Let’s forget for a second that some of their features were lifted right off Mac OS X features. Let’s forget that Windows 7 is still slow.

Instead, let’s talk about which yo-yo was responsible for the massively intelligent decision to make it so changing one’s desktop background is not a feature for the Windows 7 Starter Edition.

I kid you not!

My friend Kitty stopped by for a visit this weekend with her new HP Mini. Kitty is a genius in many things but she’s at the point in her life where she’d rather have a geek that enjoys playing with new toys deal with the issues associated with a brand new computer. So Kitty handed me the Mini and gave me a short list of the things that she wanted.

Windows 7 is similar enough to Windows XP that I had no problems with accessing the Internet, changing her home page, changing her default search engine and browser, etc.

Then I tried to change the desktop background. I went to IE, found an image that she loved, and selected “Change Desktop Background”. I minimized the windows to look at the background.

Instead of seeing her pretty picture, I saw the same boring Microsoft logo that was there before.

I did it again. Same thing.

I right-clicked on the desktop to get to the Desktop Properties. Alas, Microsoft has spirited those away and replaced them with “Gadgets”.

I searched the help in Windows 7. There wasn’t even a mention of changing backgrounds.

So I went to Google and quickly found the answer to the problem.

The Windows 7 Starter Edition does not allow the user to change the desktop background. In order to get that, you either have to upgrade to a higher version of Windows 7 or install an extra program. Not only that, Microsoft doesn’t even provide any alternatives to the boring logo. It won’t even allow selection of the pretty HP wallpaper that HP puts on the Mini.

So I want to know… Who made that particular feature? Who thought it was a great idea to nickel and dime people for a feature as simple as making one’s desktop pretty?

All I know is that I’m more happy than ever that I bought a Mac!

Out of all of the episodes, one of my favorites is “Blink”.  In this episode, a young woman named Sally Sparrow goes into an old house to just explore and, after peeling back some old wallpaper, finds a note warning her not to blink.   It’s spine-tingling and has that wonderful twisting of time that makes me think of paradoxes and other, as the Doctor calls it, “wibbly wobbly time-y whimey stuff.”

At one point, Sally explains to a friend why she likes to explore old houses.

Kathy Nightingale: What did you come here for anyway?

Sally Sparrow: I love old things. They make me feel sad.

Kathy Nightingale: What’s good about sad?

Sally Sparrow: It’s happy for deep people.

I can really understand what Sally means.  It’s sad to see once beautiful buildings fallen into ruins.  However, with the passing of one thing, there’s always the birth of something else.  All of houses that have been abandoned have a history, and it’s kind of fun sometimes to think about days gone by and think about the things that happened there.  And sometimes, it’s good to feel sad about things that aren’t so personal.  (It’s been a really emotionally trying time lately for quite a few of my friends, so it’s good to find something a bit more distant as a target for the sadness.)

When I saw the site The Ruins of Detroit, I couldn’t help but think about Sally Sparrow.  The site is a collection of sad yet beautiful pictures of scenes in modern day Detroit.  The pictures are heart-breaking in some respects, but they’re awesome too.  Check it out!

So I did some research and discovered that my problem might not be that hard to fix.  I gave it a try, and… Zoooooom!  My Firefox browser was running faster than it ever had before.  I kind of tucked the info in the back of my brain but didn’t really talk about it to anyone.   After all, I’d never heard of anyone complain of this issue before, so why would I go around and tell anyone about the solution?

This week has been something of a bear (and not the soft, cuddly kind).  On Monday, the first day back from winter break, the network was going nuts and people were reporting weird problems.  As I was about to leave, I ran into one of our sixth grade teachers who is actually one of the most experienced Mac users in the building.  He proceeded to describe a problem on the Mac on his room.  Apparently, it was doing exactly what my MacBook had been doing.

The light bulb went on in my brain.  I think I rather surprised him when I said, “Oh!  I know that problem!  And I know how to fix it!  I’ll stop by tomorrow!”

Tuesday was more of the same.  More network problems.  More weird problems.  Printers were reporting errors no one in the building had ever seen before.  And more frustration for me.  By 3:00, I was ready to fix something, because the whole day had been just a series of chasing bugs with no real resolution.  (I was beginning to doubt my techno-geek mojo!)

So I went and applied the fix.  When I left, the teacher’s Firefox browser was running faster than it ever had. He was truly impressed.

I ran into him tonight at a restaurant that was having a fundraiser for our school.  I was there with a friend.  He was there, just talking to anyone he saw.  When he stopped by our table, he again raved at my genius.  My friend (who already knows my geeky tendencies) was curious and thought that I should post the details of the fix here.  The teacher whole-heartedly agreed, because he wanted to do the fix on his home computer.

So, without further ado, here’s the fix!

Some people don’t realize it but Firefox has a Profile Manager as part of its installation.  The Profile Manager makes it possible for multiple people to use the same account on the computer but still have totally independent browser history, cookies, etc.  By default, it’s turned off (because most people who share computers have their own accounts on the computer).  So most people will never have a need to use it.

This fix makes use of the Profile Manager to create a completely new profile and with it, brand new storage areas for cache, cookies, etc.

Here we go!

1. Backup your Bookmarks from Firefox. In Firefox 3.5.7 that I run on my Mac OS 10.6.2 machine, you go up to the Bookmarks menu from Firefox and select “Organize Bookmarks.”  Then you click on the Star button and select Backup from the menu that pops up.  Then save the file when prompted to do so.
2. Make notes about what Add-ons that you have installed. Click on the Add-Ons option under the Tools menu, and look at what’s installed there.  If you like those things, you will need to know them later on.
3. Quit Firefox.
4. Now open the /Applications/Utilities/Terminal program, and enter the following:

         /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -profilemanager

   (You may need to add “.app” after Firefox depending on your OS version.)

5. Now open up Firefox. Now when Firefox starts, it will give you the option of creating a new profile.  Select “Create Profile” and start Firefox.
6. Now you’re in Firefox with a whole new profile.  In both cases where I’ve tried this, the speed was significantly faster than it was before!  If it’s not, I can’t help you more than to suggest the general maintenance tasks (disk cleanup, rebooting, etc.).
7. If it IS faster (and I suspect it will be), restore your Bookmarks. Return to the “Organize Bookmarks” option under the “Bookmarks” menu and click on the Star again to get to the “Restore” option.  Find the Bookmarks file that you saved before, and continue.
8. After that, you can reinstall the Add-ons that you want out of the list that you wrote down earlier.

This can also be done with Windows’ versions of Firefox, though you must enter “firefox.exe – P” in the Run box of Windows instead of using the Terminal program.  Everything else is pretty much the same!

Beginning to end, the whole process takes about 5 minutes, if that.  What it saves in lags will be returned to you 100-fold if your Firefox currently drags like mine did!

If you like what having the brand new profile does for you and you’re anal about clean-up, you can return to the Terminal to turn on the Profile Manager, and then go back into Firefox to delete the profile.

Me?  I’m playing with my new toy!

The Amazon Kindle!

The truth is that Mr. Grump gave it to me on Saturday.  He must have received it in the mail on Friday and spent a good part of the night playing with it.

On Saturday morning, I woke up to find him sitting in his favorite chair.  He had a silly grin on his face and looked like he was about to pop.  I commented how weird it was to see him awake so early and then sat down on the couch.  When I went to pick up my laptop to check my mail, I noticed something sitting on top of it.

Then Mr. Grump (who is really no grump at all!) started telling me all of the great things it could do.  In all the time I’ve known him (22 years… wow…), I’ve rarely seen him so excited!  He then apologized for giving it to me early, but he didn’t want to wait.

So I’ve been spending most of the last couple days exploring web sites and playing with my Kindle.  I’ve found some sites through which I can download books for free, figured out how to transfer them directly to the Kindle without using the wireless network, and found a tool that allows me to convert PDF files so that I can zoom in on the text.  (The Kindle supposedly handles PDFs natively, but it’s hard to zoom in on the text.)

So far, we’ve all had our time with the Kindle.  Little Grump is reading “The Tale of Genji”.  Hubby has been browsing around all of the stuff that I’ve loaded on it.  And I’ve had some time to bond with some of the classics that I read as a child.  Little Grump and I agree that we miss the tactile feeling of turning pages, but I’m really going to appreciate reducing the clutter from books that I’ve read and then piled into a corner!

I also received a 32 GB memory card for my camera, some new jammies, a meat thermometer (don’t laugh!  I asked for it!), and an official NFL football made in the factory in the town where I went to college.

Little Grump scored big, but then, she always does.  She was amazed at Santa’s ability to remember the exact poofy vest that she’d said that she wanted three months ago.  And she was thrilled with her video games.  (Obviously, except for dinner, we won’t be seeing her for the rest of the day!

Hubby is a happy guy too.  He didn’t receive anything as cool as what I received, but he was very pleased with the videos he received and with the Bengals merchandise that I remembered he’d wanted.

Overall, it’s been a nice Christmas so far.  We had a white Christmas, and we have happy family.  What else could a girl want?

I’m off to make dinner!

Hubby had to work, and Little Grump had a Girl Scout function.  So I was really looking forward to spending some quality time on me.  I don’t do that often, and I really can’t remember the last time that I had some quality me-time.  So I was really looking forward to it.  (Selfish, I know… But sometimes sanity is preserved by being a little “selfish” from time to time.)

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to do that. Instead, I spent the day on the phone with Apple and then my bank.

Last weekend, I tried to log into my Apple Store account.  Hubby told me that I could purchase a software package for my birthday, and I’d finally made up my mind which one I really wanted.  Unfortunately, when I went to log in, I was told that my user id and/or password were wrong.

I assumed at first that the problem was related to a recent Snow Leopard upgrade on my MacBook Pro.  I was really busy at work all week, but finally on Friday, I had a chance to check from the computers at work.  Same problem.  When I tried to recover my password, I got a really strange “unrecognized error”.  I also tried my iTunes account and got the same error.

Saturday was busy, so on Sunday, I decided to get serious about the problem.  It was a very good thing I did.  At first, Apple Support told me that the problem was that my password was wrong.  After several email exchanges, I finally had given them enough proof for my account for them to reset my password.  When I received the new password (along with the email address for the account), I knew right away something was seriously wrong.  The email address was unknown to me (and part of a domain registered in China).

When I logged into iTunes, I had all of the confirmation of problems that I needed. My birth date had been changed, the challenge question had been changed, and about $600 worth of games for the iPod Touch and iPhone had been purchased through iTunes.

I don’t now nor have I ever owned one of those devices.

I quickly contacted Apple again.  Their response?  You’d think that it would be alarm, indignation, protective feelings over their customer, or something like that.  Right?  Wrong!  They said that there was nothing they could do and that they would only hand over information about the transactions to my bank if I opened an investigation through the bank.

I did indeed call my bank.   I was surprised to find that mine was the fourth call the rep had received yesterday with very similar issues.  It seems that there is a ring of scumbags out there that is hacking into iTunes accounts, changing the contact information to lock out the rightful owners, and then selling the account information to whoever wants to pay for it.

My bank (thank God for them!) is crediting my account back the money that was lost to these jerks.  But until then, all of my accounts are getting new cards issued.  God only knows how far these thieves got with my other information.

After getting off the phone with the bank, I did some investigation.  If you search for “iTunes hack” on Google, you’ll find lots of similar stories.  This has been going on for some time, and Apple knows about it, but doesn’t seem to care.  If they did, they would change their set-up so that a notification message is sent to the old email address when an email address and challenge information is changed.  Or they would put some controls on their system to prevent or verify that someone really intended to purchase hundreds of dollars worth of material in one day.  Or check to see if it makes sense that the credit card belongs to an American address but the email address is from China.  Or ANYTHING.

My interpretation of Apple’s actions is that they could care less who purchased items through iTunes.  They have their money, and they’d actually lose money if they refunded the cost of the purchase.

Hubby doubts that Apple will do anything about it until the banks start leaning on Apple to fix things.  He also doubts that the banks will actually do that.  Unfortunately, I tend to agree.  To us, $600 is a whole bunch of money (!!!!!), but to the bank, it’s a drop in the bucket.  If it would take the bank and its collectors more than a few hours to track down, nail, and prosecute the lowlifes that do this kind of thing, they probably find it more cost-effective to just refund the customer and move on.  This is especially true when the perpetrators are outside US jurisdiction.

If there’s anything of value to be gained in this, it’s that hopefully others can learn from my mistake.  When iTunes offers to allow you to store your information, just say “No!”  They can’t be trusted to protect it or to pursue those who abuse the information.

For the past year or so, I’ve been annoyed by my Compaq Presario 4440 laptop.  Until recently, it wasn’t really the computer’s part.  My annoyance was more with  Microsoft’s habit of releasing updates to Windows XP that breaks functionality.  It’s their lame attempt to get people to upgrade to Vista, but having used Vista on several occasions, I knew that I didn’t want to do that.

Then things started going wrong with the Compaq.

The first thing to go wrong is that we started to wear a hole in the left trackpad key.  It finally wore completely through, broke in two, and fell off completely.

Then the hinge started to crack.  The laptop wouldn’t close all the way.  We started to worry.

Then the power cord problems started.  It’s gotten to the point that only my daughter knows the trick to wiggle it to the point where the power connects and allows the battery to charge.  (The Force is strong with the young Padawan!)

Then, on Sunday, the hinge broke completely.  In order to use the laptop now, we have to rest the laptop on our laps, with the base tilted slightly upward so that the hinge section rests on our lap to support the screen.

Mr. Grump has been urging me to go shopping for a new computer since the power cord issues started, but I’ve been putting it off.  We’ve been putting money aside to replace some things that we know need replaced so money wasn’t really the issue, but I loathe buying anything with more than three digits in the price (let alone four, five, or six)!

So on Sunday, Mr. Grump put his foot down and insisted.  I looked around.  I didn’t want another Compaq because I’ve read enough to know that the hinge issue is a recurring theme with HP machines.  I saw a Dell at a fairly good price, but balked when I started reading reviews.

Over the last few years, I’ve grown to like the Macs at work.  My daughter has likewise.  Last year, she had to do a project for school and created a really kick-butt movie on iMovie with video, slides, animation, etc.  It was very cool, but we spent days at school until 9 PM while she worked on the project.  (The one good thing about a school… The work never runs out, so the school got quite a bit of free time from me while she worked on her project.)  We both lamented at the time that we didn’t have a Mac at home.  Apparently, Mr. Grump was listening.

As I sat there browsing deals and reviews,  Mr. Grump finally suggested, “How about a Mac?  Don’t you get a discount for being employed by a school?”  Well, yes I do.  It’s not much of a discount, but it’s a discount.  So I started looking and thinking.  And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I really wanted a Mac!

I may live to regret this.  I doubt it though.  I have several friends who love their Macs.  Hubby is excited about being able to set up a dual boot partition so that I can jump into XP if I want or need to.  Little Grump is excited about being able to play with Garageband.  (The school has it, but she never has time to do anything with it.   She only uses the computers at school for any meaningful amount of time if she has a school project.)

So I ordered.  Although the initial order said that the projected delivery was July 6, the latest shipping status says that it’s on the vehicle for delivery RIGHT NOW!

I’m going to be glued to the door for the rest of the day!

Now, Karen is a great artist (“just like Picasso”, says one of her students!), but she’s not exactly a geek (yet). So she asked what to look for.

So I decided to shop for one for her birthday. The way I figured it, I’d find one long before she had enough confidence to pick one up. And it’s great to give a 20-something (cough!) exactly what they want for their birthday!

So I scouted around and found one from a company called USBGeek.com. There’s nothing on their web site stating their location, but, being the big dummy pompous American that I apparently am, I assumed that it was in the US.

I didn’t get an order confirmation, but I did get a PayPal receipt saying that the order had been processed. I chuckled gleefully and waited for the toys to arrive. (What? You think I can order from a geek toy site and only buy one thing? Surely, you jest!)

Then I waited some more.

Karen’s birthday came. Karen’s birthday went.

I waited a little more.

Then today, I sent them an email asking about the status (at about 11 PM). I was surprised by receiving an almost instant reply. They sent me a package tracking number where I can follow the status of my package. I checked it out right away.

On February 23rd, my package was last reported as being in the “Registered Mail Section”, “Dispatched to Overseas” on its way to JFK Airport via Singapore Post.

It turns out that USBGeek.com is in Hong Kong!

It may very well be Christmas before the package arrives!

Teaching my teen to sew turns out to be much more painless than what I thought.  I have been trying extra-hard to avoid some of the stunts that my mother pulled when she taught me.  Primarily, I’ve been sure to stay positive and to not demand that she rip out anything that is not 100% perfect.  (My mother was a tough taskmaster!  It made me crazy because it seemed to take FOREVER to accomplish anything.  I think I was 26 and off on my own before I realized that it didn’t take 12 months to make a costume!)

To keep my hands busy (so I don’t grab it out of her not-as-capable hands and do it myself), I’ve been working on some smaller projects (that I can drop any time she needs me).

Jack Skellington Dumpling Bag

First off is my admittedly corny take on Interweave Knit‘s Dumpling Bag.  The pattern shows a cute little bag with winding vines around the center.  When I look at the bag, I see things that are very different.  The first image that came to my mind was Jack Skellington’s head.  So… A quick knit, a little felting, and some embellishment and… Presto! Change-o!

Once that was finished, I moved on to another knitting project… Boo the Bat (from Mochimochi).  I now have all of his pieces parts done, and it is ready for assembly.

I also started with a baby hat, a gift for one of my co-workers.  (This will likely become a trend in my knitting.  At present, there are at least four babies in the baking with my co-workers or their significant others.  Needless to say, I’m sticking with the bottled water!)  It’s not far enough along to show what it looks like, but I’m sure it will be cute.  For now, I’ll only say that I HATE Addi Lace needles with a passion and would glady trade the set I’m using for a pair of cheaper KnitPicks needles in the same size.

Finally, I threw something together for the school Pumpkin Parade.  It’s pure geekery, but I love how it turned out.  I used a Funkin, a very cool hollow foam replacement for traditional pumpkin.  You can carve it like a pumpkin, but the joy is that it’s much less messy!  I then added a dead mouse and keyboard (rescued from the salvage pile).  The kids (especially my Computer Club kids) thought it was awesome!

A few months back, I ended up with blue hands for a week after some yarn that I’d used bled extensively. I finally figured out that toothpaste is the key to cleaning up over-dyed hands. Just give the hands and fingernails a scrub using an old toothbrush and some toothpaste and voila! Clean hands!

Today, I had another blue episode.

I was getting ready to teach the Computer Club when one of the sixth grade teachers came in and asked if he could use the color printer to make some invitations for the sixth grade graduation. This is something that I know to be a yearly tradition, so I said yes. Then I remembered that the blue toner cartridge was low and would probably start streaking pretty soon. So I pointed the teacher to the toner cartridge and said, “Change the toner cartridge first, and then you’ll be good to go.”

Now, this teacher is one of the most tech savvy in the building. He used to be a US Air Force pilot and understand more about computers than many of our other teachers put together. He certainly knows how to change a toner cartridge, so I’m relatively sure that the events that were to follow had little to do with him. I could have changed the toner, and the result would have been exactly the same. I’m absolutely sure of it.

The printer is an old one, a Lexmark 1275 that I’ve been nursing along all year. It is older than many of the students that we teach. Sad but true. Unfortunately, public schools don’t have money growing on trees, and we rarely have the funds to replace anything that isn’t completely broken. The printer grunts and groans, which freaks some people out. I’m used to it though. I know that the paper jams occasionally and that the printer says that the jam is in the top of the printer when it’s really in the tray. I know that occasionally it stops printing for no particularly good reason and that the way to bring it back is to shut off the power, wait a few seconds, and then turn it back on. I’m used to dealing with all of its idiosyncrasies, but I never expected the trick that it was about to play.

I started teaching the Computer Club as the teacher changed the toner cartridge. I noted out of the corner of one eye that he had left the lab briefly and returned a few moments later with a hand vac. He bent over and vacuumed something up from the floor. I was impressed. Most people make a mess and could care less. I just filed it away under my “gosh, that’s a good person” header in the back of my mind and went on with my teaching.

As the end of Computer Club approached, I noticed that the teacher returned. He was pressing buttons on the front of the printer. I assumed that he had, as many do, hit asked to print one hundred copies and then discovered a really embarrassing type-o.

As the last of the kids left the room, he looked over, now totally frantic. “I need you over here. NOW!”

When I looked to see his problem, I couldn’t stop laughing. He had about 40 copies of the invitation printed, and almost every last one was covered with bright blue dust. Not just a little blue smudge here and there. It was everywhere on the print-out.

I reached over and turned off the printer, then opened it up to see what was causing the “blues”.

There was blue toner everywhere. On the cyan toner cartridge. On the other toner cartridges. On the rollers, all around the inside of the printer, on the fuser. Everywhere!

I couldn’t help but laugh. The look on the teacher’s face was priceless, one of those moments in life when I really wished that I could take a memory and hit a “print” button so that everyone else could see what I did!  (Sadly, I had no camera available, so I don’t have any pictures of the incident at all.  Such a pity!) The poor guy looked mortified. “I don’t know what happened.” By now he had a box of tissues and was trying desperately to wipe up the toner. (It was like trying to use a small square of toilet paper to clean an elephant’s butt!)

I went over to a cupboard and pulled out a little computer vac and started cleaning too. Unfortunately, the more that we cleaned, the more the blue mess seemed to multiply. There was blue toner all over the inside of the printer. Some had dropped down into the paper tray. It was on the table, on the wall, on the carpet.

When I took the toner cartridge out and put the old one back in, blue toner came pouring out of one end of the new cartridge. I took the toner cartridge outside and tried to blow the dust off with canned air. Every time I blew on the cartridge, a blue cloud went “poof!” into the air, and then more poured out of the cartridge.

We tried to use the canned air to blow some of the dust out of the places in the printer that we couldn’t clean with wipes. Big mistake! A cloud of blue dust blew out of the vents on the sides and back of the printer. By now, the teacher was laughing too. (I think he was finally over the initial shock and fear that I was going to kill him for messing up the printer.) I started teasing him about how, since this sixth grade class claimed to be the coolest class ever, maybe he should consider doing a special “blue grunge” invite for the class of 2013.

We finally got the lab and printer area back into a shape that would not send the maintenance crew screaming into the night, but I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to get the blue out of the printer. It’s still quite a mess.

Tomorrow morning, I’m going to file a problem report with the district techs. “Toner cartridge exploded inside printer. Please advise.”

Oh, and that toothpaste thing? Works great with toner too! Thank goodness! I guess it’s true that everything happens for a reason.

There are lots of things about assembling a yearbook that take time. I have to make sure that I don’t represent one grade (or, God forbid, kid) more than others. I have to make sure that I include every big event during the year (while hoping and praying that my view of “big event” matches everyone else’s). I have to eliminate pictures of kids whose parents did not understand that checking that box on that form back in September means that their child won’t appear in the yearbook in May. And I need to make sure that no staff member looks crazy, stupid, ugly, or fat in any picture.

It eats time. More and more and more time.

This year, the principal had a demand request for the yearbook that is eating even more time. The principal wanted every staff member’s elementary school picture to appear next to their current picture. She sent out a request a few months ago to tell the staff members to start bringing in their pictures. In turn, staff members sent their parents requests. What they brought in was the biggest collection of poor photo archiving I’ve ever seen. Almost every last picture was covered with tape, green goo (from magnetic albums), dust, scratches, fold marks, etc. A few older staff members didn’t even have school pictures, but did bring in family photos. My mission, which I had no choice but to accept, was to make them all presentable and as consistent in quality as humanly possible.

Fortunately for the principal, I like a challenge! I’ve gone through each and every photo, scanned it (and quickly returned it to the owner lest I lose their one and only picture of them as a child), cropped it, and fixed every last flaw. In the case of those who turned in family photos, I cropped out everything but their heads and shoulders and replaced any body remnants from siblings or parents with a speckled background. I saved a version of the cleaned up image and then changed the pictures to black and white so that it’s not overly obvious which staff members are older (like the kids can’t tell anyway!).

Here’s an example of mine (yes, I was a homely child!):

Thanks, Mom, for even finding a picture of me at that age! Our family albums have been scattered (everyone thinks someone else has them), so getting any picture was a blessing, even one as damaged as this one.

The first panel shows the original scanned photo. Notice those big white spots all over the photo? That’s where the surface of the photo had been chipped away. (It looks like a nail had been dragged across the surface of the picture.) There were also assorted large chunks of stuff that aren’t as obvious. The second panel shows the cleaned up image. The last panel is the desaturated grayscale image that will appear in the yearbook next to my current picture.

If you have Photoshop (or even Photoshop Elements) and a scanner and have equally mangled photos, it’s easy to do this if you have the time.

1. Scan the photo. Most scanners these days are so easy to use that trained monkeys could use them. (I’ve taught fourth graders to use them!) Mine is as simple as putting the picture in the scanner, pushing the power button, and hopping through two panels on the computer. I typically scan at 300 dpi because that’s what’s required for print publication.
2. Open up the picture in Photoshop and use the Crop tool to eliminate any white border that appears in the picture.
3. Run the Despeckle and/or Dust and Scratches filter to get rid of the majority of the graininess that appears in the picture. (Try the filter. If you don’t like it, Undo the operation.)
4. Zoom in the picture so that you can actually see the pixels in the picture. Then use the Healing tool to touch up any bad spots created by reflecting dust particles, major scratches or cracks in the photo, etc. This is the part that takes time, and it’s worth your while to spend lots of it if needed. It’s amazing to zoom in and out as I fix things just to see how the image is improving. (This is also useful because I can see if things don’t look as good in the full size view as I thought it would.) Heal all of the problem spots, being very careful not to “heal” anything that isn’t really a flaw. (On one staff picture, I almost removed a mole from the picture. Turns out, that particular teacher remembers that as being the bane of her existence as a child but felt that learning to deal with it made her the teacher she is today.)
5. Play with the Hue/Saturation or Auto selections to fix any yellowing or fading of color in the picture.

Again, it’s better to take your time with this. Go ahead and try things and make liberal use of the Undo History and/or Undo (Ctrl-Z on the PC) features if you don’t like how they changed the image.

There might be a better way to do this, but I’ve used this process on over 60 photographs and have had great results. I can’t wait to see the looks on the everyone’s face when I present them with a print of the cleaned up image!