Maine Antique Digest March 2015

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Maine Antique Digest, March 2015 39-C
- COMPUTER COLUMN #315 -
Computer Column #315
BITS OF NEWS
by John P. Reid,
A number of hints and bits of news
have accumulated.
NeoCollect Closing
In the Maine Antique Digest editions of
June 2009 and August 2012, we reported
on the NeoCollect on-line cataloging site.
It was easy to use for both collector and
viewers, and the staff was always helpful
and enthusiastic.
John Sallay of NeoCollect writes,
“After six years in operation and many
thousands of items listed and shared
among collectors like you, the Internet
landscape is now evolving too rapidly for
NeoCollect to continue operating as an
independent entity.” NeoCollect members
were told to retrieve their listings before
the end of December 2014.
The site had the greatest appeal
to numismatists. They may want to
explore the My Collections feature of
the new American Numismatic Associ-
ation Web site ). Col-
lectors in different areas may want to
look at other on-line cataloging sites.
Transfers in the Cloud
Those who use a desktop or laptop
computer, tablet, smartphone, and digi-
tal camera all in the course of a day often
need to transfer files from one device
to another. There are cables to connect
devices through USB ports, software to
transfer files over Wi-Fi, and memory
chips carried from one gadget to the other.
A clumsy fallback is attaching the file to
an e-mail message. By far the easiest way
is to route files through free cloud storage.
There are many cloud storage provid-
ers ). But
Google Drive ),
Microsoft OneDrive
, and Apple iCloud (www.
are free, easily accessible,
and have apps for most mobile devices.
(If you already have an account with Goo-
gle, Microsoft, or Apple, ignore the URL
above and go to your account.) Anyone
can open one of these accounts. The one
exception is that you must own at least
one Apple device, even just an iPhone,
to activate an iCloud account. Microsoft
OneDrive is easy to use, but a few Mac-
intosh owners have complaints. Google
Drive is neutral in the Macintosh vs. Win-
dows debate. Apps for Google Drive are
available for most mobile devices includ-
ing BlackBerry.
Suppose a document, photograph,
video, or song on one device needs to go
to another. On a computer, open the cloud
storage Web site window and drag and
drop or copy and paste the file in either
direction between cloud storage and any
folder in the computer’s file system. On
a mobile device, files can be sent to cloud
storage by using the “share” menu. Files
can be downloaded by opening the cloud
storage app, selecting the file, and click-
ing “download.”
All this can be done through a Wi-Fi
connection. A cell phone 3G or 4G con-
nection will work, too, but the cell phone
service may charge for the data transfer.
It is a good way to get pictures of your
antiques merchandise on your devices
but works equally well with photos of
grandchildren.
Windows Tablets
Large tablet computers running Win-
dows 8 have been available for some time.
The 12" Microsoft Surface Pro 3 starting
at under $1000 is an example. It is meant
to compete with the Apple MacBook Air.
However, several 7" tablets running full-
fledged Windows 8.1 (not the junior Win-
dows RT version) have appeared recently,
some for under $100.
These may meet the needs of users who
cannot get what they want in an Android
or Apple iOS mobile device. Computer
coding is difficult on a standard mobile
device. This includes the HTML coding
for creating a Web page. Graphics editing
and page layout apps for mobile devices
are not as powerful as desktop software.
Sound editing for music or podcasting
needs added power, too. Other functions
are available as desktop software but not
as mobile apps.
An Internet search for “win8 tablet”
will find dozens of devices from Hewlett-
Packard, Dell, Asus, Toshiba, Lenovo,
and others. Prices start at under $100 for
7" screens to about $300 for 10" devices.
Avoid those that use Windows RT as they
will not run desktop software.
On a 7" Windows tablet, we installed
the Audacity audio editor, Komodo
multi-language programmer’s editor,
HTML-Kit Web page editor, FileZilla file
transfer program, the interpreter for run-
ning programs in the Python 3 language,
and Mozilla’s Thunderbird e-mail pro-
gram. (Sources can be found by an Inter-
net search engine.) Software of equiv-
alent power is not available in Android
or Apple iOS. The evaluation copies of
several Windows antiques dealer inven-
tory and point-of-sale programs also were
installed successfully. One did not dis-
play well on the low-resolution screen, so
try an evaluation version of your favorite
software first. A conventional printer is
compatible with a Windows 8 tablet.
AWindows 8 tablet will not replace an
Android or Apple iOS mobile device. The
Windows touchscreen does not have the
smooth resizing, positioning, and auto-
rotation of true mobile devices, and the
many handy mobile apps will not run on
Windows. Squeezing a full-size Windows
application onto a small screen makes it
hard to use. We use a stylus and strong
glasses at times. A Bluetooth keyboard
and mouse help but detract from the com-
pactness. Programs run slower on tablets
than on desktop computers, but only a
rocket scientist would notice. AWindows
tablet makes sense for essential software
for which no mobile app exists.
Windows 8 tablets are real computers
and should be protected by antivirus soft-
ware. The antivirus software protecting
desktop computers usually permits instal-
lation on several additional computers at
no extra cost.
HTML5
Many Webmasters still create and
edit sites by writing code in the Web’s
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language),
CSS (Cascading Style Sheet), and Java-
Script. Others use one of the many helper
software products that range from free
to Adobe Dreamweaver CC at $19.99 a
are in either group, look into the new
HTML5 format. HTML coders will learn
new tricks, and users of helper software
will learn what new features are available.
Those who hire the work done can better
deal with their contractor.
One common complaint is that HTML5
is so new that most browsers do not under-
stand it. This is no longer true. Modern
versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer,
Firefox, Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera
handle HTML5 well. It is especially com-
patible with mobile browsers. In the few
cases where some new fancy format is
misinterpreted by an older browser, the
site is still useable. We viewed a new
HTML5 home page for our business Web
site with a 15-year-old edition of Internet
Explorer on an even older Windows 95
laptop. The artsy layout was gone, but all
the text, pictures, and links were there.
Page layout with headers, footers,
menus, links, articles, pictures, tables,
and sidebars is simpler in HTML5 than
it was in HTML4 or XHTML. New ways
of inserting images, sound, and video
are available as well. There are strictly
aesthetic additions such as boxes with
rounded corners, shadow effects, and
background color gradients. Those who
get interactive effects by using JavaScript
will find powerful new tools.
A number of excellent books are avail-
able, including HTML5 for Masterminds,
revised second edition, by J.D. Gauchat
and HTML5: The Missing Manual, sec-
ond edition, by Matthew MacDonald.
Both are available on line as a paperback
or an e-book download. Many readers
may need only the first three chapters
of these books, which cover basic page
layout and styling. But the rest is there
for those who go on to interactive pages,
databases, and data input forms.
The mouse pointer drags files back and forth between a computer file system
and an Internet cloud storage Web page. Apps make similar transfers with
mobile devices.
Exhibiting at the 58th Spring Fox Valley Antiques Show in St. Charles, IL, March 14 and 15, 2015.
Horse pulling single axle
with bell, 9" l.
Horse pulling single axle
with bell, orange wheels,
8¾" l.
Cowboy on horseback,
single axle with bell, 7½" l.
Racing horse pulling axle
with bell, iron and tin, 8" l.
Horse and driver on coal
cart, red wheels, 6" l.
Rocking horse, single axle
with bell, iron and tin, 7" l.
Single-axle bell toy,
3" diameter.
Sulky and rider,
red wheels, 5" l.
Horse-drawn fire
wagon, double
axle, 5½" l.
GROUP OF CAST IRON/BELL TOYS, ca. 1890-1910
SIGN OF THE WHALE ANTIQUES
19th Century American Antiques and Folk Art
Mon. - Sat. 10 - 5, Closed Wednesdays
558 Crescent Blvd., Glen Ellyn, IL 60137 • (630) 469-5320
To see these and other items in color visit our website: