Talk on using GIMP
(written by JH)

I started off with a short introduction on some of the basics on how
to use Gimp, including how to reduce the size of a photographic image,
which you can do very easily in Gimp. The main part of my talk was on
how to type text onto a photo (or onto a white / coloured background),
and how to create simple borders for a photo. You could use the methods
I described to create an e-card to send to family & friends for special
occasions, or to make banner for your website, or to label a photo of
your ancestors.

All I described and more is on my website ....
http://jwebdesigns.angelfire.com/

All the software I've used on this website is available to you free of
charge ... you can download it from the internet yourself.

There is a free program called Scribus which you can download. This is
similar to Microsoft's Publisher. (You will also need to download a
free program called Ghostscript, to work in conjunction with Scribus).
I've only got as far as putting together the first page of our
Newsletter with this, but then I got stuck at this stage. Time
permitting (and if I can work out how to use Scribus properly), I
might publish an extra webpage or two on how to use this.

As I mentioned during my talk, there is a wealth of educational videos
available on the internet ... here is one of the excellent ones I found
on how to use Scribus (just by googling the words: Scribus video) ....
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4177383855307877860#


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Using MSCONFIG

In our beginners' session today, Anthony Jordan described a way of
speeding up the start-up process of your computer, if it should appear
sluggish or if annoying pop-ups appear on your screen. You might be running
too many programs on your computer during start-up (or you might be
running programs you no longer need).

AJ advised clicking on your Start button > Run.
Type in the search box: msconfig (this stands for Microsoft configuration)
Select Start-up from the top of the menu box.
Have a look through the list of programs running in start-up.
Make an educated guess as to any nuisance or redundant programs, and
untick the relevant boxes.
Press OK, and then re-start your computer.

If anything appears not to be working properly, you can go back into msconfig
and tick one or more boxes. When you untick a box, you're not removing a
program from your computer, you're simply disabling it from running during
start-up. (Thanks for your info, Anthony, and for explaining it so clearly).

Using OPEN OFFICE to create slide presentations
(article written by John Hollins ... edited on 31 Aug 2010)

I wrote a fairly long article on how to download Open Office, and how
to create text documents & PDFs, in my post for Saturday 13 March …

http://nottu3a.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html


Using OO to create slide presentations is easy …

Click on the OO shortcut on your Desktop, & then select "Presentation".

On the next page (page 1), just click on “Create”

You will now see a three column layout on the webpage.

I usually close down the right hand column, labelled as “Tasks”.

In the left hand column, I usually generate a load of blank slides as follows:
Rt mouse click inside blank slide number 1 > Copy
Use the keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + V numerous times, to create as
many blank slides as you wish. Keep the Ctrl key pressed down, as
you click on the letter V several times.

To write text … select the font style & size on the top toolbar
Click on the capital letter T on the bottom toolbar.
Click on the slide and start typing.
You can adjust the position of the text, font size
and colour as in Powerpoint (PPT)

Click on “Insert” on the top toolbar, to insert a blank slide, a duplicate slide, a picture or a table, etc, as you would in PPT.

When adjusting the size of a photo on one of your slides, keep the Shift key
pressed down while you do so, to preserve the proportions. Use reduced sized
photos, which is easy-peasy to do in Gimp …
see my website ... http://jwebdesigns.angelfire.com/ .

On the bottom toolbar, there are various shapes and an arrow key you can use.
The controls for the style & colour for the arrow key are just above the left
hand column.

You can move one slide above or below another in the left hand column, by
clicking on it, and dragging it with your mouse to a new position.

To start a slide show from the current slide on your screen, just press the
F5 key … easy-peasy.

Press the Escape (Esc) key to go back to your OO slides.

Once the first slide is up on the screen (after pressing F5) you can hide
it from view, either by pressing the letter B (black) or the letter W
(white) on your keyboard. Press the same key again, when you’re ready to
start / resume your talk. (You can do this in Microsoft PPT also).

Saving your work … File > Save as … to save your work as an ODF presentation (a dot odp file).

When using another computer for a slide presentation, make sure it’s got
Open Office on it, or you won’t be able to display your slides.

I hope this brief outline will be of some help. Overall, I find OO easier
to use than Microsoft Powerpoint 2003.