Windows questions

Windows based questions and answers about a variety of topics and issues.

Comic Life for Windows print quality
We are using Comic Life for Windows and it’s great, except when we print the pages the photos are not as clear as when we use other programmes. Our printer is set to high quality and we have printed the photos on other programmes and they come out very clear.
Export the comic and change the pixel size and then print it in one of the photo programmes.
We have noticed the poor quality photos, and have exported the document as a jpeg with higher pixels to desktop to print. Some printers give us an option to change the print mode. Try changing it from a composite document to a high quality photo document.

Comic Life font sizes
I seem to have a problem using the buttons at the top of a Comic Life page that makes fonts larger or smaller. They don't work for me. Is there a setting that I need to change?
You have to right-click in the text box, or click on the text box first, or highlight the text you wish to change, then click on the larger or smaller buttons.

Windows sound recording
I recently made a Photo Story with the children and they enjoyed talking into the microphone and hearing their own voice. Is there is a program or anything that I could use with the children to record their voice and play it back?
There is a sound recorder on the accessories bar in the start menu: Accessories >> Entertainment >> Sound Recorder.
Audacity is a neat little audio recorder/editor that is free and can run on Windows, Mac and Linux. Download it from Audacity

Copyright free music to use in soundtracks
We find it takes too much time to find appropriate non-copyright music to add to our movies. Is there a free program that creates music for PCs, similar to how you create music in Photo Story?
I don't know of any free programme that does what you are talking about but there is a website with copyright free songs called Jamendo which is a great source of music.

Vista slow on laptop
I have a Compaq 480MB RAM PC laptop computer. It is running Vista Home Basic it takes forever to start up and respond.
I would assume that your laptop actually has 512MB RAM (some may be used for the display). This is probably the minimum that I would try to run Vista Basic on. With this amount of memory it will take a while to start up and you will get slow response, as the computer has to move data from RAM to "virtual memory" on the hard disk. You may hear the disk working as this happens. I would definitely recommend putting more RAM into the computer. As with any computer (Mac or Windows), the more RAM you have, the happier the computer.
The number of shortcuts on the desktop will not have a major effect on the performance. The number of programmes that start up automatically will have an impact on the time it takes to start up and how much RAM is available for use.
As an aside, for anybody buying a new laptop/desktop with Vista, it is worth looking at the different versions of Vista. The Home Basic is a very cut down version of Vista and I would look at the next version up, Vista Home Premium, which has some added features that may be useful within an ECE environment.
You can compare the different versions hereon the Microsoft website.

PowerPoint video errors
Our last presentation had a bit of a hiccup. We wanted to play a YouTube video in a PowerPoint presentation. We had done this before quite successfully, using the desktop computer provided at the venue. However, when using a laptop the video played on my laptop but the data projector screen was dark. Someone suggested I might need to switch my laptop display to only play on the screen.
The first things to try are the following:

• Make sure you have the latest video drivers for your laptop.
• Try playing the video normally, i.e. not embedded in PowerPoint.
• Try switching the display to projector only, rather than laptop and projector.

Importing movie clips to Photo Story 3
Can you use video clips from movie maker in Photo Story 3?
I am pretty sure that you can only use still images in Photo Story 3. If you want to work with video files you are better off using Movie Maker.

Converting MP4 to wmv
We are using Windows Movie Maker to make our videos to put on a blog. One of our staff has bought a new camera which only records in MP4 format, which is not compatible with Windows Movie Maker.  Do you know of a converter that is free that we could use to convert MP4 files to .wmv files so we can use them on Windows Movie Maker?
Windows Media encoder might do it.
Another option is to use Zamzar, free and very easy to use. You just need to put in what you want to convert and then choose what from and to.

Slow laptops
We have recently purchased 2 new laptops for our centre this year, which have been working great. We are now keeping all our children’s profile books as an ongoing PowerPoint presentation.
With speaking to others we have been told we would need a computer with 2 GB RAM otherwise our computer will run very slowly. As it turns out our new laptops only have 1 GB RAM.
Our question is would an external hard drive solve our problem or storing our PowerPoints on CDRWs get around the dilemma of your laptops running slow?
I think we need to clear up the difference between RAM and hard disk space. RAM is memory that is available when the computer is on for programs to use for data etc. As the program is closed, or the data is closed, this space in the RAM becomes available for other programs. RAM runs extremely quickly but is not permanent storage. The hard disk is like your filing cabinet: it stores data/programs permanently. It is a spinning disk and is noticeably slower than RAM at accessing data. Part of the hard disk is set aside for swapping data between the disk and RAM, this is known as the page file.
The more RAM you have, the faster your programs/data will load. As your PPT documents get larger then, as you open them, they may not all be in RAM and may be accessed through the page file and will respond more slowly. This would be the case if they were either on the hard drive or an external hard drive.

Sony camcorder importing into Windows Vista
My centre is trying to download video from a Sony Camcorder DCR-HC26 to a Dell computer with Windows Vista Home Premium installed. We know there are problems with Sony and Vista (lots of talk on chat forums) so have been to Sony site and followed the instructions and downloaded the new drivers etc. According to the Sony site, our camcorder is compatible. When we try to upload using a USB cable, the machine recognises the hardware but says to check the i-Link connection, as it cannot detect the tape.
This is the first time I have encountered compatibility issues between digital video cameras and Vista, but iLink is FireWire and if your laptop does not have a FireWire port then it is going to be a problem.
Options:

• Find a FireWire equipped machine to download.
• Downgrade to XP on the Dell laptop (quite expensive and complicated).
• Does the laptop have any slots on it, such as express or PCMCIA? You may then be able to buy a FireWire expansion card.

Anti virus
Which software are centres finding cost effective and with good security coverage? Are any of the free downloads useful, like AVG?
It was my understanding that the AVG free edition was solely for use on a single home computer and that the ‘free’ edition license does not cover use in an ECE centre.
Telecom used to offer a free security suite with broadband, so if you use Telecom broadband you could speak to them.
Failing that, the majority of AV programs that I have seen include Norton, Symantec, and Nod 32. This is in no way an exhaustive list!
If you are part of an association, then perhaps your association can purchase a ‘per seat’ license to bring the costs down. Otherwise, you should enquire about education prices or speak to an education reseller.

Compressing photos
What is the process for compressing photos on a Windows computer?
For Windows, it will depend on the software you are using:

• Vista Photo Gallery: You can right-click the photo and choose ‘resize’ from the contextual menu.
• XP: there is a Microsoft PowerToy that lets you resize photos quite easily.

Burning DVDs
What is considered the most time effective movie making program which allows pictures, footage/movie clips, narration and music to be used, and how/is it possible to burn several movies to a disk?
Centres have been using Windows Movie Maker or Picasa Movie Maker quite successfully. In order to burn a DVD, you would need some DVD authoring software.
Generally, the computer, which has a DVD burner in it, comes with some software to allow you to burn to DVDs. If you have added a DVD burner to a system, then that generally comes with some software to burn (such as Nero). I have never used free software to burn DVDs on Windows machines.
Programs I have used include Roxio, Nero and Ulead on Windows platforms.
Both Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate have the ability to burn DVDs

Flip video camera and Movie Maker
I am looking at the Flip movie camera for kindergarten. I don’t really understand the information on what files it makes as described on the website (codec? avi? divx? mpeg 4). Will it work with Windows Movie Maker?
The Flip comes with its own video editing software called Flip Video. This must be installed onto your computer to ensure you get the correct codecs. A codec allows you to view compressed files. The method of compression will depend on the codecs that you need. (Codec is an abbreviation of compression decompression).
In theory, all you need do to import into Movie Maker is:

• attach the Flip camera to PC
• import using the Flip Video application
• make a note of where you save the video
• open Movie Maker
• import to collection. (File >> Import to collection)
• navigate to the file you wish to import.

So, you should be able to edit Flip videos in Movie Maker. However, the software that comes with the Flip camera may be easier!