How to make holes in plastic boxes?

[Harry Bloomfield]

just noticed your reply --thank you i have to do something dozens off times in a row for it to register in my brain then frequently for a a month or so to have any chance ----i have been coached hundreds off times to get to post a picture by various people but to no avail as its a subject my brain looses interest in so ignores

You are not on your own, I think most of us struggle with modern tech, trying to remember how we should do things, if we don't have a need to do it regularly, and keep refreshing the memory on how. We just need a bit of a clue how to start off...

For months, I was struggling with posting photos, via my PC, from my phone. I was taking the photo, then emailing it to myself. The photo would appear in the body of the email, but with no obvious way to get it from the body, to anywhere else. I would usually end up sending the photo by WhatsApp, then I could open WA on the PC, and copy/paste from that. Then a WA update stopped allowing you to copy/paste, so I was forced to find another way...

Back to those photos included in the body of an email.... I haven't quite got it nailed yet, but I found that by clicking on some part of the photo, a menu would sometimes appear, which showed 'Save As', Save As, offered to save the photo in the Photograph directory, and from there it is easy to copy/paste into any website, or document. I just need to experiment some more, to work out how I reliably get that Save As menu to appear.

Often, I have to research how to do some things, and the most difficult part of searching, is knowing the best search words to use, to find what you need.

Biggest frustration for me, is passwords, and authentication systems, some seem to make it ridiculously difficult to get them to work. The Land Registry, for instance does not allow you to even change you email address, it stupidly insists you delete your account, and set up a new one.

 

[morqthana]

in the late 60s when i was at school autism and other unusual traits did not exist

Of course they did.

 

[morqthana]

For months, I was struggling with posting photos, via my PC, from my phone.

I've found that by far and away the easiest, and fastest, way to copy photos from phone to PC is to plug them together with a USB cable, then on the PC open/navigate to the folder on the phone where the photos are, and drag/drop.

 

[robinbanks]

in the late 60s when i was at school autism and other unusual traits did not exist -- so i am not autistic or afflicted by unusual traits

Oh, just because we we're ignorant of them/couldn't diagnose them didn't mean they didn't exist. Having an autistic child and educating myself about what that means in terms of how they experience the world differently has led me to believe without a shadow of a doubt that my dad was undiagnosed and on the spectrum somewhere. He wasn't just a deliberately awkward bell end who was always right and wouldn't return a hug.

There is absolutely no shame in having a brain that works differently to the 95% of sheeple; innovation and alternative approaches have to come from somewhere.

 

[robinbanks]

For months, I was struggling with posting photos, via my PC, from my phone.

If on your PC, hit the "sun with mountains" icon in DIYnot and then either:
* Click where it says click, and choose the photo file or
* drag the file into the dotted area. You might also even be able to drag a picture showing elsewhere like an email body or web page, into the dotted area

Note that if you straight drag a file into the reply area without clicking "sun with mountains" the browser might just take that as an instruction to show the image full screen. You may also be able to save a photo out of an email by just dragging it (literally point to the photo, hold your mouse and move) out of the email reader view and dropping it onto your desktop. Web browsers allow you to save photos this way, your email program may too, especially if it uses a web browser component to render the the email - many do because emails use HTML like the web does, and reusing a web browser saves reinventing the wheel

If on your phone, tap "Sun with mountains" and then tap on the dotted area. Your phone should offer to take a photo or pick from photos library

Back to those photos included in the body of an email.... I haven't quite got it nailed yet

The simplest solution on Windows might just be to open Snipping Tool (click start, type Snip, open app) and hit new, the screen goes faded and you should drag a rectangle around the area of screen that contains your photo, to take a screenshot of just that part of the screen

Then straight come to DIYnot and click into the reply box and press Ctrl+v to do a paste. Snipping tool automatically copies the screenshot it took ready for you to paste somewhete

And if you use a Mac the process may differ slightly in how you take the screenshot (I think the key combo for Screenshot Region is command-shift-4), point and paste it into the reply box


On a modern iPhone the process is similar; press the key combo to take a screenshot, drag the edges to select only a certain region, close the screenshot choosing "copy and delete" from the menu, then come to DIYnot, tap in the reply box so you see the flashing cursor then long press on the cursor til the magnifying glass appears and release your finger without moving the cursor. The black Paste menu appears and you can straight paste your screenshot in

Often, I have to research how to do some things, and the most difficult part of searching, is knowing the best search words to use, to find what you need.

I strongly recommend you use ChatGPT. Think of it like a 10 year that has read the entire internet and will understand you explaining your problem and asking a question. It collates its knowledge and delivers you a plain English paraphrasing of the advice it has read on the internet and works well when it has read multiple guides on how to do the same thing; as a search engine that you query using natural language it works really well

Biggest frustration for me, is passwords, and authentication systems, some seem to make it ridiculously difficult to get them to work.

I agree. A password manager app helps no end with this though land registry is a particularly poor system, I find. A password manager will keep your passwords safe secured by one master password that should be really good; a long line of lyric from your favourite song maybe, then all your passwords sit behind it. You remember one, it does the rest. They can type passwords and even be taught to do 2FA codes. My process for logging into DIYN for example is to click into the username box, press Ctrl_Shift_D and then KeePass (my password manager) types my username (literally by pressing the keys virtually), presses tab, types password, presses return..