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Sunday, 20 May 2007
seaside, software and.. er.. something to do with lighting.
Once again, a small bundle of links and anecdotes has built up - not least from a day out at the South Coast, since I've not really had enough time to write a blog entry!
We had a lovely trip down, and the weather was wonderful, giving Lenni, Jon and me the opportunity to enjoy the sea breeze and the waves. Chris brought the cuddly toy "Tails" down with him, since his Beavers troop like to have photos of him/it in interesting locations, and - with Jon's help - we took a couple of snaps.
Despite a dreadful journey home (London Bridge was closed and a we ended up in a queue of trains at Blackfriars; at Farringdon, a platform announcement told potential travellers that the train was fast to Bedford, to which the driver responded over the train intercom with "That's the first I've heard of it." Suffice it to say, we were turfed off the train at Kings Cross, but another one clanked into the station shortly after, so we arrived back in Luton about three-quarters of an hour later than planned) we all had a lovely day, thanks to Mother, and the children were really good.
listening to...
I've really been enjoying the mildly eccentric, yet utterly compelling - not to mention quintessentially British Who Boys album: The Good The Bad and The Who Boys. If you like your drum'n'bass and mashups infused with English humour, you've got to check it out! Mind, it's for grown-ups, though.
software...
I wanted to find a piece of software I could use to burn ISO images; I didn't have to look much further than CDBurnerXP Pro. It's well-programmed, simple and, best of all, free!
It seems that Mac OS X doesn't really have much image manipulation software in-built; there are some excellent image correction tools in Preview, but to resize pictures you have to download an application. There are some good ones at www.yellowmug.com, along with some fine free utilities, too.
In other news, Neil 'Britcaster' Dixon played Summer In Britain on his fine A Minor Technicality podcast yesterday, without any request or bribery from me! It was great to hear it being given an outing, although it's brought home how much I need to make some more music (that's nearly two years old!) or at least work on uploading my back catalogue... once the next North South Divide is out, I'll make a start. Again!
Finally, a quick line about my new favourite household gadget - LED lamps! Although the prices are still quite high, they're extremely economical to run, and, judging by the brightness of the spotlights at the Bluetones gig, they can certainly hold their own against conventional lighting. Here's hoping the price comes down soon.
Right.. bedtime for me. Two more shifts (and a nightshift as a favour) before I start working more regular hours. I'll still be starting at 8am, but finishing at 6, which will hopefully give me a bit more time in the evening to do things...
Posted by james at May 20, 2007 9:30 PM
Comments
I love Yellowmug software, SnapNDrag (screen capture) is used almost daily here, with FileChute and EasyCrop being essential tools, too. Also, take a look at the free ImageWell ( http://xtralean.com/IWDownload.html ).
There's a new kid on the block for very quick image sizing, editing and croping,etc., and it's a widget: Photo Drop ( http://www.dropping.at/ ). It's a little slow on larger images (and on my ageing powerbook), but at just version 0.5 it's showing some real promise as a quick and easy resize/crop tool.
Posted by: neil at May 22, 2007 12:02 PM
Thanks for the info, Neil. Imagewell rings a bell (I think I downloaded it but haven't got round to installing it.. so many toys, so little time!), but I'll definitely download dropping!
Posted by: james at May 22, 2007 1:40 PM
I'd 2nd SnapNDrag screen cap and for routine batch resizing I tend to use Automator scripts like the resize pictures suite(http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/resizepicturessuite.html) -mind you I'm funny like that as I use Quicksilver(http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/) a lot and so find it easy to create worflows (it takes a while to become 2nd nature).
Posted by: Emalyse at May 22, 2007 6:43 PM
Wow.. the resize pictures suite looks pretty swish, too - I've not really had a good play with the Automator yet. Or even Smart Folders for that matter.
Thanks for the tips, Em!
Posted by: james at May 22, 2007 7:24 PM
Btw nice use of the word "clanked".
Posted by: Emalyse at May 23, 2007 11:03 PM
