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Cord Control Stills and
Internet Data Removal
By Bob DeLaurentis
Q. My grandson accidentally sent my laptop crash- menu. I suggest starting with a quick trip to the VLC
ing to the floor when his leg hooked around its pow- application settings. There you can set a hotkey to
er cord. Other than unplugging my new laptop when give you precise control over triggering each snap-
he visits, how do I tame the mess of cables that is shot. You can customize the folder where the stills
lurking around my computer table? are saved, and which file format is used. (PNG files
A. I am sorry that this turned into such an expen- are best.)
sive lesson. The cords and wires that populate our The quality of the images that result may disap-
lives seem pretty much invisible until something point you. Images that look fine as part of a video
goes wrong. Product photography rarely shows are not the same as frames from a still camera. Vid-
wires of any kind. But in real life cables, cords, and eo and still cameras are fundamentally different, and
wires are everywhere. so are the images they capture. That said, in my ex-
There is a wide variety of techniques for detan- perience the results can be good. With recent ad-
gling cord clutter. Any web search for "cable man- vancements in post-processing apps, it is even pos-
agement" will return thousands of responses. It turns sible to make a decent 8x10 print from a video still.
out there are plenty of clever products for keeping
wires under control. Q. How can I remove my personal information from
I keep a bag of Velcro straps handy that I use to the internet?
wrap up excess length cable into loops (never bend A. Because information is so widely redistributed
any cable sharply), or to tie several cables together online, complete removal is probably impossible.
in a single bundle. Besides Velcro straps, there are However, there are several steps you can take that
zippered pouches, plastic tubing, and good old fash- will reduce your online footprint.
ioned wire ties. Step one is to delete any accounts on social' me-
Another common fix is to mount a power strip to the dia. Most companies do not erase deleted data, but
desk (the underside works well) to keep power ca- deleting the accounts makes them inaccessible to
bles off the floor and out of the way. search engines and keeps people from finding or
Cables that never change can be left alone once accessing them. This works best when you simply
they are placed, but cables that are frequently want to withdraw from participation and remove the
plugged and unplugged from a device require a dif- bulk of what you have posted.
ferent approach. One of my favorite cable manage- In situations where you 'want to remove a specific
ment tools is a weighted (or adhesive) clip that piece of data, but you also wish to continue partici-
keeps a cable from slipping behind a desk when it is pating in social media, the choices are more difficult.
disconnected from its device. You can try deleting the item in your account, but if it
It might not be the most exciting. thing on your to-do has been reposted by someone else it will remain
list, but spending a little time moving your cables out accessible.
of harm's way is worth the effort. A last resort, mostly because of its cost, is a ser-
vice like deleteme.com
Q. I have a lot of home videos on DVD. I want to
grab still images from the video. Is it possible and
where can I find such a device?
A. Yes, it is possible, and you can use just about
any personal computer. There are many paths to
make this work. Probably the easiest method is to
download a free app called VLC media player
(videolan.org). If the computer meets VLC's modest
system requirements, and it can play a DVD, you will
be good to go. (Note: because of copy protection,
these instructions do not cover commercially pub-
lished DVDs.)
VLC can play just about any video format in exist-
ence. And taking a still is as easy as playing the
content and choosing "Snapshot" from the video
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