Oftentimes the clients that we deal with at Three Stream are small to medium sized businesses, and are not too enthusiastic about dropping $600 for Adobe Photoshop.  Never fear, business owner!  You too can have the power to easily compress quality images to a size that will make your website load faster – before your customer moves on to somewhere else.  Here is my recommendation on a free way to save your images for the web.

Introducing… drum roll please… Web Resizer  http://www.webresizer.com

So here is all you have to do:

1. Go to http://www.webresizer.com
2. Click the button marked “Resize Photo Now”
3. Browse to find the image on your computer and upload it
4. Make your changes (crop, resize, etc.) and click “Apply Changes”
5. Download the image to your computer

Among the optimization features for this web app are cropping, image enhancement, resizing, rotating, and adding borders.  There are also great help features that tell you what each option does.  You can even make images black and white (for all you purists out there).

Now you might be wondering… what happens to my images?  Who are these people who own the program? Do they now have a copy of my image?  According to them, they are photographers who created the tool for their clients who want to update their own websites.  The web app temporarily takes your images for a 60 minute session, and then deletes it off their server, never to be shared or distributed except by you.

1. Decide where you’ll search.
By default, your computer’s browser already uses one search engine or another. Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, AOL, Lycos, HotBot…there are tons, and chances are, your computer uses only one unless you tell it something different. The problem is that each engine returns very different results based on its own preferences, so you could search all day on one and get nowhere, while searching on another could produce results in 30 seconds. So try them all. An impressive list of Search Engines can help.

2. Be Specific
Usually when searching, we tend to enter one word that returns 4 billion results. Ok, so not 4 billion, but honestly, with “camp” returning a quarter-of-a-billion results, it takes 6 pages before you hit a camp equipment retailer. Granted, most people look for specific names and details, but honestly, those same people give up if their desired results aren’t on the first page. The solution? Be specific. Use many words, and employ synonyms if needed. Include locations, numbers, associated names. And here’s yet another useful list, full of search operators to help specify your search.

3. Check for Relevant Material
Sometimes searches return long lists and pages of solid text…no one wants to read those. First, search your page (EDIT>Find or CTRL+F) and find what you’ve been searching for. Next, look around and see if there are any similar words/phrases/ideas you can use in your next search to help limit your results. Basically this is just being more specific, but so few people take the time to find different ways of saying something to help their searching. If I made all the websites in the world, obviously they would be structured the same with the same set of keywords. Sadly (and luckily) the web is full of various designers from all over the world. Each uses different language and terms, so find alternate terms for your search. It may open up a new realm of possibilities.

4. Be Patient
“If it’s not on the first page of Google, I don’t want it…” Hopefully this isn’t you. Those first returns are usually pretty good, though most of the first page is full of ads. If you are specific enough, you should have sorted through the massive jumble, but still, take the time to do serious research. For instance, if I search for airline deals, I will get the usual ads and 30 pages of stuff. But the site I like doesn’t even show up in the first 10 pages most of the time. So I keep looking.
Side note: If you are looking for a deal on anything, be patient. And sign up with reputable companies to receive notice of their sales. I get notice from a kitchenware company, book sellers, electronic stores, and some cheap secondhand stores. Chances are, they will have what you want, and you will receive first notice. But take the time. Don’t settle for the first search result unless it is amazing. Keep looking. Chances are, someone has it for cheaper.

5. Bookmark
When you find something (especially if it takes forever to find), bookmark it. It does no good to spend some time, find it, and then be unable to find it the next time. Too often I stumble upon sites for fonts or design examples, cheap deals, free stuff, and then I can’t get back to them again. Just bookmark the page. It really doesn’t take too much effort, and you can find again. Decided you don’t want to return? Delete it from your list. No worries.

I know these are all common sense. But we seem to need reminding from time to time. Remember: if you search hard enough and long enough, you can find just about everything. And with a little work, hopefully hard enough and long enough really won’t be that hard or long.

1. Click this link to go to the download page for Primo PDF
   
2. Download and run the file
3. Go through the setup wizard
4. After setting up Primo PDF on your PC, you may now choose Primo PDF as one of your printer options when you go to print a document.

Next time you send a word doc via email, especially on your company letterhead, use a PDF format to make it look more professional.

Step 1 Update Your Computer
This is not rocket science, but it is something that most people fail to do and then wonder why they get viruses and are slow and inefficient.  For XP users, go to the Microsoft Windows Update page and follow the prompts – make sure that you set your computer to automatically receive updates for both windows and your MS Office software (assuming that you are using them).  For Vista users, it is much simpler.  Simply go to your control panel (Start Menu >>Control Panel), look for the section marked “Security,” and click the link marked “Check for updates.”   Windows should take care of the rest, but once again, make sure that your computer is set to automatically receive updates.

Step 2 Windows Health and Safety Scan
Microsoft, who rarely gives anything away, has a one-care health and safety scanner that scans your computer for malicious software and also for inefficiencies like temp files that need to be deleted, registry errors, and the need to defragment your hard drive.  It works on both Vista and XP and will automatically fix most issues that it finds, so just follow the prompts until the process is complete.  Also, keep in mind that it will have to install an activex control onto your computer, so there will likely be some back and forth between the system and the various popup blockers you likely have on your computer.  Just keep allowing it to proceed until you finally get to the point that you can start the scan.  The scan will take anywhere from 4-12 hours, so start it in the evening and finish going through the prompts the next day.  It will not take long for it to clean off temp files and registry items, but if your computer needs defragmenting, then it will take a few more hours.  Make sure to keep going through the prompts until it is finished.  Click here for the Windows One Care Live Safety Scanner.

Step 3 Install Windows Defender
This is simple and should already be on your computer.  Go to the Windows Defender homepage and download the tool if it is not already on your computer.  You can scan for maliware, and also disable unnecessary processes that are running on your computer.  I won’t go into an in-depth tutorial on this as it would take too long, but it is a fairly intuitive system, so don’t be afraid to get started on your own.

Step 4 Install and Use Virus Protection
This is once again something that you likely have anyway, but I would add a caveat… DON”T MESS WITH ANYTHING BESIDES AVG.  Most antivirus programs are actually worse than having a virus because of all the time you must spend on them trying to do what you want to do.  Why do you need to install a parent onto your computer and then ask permission every time you want to do anything?  Get AVG, or for home users, AVG FREE.  After you download AVG, keep it updated and use it…a bullet proof vest will not help you if it is hanging in the closet– neither will antivirus if it is not updated or rarely used.

Step 5 Delete Your Temp Files
Deleting your temp files is something that you need to do periodically (probably once a month) in order to keep your computer running smoothly.  Windows stores temporary files in several places that by nature are redundant files and are not needed after a task is complete.  There are only two places that we will concern ourselves with, though, in order to keep things simple: your browser and your local user file.  For your browser, follow these instructions: Firefox users go to Tools >> Clear private data and make sure to delete your Browsing History, Cache, Cookies, Offline Website Data, and Authenticated Sessions (whether or not you want to delete saved passwords every so often is up to you).  IE7 users go to Tools >> Internet Options >> Delete Browsing History, and then select “Delete All.”  This will also get rid of your passwords, so if you want to keep them, choose exactly what you want to delete.  For IE6 and older, simply take your computer and carefully throw it out the window.

As far as the temp files in your local user file, right click on your start menu icon and choose “Explore.”  Next find your individual user file and look for a file called “Local.”  Inside your local file you will find another file called “Temp.”  Select everything inside your temp file, and send it to your Recycle Bin.  Make sure that in this process you empty out your recycle bin in order to clean these files off completely.

That should be everything, and other than waiting for scans, all the steps listed should take no more than 20 minutes.  Give me some feedback below and let me know if it was helpful, or if, upon following these steps, your computer exploded in a fireball of death.