My wife wanted a simple application which would take some of our digital photos and images and shrink or resize them down to the very small size of the screen of her digital media player, the iRiver H10 20GB. Although there must be a decent free application out there that can do that for Windows, I couldn't find one. So, I created one for her, and you! (I'm aware of the power toy, but it's not what she was looking for). By downloading it and installing it, you're agreeing to the legal text at the end of this post.

The installation is here (Zip with Setup/msi).

Requirements: .NET 2.0 Framework.

After installation, the application is installed in All Programs > WiredPrairie.us Applications > Photo Shrinker.

There are several ways to add photos: Click the Add button at the bottom of the application or drag photos (from Windows Explorer for example) onto the application. Only JPEGs (JPGs) are supported at this time.

Once added, the application shows thumbnails of the photos:

If your camera supports the orientation EXIF setting, the photos are automatically rotated.

The arrow on the right indicates the photo has been rotated. You can also rotate photos by using the rotate feature:

Click on an image and then click the Rotate 90 button. To select multiple images, hold down the CTRL key when you click or use SHIFT and click to select a range of photos.

After rotation:

The moose above was rotated. You can also right click on an image and rotate either clockwise or counter clockwise.No changes are made to the original images in either case.

Once you're ready to resize your images, click the Resize All button. The resize options are displayed:

You can adjust the size of the images to a size you specify or one of the predefined sizes:

You must provide the name of a directory where you want to save the resized images. The directory is created automatically if it doesn't exist.

If you want to rename the resized images with a common prefix, check the Rename images... box and in the Starts with field provide the prefix for the file names. For example, you might type Vacation. The photos are automatically numbered starting with 1. When you're ready to save the resized images, click the Start button. The various adjustments you made are automatically saved so that the next time you use the application, it's easy to apply the same resizing choices you made last time.

That's all there is to it. If you want to create other sizes, just repeat the resize process. At no point will the application overwrite a file that already exists. So, you may need to delete files occasionally if you want to try a different size or quality. And, it never changes the original file, even if you rotate it within the software.

Update (August, 2006): The PhotoShrinker now copies all of the source image's EXIF information to the new file.

If you have any comments or questions, e-mail me at my contact info on the about page.

Enjoy!

License Agreement

Copyright (C) 2005-2006 WiredPrairie.us (http://www.wiredprairie.us)

Redistribution and use binary forms without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
2. The name of the author and/or web site may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Posted by Aaron at 5:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

iDVD 5 doesn't include a MPEG-2 Decoder?

I use Vegas Video to edit footage on my PC. I use the built in MPEG-2 encoder to get the encoding I want. However, I can't use iDVD to make a DVD as it's not one of the accepted formats. Eh? Hello?! It looks like I might be able to pay $20 US for an upgrade to QuickTime 7 and get MPEG-2 decoding support, but the support for audio is limited as it does not support AC3, DTS, or PCM audio formats.

I can't tell if iDVD is easy to use as the vast majority of my content is in MPEG-2 format today. I'd like to check it out, but this is a set-back. I don't want to transcode any content to DV format (as that would just be useful for a test, as there's no way I'm going to start doing that for everything I have).

Posted by Aaron at 9:08 PM | Permalink

I just read this guest post on Brent Simmons' blog written by Nick Bradbury, author of FeedDemon (and the corresponding post from Nick here). Now that NetNewsWire and FeedDemon are owned by newsgator, it's obvious that the two applications can align more closely.

From Nick:

Following my brief experience with OS X, I decided I could learn a lot from Mac applications, many of which are more elegant and simpler to use than their Windows counterparts. And NetNewsWire is the one I've learned from the most - it packs an awful lot of power into a deceptively simple UI.

The reason I mention this is that both authors are asking questions about how to make their applications better. I want to learn why people like the Mac so much and see if that essence is particular to the Mac and OS X, or something else that we can all benefit from on all operating systems. Ignore stability claims/viruses, etc. as I don't want to talk about drivers or anything of the such. What is your favorite Mac application? What is your favorite Windows application? Why?

Posted by Aaron at 8:32 PM | Permalink

I've been using my new little buddy, an Apple Mac mini, for several days now. I've heard so many claims about how easy Mac's are to use and how wonderfully simple all of the software is for the OS X that I'd like to know what people find so wonderful in particular. I've got some thoughts that I'll write up very soon (as I'm still in my initial survey stage), but I'd like to hear what others think as well! Examples could include software applications, particular features, looks, etc. Anything goes. Thanks!

And if there are things you don't like, include those too!

Posted by Aaron at 8:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

I'm trying Rocketpost. Yes, a while back, I said I would never do that as it cost way more than I was willing to spend. Manish just posted though on my web site in a comment that they dropped the price to $37 for a single user version. So, I jumped at the chance to try it as I still am not sold on Blogjet.

I installed it into the default path and started it immediately. Unfortunately, here's what I encountered right away:

I don't have any odd font settings, so it was weird to see the dialog cut off.

I went through the connection wizard. Not bad, some minor issues and confusion over what I should type in the various fields (especially the path to my MovableType installation).

Some minor issues with things being lined up. I'm beginning to worry a bit about the "fit and finish" of the application.

Once I got through the wizard, I selected new post and began typing. One of the important features I wanted is the ability to easily add images. So, to add the first screen shot, I selected, Insert, then Picture... Selected the image from my local drive and:

The path is covered by the image! Luckily, the Path field really isn't necessary.

From my recent post about blogging software features I want, it has everything except clickable thumbnail creation (like BlogJet). I'll continue to use it and see how it works out. I remain optimistic. I do certainly appreciate Manish/Anconia dropping the price to a more reasonable and affordable price.

Edit: It may have thumbnail creation. But in some experiments, it's been buggy and not uploaded the images for some reason.

Posted by Aaron at 8:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

On Sunday, we welcomed a new member to our computing environment at the Wired Prairie:

More on the experience in upcoming posts.

Posted by Aaron at 8:44 PM | Permalink

Excuse me? A patent on XML? How this one plays out will be interesting (and a bit scary) to watch. I certainly don't plan on stopping the use of XML any time soon. I'll leave it up to the big software giants to battle this one out, if it even goes so far.

Two patents were referenced: 5,842,213 and 6,393,426. Reading patents tends to make my head hurt, especially the more generic and all encompassing they attempt to be, as both of these after a quick read of the claims seem to be.

Posted by Aaron at 7:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you’re having trouble with Firefox and Flash after a recent update, you may have the same problem I had. If you’re using Adblock, a popular Firefox extension, the Macromedia home page might look like this:

The solution that worked for me was to change the Adblock settings. Here’s how:

In Firefox, in the Tools menu, select Adblock and then Preferences (or Ctrl+Shift+P).

Click on the Adblock Options button at the top of the dialog. The drop down should look similar to this:

Note that the Obj-Tabs option is currently checked. Click that option to deactivate the Obj-Tabs feature.

Click the Done button, and click Refresh on the browser.

The small Obj-Tabs are gone, but Flash content has returned! Activating this option does make it more challenging to block Flash content on web pages. As it is right now though, with them enabled, all Flash content is being disabled.

Posted by Aaron at 7:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

From Voodoo Computers, comes the Mac Mini—I mean the Idol—starting at $900 US. Come on people, can’t anyone innovate besides Apple? For a decent setup, the price climbs to $1500 really quickly. Ouch.

Posted by Aaron at 10:07 PM | Permalink

Bindows - Very cool, but VERY expensive at 695 per developer. It’s a OOP DHTML framework for doing very rich web browser applications. Check out the demo on the home page for an example of what it can do.

Posted by Aaron at 9:54 PM | Permalink

We’re looking to buy a new car. Given the rising prices of gasoline, I’m paying more attention the fuel economy of the various vehicles we’re considering. I wanted to have a reference table available for comparing the various MPG ratings and the potential cost of fuel for a certain amount of driven miles. So, rather than breaking out Excel (or even just calculator), I created a simple web page with the functionality I wanted. Provide a range of MPG, the cost of gas, and the miles driven, and bam!, out pops a handy table with row highlighting. Simple. No server side code was harmed in the making (AJAX free!). It works for miles or kilometers and gallons or liters … it doesn’t care (or is that kilometres and litres?). Give it a spin. If there’s a feature you’d like added, post a comment and I’ll see what I can do (no promises though).

Although I can’t and won’t guarantee the values are accurate nor fit for any particular use … I think they probably are and my testing seems to show they are . This was tested in Firefox, IE 6 and Opera.

Fuel Economy Cost Calculator

Posted by Aaron at 9:49 PM | Permalink

Two nights ago, I upgraded to the latest rollup package (2) for my home built Media Center. Last night, likely coincidentally, the remote control stopped doing its one task: controlling. It was clearly sending the signal (the IR repeaters installed in our house were flashing as expected), but the media center wasn't functioning. After taking the batteries out and reseating them, it still didn't work. I restarted the media center. Nothing. Turns out, occasionally, the remote needs to be reset completely. You can leave the batteries out for as much as a week to drain the capacitors, or you can take a short cut I found on the web in various forums:

Using a conductive metal (a paper clip for example), remove the batteries. Touch the positive and negative leads together on one end of the battery compartment for several seconds with the paper clip. Repeat on the other end. Replace the batteries.

This simple solution to reseting (shorting) the remote did the trick and the remote began functioning again.

Posted by Aaron at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Has anyone tried Google Reader? There was quite a bit of buzz about it for a week or so, but I haven’t heard much since. I just tried it briefly. I know it’s a “lab”/beta product, but it’s definitely still quite rough around the edges, especially for a Google product. Someone at work had mentioned trying it with my web feed, but he was interrupted and I never heard the end of the story.

Thought I’d give it a spin for my self tonight. Here was the general experience (as always, click on most images to get a larger version):

After signing in (you’ll need a Google account, probably an gmail account), you’ll be greeted by a screen similar to the following:

First reactions:

• Cluttered. Too much going on.
• Too much text to read just to get started.

I went for the “enter the feed URL” link right away. Maybe there’s a better way, but that’s what I found first.

You’ll get something like this (although the technique seemed to change, so your experience may vary slightly):

I typed in the address of my web feed. This was a bit confusing however.

Preview? No. I just want to add it.

I’ve gone to the trouble of typing it in, am I likely to want to preview the feed? My 80% answer would definitely be just add it. Given that I only had 2 choices and Cancel seemed counter-productive, I went for the Preview button. Note the display issues it’s having in the screen shot above. CSS issues (as I’ll show in just a moment).

The terminology is a bit confusing for the average Google user. Unnecessarily so. Instead of sticking with “Subscriptions” and just “Add”, they throw in “feed” and for good measure, OPML. Not sure if those need to be so prominent right away. Feed I could live with, but hide away the OPML reference or put it somewhere else (like under More Actions).

I had to try this several times. I was greeted with this once:

I was greeted with the un-styled version once:

Finally, after repeated attempts:

Up it pops.The side bar on the left is a scrolling fly-out thingy … I don’t know how to describe it exactly. The bar stays in place while the list scrolls underneath. It’s odd. Since the bar is fixed, if you scroll to the bottom of the list, you actually end up with two entries showing, even though there’s room for about 7. It’s nice that the buttons above the list stay fixed, it makes it easy to navigate through the list.

That being said, this is a very slow way to browse blog entries. Click. Click. Click. Click. A newspaper style scrolling display is far easier to read and Google knows that. They do it every where else (all of their search listings for example require only use of the scroll bar to see and read results). So, I can only hope that this is just an experimental user interface.

I’m not going to spend too much time on this as I have no plans on being a RSS reading web convert any time soon. I spend too much time still off line that I don’t want to have all my RSS content unavailable or locked up within Google. It’s of course handy that I could read it anywhere, but there’s nothing new about Google’s play in the market that I can see (and there are a lot of other more mature options available for web only reading).

Oh, after some further playing around, I finally saw the “subscribe” button that you use after previewing the feed. Instead of a link (like the Add, it’s a button). I was totally overlooking it — but then again, it wasn’t obvious. (I didn’t even notice it until I pasted the image in above).

Try it out for yourself if you’re interested, but don’t expect to move all of your RSS reading to Google anytime soon.

Posted by Aaron at 8:25 PM | Permalink

Arrgh! I want to create an “observable” Dictionary class. Anytime an item is added, removed, etc., I want an event to be raised.

Using the System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary<TKey, TValue> class however is a no-go. Microsoft did not provide virtual methods for the dictionary modification methods (like Add). Dictionary happens to be one of those classes that isn’t a quick aggregation away from making a new version either, it has complex serialization, implements a bunch of interfaces, etc. Very annoying. I would have been less annoyed (in a way) had they done the same for the Collection<T> class. It however has all of the needed virtual methods to make it possible to observe. (OK, so that’s actually a positive thing, but it’s inconsistent).

I could use the C# new modifier, but then it doesn’t give me the true OOP behavior I need as there would be still methods of getting access to the dictionary without going through my methods by simple type-casting.

If I’m missing something, please help! Otherwise, score one less for the .NET 2.0 Framework.

Posted by Aaron at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you maintain a blog, what software do you use to publish to your blog? I’m looking around. My current favorite is BlogJet as it’s clean and simple and has the minimal feature set I need:

• Windows XP compatible
• Spell checking
• Automatic image uploading and thumbnail creation
• WYSIWYG (or close enough). I don’t need it to be exact, I just want to see the basic format of the text and not have to use raw HTML.
• Edit a/any post
• See and modify the raw HTML (only when necessary).
• Recently updated/maintained (nothing where the last software update was in 2004 for example)

The only reason I haven’t jumped and purchased it is because of its current price, $39.95. It’s above that maximum impulse shareware purchase price of $19.95 that I mentally have in place.

I’ve tried a handful of options, but few of them so far can do the short list above. I’m not willing to shorten/eliminate any of the items either.

Maybe “flock” will fit the bill when it’s released.

Posted by Aaron at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Does anyone use and paid for RocketPost from Anconia? It’s normally $149 US (I’ve seen coupons for $50 off occasionally). I can’t imagine paying that much for a blog publishing tool. So, I’m curious if others have found it useful. I believe the developer, “Manish” has been posting a couple of comments on another entry at my site (here) and I mentioned that I wouldn’t consider it given the expense.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still not. I suggested that they provide a more limited version (more similar to BlogJet) for less.

Post a comment if you’ve bought RocketPost. Bonus if you indicate why!

And, no I am not attempting to make money through their referral program by including a link to their web site, I went so far as to include the rel=nofollow HREF attribute value on the link above.

Posted by Aaron at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

If you’ve downloaded the most recent Novell Linux 9 installed VMWare image trial —what a mouthful—directly from Novell you may encounter some video display issues during the first boot. Essentially X Windows won’t start. Worse, at least on my machine, the display was nearly completely garbled to the point of hopelessness. To add insult to injury, you likely will be able to read that X Windows won’t start and that you’ll need the undocumented root password to make changes.

Once you realize that the password for the root account in the trial VM image is “novell”, you at least have a fighting chance. The full solution is here (even though it’s not clear that this solution would work, it does).

Here are the steps:

Log in as root and do the following:

init 3
sax2 -r
say 'ok' to the new sax configuration.
init 5

Once you start sax2, you’ll need to adjust the resolution of the display (unless you want to run at the default 640x480).

After getting X-Windows and Novell Linux 9 up and running, I updated to the latest versions of Mono and its dependencies using these commands, logged in as root:

rug sa http://go-mono.com/download
rug sub mono-1.1-official
rug sub gtk-sharp-official
rug in mono-complete gtk-sharp

Updating to the latest version the VMWare tools with this downloaded VM image didn’t work. There’s an older version already installed that functions well enough.

click to enlarge

One minor issue right away I noticed …

Given that this is commercial software, I’m surprised to encounter messages like “NOT IMPLEMENTED; System pointer message 0x7f00.” It seems harmless enough as the remote desktop connection I made seemed quite functional while I used it for a couple of minutes.

I understand the warning (although I don’t know why anyone would really care that the server limited the color depth), but the second happens every time I used RDP at any color depth (both with defaults and manually set).

(I’m amazed by how much the Terminal Server Client UI was completely stolen from the Microsoft Windows Remote Desktop application though!).

Posted by Aaron at 3:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

SixApart, developers of MovableType, published a fix for the Windows Server 2003 error that many people are experiencing when installing version 3.2. The original error is described here (and a fix). The fix seems hacky to me.

The original error you might be getting:

CGI Error
The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers.

I have not tried the fix. My current implementation is working, so I’m not inclined to break it unnecessarily. But if anyone tries it and has good luck with the fix, please post a comment so that others know it works well.

Posted by Aaron at 8:14 PM | Permalink

I’m not sure what to think …

Photoshop Magic Melts Prison Bars

Why stop at prisons? There’s a whole non-travel industry opportunity for someone ….

Posted by Aaron at 7:56 PM | Permalink

Using an image from NASA Visible Earth, and playing around with some options for ray tracing and the hypershader …

click for larger image

Posted by Aaron at 8:56 PM | Permalink

Uh, this seems like the one of the biggest non-events in Sun and Google’s recent history.

“MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF., - October 4, 2005 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Google Inc. today announced an agreement to promote and distribute their software technologies to millions of users around the world. The agreement aims to make it easier for users to freely obtain Sun's Java Runtime Environment (JRE), the Google Toolbar and the OpenOffice.org office productivity suite, helping millions of users worldwide to participate in the next wave of Internet growth. “

The first result: the exciting merger of the availability of the free Google Toolbar and the free Java runtime as a merged download. Will this craziness ever end? What next, make available the free OpenOffice for free?

Name 3 things I don’t have little or no interest in installing on my machines. Pick only from the list of products above in the press-release snippet.

Posted by Aaron at 2:43 PM | Permalink

I'd like to nominate the following user interface for a "UI of Shame" award.

This dialog is shown in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to "aid" in selection of a series of folders, in particular to specify the locations for "Find in Files" search functionality (the dialog is barely changed from VS 2003).

Here's the list of things not to duplicate in your own UI (with some suggestions for improvement below):

• The help text at the top really isn't helpful and uses the phrase "search" folder three times. The actual term "Search Folder" appears only in the text of the help and the dialog caption, nowhere else.
• Common user directories (such as My Documents) are not available since this is a custom dialog in the folder browser.
• No way to specify a UNC style path (\\server\mynetworkcode).
• Non-standard folder browsing. The folder browser reminds me of the VBX control available for VB3!
• Long directory paths are easily truncated and require scrolling to see the entire path (on both selected and the available).
• The dialog is not resizable (see previous point as to why this would be useful)
• The folder browser is not a tree, even though that's the 95% case in Windows UIs (and Visual Studio UI)
• The up and down buttons aren't the same visual style as the other buttons on the dialog.
• Available folders is blue? It's not a hyperlink.
• Awkward layout of controls � selected folders list box is aligned with the top of the directory path, but then with the bottom of the group box
• The "<" arrow doesn't really make sense, as the list doesn't move from one list to the other. I understand it, but it's not great.
• A double-click on the available folder list drills down into the sub folder, even though a double-click is usually a "add this" in a UI like this. But because this is a non-standard folder UI, double-click would have two typical meanings.

Improvements:

• Reword the help text at the top to eliminate redundancy with th dialog caption.
• Try to eliminate the need for help text by improving the overall flow of the UI. If it was made more logical, I'd suggest the text could be eliminated entirely. Part of the problem is that the Folder Set functionality is the first thing the user encounters, which makes it more confusing. This is probably the least common task (although a useful feature which I don't use that often and prefer to just use the most recently used lists and built in ones �)
• Make the dialog resizable
• Use the standard folder browser controls at a sufficient reasonable width.
• Show the list of selected directories in a wider list. Consider below the directory list if necessary.
• Label the add > button, and the other < button really should be a delete.
• Reduce the amount of mouse travel if possible. Again, probably having the standard tree style directory browser would help.
• Line up controls more naturally. Consider alternate layout so that the group box around Available Folders isn't needed.
• Add a tool-tip over long directory names.
• Available folder address bar should be wider. Developers tend to paste addresses directly into places and it's nice to see more of what has been pasted.

What else would you change (or what else do you like)? Any examples of something like this but a lot better that you'd recommend Microsoft consider?

I continue to post these types of UI reviews, hoping that someone can benefit from seeing some analysis of user interfaces--both with crticicisms and improvements--and just maybe improving software applications and designs in the process.

Posted by Aaron at 11:25 AM | Permalink

Another attempt at an RSS Bandit logo idea. I was trying to get away from the currently popular newspaper style as a newspaper reminds me of a news reader, not an RSS reader. I can see that my comments of the “pirate” had some impact, which was my goal last time I submitted.

Feel free to comment.

Posted by Aaron at 3:03 PM | Permalink