Archive for the 'Software' Category

Microsoft Photo Info is a tool for adding metadata to your photos. Released in January 2007, this is a free tool for Windows XP SP2 or Vista (32-bit versions) that will help you update batches or individual photos with titles, keywords, descriptions, locations and other information. I’ve been using Photo Info to add metadata to photos I’ve shared on Flickr for 2 days, and it has worked better than any of the other Windows solutions I’ve tried thus far.

After Thomas Hawk’s (heavy user of Flickr and CEO of Zooomr) recommendation of jUploadr over the supported Flickr Uploadr, I was curious to try it and see if it would save me time. jUploadr is written in Java, which means you can run it on Windows, Mac or Linux, where you have a Java runtime environment installed. The Flickr Uploadr tool is Windows and Mac only at this time (I have never used it in OS X).

Lately I’ve been bothered by a couple of things, regarding my digital music library:

1. I have to keep upgrading my external hard drive storage capacity, because new music is consistently being added.
2. My music is only accessible from wherever the external hard drive is, which means I have to lug it around to work, on vacation, etc.

There are three things I wish to accomplish:

1. Eliminate the limit on my music storage capacity.
2. Access my music from anywhere in the world.

Over the holiday break, you are probably taking a lot of photos, all of which will eventually get imported to your computer. While picture taking is fun, importing is sometimes a laborious task, because not every picture is a “keeper.” You have to manually sift through each photo, and decide to keep it or trash it.

On Mac OS X, there are some tools that allow you to streamline this process more easily. So rather than spending New Year’s Day sifting through all of your photos, you can enjoy your holiday.

QOOP is a printing service that has partnered with photo sharing sites like Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket and others, to offer inexpensive and easy-to-create Photo books and more. As a Flickr user I was interested in QOOP Photo Books because they are inexpensive, I don’t need to download any special software, and I don’t need to re-upload or re-annotate photos I have already shared online. Even if your Flickr photos are uploaded with “Private” access, they can still be printed through QOOP.

Here’s a quick tutorial on how to create a calendar of events that you’d like to share with others, specifically users of Apple’s iCal, Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook.

My winter basketball league recently released the schedules on their web site. We like the web site, but it’d be nice to be able to view the events (each game) in our own calendar applications.

As a 2 year SmugMug “Standard” account holder, I built up a large collection of photos, painstakingly uploaded, organized and annotated.  Since 2004, the online photo sharing service market has changed considerably.  I’ve had a Flickr account for nearly as long and have always been impressed with the features, speed, and ease of use, but I also felt locked-in to Smugmug because of the large collection I’d amassed with SmugMug-specific metadata (that is not easily transferable).  Des

On this day, Americans around the country will take part in Democracy by casting their votes for candidates and platforms. What most Americans don’t know is that another kind of Democracy exists, a kind you write code for, a kind you contribute documentation to, a kind you use to discover great video content that is delivered through the Internet. You may be sick of phone calls and mailings asking for support, but I can assure you that you’ll support this platform (provided you’re running Windows, Linux or OS X).

Google Video Player lets you download and watch videos in full high-resolution quality instead of the low quality streamed video available at video.google.com. Videos that contain detailed visual information (like application demos or code samples) must be viewed in their native resolution to discern fine details. This player combined with downloaded video solves the problem of “fuzzy” (but fast) streamed video available online. Google makes a downloadable player for Windows and Mac (though I didn’t test this).

After a fresh installation of Windows XP there are a number of tasks I complete to customize my installation, improve performance, and reduce system resource utilization. The quick tips below show you how to remove balloon notifications and Windows XP Genuine Advantage warnings, fill functionality gaps with Windows PowerToys, and prevent certain actions from happening or applications from starting. If you find some of these tips useful, or have related tips of your own, please share them in the comments.