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PDAs
101
By Matt Lindler
What is a PDA?
PDA stands for Personal Digital Assistant. It is a small, handheld computer, used
primarily for scheduling and contact organization. Most of you have heard of a Palm Pilot:
This is a PDA.
What is the difference between a Palm-type PDA and a Pocket PC?
A Palm-type PDA has a dedicated operating system such as Palm OS or Blackberry and is
limited in its number-crunching capabilities. A Pocket PC runs on a more computer-like
operating system, such as a scaled-down version of Microsoft Windows, and can run
engineering and mathematical programs.
Depending on your needs, both are excellent choices. If you do a lot of processing or
number crunching/graphics-related work, choose a more powerful Pocket PC. If you need to
keep up with your appointments, phone numbers and light processing work, buy a Palm-type
PDA.
Why would I want a PDA?
A PDA is a great way to manage your appointments and phone numbers on the go. With an
easy-to-use program on your desktop computer, all of your valuable business information
can go with you. Add appointments and contacts directly to your PDA while away from the
office then upload this information at home.
More than 17,000 downloadable programs are designed for specific hobbies, projects, travel
planning and office solutions. Many of these are useful to writers or photographers who
travel.
With the addition of a modem, you can access and respond to e-mails, visit Web sites and
receive headlines and stock market analyses. Many cellular service providers offer cell
phones with built-in PDAs for approximately $400.
Why not just use a laptop computer?
PDAs are cheaper alternatives to laptops. With programs such as Documents to Go, you
can write articles and create spreadsheets on your PDA. Download existing Word or Excel
documents into your PDA, edit them and save to your computer at home. Optional folding
keyboards make a PDA the smart choice when traveling.
Considering that laptops cost between $1,000-$2,000 and PDAs are under $400 (plus about
$100 for a folding keyboard), PDAs are the smart choice economically, too.
PDAs in the outdoors
Several mapping programs let you download topographic and street maps to your PDA.
Global Positioning System (GPS) units that attach to the PDA provide an active map of your
location. This can be helpful on a long hunting trip in unfamiliar territory as well as
when driving to and from the lodge. Maptech’s
Outdoor Navigator is a great tool for outdoor writers. By combining a GPS with your PDA,
you have a topographic mapping GPS.
Software geared towards the outdoorsman and -woman
Several handy free programs are geared toward the hunter, angler, hiker and
birdwatcher. My favorites are McHunter, a customized hunting journal program, and Moon
Phase, which tells you the exact phase of the moon and provides a graphic representation
of it on any given day. Also, I list serial numbers of guns in my gun safe on my PDA in a
program called GunDB, a customized gun-tracking database. If I’m traveling with
firearms and one is misplaced or taken, I have the serial number for police or airline
officials.
Other PDA Tips
When I’m traveling, I take advantage of Sabre’s Virtually There option to
download my travel itinerary, confirmation codes and contact information into my date
book, eliminating the need for a paper dossier.
Secure your personal information. All files that you don’t want others to access can
be password protected. This is especially handy if you keep credit card numbers or
personal banking information on your PDA.
You can download thousands of freeware or shareware programs off the Internet. Below are
some links to investigate.
www.handango.com
www.freepalm.com
www.palmgear.com
www.maptech.com
www.avantgo.com
www.virtuallythere.com
Matt Lindler is the editor of JAKES Magazine and the
photography director for the National
Wild Turkey Federation. Affectionately called “Inspector Gadget” by his
comrades at the NWTF, Lindler is an aficionado of all things electronic.
TOP
Digital
photography:
Working with publications (and media outlets)
By Bob Knopf
When dealing with
editors and photo editors, a freelancer should remember that it’s easier to make a
sale if he makes the editor’s work simpler, faster and more efficient. This means
that we must supply digital photos correctly. Although some editors still like to rock
back in their chairs and hold a page of 35-mm slides up to the light, this is quickly
changing. Slides slow the production process for designers. They require additional staff
time and money to process.
Most publications
prefer digital; however, they may not trust the average writer/photographer to provide
digital photos correctly. Poorly submitted digital photos are worse than slides. It’s
frustrating for an editor to try to open a photo and get an error message - “File
type not recognized!” - or receive a 5-MB file.
When submitting
digital photos, contact each publication or market to determine their photo format
preferences. For example, “I have 20 digital photos of a trophy buck thrashing a deer
decoy. How do you prefer to view these?”
Some editors
prefer to preview low-resolution JPEGs; others prefer printed contact sheets with
two-to-four images per page. Others prefer to initially receive the high-resolution TIFF
or JPEG file they will need when they buy.
It’s true;
some editors may not (for now) be electronically savvy. But 95 percent of today’s
publications accept digital photos. We merely need to ask how.
Rules for
submitting digital photos:
Preserve
originals. Always
preserve your original photo. Use a digital copy for everything. If saved as RAW or TIFF,
it is as good as the original.
Back up. Back up
each image to a CD or to a second drive after downloading from your camera.
Query first. Contact
editors and art directors before sending digital photos. Know the exact format each one
wants and how they want the image(s) sent: e-mail (rare), CD or uploaded to a Web site.
TIFFs are boss. Submit photos as
TIFFs or high-resolution JPEG files. As JPEGs have limitations, TIFFs usually are
preferred.
Add extensions. When sending
photo files, add a three-character extension to each file: .tif, .jpg, .raw, so that PC
systems will know how to read the file.
Label clearly. When e-mailing,
send each photo as a separate file, labeled understandably. Don’t batch photos into
one large file attachment.
Pre size. Pre size
each photo for the expected/anticipated size of use. If unsure, size photos larger than
expected, or send them at the maximum camera/photo resolution based on required
resolution. File size generally ranges from 2-25 MB.
Resolution. For print
publications, the photo should be 300 dpi at 100 percent of the size used. This is where
the megapixel size of the camera and megabyte size of the photo determine how large the
photo can be used.
Graphics. Submit
graphics as vector art (EPS file), created on a computer – not scanned. This uses
illustration software, such as Adobe
Illustrator, as opposed to Photoshop. Vector art is “scalable.” It prints crisp
and clear at any size.
Bob Knopf,
www.outdoormarketing.com, www.americaoutdoors.com, is
a writer-photographer who specializes in digital communication of outdoor recreation
topics, both as a freelancer and as a business consultant.
TOP
Publish
your images online!
At the OWAA
conference in Columbia, I learned how to use my Web site for photo submissions and
recently posted my first page for Krause
Publications. I’ll use my Web site for displaying low-resolution images for review. This
saves everyone’s time – editors choose shots they want, and I only burn to CD or
e-mail ones they are interested in seeing as high-resolution copies. The Web site contains
images of wildlife- or hunting-related themes that vary depending on the publication to
which I am submitting.
Basic steps to
get images online:
Choose an
Internet service provider. Mine is www.earthlink.com.
It offers excellent tech support for us non-geeks.
Purchase a domain
name. I use www.networksolutions.com.
Go to www.Ipswitch.com and purchase WS_FTP
Pro software or a similar upload program (some are free) to upload images to your
site. Take time to run the tutorial and set up correctly from the start.
Create a simple
Web page. I put images in a single folder then create Web pages of thumbnails and
enlargements using the Web Gallery tool in Photoshop 7.
Connect to the
Internet. Open the upload program to install your images online.
Log on to your
site and navigate the images. Don’t try too hard to understand how they got
there...trust me, it’s magic!
By
Tes Randle Jolly,
www.jollysoutdoorvisions.com
Spyware can
photograph your Windows XP desktop
Everyone knows
what virus software is and what it does. What you might not realize is that a wide variety
of malicious software can cause more harm than viruses and cannot be detected by your
anti-virus software. “Pests” represent a new category of threats to the
stability and integrity of your computer or network. Until recently, I wasn’t aware
of these spyware programs, which capture credit card information, user names, documents
and file system data. They take a perfect screen shot of your computer at specified
intervals and send these shots to someone for review. What if you have credit card numbers
or a private e-mail on the screen at that time? Any smart hacker could find these files
and exploit them. That's why it's so important to have a good spyware and scumware
blocking application.
I use PestPatrol.
…You might want to check it out.
Learn more about
spyware and scumware:
By Betty Lou Fegely
Hard drive
performance tips
Most
new computers have hard drives that boast a rotational speed of 7,200 revolutions per
minute (rpm). That’s important if you use your computer to store photos or video, so
shop wisely. If you’re adding a new hard drive to an older machine, make sure that it
is 7,200 rpm, and check how much buffer it offers. Most hard drives have a 2-MB buffer,
but several companies offer drives with an 8-MB buffer – even on external USB drives.
The increased buffer speeds up how quickly you can write to, or read from, these drives
– a useful feature for digital photographers.
Here
are tips to boost your system’s performance when performing tasks on large files:
Defragment
your hard drive weekly. Since this can take hours, schedule it at night. All Windows
operating systems have built-in disk defragmentation software (Start>Programs>Accessories>System
Tools>Disk Defragmenter), and after-market versions are available. The version you
select isn’t as important as regular maintenance.
If
you are into digital imaging, video or still, you should do two more things. First,
activate Direct Memory Access (DMA) on your hard drive(s) via the Device Manager. In
Windows XP it is located at Start>Settings>Control Panel>System>Hardware;
in Win98/Me it’s at Start>Settings>Control Panel>System. Select IDE
Controller>Primary/ Secondary>Advanced, and select DMA on each of your drives.
Next, disable “Write-Behind Caching” on the hard drive used for imaging
capture. Go to Control Panel>System, click the plus sign next to “hard
drives,” then right click on your hard drive(s). Select “Properties,” and
then make sure “Write Caching” is disabled (unchecked).
By
Michael Furtman,
www.michaelfurtman.com
Digital Q
& A
Question:
I want to convert my 35-mm slides and save them in digital format. How should I do it?
Answer:
Scan your slides using a high-resolution slide scanner such as the Nikon Coolscan 4000. Good
scanning software comes with the scanner. Once scanned, save photos as RAW or TIFF files.
The big decision to make is the size/resolution you should set when you scan and save.
Generally, scan an image at a size larger than any anticipated use. A larger image with
greater resolution results in a photo with larger file size that can be printed at greater
dimensions. (A resolution of 300 dots per inch rules most print media.)
Once scanned, the
most common way to save a photo file other than directly to your computer is to CD. A
read/write “CDRW” functions like a mini hard drive; you can edit it as you
convert more slides. Read-only “CDRs” are less expensive, but you can only write
to these CDs once. CDs come in different speeds and sizes. Generally, get the fastest
speed and largest size possible when buying bulk.
If you process
many slides, another option is to scan them to a hard drive or portable data storage
device. These separate units are developing rapidly, and many options are available. Once
you scan your slide, keep the transparency as a backup. Redundancy is the key to having a
smile on your face the next time you fry your hard drive.
This column first
appeared in NOWA’s August/September
2003 newsletter.
By Bob Knopf, www.outdoormarketing.com, www.americaoutdoors.com
TOP
Stop aquatic
hitchhikers!
The “Stop Aquatic Hitchhikers!”
campaign and Web site
were
developed to keep the recreational user informed about aquatic
nuisance species. These harmful plants, animals and other organisms can hitch a ride on
your clothing, boat and items used in the water then release themselves into another lake
or stream, become established and create drastic results. The
site includes news, procedures to prevent the transport of nuisance species, impacts
caused by these species, fact sheets and resources. Sign up for an e-mail newsletter to
receive breaking news on aquatic hitchhikers.
Contributed
by William H. Geer
Tucows.com
Need a copy of the
latest version of Winzip, an ftp client, a pop-up eliminator, games for the kids, image
viewers, virus scanners, disk cleaners or diagnostic tools? Head to www.tucows.com. It’s the
freeware/shareware mass merchant of the Internet. Over 30,000 software titles for Mac and
Windows systems are available for download. Each is individually rated – up to five
cows – based on performance. You'll find freeware, shareware, adware, demos and more.
www.tucows.com
By Laurie Lee Dovey, www.webimages.net
National Forest Foundation
The National
Forest Foundation (NFF) is the only conservation organization focused on the challenges
that face national forests. As the nonprofit partner of the U.S. Forest Service, the NFF
engages America in community-based and national programs that promote the health and
public enjoyment of national forests. The NFF has
identified four key conservation areas affecting the health and well being of the
192-million-acre National Forest System and surrounding communities: community-based
forestry, recreation, watershed health and wildlife habitat. Read more about these issues
at the NFF’s newly redesigned
Web site.
By Katie McKalip
TOP
Photoshop
vs. Photoshop Elements
Adobe’s Photoshop
Elements is much less expensive than Photoshop 7.0. In July’s
Tech-E-Letter I concluded that for photo retouching and even more complicated
procedures, many OWAA members would be well served with Elements and enjoy a huge monetary
savings.
If Elements is so
good, what does Photoshop have that might convince you to buy it?
In a word,
automation.
Elements is
limited in what functions can be applied to batches of photos. If you need, for instance,
to add your copyright notice to file information, you can do so in Elements but only to
one photo at a time. Photoshop allows you to create batch commands called
“actions” that can be applied to multiple images simultaneously.
Let’s say
you have a series of underexposed photos. With Photoshop 7.0 you can open the first photo,
select “create an action,” then “record” the corrections to this image
as you manipulate it. Once you’ve corrected the image, save the action with a unique
name. Then, from the File>Automate>Batch menu, select that action and the photos you
wish to correct, and apply it. Voila! Photoshop corrects all the selected photos.
Many other
functions can be automated. Some you design yourself; obtain others for free or
inexpensively over the Internet. Two that I’ve downloaded for free correct over- or underexposed
images.
Fred
Miranda designs actions that are often specific to your particular digital camera.
Most cost about $15 and are worth the money. For instance, if you miss the warm tones of
Velvia film, you’ll want to download his Digital Velvia. His image-sharpening actions
are far superior to those built into Photoshop because they sharpen detail without
introducing “noise” to the background. Other Miranda actions include shadow
recovery, digital noise reduction and stair interpolation.
Since most of
Photoshop’s advanced features are geared toward graphic artists, few photographers
will need more of these tools than Elements offers. That said, if you process hundreds of
photos, the automation features in Photoshop 7.0 may be worth the price.
By Michael Furtman,
www.michaelfurtman.com
TOP
MichaelMelford.com
Michael
Melford, an OWAA member since 1997, established his reputation as a photographer
as much through his style as through his choice of subject matter. His lovely,
contemplative photos shine through his
Web site, designed by RDA. The site was created with Flash technology to result in a gallery
of images that glide across your monitor. Automated slide shows further enhance the
viewing experience and entice site visitors to linger and browse. All photographers should
be lucky enough to have such a great marketing tool!
By Katie McKalip
If you are interested in having your
Web site promoted here or linked in this space, or if you know of another OWAA member who
fits the bill, please send us
the link and tell us why your nomination deserves to be featured in a future issue of
the Tech-E-Letter.
Browse other OWAA member Web sites!
TOP
Krause
Publications
Krause Publications bills itself as the
world’s largest publisher of periodicals and books on hobbies. The company has an
outdoors division that publishes an array of hunting and fishing magazines – a total
of 46 periodicals covering 14 interest areas. Its book division publishes over 125 titles
annually and currently has nearly 750 titles available; authors include a number of OWAA
members. The Krause Web site is
systematically organized by subject matter; its book section includes summaries along with
the option of online ordering. Browse the site to survey marketable titles and subjects;
you just might get an idea for your next book!
By Katie McKalip
TOP
Who is Dr. P.C.
Woodknot?
Lost as an infant in an old-growth forest, Dr. P.C.
Woodknot was raised by a vegetarian wolf commune until age 10. Discovered by a band of
barefoot hikers and returned to the awkward bosom of humankind, he grew up in an organic,
high-tech household, and the rest, as we all know, is histrionic. If you have a
question for Dr. Woodknot, please submit it to him care of the OWAA Tech-E-Letter feedback form.
Hello Gentle
Readers,
This month
I’d like to weigh in on some of the questions that Jerry Kiesow presented in September’s Outdoors
Unlimited (“Feedback,” p. 7). Jerry asked, “What guarantee is there
that as technology ‘progresses’ we will be able to transfer digital images from
one system/platform to the next?” He also related some tales of woe regarding the
migration of his database and spreadsheet applications.
First off, Jerry,
I do think that it is now within the grasp of a conscientious computer user to
“shepherd” a flock of digital images through changes in both software and
hardware. I think a lot of this is due to the Internet, which manifests the maturation of
personal computing. In the DOS days, software was extremely individualized –
everything looked and felt different, often diametrically so. Before DOS, it seemed like
everyone had their own operating system to boot.
Now, Apple,
“Windoze,” Unix and Linux computers can share data relatively easily. Please
– I am not saying that all the great changes have been made and that every leap year
we’ll see Neil Armstrong making the small change on television. I am saying
that coping with change and finding the best solutions is easier with the Internet, where
you can search for solutions from people who have experienced problems similar if not
identical to your own. If someone has described a solution or created software to solve an
obscure problem, the Internet is a practical means to share the wealth.
The key word is “conscientious”
– if, for example, you run the same hardware and software for 15 years and then
expect to casually move over to the latest stuff, you stand a fair chance of being
disappointed. But if, say every four years, you review the changes in hardware and
software and assess how they will impact your systems, you should be okay.
Personally, I
think that software changes are easy to handle; it is the hardware changes that are a
pain. As a general rule, you don’t need to upgrade every time a new version of
software comes out. In fact, I would say that you are better off waiting and letting the
“early adopters” catch the slings and arrows for you. That’s what I
do! But if you let three major revisions just pass you by without even checking
what functions are being altered or eliminated, you may be in for tough sledding when you
finally do upgrade.
For any really
important software, you should ask yourself, “How can I extract my data if the
company that made this software goes out of business or stops supporting it?” This is
called “having an exit strategy.” Then, if you find yourself
with software that can’t directly migrate to another package, you can take the
intermediate step of exporting your data to a neutral format and then importing it into
the new package. Read my lips: job security is much improved if one has an exit strategy
ready.
Jerry, you
didn’t specify the photo software you were using on Windows 3.1 or what you meant
when you said, “It came unglued,” so I can only offer general
advice. If by “unglued” you meant that it completely stopped working so you
weren’t even able to access the images, then that really isn’t a migration or
updating issue, it’s a case of tough luck. And even though you have the physical
backup of slides, wouldn’t it have been nice to have had some backup tapes or disks
of your slide scans stashed safely off site?
It sounds like
you now are using Microsoft Access as your image management software. You should be safe
so long as you don’t fall too far behind as new versions of Access are released. And
how about that exit strategy? Can you run an export routine in Access that will deposit
all of your image files into a directory structure so you can access the individual image
files with a program like Photoshop? It should be pretty straightforward to generate a
report that links the descriptive information for each image to the name of the imaged
file. With these two conditions met, you can probably move to another image-management
system fairly easily.
Stay
tuned ... Dr. WoodKnot will offer more tips and troubleshooting techniques on
keeping your software up to date in the next issue of OWAA's Tech-E-Letter!
Questions/Comments: Let the editor know
what you think of OWAA's Tech-E-Letter. Access our feedback
form.
Editorial Guidelines for OWAA's
Tech-E-Letter: OWAA welcomes your submissions of features (500 words or less), tips (150
words or less) and emerging news/links (50 words or less). E-mail your articles or story
ideas to Technology Committee Chair Betty Lou Fegely.
Technology Committee:
Betty Lou Fegely, John
L. Beath, J. Leslie Booth, Carolee Boyles, Mark Chesnut, Richard Day, Susan Day, Laurie Lee Dovey, Mike Fine, Michael
Furtman, William H. Geer, Richard Grost,
Adela Grace Jackson, Bob Knopf, Brady W. Kolden, Matt Lindler, Kevin Rhoades, Karen Lee Roop, Tammy Sapp, Dan Small, Jay Michael Strangis, Mike Walker.
OWAA Staff:
Executive Director, William H. Geer
Technology Newsletter Editor/Assistant Editor, Katie McKalip
Outdoors Unlimited Editor/OWAA Webmaster, Kevin Rhoades
Member Services Manager, Lisa Carter
Subscribe a friend to OWAA's E-Tech-Letter.
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