December, 2010

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How Swedish Employees Can Get the Latest Version of Office on their Home Computer for $10 (For Mac or Windows)

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

Don’t you love the Swedish Intranet search engine? You type in something like “Newborn Glucose Protocol” and get postpartum committee meeting minutes from 1996. I don’t think it could be less helpful or intuitive if it tried. Because of this, there are many interesting pages that are rarely explored because no one knows where to find them.

One night at work I was digging through the intranet when taking my break and I came across the benefits page under Human Resources. I didn’t find what I was looking for (of course) but I did come across some offers that were available for Swedish Employees. One was a full bells-and-whistles deluxe version of Microsoft Office 2010 for $10. $10! I couldn’t believe it. But I followed the directions and got it for myself. I figured if this is an offer for all Swedish employees then someone needs to write step by step instructions on how to do it. So, here they are.

First, start on the Swedish Main Page.

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

That is it! Take that, Groupon!
As a small FYI: I did meet one of the higher ups in IT and she did say that we were getting a whole new Intranet and search engine next year! If the site changes I will change my screenshots as needed.

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Make a Costco Ready Christmas Card Photo Collage in Picasa

Sunday, December 5th, 2010

My mother sent a Christmas photo every year of my life and continues to, although we have now been bumped off the card and replaced with grandchildren. When we started a family I wanted to continue the tradition but choosing the perfect photo seemed impossible.  Before Esther was born we traveled around the world and splurged on a great Snapfish photo collage card for the following Christmas. It wasn’t cheap but it was the only way we found to share a large number of photos.

The first post-Esther year we made our own card with a background I downloaded off the internet.

Our first Child-centric Christmas Card

We used one photo that year. It was cute, but I realized that I was spending about as much as I would have been if I had bought the (much larger) Costco Christmas cards. I am all about saving money. How can I take advantage of the super cheap Costco cards while still making an original card? Also, how can I stuff as many photos as possible on it? If we managed to take a thousand photos of our daughter, shouldn’t we add a few more to our holiday letter?

My problem was solved when I started using Picasa. Picasa is a photo organizing software owned by Google and available for free download. Picasa has a photo collage feature in the software that automatically makes a photo collage out of however many photos you choose in whatever size you want. Costco has odd shaped cards but I figured out that the card is exactly half of a 8×10 size. If you make an 8×10 dimension collage it will fit the costco holiday card exactly.

Here is the card we sent out in 2009

Our First Christmas Card Collage

It turned out so well and was so simple, I wanted to share with others who use Costco for their cards how to do it. Below is a step by step demonstration using screen shots. I love screen shots!

Create a Folder


Next, open up Picasa…


After you finish in Picasa, open up your internet browser and go to the Costco Photo Center website.

The rest of the steps are just to double check your card then order them. You can then pick them up at your nearest Costco!

Have a happy Holidays!

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