Use Your Camera, Use Your Brain

Can’t Read the Dial – No Problem

Use you digital camera to take photos of the knobs and dials on your appliances. Especially the ones that get used often and suffer abuse. Don’t forget your tools, camping gear and barbeque.

Why Go Through the Trouble

Because some day the numbers on the dials may wear off and you won’t know where the settings are.

Where Did This Idea Come From

I don’t use the food processor much, but a few weeks ago My Goddess was visiting a

friend and I actually had to fend for myself (maybe I should post that on the abused husband blog).

Using the food processor was impossible because My Goddess is a clean nut. She cleaned the numbers right off the dial. I was going to ring her for help, but didn’t want to seem like I couldn’t cope.

What Am I to do. I went on line and downloaded the manual for the machine. I took a close look at the controls and made a little label for it.

The following Saturday I took pictures of the barbie, the camp stove, the outboard throttle and some other gear. I printed a copy and put it in a real paper file, and then saved the picture to the computer.

Oh! the mango salsa I made tasted great and she still doesn’t know that I can’t survive without her.

Office 2010 Save Document as PDF

Create or Open Document that you want to convert to PDF
It is probably a good idea to save it as a regular word document first.

To Save as PDF

• Click File
• Click Save as
• When the Save As Box opens
• Navigate to where you want to save it
• In the file name box type in the name you want for the PDF document
• Click the arrow to the right of the “Save as type” box
• Select PDF
• Click Save

You now have a PDF document

Help Me, my internet doesn’t work.

It has to be frustrating, your broad band connection is down and you call tech support for some help.

The technician on the other end of the line is polite and seems to know what they are talking about, but you still have no idea of what they are saying.

At one stage they may have you look at the back of your modem/router. To the untrained it jus looks like a group of wires and calbes. the following illustrations may help to clarify things.

Above is a typical ADSL Modem/Router. Above that is a typical Modem/Router Powersupply. They may not look exactly like yours, but the pictures should still be helpful

Connections:

• Power: It is where we unplug/plug in the power supply. It normally is a small round hole that looks like the example
• ADSL Internet: this is where you plug in the line from your telephone connection
• LAN: You may only have one (not four) This is where you plug in the cable that connects the modem/router to your computer. They look like fat telephone connections
• Some people have a USB connection rather than a LAN (Ethernet) connection, but that is not too common.

We hope this makes your computing a bit easier.

The List to End All List

A facts list won't eliminate all your list but it will make life easier.

We have so much to remember. Why not put them all in one document. Think of the document as a storage draw for information that is important, but not needed often enough to commit to memory. A place to list all the important information that you use once in awhile.

When you first gathered the information it took plenty of time. Now that you have it, why not put it into a “Facts Document”.

When you need it again, just open your “Facts Document” and there it is.

Some Examples

The date that warranties expire. That would save you digging through files to find the docket only to find out that the warranty expired 3 days before.

The name of a service man you really liked dealing with

The name of a service man that you would never deal with again.

The size of the flouro tubes in the kitchen. Saves measuring them every time one burns out

Your air miles membership numbers. Sure beats digging them out when you are booking your vacation.

How To Do It

Open a new document in your word processor. Type in your facts and save it as “Facts”.

Then whenever you need one of those not often used bits of information it is at your fingertips.

If you put in any info that you rather others didn’t see you could consider protecting the

document with a password.

You could even place the list on your desktop for quicker access