4 ways to adjust your display

Each month I prepare a short digital skills session for our local genealogy group which I present via Zoom. This month is about Chrome: vertical bookmarks, tab groups, split screen and reading mode.

Problem: My bookmarks bar takes up too much space on my screen

Solution : Settings > Bookmarks and Lists > Bookmarks bar > Only show on new tab page

Problem: I have multiple tabs open and can’t see them all across the toolbar

Right click on blank space in toolbar or right click on any tab > Show tabs vertically

To close the vertical display right click in a blank space of the vertical display  > Show tabs horizontally

Problem: I want to be able to see an ancestor on both FamilySearch and Ancestry to compare sources

Choose the Split Screen icon on the left of the toolbar, then in the right-hand panel choose the extra tab to display. To revert to single tab use the options displayed under the icon.

Problem: I want to keep (any group of tabs) e.g. Facebook, Gmail, Substack and Bluesky open, but I don’t want them cluttering up my tabs and distracting me from my research

On a new tab - Create new tab group from icon on far left or right click on any tab and Add tab to new group 

Give the group a name, choose a colour. Drag the tabs onto that group. Click on the group name to open or close the group.

My Daily group closed

My Daily group open

Useful when you are researching a particular topic and have opened multiple tabs on that topic that you want to read later.

Reading Mode  

Right click on a webpage and choose Open in Reading mode. Use tools at side to increase or decrease text size. This is particularly useful on pages like this Saving Genealogy Societies where there are videos and advertisements.

This post first appeared on https://carmelgalvin.info

Buried in the Details

Preserving the Details on the Tombstones 

The original meaning of graveyard referred to that area allocated for burials next to church building. 

Cemeteries are land dedicated to the burial of the dead. 

Both of these places have tombstones which through the years may deteriorate and become hard to read.

In this day and age we have many and varied online indexes to some of these places helping us to find the images of tombstones of relatives.

Digital Preservation

When I write for my family and future descendants I want my readers to be able to see what was on the original tombstone. Sometimes these are so degraded that a photo does not display the words clearly. 

Here I have used ChatGPT to clean up the images of these two tombstones. 

I provided the exact text in order to get the enhanced images. In the first instance I also requested that the green weed be removed.

I tried the same exercise in Gemini  but found Chat GPT’s rendition of the stones a better fit for purpose.

Yes, AI enhanced but it is likely that the reproduction is closer to the original than the degraded tombstone.

Have you tried this enhancement?

This post first appeared on https://carmelgalvin.info

The Digital Graveyard

Cleaning up the clutter

The house could do with a good clean, but it's the digital world that has my attention at the moment. Since we acquired our first computer in 1985, developments have been rapid. Accounts long forgotten lurk in a kind of digital graveyard, and I've decided it's time to lay several to rest. Over the years I was an early adopter of many sites and apps, each promised something useful. Those accounts largely free, had their uses but their moment is now long past.

Do you honestly know how many accounts you have accumulated over the years on sites that no longer exist? If you have a password manager you may be surprised what's still lurking therein. I found three saved passwords for sites that had vanished entirely. Then there were the others, one account now occupied by a casino, and another quietly taken over by a more respectable firm.

I was reminded of an earlier digital life today when I logged back into a long forgotten SlideShare account. I had not used it for 12 years but it still held a range of presentations I had uploaded and shared.  I took a screenshot to mark the occasion, then deleted the content and the account.

As I grow older I feel a growing responsibility to leave behind only what will genuinely be useful for my descendants. The digital world is cluttered enough without my adding to it indefinitely. I'm working to clean up my corner.

This post first appeared on https://carmelgalvin.info