How to re-size a photo with Photoshop

While creating a website, sending through email or uploading to social networking sites, we need to resize our photos. If a photo is very big in size, obviously it will take much time to upload or download. Moreover it is not necessary to share large size pictures into social networking sites. We can reduce the size of the picture without losing its quality.

I always use VSO image resizer software to reduce the size of the pictures. This simple software quickly reduces a bulk of photos within a minute. It also helps to watermark your pictures. Some online web apps also do this job with limited access.

But this tutorial will explain how to reduce a picture size with the great photo editing software, Photoshop. To get started, open your picture with Photoshop and go to images > Image Size (Keyboard shortcut for PC CTRL + ALT+ I).

Image size window appears. You can see the actual size of the picture. [In my case, width 4928px and height 3264px.] I would like to reduce the size into 800px. Before going to change the width, make sure if all the three checkboxes are ticked. (Scale Styles, Constrain Proportions and Resample Image).

‘Bicubic’ is the default resample tool used for reducing. But I suggest ‘Bicubic Sharper’ for better reduction. If you want to use this tool frequently, it is better to make this default by choosing Edit > Preference > General. Pick ‘Bicubic Sharper’ in Image Interpolation and click OK.

 It should be noted the re-sized image is 159 KB in size. Original size is 4,104 KB.

How to Sign Out Facebook Remotely

Sometimes you may forget to log out your Facebook account after using it at office, net café or your friend’s house. If the PC you used is online, anyone can misuse your Facebook account. Don’t worry. Facebook offers you an option to log out your Facebook account remotely. You can also use your mobile phone to do this task.

To get started, log in your Facebook book account from your home PC or mobile phone [I did it with Opera in mobile]. Go to ‘Account Settings’ and click ‘Security’ at the left panel.

Now click 'Edit' against ‘Active Sessions’ to notice your recent activities. Each activity shows the device and the browser you logged in recently and also shows date, time and location. If any information seems suspicious, click “End Activity” to log out the account from the device remotely.

After clicking 'End Activity' button, the remote PC will show this message.

Use Google Translate as A Proxy

Proxy servers help you to browse the web pages that were blocked in your area or workplace. In some countries even most popular websites like youtube.com, facebook.com etc. also have been blocked for various reasons. There are numerous ways to use proxy servers to browse such websites.

Some people use softwares, extensions or web apps as proxies to visit the blocked sites. I had bad experiences with those proxies because of too many annoying adds. Some proxies do not support to play video files and they also block cascading style sheets (CSS). It results nasty look for the page.
Recently I learnt how to use Google Translate as a proxy. It works perfectly and doesn’t block video files as well as CSS. It gives original look of the page.

How to do it: Type in the address bar http://translate.google.com and also add translate?sl=en&tl=ta&u=http://example.com. Here ‘sl’ means source language and ‘lt’ means destination language. [en – English, ta - Tamil] Don’t forget to set original language of the website as destination language. Don’t worry about source language. This may be ‘en’ or ‘ja’.

For example, the following URL has Tamil [The original language of the website] as its destination language while source language is in English.

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=en&tl=ta&u=http://lankasri.com

How to download a file directly to Dropbox

Dropbox is one of the most popular cloud storage that lets you to save any files such as photos, audios, videos and software into it and allows you to download them from anywhere as well. Generally if people find anything interesting on the web; first they download it and upload to cloud storage. The big problem is, while they use data package for  internet purpose, large amount data is spent for downloading and uploading.

If the file is uploaded directly to the cloud storage, it does not use a single byte of data for this purpose because the file is transferred through the clouds.

Here are few ways to upload a web file to Dropbox.

Use Google Chrome Extension

A simple extension called ‘Download to Dropbox’ makes the things easier. Head over to Chrome webstore to add the extension. After adding to your Chrome browser, you can download a photo or any file by right clicking on it.

Sometimes it might take a couple of minutes but eventually it will be downloaded into a folder which was created while configuring it.

Use a web app ‘Save web files’

‘Save web files’ is a little web app assists you to download a web file directly to the any cloud drive; Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Drive or Box. Right click on the file that you want to save and click ‘Copy Link Location’. Paste the URL into the box and click your cloud drive. This app is powered by Ink File Picker.

After linking with Ink File Picker, select a folder and give a name to the file. [Don’t forget to put the extension] Click ‘Save As’. That’s all the file will be downloaded to the folder in no time.

How to move Android Apps to SD Card

Every time when you install an Android application, it is automatically saved in internal storage of your device. Usually internal storage is smaller but most of the apps are running from here. The storage will be filled with a few apps and then will give ‘Low disk’ warning message.

If you want to install a new app then you need to uninstall another installed application. Furthermore your phone also needs certain space to run apps. Moving the installed applications to an external storage is the best solution to keep the space in the internal storage.  Some applications can be moved to SD card (external storage) but some are not. They must be always run from the internal storage which is mounted and cannot be removed from the device.

Moving an application to SD card is quite simple and easy but you may not aware of it. This tutorial will help you how to do it.

First, tap ‘Settings’ button on your phone or any Android device. Then go to ‘Application > Manage Applications’. It will show what the applications are installed and how much of memory is available in your device.

Tap an application which you want to move to SD card then tap ‘Move to SD Card’. If the ‘Move to SD card’ button is inactive, you are not able to move it into SD card. It means it should be run from the internal storage. If you find ‘Move to phone’ button instead of ‘Move to SD card’, it means the app has been already installed into SD card.

Shut down Windows 8 with 1 Click

Windows 8 came with nice look and well improved UI. Though it was especially designed for touch screen systems, it also works perfectly with mouse and other pointing devices.

How to shut down the system? This is the first experience most of you should have when you started to use Windows 8 because it doesn’t have the shut down button at its usual place. Then you have learnt how to do it though. By clicking the at the top-right corner of the desktop, you will get charms sidebar and go to settings > Power > shut down. [Win + C shortcut also brings the charms menu].
Nevertheless it needs 4 clicks or taps to turn off the PC. Alt + F4 also gives the quickest way to shut down.

Is it possible to shut down Windows 8 with just one click? Yes it’s possible. Let me explain how to do it. Here you don’t need to download any extension, software or codes.

1. First create a shortcut for shutdown process by right clicking on the Desktop and selecting New > Shortcut

 2. Type ‘Shutdown /s /t 0’ without quotes in the box provided (/s means shutdown the PC with a timeout of zero seconds (/t 0).  Then hit enter key and click ‘Finish’.

3. Now you will see a shortcut on the desktop. The double click of the shortcut will turn off the PC but this tutorial is extended till pinning the shortcut to metro tiles.

4. To change the icon of the shortcut, right click it and choose properties.

5. In the properties box, click ‘Change icon’ button and choose the regular icon for shutdown.

6. Now again right click the shortcut and choose ‘Pin to start’

Now you can shut down your pc with one click.

Customize Gmail background image with your own photo

Customizing the themes of Gmail is always fun. You can personalize your Gmail background with various themes provided by Gmail from istockphoto.com. It also allows you to create themes completely on your own.

A photo can be picked from your desktop PC, camera or picasa web. If you found a nice picture with good quality, copy its URL and paste it in the space provided. It reduces the time of downloading and uploading.

First let me explain how to use a photo from desktop PC. I suggest dark background pictures to give rich personalized look.

To get started, all the time you need go to Settings > Themes. Scroll down until you find ‘Custom Themes’. Now click ‘Light’ or ‘Dark’ which means the inbox color. There is no problem what you choose and you can change it next time. It will take you a fly menu which consists of the means to pick a photo.

Choose ‘Upload Photos’ from left panel and then click ‘Select photos from computer’. That’s all.

Pick the photo from Picasa web.

To choose a photo from picasa web album, click 'My Photos' which lists out your picasa web albums. Choose a photo from an album and click ‘Select’.

No wonder, click ‘Paste a URL’ to set a picture from another website.

How to download a Youtube video without any software or Java

Youtube is a rich source for all kinds of videos. It is said that every minute, 100 hours of video is uploaded by Youtube users. One billion visitors hit the site every month. According to the Youtube policy, it doesn’t allow its viewers to download the videos. I think Youtube protects the uploaders rights.

However there are several ways to download a Youtube video. Many free softwares such as VDownloader, Youtube Downloader, Orbit downloader etc available on the internet. If you use Mozilla Firefox, numerous add-ons like 1 click Youtube Video downloader and ByTubeD, may help you to download the videos. Google chrome doesn’t have any Youtube downloader extension as Youtube is one of Google’s products. Previously Chrome accepted other website extensions. Now it changed the way. You can only attach an extension in the Chrome Web Store.

Some websites savetube.com, savemedia.com and voobys.com easily allow the users to download the video by pasting the URL. But the problem is, all the time you need Java plugin to download it.
In this blog, I’ll give an easiest way to download youtube video without any software, extensions or Java.

Go to the browser’s address bar while playing a Youtube video and add ‘ss’ just before the ‘youtube’ and after ‘.’ followed by www.

URL before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9CWso66HCk
URL after:
https://www.ssyoutube.com/watch?v=f9CWso66HCk

 

Find the download links for various sizes and various formats. Click a download link and enjoy!
Keep in mind that some music videos cannot be downloaded due to a recent change in Youtube policy.

How to shut down Windows 7 faster

There is a massive improvement in Windows 7 start up with the new technology introduced by Aaron Dietrich of the Windows Client Performance team. However Microsoft Windows 7 has a slight drawback in optimizing shut down process. When my PC was fully loaded it was taking my time in minutes to shut down. I was terribly annoyed till I came to this solution. This method does not harm your operating system or hardware.

You need to do a small change in the registry file called ‘WaitToKillServiceTimeout’. Keep in mind, every change done in the registry affects the operating system. Therefore you are requested to follow the tutorial carefully.

First type “regedit” into the search box and hit enter key. Registry editor window will appear. Now navigate the path given below:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control

Find ‘‘WaitToKillServiceTimeout’ in the folder and double click it. Under the value data, change the default value to 2000 (2 seconds) . In my case, default value is 12000. (12000 means 12 seconds) Click OK to save the setting.

After this setting I am able to shut down my PC within 15 seconds.

Top 10 Cool Android Apps for Sri Lankans

There are several Android apps for Sri Lankans on the Google playstore. Most of them are free. After a small study I have been able to list out some useful apps for all Sri Lankan. The number does not mean the rank.

1.    Lanka ID Card

 Sri Lanka Department of Registration of Persons issues National Identity Card (often called NIC) for every Sri Lanka who attains 16 years of age. After obtaining this card, he or she becomes an eligible one to vote and is identified as a Sri Lankan while seeking for various services. The NIC has a unique 10 digit number ending with ‘V’ or ‘X’. Anyone can guess some information from this number such as date of birth, sex, age etc.  The first 2 digits give the year of birth of a person and next 3 say on which day of the year he or she was born and whether the person is male or female.
Lanka ID Card app makes the things easier. Simply input the NIC number and tap ‘Get Details’ button, the screen gives some essential information of the cardholder. This app gives date of birth, age, the weekday of birth, gender and voting eligibility. [Download Link]

 

2.    Electricity Bill Sri Lanka

Electricity bill has turned into a big headache for all Sri Lankan. For few months it has been a serious talk between the citizens.  Several people have started to monitor their service meter and try to control the use of electrical equipments.
This cool app offers you an electricity cost calculator. This allows you to calculate monthly electricity bill for a given period of time.  It produces the results in 3 ways old tariff, proposed tariff 2013 and approved tariff 2013 according the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka.
Select the category ‘Domestic’ or ‘Religious’ and give start date, end date and number of units consumed. Tap ‘Calculate’. [Download Link]

3.    Sri Lanka Train Schedule

This is an award winning app from which you can get the information of train schedule, train delays and ticket prices. This application is very useful for every Sri Lankan. Obviously most of the north people may not use this app until ‘Yarl Devi’ hits Jaffna station.
[Download Link]

4.    Sri Lanka Postal Codes

This simple application gives the postal code of every city in Sri Lanka and contact numbers of the post-office in the city.  It also allows you to search a city for a postal code. Postal code always helps to find exact place without any confusion.

[Download Link]

   

5.    Sinhala –Tamil - English Dictionary. 

With this nice app, find the meaning of an English word in Sinhala and Tamil. It supports for Android 1.5 and above. This dictionary has over 150,000 English words with spelling suggestions. No font installation is required.
You can use this dictionary as English to Sinhala or English to Tamil. The big advantage of this dictionary is that you can transliterate Sinhala to English or Tamil to English by the typing the Sinhala or Tamil words phonetically. For example, if you type ‘Ammaa’ it understands and transliterates as ‘mother’.
As this is an online dictionary, internet connection is required.
[Download Link]

 6.    Sri Lankan Recipe

This app delivers quick and easy to prepare recipes which can be made in your kitchen. All recipes have been made to taste in a western kitchen. Each recipe is explained with a nice picture.
All recipes have been classified into seven major categories Rice, Poultry, Beef, Seafood, Vegetarian, Sambol and other. Once you downloaded this app, you can refer the recipes offline too. No active internet connection is needed.
[Download Link]

7.    Sri Lanka Weather

This app gives 10 day weather forecast for major cities in Sri Lanka from current day. This application is quite different from other weather apps. The weather of the cities is shown on an interactive map of Sri Lanka. It lets you to changes the unit of the temperature C or F.
[Download Link]

 

8.    Sri Lanka Bus Fares.

Bus fares for major cities in Sri Lanka can be viewed with this application. Find the route number and bus fares by entering the starting location and ending location. It gives the normal rates, semi luxury rates as well as luxury rates.

[Download Link]

9.    Sri Lanka Heritage

Sri Lanka Heritage is a travel and tourism guide which shows the heritage and historical sites of Sri Lanka. It gives the information, map and nearby things for each heritage.  You can pick your place with Google map and find the nearest heritages, historical sites and hotels. But its full version allows you to find nearest ayurveda and spa, beach, bars pubs nightlife, hospital, shopping mall, wildlife and so on.
[Download Link]

10.    Sri Lanka mobile portal

This is very useful information for those who work in Government institutions and those who seek information regarding Government institutions and services.  It provides government mobile applications for Android, Government SMS (GovSM) services such as Postal Codes, NIC Application Status Tracking, Police Clearance Certificate Status Tracking and Train Schedule.
[Download Link]