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Ames Adventure Outfitters
Newsletter -
December 2004
OOS - Under Construction at AAO
Our Online Ordering System (OOS) is under construction and will be
available for dealer access and use by mid January of 2005. Field test
feedback and prototype user comments have prompted some additional work
to include features that are worth waiting for. Access to this
system will be restricted to Dealers Only after registration and
credit approval has been confirmed.
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Seasonal Topics - Great Sites To Check Out This Month
Take A Virtual Tour Of America's Largest Home
http://www.biltmore.com/ -
In 1895, George Vanderbilt completed the construction of and
celebrated Christmas with his family in his new home. He called
his new 250-room chateau, which sat on 125,000 acres, the
Biltmore Estate. The home included 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms,
and 65 fireplaces. The Biltmore is still America's largest home
totaling 175,000 square feet -- that's four acres of floor
space. It took 484 employees to run the estate in 1895. Today,
more than 1,500 people work at the Biltmore. Visit this website
for information on tours, lodging at the estate's inn, or ticket
reservations to the Candlelight Christmas Evenings taking place
at the Biltmore during the holidays. If you can't work the
Biltmore into your busy holiday schedule, take a virtual tour by
typing "virtual tour" into the site's search tool.
The History Of Toys And Games
http://historychannel.com/exhibits/toys/ - Games and toys
have been around since early civilization. The Babylonians were
playing a board game in 4000 B.C. that was probably an ancestor
of chess and checkers. Marbles were first used in Egypt around
3000 B.C. Kites appeared in China in 1000 B.C. Playing cards
were first used in Asia in 969 and roller skates were invented
in 1759. To learn more about games, toys, and their inventors,
check out this interesting site.
Answers To Your Turkey Cooking Questions
http://butterball.com/en/index.jsp - If you're looking for
a new turkey recipe this holiday season or cooking your
first-ever bird this month, this site is for you. Butterball,
the number one selling brand of turkey in North America, has
what it calls its "Butterball Turkey Talk-Line." The Turkey
Talk-Line consists of more than 50 specialists including
dieticians, nutritionists, and home economists who give expert
advice on thawing, cooking, carving, and even making leftovers.
You can speak directly to a Turkey Talk-Line representative
during business hours or e-mail your question anytime and
receive a personalized response within 48 hours.
Cassini-Huygens Spacecraft Nears Saturn's Largest Moon
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm - The Cassini-Huygens
spacecraft's plunge into Saturn's outer orbit last summer
resulted in brilliant photos of the planet's mysterious rings.
The images were at least five times better than those from the
1980-81 Voyager missions that flew past Saturn. This month the
Cassini Orbiter detaches and sends the European Space Agency's
Huygens probe to Titan -- the largest of Saturn's 31 known
moons. (Titan is almost a planet in its own right at a size
larger than Mercury.) After a 22-day decent, the Huygens probe
will parachute into Titan's atmosphere. Check out this site for
daily updates and amazing photography.
Start Training For The 2005 Ironman Triathlon World
Championships
http://vnews.ironmanlive.com/ - It's only ten more months
until the Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Kailua-Kona,
Hawaii (October 15, 2005). This site provides a listing of
qualifying races, lots of training tips, bios on triathletes,
and recent race results from across the globe. Qualifying for
this championship race gets more difficult every year so the
organizers also select an additional 200 race participants via a
lottery system. Applications are due February 28, 2005.
Remember, it's a 2.4-mile ocean swim, 112-mile bike race and a
26.2-mile run -- so get busy training today! |
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Computer Corner (tips for the casual user)
Reducing The File Size Of Digital Photos Before E-mailing Them
Have
you ever taken a digital photo at high resolution for printing
purposes only to find out that the image was then too big to
send by e-mail? That's happened to most of us. During this
holiday season, many people are going to be sending photos as
e-mail attachments. Many of them will be too large and may jam
the inboxes of intended e-mail recipients. There are, however,
some simple steps you can take to insure your photos are easy to
open by your intended recipients.
Since most Windows-based programs include Microsoft Paint as a
standard program, many people use it to adjust the size of
photos before e-mailing the images. To find Microsoft Paint,
click your cursor arrow on the START menu at the lower left side
of your screen and click on "All Programs." Through subsequent
menus and submenus, locate "Accessories" and then "Paint." Click
your cursor arrow on "Paint" to open the program. Here's how to
reduce the size of a picture:
- Open your specific picture in Microsoft Paint by using
the "File" menu and clicking on "Open." When the "Open"
dialog box appears, navigate to the picture you want to
modify and select it. Then click the "Open" button.
- Check your file's size by going to the "Image" menu and
selecting "Attributes." You will see a line that says "Size
on Disk." It will show the size of your picture in bytes.
Anything over about 100,000 bytes (or 100K) will be slower
to send -- especially if you are sending more than one photo
as an attachment to a single e-mail. (FYI - 1,000,000 bytes
is one megabyte.) Close the "Attributes" dialog box when you
are done.
- Go to the "Image" menu again and select "Stretch/Skew"
from the drop-down menu. The "Stretch and Skew" dialog box
will appear. You'll see both a "Stretch" area and a "Skew"
area. You'll work only in the "Stretch" area for this
exercise.
- You will want to reduce the stretch percentages of your
photo by the same amount both vertically and horizontally to
keep the image from being distorted. Start out with 50
percent both vertically and horizontally. Click "OK." The
photo will become visibly smaller.
- To save your new photo while preserving your original
image, go to the "File" menu and drop down to "Save As."
When the "Save As" dialog box appears, give your reduced
photo a name in the "File name:" field and then click on the
"Save" button.
- Go to the "Image" menu once again and recheck the
"attributes" of your new smaller sized image. If you think
you've reduced the file size enough, you're finished. The
new photo is now ready to send to your friends and family.
Otherwise, repeat the process by making adjustments to the
percentage of reductions. If you aren't satisfied with a
result, simply throw the smaller copy away and start over
with your original. Remember to always use "Save As" to
avoid losing your original image.
Additional Notes:
- When adjusting the size of a photo, many programs (i.e.
Photoshop or Photoshop Elements) will refer to this option
as "Image Size" rather than "Stretch/Skew." Follow the same
basic steps when using one of these programs.
- If you are a Mac user, iPhoto has a handy "Mail" button
that allows for very simple changes to photo resolution when
e-mailing pictures.
- Most digital cameras have options for taking
low-resolution photos. This allows you to avoid having to
resize pictures after you've downloaded them onto your
computer if you're planning to send the images as e-mail
attachments.
- Remember to send only one photo or very few photos
attached to a single e-mail to keep the e-mail's file size
relatively small. Large attachment files may plug-up the
e-mail inbox of your intended recipient.
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