Windows 10 has tricks tucked away
If you miss the Picasa photo app, there’s a great alternative
It would be nice if a new Windows 10 desktop or laptop computer came with a detailed manual or guide. That’s because hidden away from plain sight there are numerous features, settings and apps that can make your computer much more useful, or less annoying. Here are a few I’ve discovered.
Picasa was a free photo tool from Google that would transfer photos from your mobile device or camera, organize them in chronological or alphabetical order, edit and enhance the pics, send them by email, or print them. Unfortunately, Google discontinued Picasa a few years ago.
If you miss Picasa, click the Win 10 Start button in the lower left and, in the list of programs, choose Photos. It will do everything that Picasa did and then some. For instance, click on the People label and Photos will use facial recognition technology to scan all of the photos in your Pictures folder and display a thumbnail image for every face it finds. You can name each face and search for that person or click on a face and display all of the photos in which the person appears.
The program also has weird 3D effects, such as adding flying balloons or flames to a picture. The How to Geek site has instructions for using Photos (https://tinyurl.com/y3nogoyq).
Taking a selfie with your smartphone and posting it on Facebook or emailing it to friends is very popular. With Win 10 you can use your laptop or a desktop with a camera to do the same thing without stretching your arm. In the list of programs, open Camera and you can take a photo or video of yourself or a group and email it or post it to social media.
The Snip and Sketch app lets you select and copy any area on your monitor, draw or write on the image, and save or print it. Win 10 also includes a simpler version which is quickly opened by holding down the Windows icon key plus the Shift and “S” keys. You select a part of the screen, snip it, save the image to the clipboard and then open it in Snip and Sketch to annotate or edit the image, or hold the Ctrl plus V keys to paste it into a word processor or image editing program.
Multi-tasking is a great concept but the idea of constantly switching among various programs and screens might sound overly complicated. Windows 10 makes it fairly easy to display several program windows on the monitor at the same time. For instance, you could work on a document and a spreadsheet while emailing and browsing the internet.
A Windows feature called Snap lets you use the mouse to drag an open window to either edge of the screen and, when you let go of the mouse’s left button, the program’s window will occupy half the screen. An easier way is to hold down the Windows icon key and push the left or right arrow keys to position the window to the left or right half of the screen. Doing the same thing with another program’s window will get it to occupy the other half of the screen. You’ll find instructions for using Snap and adjusting the size of the windows at the Windows site (https://tinyurl.com/y2c2gtdb).
You can also display several open programs on the screen in various arrangements. In the bottom right of your screen is a taskbar which displays the time, date and other icons. Right click on the little arrow pointing up on the left side of the taskbar and, in the pop-up menu, you can choose to cascade windows, show them stacked or side-byside. Open several programs and experiment with the various ways program windows can be displayed on the screen.
The Windows Ten Forums site has simple instructions for enabling the side-by-side view, and you’ll find a link at the bottom of the page for instructions about the other two views (https://tinyurl.com/y5k9cyrb). For more detailed instructions, visit the How to Geek website (https://tinyurl.com/ydz6xtbz).