Issue 422 - November 15, 2006
ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements © 2006
==== 1539 Subscribers in 50 Countries ====
Welcome to the 422nd issue of the PC Improvement News. PCIN consists mainly
of news and tips. There is something for everyone, and if this is your first
issue, I'm sure there will be something for you. If you give me two or three
issues, I know that you will come back for more!
You can reach me at editor@pcin.net with
any suggestions or comments.
Support PCIN at http://PCIN.net/donate.php
CONTENTS
Opening Thoughts
Chris is on vacation this week, but he has still put together part 2 of his
resizing images tip. You can read about below in the Digital
Photography Tip of the Week section.
We're still well over a month away, but Andrew and Matthew are starting to
get very excited about Christmas. I think we'll have to put our decorations
out earlier than normal in order to keep them happy :-)
Graham editor@pcin.net and
Chris chris@pcin.net
The NEWS
Websites face four-second cut-off
Shoppers are likely to abandon a website if it takes longer than four seconds
to load, a survey suggests.
The research by Akamai revealed users' dwindling patience with websites that
take time to show up.
It found 75% of the 1,058 people asked would not return to websites that
took longer than four seconds to load.
Read the BBC article...
Leave a comment...
Stadium of the future swings for the fences
If Cisco Systems Inc. has its way, the Oakland Athletics' new ballpark in
Fremont will be the stadium of the future.
Fans will swipe electronic tickets stored on cell phones. Bleacher bums will
view instant replays at their seats with laptop computers. And digital advertising
displays will be able to switch images based on the buying habits of the
people walking by through data embedded in their cell phones.
That was the vision that A's owner Lew Wolff laid out to Fremont City Council
members this week in a pitch for Cisco Field, a planned ballpark featuring
the company's technology, Fremont Mayor Bob Wasserman said Thursday.
Read the CNN article...
Leave a comment...
Tech asks departing Republicans for favors
As Republican politicians return this week to Washington for the waning
days of their rule of Capitol Hill, technology lobbyists are frantically
pressing for last-minute legislation before Democrats take over next year.
At issue are proposals including renewing a popular tax credit for research
and development expenses and expanding the number of H1-B visas, which are
temporary visas designed for skilled foreign workers. Many spending bills
to fund the federal government through the next year have yet to be considered,
and the final versions could include antipiracy measures and Web censorship
requirements.
Read the TechRepublic
article...
Leave a comment...
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Digital Photography
Tip of the Week
How To Resize a Photo: Part 2 - Digital Photography Tip of the
Week
Last week I started my discussion on how to resize an image in Photoshop Elements
5. This week I will conclude that discussion.
The difference between the Pixel Dimensions section and Document Size section
of the Image Size dialog box is that changes in the Pixel Dimension section
will add or remove pixels from your image and changes in the Document Size
section will not. Using the same example from last week, my current image dimensions
are 1200 x 1161 pixels, or 16.667" x 16.126" at 72 DPI. If I wanted
to print this 8 inches wide, I would first turn off the Resample Image checkbox
(which tells Photoshop to add or remove pictures, and disables the Pixel Dimensions
section) and then change the value in the width text box in the Document Size
section to 8. When I do this, the height will automatically changed to 7.74" and
the Resolution to 150 DPI. At this point, I have not added or removed any pixels
(data) from the image so the integrity of the original image remains. 150 DPI
is a little on the low side for printing though. To keep the size of the image
the same (8 x 7.74) but print to 300 DPI, turn the Resample Checkbox back on.
Changing the Resolution from 150 to 300 will now keep the document size the
same, but the Pixel Dimension of your image will now be 2400 x 2322.
When resampling an image, there are 5 resampling methods you can use, Nearest
Neighbour, Bilinear, Bicubic, Bicubic Smoother and Bicubic Sharper. The last
three are the ones used for photographs most often. I generally only use Bicubic
in my photography, though I rarely change pixel dimensions unless I am posting
my image to the web. Bicubic interpolation uses adjacent pixels up, down, left
and right to determine what colour pixels to add or remove as part of the image
resize process. It is suggested that scaling up large amounts to use Bicubic
Smoother to help eliminate some of the jaggies introduced into the upscaled
image and Bicubic Sharper when scaling down to account for the loss of detail
that will occur as image data is removed during downscaling.
The Scale Styles option will scale styles such as layer styles, borders and
drop shadows up or down as necessary when resizing the image. I never turn
this option off. When resizing for the web, simply use the Pixel Dimension
section of the dialog box as computers ignore resolution and display images
based upon their physical pixel dimensions.
Ultimately, it is always best to start off with the largest file size you
have. I have suggested in the past that you should always shoot on the highest
resolution your camera can record. Doing so will eliminate much of the need
to upscale your image for a large print, while still allowing your to easily
downsize your image when needed. It is better to have to downsize and throw
away data than try to add data to your image when you upsize the image. As
it is, my 6.1 MP digital camera can produce a 12" x 18" image with
a resolution of 170 DPI, or an 8" x 12" image with a resolution of
256 DPI, both a very acceptable range for normal viewing distances of images
of those sizes.
Until next time, happy shooting.
Leave a comment on
this week's Digital Photography Tip of the Week...
The digital photography tip of the week
is written by the PCIN Assistant Editor, Chris Empey. Chris is a long
time photographer and is currently the President of the Niagara
Falls Camera Club. You can see more of his photography at his Photo
of the Day website.
If you have a tip to send Chris, or a question about digital photography
he can address in the newsletter, send it to chris@pcin.net.
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PCIN.net UPDATE
Check out these new or updated pages on the PCIN.net site:
Update PCIN.net home page with "Top 10 Most Popular..." features
http://PCIN.net/
Microsoft Digital Image Suite Plus Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/msdimagesuiteplus.php
Omega One Software Battery Pack Pro 2.1 Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/bpp2.php
Makayama Interactive DVD to Pocket PC 3.0 Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/dvd2ppc3.php
Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/elements40.php
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THE TIPS and OTHER
STUFF
Website Templates
If you are looking for some ideas and samples of simple web sites, especially
if you are just learning, then check out WebGFX.ch.
They host hundreds of basic templates. You just browse the listings (with
thumbnails) and when you find one you like, you click on it. A page loads
showing that template. You then just use your browser to save the page. These
are definitely not fancy, and as far as I can see use no CSS. But if you
are looking for some ideas, this may be a good place to start.
Leave a comment...
PCNames Domain Search
I read about this at SearchEngineWatch:
The PCNames domain search engine does
exactly what might be expected of it - it searches for domain names and
returns results with details on their availability. It does this virtually
instantaneously as well - when you being typing the engine offers details
on .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .us...
Once a search has been run it is then possible to get WHOIS information
to research the site, or if a site is available for registration...
The benefits of the search engine are clear for those people who wish
to register domain names. As a searcher the resource is also useful to
quickly check not only to see if a domain is available or not, but to check
on the ownership of the site - useful for authority checking, and as a
quick way to locate a domain if you can't remember if a recently visited
site was a .com or a .org for example.
Check it out...
Leave a comment...
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PCIN.net AFFILIATED
SITES
Both of us have other sites other than PCIN.net. These are all sites that
we are actively involved in (they aren't client sites). Don't forget to check
them out from time to time for updates:
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DISCLAIMER
and OTHER STUFF
PCIN is brought to you by Graham Wing. The opinions expressed are those of
the Editor, Graham Wing and the Assistant Editor, Chris Empey. Graham Wing
and Chris Empey accept no responsibility for the results obtained from trying
the tips in this newsletter.
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and paste.
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follow the appropriate links.
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- If you have a web site or run your own newsletter, please email me at editor@pcin.net and
I will add it to the subscriber web pages that I have on my site.
- Support PCIN by visiting http://PCIN.net/donate.php or
by clicking on the PayPal link below:
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Graham Wing can be reached at editor@pcin.net
Chris Empey can be reached at chris@pcin.net
Copyright 1998-2006, Graham Wing. All rights reserved.
This publication may be reproduced in whole, or in part, as long as the author
is notified and the newsletter is presented as is.
Support PCIN by visiting http://PCIN.net/donate.php
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