Andrews Family

Here are my responses to some frequent technical questions that I get. If you have a question, correction, or opinion leave a comment here or send me an email.

• ActiveX Controls
• Email
• Emailing Photos
• Emailing Large Groups

Q. ActiveX Controls - Some websites I visit want to install an ActiveX control. What is that and should I let it?

An ActiveX control is basically a little program that will run on your computer to do something that the web browser can’t do by itself. This means that you will be running something on your computer rather than just viewing a web page so it will have access to more of your computer. It can be useful, but can also be dangerous. An example of a typical ActiveX control is a on-line photo printing service that recommends installing an ActiveX control to easily upload multiple pictures at once and may even let you drag and drop pictures or folders to it. That may be handy but they usually provide some other means of upload pictures, but it be one at time which isn’t as convenient. 

So should you install it? I’d apply the same standards as installing any piece of software, which is what you would be doing. So I usually don’t and I don’t miss it. If you do install it, make sure you trust the website. Don’t get me wrong, I do install some, but I am picky. Oh, and you will also need to be logged in as an administrator to be able to install it. That is another reason I recommend using a non-administrator account for you day to day computer use, otherwise anyone, including you in a moment of weakness, can install any random program or ActiveX control.

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Email

Q. Emailing Photos - How can I resize photos so that I can email them?

If you are going to email a photo, etiquette is to resize the photo which reduces the file size before you send it. That helps the recipient download it faster and doesn’t fill up their email server. Most photo editing/management software packages, like Adobe Photoshop Elements or Picasa, have the ability to easily resize pictures and attach them to an email for you. You can check the help in your program if you have questions. Windows XP also has a built-in wizard to help you email pictures. If you are looking at a folder containing pictures you can select one or more pictures and you should get an "Email this file" link on the left side under "File and Folder Tasks". You can click the small screen-shot in this post to enlarge it. After selecting that link, you’ll then get a dialog to let you pick the size.  Small is usually fine. It will then open up a message in your default email program, such as Outlook. In a quick test, a 1.3 MB picture was resized to 87 KB on the small setting.

If you don’t use a desktop email client (like if you use a Yahoo or Hotmail account) or you just want to resize them without emailing them, you can download the Image Resizer PowerToy from Microsoft. It’s very similar to the built in wizard but adds a right-click menu option and saves the file next to the original.

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Q. Emailing Large Groups - Is there anything special I should do when emailing a large group of people?

Eventually there will be an occasion that you want to share with all of your friends and family. Usually, it will include pictures, so the first thing is to check out the previous question on resizing photos. Next, instead of putting all of the email address in the "To:" or "CC:" list, you may want to consider sending it to them on the "BCC:" (Blind Carbon Copy) list. This hides all of the email address from the receipients. Otherwise, someone on the list will accidentally hit "reply all" which may lead to an embarressing situation when their comments are shared with everyone. For example, college buddies comments generally don’t go over so well with Grandparents.

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