Honey, I shrunk the pics...

How to shrink picture sizes on the fly and dynamically?

You know that newer Digital camera now comes with 39 Megapixel and the trend will go upward further. Now, when you try to send these huge files to your friend via email or want to upload somewhere in the web, unless it is for taking large print or of some academic value, LARGE photos are normally useless for the user when used in e-mails and web sites. A web page with smaller photo tends to load quickly. And it is an established truth that your reader may go away from your page if it does not load within 10-15 seconds.

 

There were hundreds of tool available to manipulate picture size. But, these two very convenient, on the fly picture size conversion freeware tool may be your ultimate friend:

 

1 - Windows Powertoys [Download] - Simply download this tool, install it and it is ready to convert your picture size on virtually anywhere where your context menu appear. Right Click on any picture and select Resize Picture context menu, and select appropriate picture size and you are done.

2 - Shrink Pic [Download] - Download and install this tool if you send large quantities of pictures to your friends or clients or you are involved in  serious Photoblogging. This tool converts large pictures to  web/email friendly small size pictures on the fly (you don't need to do anything once you install and configure it. It remains sit on system tray and once you attach a picture in your mail, it gets activated, and reduces the attached picture size.). It works equally great in Email Clients like Outlook or Thunderbird and Web mail like YahooMail or Gmail. If you photoblog with email, this tool may be your ultimate one.

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In Linux, there were many programs you can use (for a normal user, not an advanced one who can use scripts;) such as GIMP, Krita etc. but they need manual manipulations.

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Maybe, you have used other similar applications worth mentioning. Please let us in your comments.

Murphy’s Law of New Year

Murphy’s New Year laws

· New year comes with new problems

· New year comes with new, strange problems

· New year comes with old resolutions.

· In New year, old resolutions are taken with gravity to forget about it with equal gravity.

· New year’s resolutions goes the same way as old ones – remain unfulfilled.

· New year’s resolutions are easy to take but impossible to fulfill.

· New years first morning always comes with a hangover.

· New year passes same like old one.

· New year comes with same, old thing.

· In New year, your thoughts will not do magic either.

· New year comes late and goes fast.

· In New year – progress is eternal – in taxation, pollution, inflation, viruses, spam…

· In New year, you will have new thoughts that will not work either.

· New year’s experience will remain as old one.

· Smile. New year will be tough.

· For any given person, his or her best New years had already been past.

· Time passes, (new) years gets accumulated.

· New year goes the same way as old one and if you try to shift other way, it tries harder to go same way.

· You can’t buy happiness in this New year too.

· You won’t be new in New year.

· New year is great for everyone, but unfortunately, it comes a year or two later.

· Tanks, a bad year had passed. Worst comes as New year.

· Opportunity does not arrive in a New year. Either it had come with the past one or will come a year or two later.

· New year comes with great opportunity for great mistakes.

· History repeats itself. In New year, it will remain so.

· New year does not prove anything worthwhile.

· New years’ party’s intensity is directly proportional to how hard the going year had been experienced.

· New year brings you new expectations and left as it is after a year.

· New year can’t change anything. Including you.

· There is big myth that there is a thing like New year.

How to type Unicode Hindi in Remington (Krutidev series) Keyboard in Linux?


Online, the easiest way-

Use this online tool (you can use it offline too by saving it at appropriate location,)

http://raviratlami.googlepages.com/Remington-Krutidev-Online-Hindi-Easy-Editor.htm

Offline way, you need to install a remington binary file for scim:

Make sure you have installed latest version of SCIM.

Download this binary file - dev.remington.bin from here:

http://oriya.sarovar.org/download/dev.remington.bin

And copy it to /usr/share/scim/tables.


Restart SCIM.

There should now be an entry for Remington
under Hindi.

You can also copy
http://oriya.sarovar.org/download/dev.remington.png
to /usr/share/scim/icons.

(thanks to Gora Mohanti, gora at sarai dot net for the offline tip)

Why not to purchase Compaq Pressario Notebook V3225AU!

I had blogged about certain issues that I had faced with this particular unit in my previous post. The main reasons were - Its 64 bit Hardware was bundled with 32 bit operating system, and it is getting too hot to handle at its bottom!

After a few months of use, its optical drive starts giving trouble. To get it repaird, I had to submit it at Indore - that is 130 KM away from my location!

Anyway, I finally submitted the said unit to My local Vendor Satyam Computers Ratlam on 29th November 2007. It was delivered to Redington Indore on Dated 1-12-2007. But was refused since they do not accept on Saturdays and Sundays. Finally, it was delivered on 3-12-2007 for repair! (And, you talk about 24x7 service man!)

After 10 days, I got my repaired Laptop on dated 10-12-07. And, shockingly I found that the DVD drive is not reading any CD/DVD. After repair, the laptop was received in worst condition. I resubmitted the said unit for repair again, and am keeping my fingers crossed - when will I get my laptop back, and in good condition? Meanwhile, people at Redington Indore don't talk nice. I had registered a complain to HP-COMPAQ. Let us see what happened.

Meanwhile, I advise my readers to stay away from purchasing such type of faulty pieces. Further, always purchase Laptop/Notebook of brands that give you ON-SITE warranty or at least their service centers were located nearby you. I had burned my fingers, and I will not let this to my readers.

Following is the TEXT of complaint I had lodged at HP-Compaq site:
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My Compaq Pressario Notebook V3225AU - Sl. No. (S)2CE7214Q0X, Product No. (1P)RY301PA#ACJ had giving me error in reading DVD/CD Rom drive. The said unit was deposited to HP service center REDINGTON INDORE for repair. The said unit was deposited on dated 3-12- 2007 to rectify the problem in reading CD/DVD ROM drive.

The unit was only repaired and delivered on dated 8-12- 2007 - i.e. after 6 days. With utter dismay, It was found that the unit was not reading any CD/DVD media - while earlier it was reading some. The repaired unit was received in worst condition.

The said unit is again submitted today to Redington Indore, India for repair.

The technician at Redington Indore called me for administrative password of my Laptop. Which, in my opinion, was completely unnecessary, and I refused for that. Another person misbehaved and blamed me that I had installed 3 Pirated Operating System, and that could be the reason behind not running CD / DVD. But the said laptop was not BOOTING with live bootable CD / DVDs. Neither it is reading and writing any CD/DVDs

I am very much disappointed with this Compaq Laptop, its AFTER SELLS SERVICES particularly of Redington Indore and all that. I am going to advise my friends and my blog readers to stay away from buying such product.

Please look in to the matter and solve my problem at the earliest.

PS- I am using computers since last 20 years or so. I am a proud owner of COMPAQ PRESSARIO Notebook that had come with 8 MB RAM and 250 MB HDD (a premium hardware combination then). And, this ancient piece is still working (Win95) perfectly!

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