I wonder if you could help, I am looking for some free software which “undeletes” pictures from an SD media card. I accidentally (believe it or [...]]]> Once again I’ll take the time off this week to help one of my readers take care of their computer woes.

I wonder if you could help, I am looking for some free software which “undeletes” pictures from an SD media card. I accidentally (believe it or not) deleted my holiday pictures by cutting the file from the camera card and then thinking I had copied them I deleted them off my PC!

Paul Wright, via e-mail

I should start this article by briefly explaining exactly what we mean when we use the term undelete. Many people think that what happens when they delete a file from their computer is that it is physically removed from the hard disk or media device you are using never to be seen again. What actually happens is that the Operating System simply marks the area of space that was once used by that file as being available to use and hides the file from the view of the user – it doesn’t physically disappear from the disc until the computer decides to write data to that area. This explains why in legal cases involving data being used as evidence the computer of the accused is given to forensics to analyse so that they can try and recover data from the hard drive that may been purposefully deleted.

A SD (Secure Digital) card is a memory card that is primarily used in digital cameras for storing pictures. I had always assumed that as a static memory device that a SD card would be a different kettle of fish and that once a file had been removed from the card that it would be lost forever however on closer investigation it would appear that they work on the same principle when it comes to recovering lost files.

After spending half an hour searching the Internet for an appropriate program I discovered the PC Inspector site (www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm) which would appear to do the job you require perfectly. To test the application I filled an SD card up with pictures then deleted them and PC Inspector then managed to recover them all. Additionally the site includes a version of this program to recover files that you may have lost on a floppy or hard disk and best of all these utilities are completely free of charge. It is worth bearing in mind that if since deletion the space that your files once occupied has since become filled that these undelete programs will be essentially useless.

The site also includes several other helpful pieces of software such as a utility to permanently delete files that you don’t want to ever be recovered, a hard drive cloning utility and several other useful programs that are free if charge.

An undelete program is something that most people should have on their computer as it is certainly something that you’ll use once in your lifetime; I know I have. Whether you require to recover a file from floppy disc, static memory card or your computers hard drive there is a utility out there that can help you. If you try PC Inspector and don’t find it to your liking then do check out http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/system/fwdatarecovery.html where you will find a dozen or alternative free utilities.

I’ve always been a fan of digital cameras as the way I see it they are helping encourage amateur photography in the lives of so many people as you no longer need a great deal of equipment to take fantastic photos; all you need is a semi decent digital camera, [...]]]>

I’ve always been a fan of digital cameras as the way I see it they are helping encourage amateur photography in the lives of so many people as you no longer need a great deal of equipment to take fantastic photos; all you need is a semi decent digital camera, a computer and a good quality printer to get started. I have always held off buying one though as the way that I see it the only pictures that I would ever take would be when socialising and previously when I have taken a digital camera out it has felt as though I was carrying a bag of sugar in my right pocket which is not what you need when out on the town for an evening.

A friend suggested I looked at the Konica Revio C2 and whilst it doesn’t have anywhere near the functions of a high end digital camera it does absolutely everything I need it to. The Revio C2 costs around £120 in the shops but I managed it for best part of £100 including postage from a fantastic website I found at www.pixmania.com.

The camera is only 1.3 mega pixels and includes a mediocre 14mg of internal memory (which isn’t expandable) but ultimately I love this camera for a number of reasons. Primarily the size of the unit is that of a credit card in both its width and height but unlike a credit card it is 14mm deep. The camera weighs in at 70g which is far lighter than the majority of mobile phones and at less than £100 I wouldn’t be too annoyed if I were to take it out for a night and lose it. Obviously I wouldn’t be impressed if this were to happen but it would bother me far less than taking out a high end £400 digital camera and losing it which has always put me off taking one out when a couple of drinks are involved.

The camera is powered by 2 x AAA batteries and connects to your computer via a USB cable; there is no software provided as the camera is just shown on the PC as ‘Drive E’ so you can then copy files on and off of the unit as if it were a floppy disk. Additional features include a 1.6” LCD display so you can preview pictures you’ve taken, a 2x digital zoom, time & date recorder, built in flash, auto standby and auto timer. That’s it though; there are no other features and if it weren’t so small that it could quite easily get lost in the bottom of my pocket and if it didn’t look quite so cool then this would be a poor camera in todays day and age.

One thing that this camera does prove is that what is perfect for one person is completely unsuitable for another; a digital photographer would scoff at my little camera but for me it is perfect; small, cool and affordable whilst still taking pictures to a more than adequate standard.

Even if you are looking to purchase a different model of camera then I would still recommend that you check out the website mentioned at the beginning of this article as they do seem to be a good source of camera deals and they do cover most brands.

On the fourth week of the graphics workshop feature, lets look back over the previous weeks; so far we have covered the subject of getting photo’s onto your computer using scanners and digital cameras and how to get them off your computer using a printer. However, what do you do [...]]]>

On the fourth week of the graphics workshop feature, lets look back over the previous weeks; so far we have covered the subject of getting photo’s onto your computer using scanners and digital cameras and how to get them off your computer using a printer. However, what do you do if you want to have some fun with them half way? Modern image editing software lets you do just that, you can put a photo on to your computer and play around with it; changing heads on peoples’ bodies, changing the background and so on, then, when you’re happy with it you can print your masterpiece.

Most scanners and digital cameras come with software to allow you to do just this, although probably on a very basic level; if however you really want the best then perhaps go for a program such as ‘PhotoShop 6’ by Adobe. Weighing in at around about £560, I’m assuming that most of you won’t want to spend this much money on one piece of software and so this week I’m reviewing its little bother, ‘PhotoShop Elements’. This includes everything you need for image editing at home but with a substantially lower £69 price tag.

So what does an image editor actually let you do with photos? For those of you not yet in the know, quite basically, an image editor is a program that allows you to grab any picture, either from a scanner or digital camera, off the Internet or from some other source and manipulate it in someway. The word manipulate can cover a whole range of possible things but generally speaking you’ll find that the most simple ones will allow you to print out, save the file, resize the picture etc. After a couple of months of using such a simple piece of software, you might find that you require a little more. There are currently plenty of products on the market, but as stated earlier, I believe I have found one of the best at a good price; ‘PhotoShop Elements’ by Adobe Software.

Starting with some of its most impressive features, PhotoShop Elements allows you to effortlessly merge two or more photos together; for example if you have scanned in 5 pictures that you took in an attempted panorama shot using multiple shots on your camera it will automatically stitch these together.

Another nice feature is that it allows you to actually remove the background from a picture. Assuming that you have a picture of you on Broadsands beach, not that there is anything wrong with Broadsands, but wouldn’t it be nice if you could change the background to, say that of a location in the Bahamas? Well if you scan in the pictures of the two different locations, Photoshop will delete the existing background and then if you just put the picture of yourself on top of that of the Bahamas, you’ll find that with a small amount of touching up (changing the light level, removing shadows etc.) you will be able to get a realistic looking scene.

One of my favourite features of the better quality image editors is the feature of ‘Layering’. This is a process used to ensure that if, for example you write text over the top of your picture using the computer that you would always be able to remove it and see the image behind once again. This may seem like an obvious feature, but most low end editors would simply leave black where the text once was.

In addition to these features above you also get around one hundred filters and 50 different effects to apply to your photos, features such as automatic red-eye reduction, automatic straightening of photo’s you scanned in wonky as well as the ability to compensate for improper lighting or colour levels and the list goes on.

Obviously the package also has the standard features such as the ability to view multiple pictures, the standard paint and drawing tools, the ability to compress files, create animated graphics for web pages and many more.

To summarise, I would say that PhotoShop Elements is a very worthwhile package for anybody with a scanner, digital camera or an interest in Web graphics. The majority of home users will have no need for the £560 package that I described at the beginning of the article and so by just cutting out the more advanced functions of the package, Adobe have allowed home users to buy the simpler version for around £69 from retailers such as Dabs (www.dabs.com). Obviously there are some downsides when you compare the product to the more expensive package but I feel that these are more than compensated for by the lower asking price.

Recently the power of the home PC has reached such a level that it is possible to be used for advanced artistic applications, whether it is through the capture and manipulation of sound, video or pictures. Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to look at several items of [...]]]>

Recently the power of the home PC has reached such a level that it is possible to be used for advanced artistic applications, whether it is through the capture and manipulation of sound, video or pictures. Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to look at several items of hardware that allow you to achieve the latter of the applications listed above; the ability to capture and manipulate pictures.

One of the most exciting developments in recent times is the rapid improvement in digital camera technology. For those of you unsure, digital cameras are very much like ordinary ‘analogue’ cameras that we’ve had for many years, just without the film, all pictures that you take are stored on special memory chips inside the camera and when you’ve finished shooting, they are copied onto your home computer. The advantages for this type of storage are numerous:

· Many digital cameras’ allow you to instantly preview a picture that you have taken on an inbuilt colour screen. If you don’t like the picture then you just delete and retake it. This also reduces final costs as images that aren’t needed don’t have to be printed, especially useful if you tend to have a habit of taking pictures in poor light levels, at wrong angles etc.

· The picture quality on a digital camera is becoming superior to that of a normal camera, the main reason being is that a digital camera eliminates the need to develop and scan the negatives before you are able to print them on to photo paper. Unsurprisingly the fewer times the image is converted, the greater the clarity of the final image.

· The method of developing the image is much faster and so the turnaround time for the photographer is reduced. Also, before printing takes place, a number of effects can be applied to the image using a editing package such as Adobe PhotoDeluxe, for example, to remove the red-eye effect sometimes caused by camera flashes.

· In addition, digital cameras’ are also more environmentally sound as no chemicals are used in the developing process.

So basically to summarise the benefits above, to take pictures using a digital camera, just use it as you would any standard camera, selecting which shots you want to keep as to make the best use of the camera storage space. Take the camera home and connect it to your computer, alter them on the computer if required and then print to a suitable high quality printer. Alternatively upload them to the Internet or save them on to a floppy disk or CD-ROM (depending on your system specification)

There are several things to look out for if you do decide to buy a digital camera. When shopping keep this guide with you so that you will easily be able to compare the specifications of several different products as they vary significantly depending on price and manufacturer.

1) Resolution – Possibly one of the most important factors when choosing a digital camera, the resolution is a measure of how many dots are used to make up the final image; a picture made of lots tiny little dots will be of higher quality than one made of far fewer, larger dots. Resolution is measured in pixels, to be honest the least I’d settle for would be 1280 x 1024 (This means that the final picture will be made up of 1310720 pixels)

2) Amount of memory – The higher the memory capacity of the camera, the more pictures you will be able to store on it at any one time, without having to return to your computer to download them. This should be considered especially important if you purchase a high resolution camera as the higher quality pictures take up more memory space.

3) Weight and Price – Obvious important considerations for most users. Digital cameras start from around £80 and work upwards in price depending on the features of the unit.

4) Interface and software – Discover how easy it is to copy the pictures onto your computer and edit or print them once there. If necessary ask the salesman for a demonstration.

In addition to this, take into account all features you would usually take into account when buying a normal film camera; flash type, warranty, zoom function etc. Nearly all camera shops around Torbay sell digital cameras now and you should find their staff are all properly trained to advise you best, or alternatively you could try an Online Internet store such as Dabs (www.dabs.com) who stock dozens of different models.

Some of my more regular readers may recall that over the past 2 weeks we have been covering the teaching resources available to all people in Torbay, last week we did Paignton and the week before Torquay and so it only seems natural that this [...]]]>

Some of my more regular readers may recall that over the past 2 weeks we have been covering the teaching resources available to all people in Torbay, last week we did Paignton and the week before Torquay and so it only seems natural that this week I should cover Brixham. For those of you that live in Paignton or Torquay and missed those respective articles, I should point out that all previous articles are available on the Webwise section of the Herald Express’s website at www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk.

This week I will also cover the subject of Individual Learning Accounts (ILA’s) which are available for all people over the age of 19 to support their return to education. In addition to some of the courses that I will detail today, several of those we’ve discussed in past weeks are available for support via an Individual Learning Account, the purpose of them being to make it easier and cheaper to get access to tuition. For example many courses, not just those in the computing field will be discounted by up to 80% and others by 20%. In addition the first million applicants for an account will receive up to £150 off their learning as long as they put in £25 of their own money. For more information and to apply call 0800 072 5678 or go to the website www.my-ila.com.

Shooting back to look at Brixham Community College, not only do they have a large number of interesting and cheap courses that I’ll divulge in just a second, but a large amount of the resources at Brixham seem to be tailored to helping the less able bodied. Such courses include ‘Photos’ (using Scanners, digital cameras and colour printer to improve your photos), ‘Next Step: Word-processing’, ‘Cards & Fancy Types’ and ‘Tame Your Computer’ (Learn to create folders, delete files etc). Sometime in the future we should be following up these courses in more depth to look exactly what equipment is available and how the centres are equipped to assist the less able bodied.

In terms of their other courses, Brixham College has a number to choose from, with several starting from only £5. In addition, most also include some form of certification when complete. I was unable to find out the full details of starting dates for all courses; however the next batch will start around the beginning of June and last for around 5-6 weeks. Details of those included are as follows:

Computing for Beginners: As the name suggests, this course dispels the fears for those new to computers, touching subjects such as opening programs and using their basic functions.

Scanning & Digital Photos: Brixham Community College has facilities available such as digital cameras, scanners and colour printers that you are free to experiment with on this course. It is a somewhat more involved than many of the others, as reflected in the £32 price tag however for your money you learn how to apply Special Effects to images, clone and layer them, using Colour Correction etc. In addition, the tutor, Anita Wren is a columnist in “Digital Photo” magazine so you can be assured that she is an expert in her field.

OCR CLAIT (Desktop Publishing): This course focuses on what some readers may be familiar with, Desktop Publishing (DTP). This software is used to design pages for newspapers, adverts etc., and can be studied practically on this course as part of a nationally recognised CLAIT certification.

Computing, Lets move on: Focussing on the slightly more advanced aspects of Windows, for example learning to customise the Desktop, create shortcuts etc., as well as learning about associated programs such as Microsoft Word.

Computing for the Older & Bolder: As the name suggests this class is suited for the older learner. This course allows you to learn at your own pace in a small, relaxed class.

For more information on any of these courses, or others available, please contact Brixham Community College on 01803 853302. Also ask about other concessions available, outside of the Individual Learning Account we looked at earlier, such concessions can allow you to obtain up to 50% off certain classes obviously depending on your financial or age status. I have tried to ensure all information is accurate, but please check with the institution prior to making any special arrangements.

As discussed in last weeks Click, today and next week we will be looking at the resources available to all groups of people in Torbay when it comes to computer tuition, either for people who have never used a PC before or those who want a refresher course. As you [...]]]>

As discussed in last weeks Click, today and next week we will be looking at the resources available to all groups of people in Torbay when it comes to computer tuition, either for people who have never used a PC before or those who want a refresher course. As you probably know, learning the basics of computing can dramatically extend your career prospects as knowledge of computer systems is one of the most sought after qualities employers look for nowadays and the good news is that it doesn’t cost as much as one might think.

The first education centre we will look at is South Devon College, Torquay, the reason being as this is the biggest centre of its type in the whole of Torbay. The advantages offered by a College such as this is that there are two distinctly different ways of learning; Practical Lectures and Open Learning. In terms of the facilities offered, the college has a wide range of computing resources available. For example, all students have access to the Internet as well as Industry standard applications; Word, Excel and Sage Line 50 etc., selected machines also boast web cams, scanners and digital cameras.

The college has a reputation for catering for the disabled; all upper floors have lift access for those in wheelchairs and several machines have devices to allow the visually impaired to use them.

The first mentioned method of learning is pretty much self explanatory, you have set lesson times and turn up to be tutored and, unless the lesson is completely theory based, you have complete use of a computer for the duration. Such lessons are usually around 3 hours a week for part timers and at the end of the course you attain a certificate of completion which can conform to a standard such as CLAIT, NFCE or IBT depending on the course selected. All ages of people are welcome on any of these courses and the subject areas available cover all aspects of basic computing such as Word Processing, Internet and Spreadsheets. One of the most popular classes for older learners is on a Saturday morning, 9:30-12:30, this course was formed by a group of enthusiasts who wanted to learn the very basics of computing and they convinced the college that it was a good idea to run a regular taught practical sessions for them so that an experienced computer teacher was always on hand to offer advice and solutions to any problems.

The second learning style I mentioned, Open Learning is a very different approach. The rooms on the main computer block at South Devon College are very rarely closed and so it is possible to register with the college so that when you have a couple of free hours you simply turn up and work through the syllabus at your own pace. Again, all ages and backgrounds of people are welcome on these courses, and the subject area covers everything covered in the basic practical classes, as well as more detailed syllabuses such as web-design, business technology etc.

The good news for many people is that due to a large amount of government support available for those who are willing to learn at any age or in any career, subsidised or even free tuition may be available for certain people, such as the unemployed or those in a low wage bracket. Please ask for details from either the college or a local employment centre and for those who don’t qualify, the total unsubsidised cost of any of the courses detailed above will be unlikely to be over around £200, including the examination fees.

Obviously, this article is only designed to be a guide of what is available, for further details of specific courses including times and costs, you can contact the computer learning centre at South Devon College on 01803 406459.