10 Quick Solutions to Photoshop Problems

The Photoshop learning curve can be steep, and fraught with frustration. What happened to my cursor? Where did the History panel go? My paintbrush isn't working!

How To Geek recently ran the article 10 Common Photoshop Frustrations (and How to Fix Them in Five Minutes), which shows quick solutions to common problems.

The problems they address:

• Your Cursor Disappears or Changes Shape
• Your Panels Keep Disappearing
• Your Brush Tool (Or Others) Have Stopped Working
• Clipboard Export Error When Switching Programs
• Documents and New Files Always Open In Tabs
• Important Image Files Aren’t Associated With Photoshop
• No Control Over Automatic “Smart Quotes”
• You Are Constantly Resizing Your Windows After Zoom
• The Scratch Disk Is Full
• Photoshop Runs Slow on Underpowered Machines

The article is succinct and the solutions are easy to understand and follow.

NoSquint

This Firefox Add-on, available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nosquint/, allows you to customize the text zoom level for every site you visit, and it remembers those zoom levels the next time you visit the site.

I LOVE this Firefox Add-0n. My eyesight has declined to the point where I now wear reading glasses, and I was having to continually change the zoom level on pages I was reading using Ctrl and + or -.

NoSquint remembers the zoom settings for every web page you visit. Set the zoom level (using whatever method you like, the Ctrl and + or -, your mousewheel, or the NoSquint zoom in and out icons, seen at left), and from then on, whenever you visit the page, NoSquint remembers your previous zoom level. So, in essence, you have a customized zoom level for every site you visit. For someone like me, who is continually losing his reading glasses, this saves time and hassles.

It has other cool features as well, like allowing you to choose your own font, link and background colors that override existing webpage defaults. Try it!

Cleaning Your Computer

Has your computer been sitting under your desk for a couple of years now, quietly humming away, doing its job while you do yours? If so, it probably has gathered a lot of dust.

Lifehacker has a great, easy-to-follow tutorial at http://lifehacker.com/#!153409/geek-to-live--evacuate-pc-dust-bunnies on how to get rid of the dust bunnies inside your computer, and lube up your fan while you're at it. All you need is a Phillips screwdriver, some 3-in-1 mechanical oil, and a can of compressed air. Follow the link, and give your computer and fan a spring cleaning!

Thanks yet again, Loretta Lohman and Erin Pheil, for the suggestion.

IconFinder.com

Looking for a well-designed icon for your website or blog to help with navigation, links to social media, email, or applications?

IconFinder.com (http://www.iconfinder.com/) has an extensive collection (over 155,000) of icons for use by web developers and designers. You can search for individual icons, or matched icon sets that fit the design of your website. Most are free, though some are restricted to non-commercial use, and some ask that you credit the designer.

You don't even need to register. Just type what you are looking for into the site search engine, and once you find what you are looking for, download it. Again, be sure and respect the terms of the license.

Below is a screenshot of the results of the term "RSS feed." This shows only 6 of the over 700 RSS feed icons available at the site

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