Can you imagine all the power supplies and yeah I have a case for each of them.

Most times, I don't use or carry them all around at the same time unless of course, I'm driving or flying to another destination. Yesterday I bought a bigger laptop bag which has rollers and a retractable handle. They call it a Wheeled Portfolio Computer Case. I call it enough baggage to carry all my gadgets (well except for the printer and scanner). There are enough pockets to stuff my folders, papers, magazines, notes, and all my toys in one space and I get to roll it around (oh how convenient in airports and trips to B&N).

Call me the gadget queen if you want to, just make sure you spell it M-s. G-a-d-g-e-t Q-u-e-e-n. :)

In case you're wondering how in the heck did I capture this picture if all of my toys are in the picture. A-ha! I picked up the phone and called a co-worker whose room is a floor above mine and asked if I could use her digital camera. Obviously she obliged, so now, there it is.

Sweet gadgets or too much baggage? You decide! Think I got it bad? Honestly, I use most of these for work. (My steady corporate work, writing and the studio) See how I really need them?

See ya next post my favorite folks!

Work, Fun and Pain

Hello everyone. I know it's been a while since I've graced this page with my fingertips. I'm still working out here in Illinois just outside Saint Louis. I was in Cincinnati a few days ago to conduct a meeting. Did I ever mention, I love Cincinnati?

I've been quiet about this and didn't want to bring it up again, but I've been in some serious PAIN. On my goodness, doctor's got to do something with this knee thing. It's excruciating. Honestly, it's taken a toll on my lifestyle. I'm not taking pain meds and not really following doc's orders, well because it's difficult to do that with my job. They say I'm too young for surgery, I say what the heck, I've got to get relief. It seems I'm right back where I started with this. Actually, the therapy, injections, etc, were minimal temporary fixes.

I've been a busy-body though, doing ONE of my all-time favorite things; working on computers. My co-worker had some problems with his laptop which I did fix. Actually his only problem was a serious need for ram and a few software conflicting issues. Days later he brought in his wife's desktop computer. Her situation was a whole 'nother story. She had several viruses. She also had a failing hard drive. I enjoy these types of fixes. It keeps the adrenaline rushing. I'd asked her if she wanted to save anything prior to me getting started and she did want her My Documents folder and Pictures saved if possible. So I dragged those items onto my external drive and proceeded to get to work. Between my systems position with my company and working on these computers in my hotel, I was in heaven. I was able to remove the viruses from her computer and a few conflicting programs and after running another diagonostic test on her drive, it finally crashed. She had been getting the warning message for months. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.

They bought a new EIDE hard drive and back to the lab I went. I installed the drive and reinstalled Windows XP and a bunch of other recommended goodies. She's up and running now and things couldn't be better.

Today I'm relaxing and enjoying my Sunday morning. I plan to sit here and write most of the day. I have notes for work to type also. I may watch a few DVD's I bought earlier in the week.

Anyway, that's it my friendly folks. See ya next post.

Microsoft Office Professional 2007 (Beta)

Heard about, read about it, downloaded the Beta Version and now I LOVE IT! I'm not going to blow out an extensive review or get techie with you, although I could, cause it's what I do. I'll just say for the most part, I love the NEW interface. I like the feel, the design, the well-thought-out innovative approach for the average user. And even for myself, being Microsoft Office savvy, I could use a bit of simplicty in my life.:) Everything is at your disposal in one lil' package. The software leaves room to be more creative with your documents. And one of the biggest features is that all of the programs in the suite can export to PDF!!! How ya love that! The full blown Beta Version functionality is available until February 2007.

Although Microsoft and I have been buddies for a long time, I must admit, I do not use Internet Explorer and have not for years. Just recently, I downloaded the Beta version of IE7 and it dominated my Mozilla Firefox browser and deleted ALL OF THE HUNDREDS OF BOOKMARKS I HAD ORGANIZED within the browser. I was ticked! I cleared IE7 off my computer and of course my Firefox browser was reset to default. Regardless of what they do to IE -- through upgrade, re-structure or whatever, I vow to never try it again. I hated it before and I hate it even more now and I plan to hate it in the future.

2007 Microsoft Office 12 is a must-try. Check it out. Let me know what you think.