Turn your photographs into sketches

I have been searching for a tool to turn photographs paintings or sketches. A few days ago I found this program called FotoSketcher, it is free and can be downloaded from here:
http://www.fotosketcher.com/

It is created by David Thoiron from France, and I really like this tool.
See one of the photo which I have turned into a painting:

and also a sketch:

Posted: 20-March-2008
Updated: 26-Sep-2008

Video format converter - SUPER

I needed to convert a video clip in WMV format to MOV but the converter I was using doesn't provide this format change. I searched and finally found a very useful tool, i.e. SUPER from www.erightsoft.com

It supports variety format conversion and also a player that plays all the supported formats. It is easy to use and is just the converter that I need.

It is a freeware and more details can be found at:
http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

Fax program in Windows Vista

I have been using the default fax driver that comes with Windows XP for a long time, and imagine my disappointment when I switched to Windows Vista Home Premium and found that Microsoft does not provide the same fax drive anymore. It only comes with Windows Vista Business edition. Can't understand why this is so. Doesn't home users also send and received fax, like the Windows XP home users?

Anyway, since I need to use my system to send faxes at times, so I search and tried some fax programs for Windows Vista. Found the following two programs from a number of user discussions:

1) Snappy Fax (US$29.99, for standalone version)

2) RKS Fax (US19.90)

I actually like the RKS Fax better and it's cheaper. But I have already settled with Snappy Fax for easier payment options. Anyway both serves my purpose well though.

You can download and purchase either of the above programs from below sites. Both of them can be used as trial for a period of 30 days beofre you decided which suites your requirement best.

1) Snappy Fax Version 4.0

http://www.snappysoftware.com/

2) RKS Fax

http://www.rkssoftware.com/

Free Photo Viewer

To know more about the details of the digital photos taken, this is a useful little tool to view the EXIF tags.

Exchangeable image file format (Exif) is a specification for the image file format used by digital cameras.

This utility is a freeware program and can be downloaded at:http://www.exifsoftware.com/

Youtube Downloader

Ever wanted to watch the video on Youtube and also to download it? The following Youtube Downloader is a wonderful tool to help you do just that. It's simple to use, and you just need to enter the url for the video to download, and then click [Ok].

This tool also provides ability to convert the video to different formats.

This is a freeware program, and no registration is needed. Check for more details or download the tool from:http://youtubedownload.altervista.org/

Life must be lived forwards

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard , 19th century Danish philosopher

Blue screen on starting up Windows Vista

I was having blue screen problem with my notebook last night. Everytime the system try to start up Windows Vista, it shows the infamous blue screen. Starting up again in safe mode is ok.

Tried many things to rectify the problem:
1) Remove all the fixes applied just the day before
2) Restore to previous restore point
3) Use the last known best configuration
4) F8, and then go to Repair the system
5) Uninstall the most recently installed programs
6) Taken out the battery and run on A/C

All did not help!

Finally I managed to capture the filename 'acpidisk.sys' on the blue screen. After some searches found that this file is a trojan horse. I renamed the file, and start the system again. And instantly the Windows Vista started up normally. I then proceeded to delete the file from my system. It's located at C:\Windows\System32\Drivers folder.

After that I run my antivirus & anti-spam program for the whole system for a cleanup. So far so good.

Point to be taken:
Take out the 'Automatically restart under the System failure' option from system properties so that you have time to look at the messages display on the BLUE SCREEN.

A visiting trip to a village in China - April 2008

The new Beijing Capital Airport


Travel to Hebei on a raniny day


Arriving at the village

After a good night's rest, visiting one of the village

Having a typical lunch at one of the villager's home

Variety of fruits selling at the town center

Morning market place

Hair saloon and service for ear piercing

The Nine Dragon Poplar

Village dancing group

Gai-Dao-Rou

Pumpkin buns

On the way to airport heading home, passing by the Beijing National Stadium - Bird's Nest

The National Swimming Center - Water Cube

Watermarking your photographs

I was looking for tools to watermark the photos that I have taken. Downloaded and tested a few of the free tools.

Finally I settled with the following two:

1) Unidream's Powerbatch http://www.unidreamtech.com/

2) Faststone Photo Resizer http://faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm
Both I found to be quite easy to use, and flexible to adding watermarks. And they are free for home users.

Faststone Capture - screen capture program

This is one of the shareware program which I use very often for capturing screens and make changes such as resize, save in different format, rotate the capture graphics etc.

Anyone interested can find it at:
http://faststone.org/

Free pdf creation tool

One of the favorite tool I used for creating pdf file is pdf955.
It's a free tool and available at:
http://www.pdf955.com/

WikiMapia - web based map

Recently discovered a very useful site which provides very good source of information for searching places, and the map are marked with names.

Those who used Google Earth before would noticed that both uses the same satellite images. But they are different programs and I tend to like the way places are maked and named in Wikimapia. Plus Wikimapia is web based so without installing any program I can access the information just by using my browser to reach the site.

From the Wikimapia faq:

About WikiMapia

WikiMapia is a Web 2.0 project to describe the whole planet Earth. It was created by Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev, inspired by Google maps and Wikipedia.

Try it at: http://www.wikimapia.org/

Time zone & world clock

Ever get confused with the different time zones you need to deal with?
How to find a suitable time to communicate with your counterpart on other parts of the globe?

Try checking the following two sites for time, clock, time zone information.
They have served me well, and hope they are useful for you too:

http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/
http://www.timeanddate.com/

Document converting tool - Print2eDoc

Another great program for converting your office documents to pdf, or jpg, bmp, etc file formats.

The program is free for personal use, but you need to register so that you don't get the the line of message printed across the top of the page. And of course if you pay for the Pro version, there are more enahnced features, should you need them.

Great tools! give it a try at:
http://gnostice.com/index.asp

Mutianyu Great Wall, China - April 2007