Support4Change Blog

October 30, 2007

Category: Miscellaneous

By Arlene Harder, MA, MFT 

If you don’t want to hear me vent my frustration this afternoon, you can stop reading right now. But then you wouldn’t know about the wallpaper deal. So just give me a moment to get this out of my system and I’ll get to the point.

I’m frustrated (that’s putting it mildly) over a simple problem of changing a TIF to a JPG. In case you don’t know, a TIF is one kind of digital format for pictures and a JPG is another. Turning one into the other has been bugging me all afternoon.

What I need to do is to change the format of the cover of my book, Ask Yourself Questions and Change Your Life, designed by Christopher Tobias of Tobias Design. I love the cover. Unfortunately, I need a larger version than the one you can see in a recent blog called Thank Goodness I’m a Recovering Perfectionist. Chris did a great job. But he did the first one in a TIF format, which is what the printer wanted.  But now I need to change it into a JPG picture because the TIF takes much too long to download. However, I don’t just want a quick JPG, it must also be clear and readable. That’s the problem. I can get a smaller size but it’s poor quality.

I need this solved so the cover of the book will look good on the first page of two special PDFs I’ve created of the first chapter, “What Do I Know About the Process of Change?” One is for online viewing and the other is for finer print quality. Can’t seem to get the JPG right for either of them. Maybe if I had Photoshop I would be able to do it, but I only use Fireworks and I’m stuck. Besides, I don’t know Photoshop, though that’s something on my list of “learn later” that is piling up so fast I’ll have to live well past 100 to get even half of them done.

Anyway, that’s my problem. I know I’ll get it solved one of these days, but thanks for letting me vent.

Now let’s get down to what this blog is really all about today. Besides, as far as you are concerned, the lack of a clear picture of the cover won’t affect your ability to read the PDF files of the first chapter, at no charge, and give me feedback. But I want to have it looking good when I put the whole book online January 15, 2008.

Here’s how my idea works.

1. Read Chapter One, “What Do I Know About the Process of Change?,” in either a PDF format for easy reading online or print it from the PDF format for better quality printing.

2. After you’ve read it, go to the Share Your Feedback page and answer any or all of three simple questions.

3. When you send me your answers, I’ll give you a “wallpaper” for your computer desktop. They all have a question based on the book, somewhat like this picture, although the question does not have quite as large of print, relatively speaking. Since the picture will fill your screen, you wouldn’t want the letters that large, but I wanted you to see words and give you an idea of what it will be like. These particular pictures come from my “Down Under” collection of photos. You can select one of the following questions, but I get to choose the photo.

What is my call to action?

How can I recharge my batteries?

Am I following my dreams or someone else’s?

What will my life look like when I reach my goal?

What am I waiting for?

If you choose to purchase the whole book when it comes online January 15, you will receive, as a bonus from me, the complete set of these desktop photos.

So if you’d like new a desktop wallpaper photo (or even if you don’t want one but would like to read the first chapter), please choose one of the PDF files above and start reading. I’d love to hear from you.

If you think a friend would like to know about this offer, please send them to this blog or to the Oct. 28 newsletter. 

You can also contact me through the Contact Us form of Support4Change.

Happy Halloween! You’re invited to this great Flash Halloween Party. (If you don’t have the latest version of Flash version, be sure to download it now. It’s free of charge and only takes a minute or two to install. Click here to install it now. You’ll use it many times, including the special flash that is coming to Support4Change in January.