Picture download problem

[ExSp33db1rd]

Asus EeePc notebook, Windows 7 Starter.

When I plug in a USB memory stick, to download a file culled from another computer, it takes ages to open up, and then when it does I get a message about downloading all the pictures that might be on the stick, to "Pictures". I always say NO, so then it goes away and sulks, and I can open the list of the other files on the stick, to move the one I want. I'll download any picures I want, when and if I want to, this doesn't happen on our desktop - W.7 Home, or another laptop with Vista.

Just as Outlook Express has morphed into Windows Live Mail - with all the problems that it brings with it - so it would appear that I now have Window Live Picture Editor, and it wants to 'grab' every picture that might come its way, so when a memory stick is plugged in, it says Hah ! another sucker, and wastes time interrogating all the pictures on the stick to download into its hungry mouth before allowing me to access any other file I might want.

Don't want it. I have considered uninstalling this Live Picture Editor programme, but would I then lose the ability to download to "pictures" the ones I want ?

I don't use Microsoft Picture Editor anyway, Photoshop and Picasa suit me.

Grrrrr ! I blame Bill Gates.

[Ancient Observer]

I agree with Mr Speedbird that all these bloody bits of software want to own everything that they think might conceivably be theirs.

Being a lazy so and so most of the time, I had allowed a proliferation of piccies - er, up to 4 versions of the same piccy - to develop on this pc as it has a hard drive the size of a planet. (Win 7/64/Home premium)

However, like the Windoze version, with piccies, itunes believes that it owns every piccy on the pc. It is too dense to realise that many are duplicates.
This is all fine until SWMBO wants piccies on her ipad to show to adoring/very bored sisters, aunts and other wimmin. So the ipad ends up with many duplicates/triplicates etc.
So Ancient decided to bring a bit of order to all this.
I set up a new folder, with a simple title that I might find again. (C/Myname/Family Photos) and put 1 copy of each sub folder to be retained in there. Then deleted a few mega whatnots of duplicates. Then told itunes to sync the ipad to that folder, NOT to the generic "pictures" thingy that windoze had set up.
(Itunes is not that bright - another couple of syncs might be needed to overcome various hiccups)
Turning to Mr Speedbird's issue, I now use "Computer" whenever I attach a gadget with piccies on, and rather than using Nokia's/Olympus's/Samsung's/Canon's importing software, I just copy and paste from the "Removable Storage" device in to the file that I have set up. I try to remember to re-name the new sub-file to something that I might remember.
Then, and only then, do I worry about any editing of said piccies.
(The process gave back about 3 gb on SWMBOs ipad).

That does lead to an aside about the size and relative incompetence of gadget maker's software. However, I don't have all day, and whilst they are bad, none of them are as bad as HPs. I did get around to deleting the Nokia and Olympus rubbish.

[green granite]

Go to start>control panel>default programs and double click on it, click on 'change autoplay settings' use the drop down menu by pictures and 'select take no action' save and exit (or change any of the other ones you want) then all you have to do is import using windows explorer (computer as Ancient Observer calls it)

Incidentally if you select the first file you wish to import and then hold down the shift key and select the last file all the ones in between will be selected so you only need to drag the files (or copy them ) once.

[vulcanised]

I had the same conflict between programs for jpegs etc..

I've settled on letting Picasa handle most of it - it usually does thing the way I like.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Green Granite

You're a Genius - I owe you a beer !

Many thanx.

ExS.

[green granite]

Glad you're sorted. :ok:

[ExSp33db1rd]

I know we have many community Self-Help organisations, usually voluntary, to assist the Lesser Computer Literate Lot, but isn't there now a case for 'someone' to start a professional organisation of Computer Schools, similar to the Typing Schools that I recall from my Youf, where one could pay for tuition in the art of using a typewriter ? Not being sexist you understand, but in those days many young women friends went off to those sort of places after school, in order to make themselves more eligible for the secretarial posts that they seemed to occupy.

Seems to me that there is a similar need for learning to use a computer, maybe there is, at the younger end of the educational scale, but there ain't much available for my end, and suffering from NEGBF ( new electronic gadget brain failure makes life difficult.) I could use one such establishment now to learn more about computers than just typing on the thing, yet I don't want to enroll in a 3 year University course designed for the 18 yr. olds -who would be texting on their iPads all day anyway -or similar, just somewhere I pop into when I have a new problem.

I'm not trying to boast, but I did attend a Senior Net thing, where computer techniques were taught for "Seniors" ( i.e. old fogies like me ) but apart from learning a bit more about using Excel, I reckoned I knew more than the volunteer tutor.

Even at a Local Ideal Home Exhibition, I showed the "Computer" stand representative a thing or two that I had learned about Vista, which was new then - and they gave me a new programme of Word 2007 as a thank you ! (don't like it. went back to my old Word '97, which I'm familiar with - If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It.)

Even if I'd even known about the 'fix' that Green Granite gave me, I'd have been frightened to experiment with it, for installing, or uninstalling, one of many options about which one knows nothing leaves one open to screwing something up that doesn't manifest itself until weeks down the line,when one has totally forgotten what one did, or how to get back to restore the original default.

Thank you.

[green granite]

It's allways a good thing if you do change settings in the control panel, to write down what you've done in a note book, that way you can undo them easily rather than spend hours looking for the bit you changed.

Also this (http://support.microsoft.com/) site will help you sort out lots of problems.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Thanks for the advice chaps.

The grandchildren were still at primary school... work it out...

I guess it won't be long before a generation starts being born with iPads instead of brains inside their skull, pre-programmed.

I used a circular slide rule at the supermarket check out the other day - one stuck inside my wallet that was once a gimmick key ring, about 2" diameter - to prove that the girl had rung up the 2-for-1 price incorrectly. She asked in utter amazement what it was, and how had I come up with the right price so quickly, i.e. marginally quicker than she had cancelled the till entry and tried again. I started to explain, and show her - then gave up, waste of time.

I used to go around the S'market with an pocket electronic calculator, but one day it packed up in the middle of a long tally ! flat battery. Threw it away. A S'market chain in Singapore used to provide calculators built into the trolley handles - gave up, they kept getting pinched !

[Ancient Observer]

I find that a proven ability 40 years ago to work out means and standard deviations in BASIC isn't much use when using puters nowadays. It was one of those things that I had to learn to get a masters in comething completely different all those years ago, and I haven't used it since. Neither have I used log books, or slide rules.

Where I live in Bucks/South Bucks, the Local Authority offers reasonable Adult eddication, but at a price. However, Ancient Egyptians and French hold more attraction than how to use a pc.

[ExSp33db1rd]

I recall seeing my first electronic calculator - at an Expo. in Osaka in 1970.

It was as big as a Remington typewriter, had 4 flashing neon tubes on top, like radio valves ( remember those ! ) and only performed 4 functions, add, subtract, multiply, divide. It cost around 1,000 quid and my colleague wished he could afford one for his 'home farm' accounts - his hobby/sideline.

About 10 years later I had a better one on my wrist. ( not any longer, watches are for telling the time, like mobile phones are for making voice connections.)

Mrs. ExS was a programmer 15 years before the year 2000, she said that "they" knew that the 2 digit year sytem would cause a problem at the end of the Century, but reckoned that by then "someone" would have come up with a solution. They didn't, until the final hour ( so to speak ) but they were seriously constrained by the lack of memory, around 1 Mb. she thinks, on machines that took up half the room !

[Loose rivets]

I had to learn to get a masters in comething completely different

I'd say you achieved it.;)



I'll fess up to something from 1970 ish. My pal was a bit flash, and sent off for a Sinclair calculator. circa £20. It was a kit and he needed me to assemble it.

I shut myself in my den and really concentrated on soldering every joint with immaculate care. When it was completed it looked fine, but to my dismay, the display showed gibberish. I sent it back for their ministrations under the standard deal.

They sent it back with a lovely letter saying since it was so well constructed, they'd taken care to make sure I'd got the one I'd sent. However, they had not found a fault. Again, it showed total bo-lox . . . until it suddenly a light came on over my head and it dawned on me it was a 'Scientific' and had no means of switching back to being a normal calculator. Doh!!!!!!!!!!!:ugh:

[Guest 112233]

Until recently I worked at one of these centres dealing with the people that you describe:

The problem is not the the Tutors are all Dos 3.3 users - it's that they are under pressure to deliver a proscribed program in a limited period of time.

The proscribed program(s) bears no resemblance in reality to the real world of Win 7 or real world "home computing" these days.

The technology is hostile to many people - its about lifetime exposure to the technology - Come Win 8 and I'm with them - just you wait until Elliptic curve cryptography hits the shelves.

Now explain that to a seventy year old.

CAT III

[Guest 112233]

Its all those years flying at 150 feet over the Baltic that scrambled your visual cortex - try programming my HP 50G. RPN - Is that Reverse Polish Notation by any chance ?

[Guest 112233]

I'm one of the "Hard Squad". one of the last of the old brigade. - All hail to modern techniques and I'm not being cynical. Programming should not be a bleak utilitarian yolk. Instead it could be a pleasure.

CAT III

[vulcanised]

Programming should not be a bleak utilitarian yolk


Eggsactly? Think you mean yoke.