fixPicture – Online Image Resizer And Converter For Digital Camera Owners 8 Sep 2010, 5:48 am

fixPicture is an image editing application for quickly resizing, adding effects, and converting your photos online. It is developed for digital camera owners who want to quickly retouch their photos while on the go. It comes with two versions: light-weight and flash-based image editor with subtle differences. The light-version is HTML based, facilitating users with slow internet connections, whereas flash-version is rich in features, offering a great number of effects along with basic image editing tools.

Light-Weight Image Editor

The HTML based application is simple as it offers only basic tools. You simply need to upload the desired image and from Resize, Rotation, Effect, and Output sections, select the options you want to apply. Resize option comes with Percentage and Pixels modes, however, you can choose custom size. Under Effect, you will find 5 pre-listed image effects. It supports conversion in JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and PDF formats.

Flash-Based Image Editor

The flash-based editor is visually aesthetic and offers smooth image processing and rendering. It includes all the tools of HTML based editor, in addition to some more advance and useful tools like color intensity controller, which let user set image brightness, contrast, gamma, hue, lightness, and saturation.

There are more than 5 effects present in left side bar, including some widely used effects like; Blur, Sepia, Depth, Grayscale, etc.

Once you’ve edited the picture, click Save image to disk, and choose both the image quality & format (PNG, JPG, GIF, etc).

Visit fixPicture

How To Open PST And OST Files Without Using Outlook 2010 8 Sep 2010, 5:48 am

PST and OST are two most important files which carries your Outlook’s mail items, contacts, events, tasks, etc. Considering the significance, it may become indispensable to access PST (Personal Storage Tables) and OST (Offline Storage Tables) files without having to install Outlook 2010 (or any other version) on your new system. Viewing PST and OST files also comes useful when Outlook is inflicted by viruses or simply doesn’t respond due to unknown reason. Kernel PST and OST viewer (two separate tools) are developed for gaining access to your PST and OST files respectively.

Using these tools, you can easily open and view the contents of Personal Storage Tables and Offline Storage Tables. Both applications are absolutely free and comes with a same snappy interface. The main navigation bar holds all the content of your PST/OST file in question. Beneath navigation bar, you will find links to Calendar, Tasks, Journals, Notes. The main window is extensible and comes with broad layout, you can easily move the separators for best viewing.

It is to be noted here that these application wont work if any of Outlook instance is running in the background. As these applications and Outlook are mutually-exclusive, you have to run one at a time.

The applications supports Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, testing was done on Windows 7 x86 system.

• Download Kernel PST Viewer
• Download Kernel OST Viewer

EasyMon Quickly Moves Applications Across Multiple Monitors With Hotkeys 7 Sep 2010, 3:38 am

EasyMon is a system tray application which runs silently in the background allowing you to quickly move applications across multiple displays in a dual-monitor (or multiple-monitors) setup. The application is developed to bring ease in adjusting/moving applications and to increase the overall productivity of the user.

You only need to press one of the defined hotkey for moving the active application across the monitors. By default, Win+cursor keys combination are setup to adjust the application window in respective position. For instance, if you need to move the application on left monitor, press Win+left cursor key to move it accordingly.

Hotkeys Functionality

• [Win] + [ > ] : Moves the active  application window to the right side monitor.
• [Win] + [ < ] : Moves the active application window to the left side monitor
• [Win] + [ ^ ] : Maximizes the active application window.
• [Win] + [ v ] : If the active application window is maximized then it will return to the normal state, if the active application window is in the normal state then it will be minimized.

Furthermore, the default hotkeys setup can be changed from Manage Setting window, which can be accessed from the system tray menu.

You will also find an option to stop EasyMon temporarily.

The application runs on Windows Vista and Windows 7. Our testing was done on Windows 7 x86 system.

Download EasyMon

Add Frame To Your Picture Using Photoshop [Tutorial] 7 Sep 2010, 3:25 am

Adding frames and border styles to pictures is very handy in Photoshop. And provided you have the ideas, you can go infinity in applying those ideas. Borders and frames on any picture can make a big difference and with Photoshop you can add borders to make your pictures stand out from the rest. We will look at A simple technique of adding good looking frames or borders to your pictures.

Open a new work page in Photoshop by simply going File –> New. Select the Web Preset which will have the dimensions of 640 x 480. Press Ctrl + R to view the Rulers on the page so that you get equal free space on each side.

Import this picture into Photoshop.

Your work area should look like this, with viewable rulers on the top. Press Ctrl + H to view the grids. It is not mandatory but to have proper spacing on each side when creating a border, it becomes a great help no matter what.

Create a new layer and name it border.

Select layer 1 in the layer panel and then click Magic Wand Tool and select the white area and you will notice that a preselected border appears on the screen.

Leave it selected, but do change your layer selection from Layer 1 to border. Add color to the border by using the paint bucket tool. A separate border around the picture will appear with color on your work screen and you can see the border layer colored as well.

Get into the layer style settings or the blending options by doubling clicking the border layer.

We will put a bit of inner glow to it, some 3D effect and a pattern overlay on the top of that border. Do the following changes for inner glow. Set the color to white in structure mode. In Elements increase the choke to 15 and size to 10 and range quality to 50.

For 3D settings, check Bevel and Emboss. Increase the depth to 358, size to 10 and soften to 9. In shading, all you have to do is decrease the opacity to 10 for highlight mode and 38 for shadow mode.

We will add a bit of pattern on the top of our border, check pattern overlay and reduce the opacity to 50% and scale to 9%.

And we have a picture frame.

[Photo Credit: B.Image357]

A Basic Guide To Turn Your Photo Into Type [Tutorial] 7 Sep 2010, 3:10 am

Learning how to transform your photo into a type, so that the features of the image you want are revealed in type is quite handy and basic. The most effective and easy way to do is by using the type mask tool. Type mask tool has been present in Photoshop forever. We will look at some of the type mask techniques available for creating a picture type.

We will apply type mask technique to this picture, courtesy of Flickr.  If you wish to work with the same picture, simply right click on it and save it.

Secondly, decide any words you would like to create a type mask out of. We will select ‘GREEN’ for this specific picture just to create a an example. Open the image in Photoshop and click the Type tool. Four more options will appear, select Horizontal Type Mask Tool.

Create a new layer in the layer panel so that your text stays separate. And later on, if any changes are needed to be done, its easier to select the layer and put different settings on to it.

Click anywhere on the image and you will notice that the image goes red. Type GREEN on it. Increase your font size to 150 and leave the rest of the settings to default.

Switch to move tool and you will notice a type mask on the top of background.

Select green as your color. This color would go in the back ground.

Once done, click Select on the main bar and click Inverse or Shift + Ctrl + I. Inverse will select the whole area, put the type mask in front and the background at back. The effect is simple and quick.

You will notice that the background is selected apart from the GREEN mask layer entered.

Select the layer created and color the background using the paint bucket tool.

After coloring the background with the paint bucket tool, simply go select and inverse just like we used it before. And you will notice that the background is deselected and the text layer mask is selected.

Once you have selected the background layer, you would be able to move your text mask by clicking the select tool. Copy your selected mask layer by simply going Ctrl + C, create a new layer in the layer panel and press Ctrl + V. The new masked layer would be copied to the new layer.

Double click layer three and layer style settings will appear. Right Clicking the layer and selected blending options will give you the same settings.

Select Drop shadow and make the following changes to opacity, spread and size.

We will also give a bit of 3D effect to our new mask layer. Make the changes to Depth, Size, Soften and the opacity in the bottom shading panel.

The final should look exactly like this.

Try changing the background color to any color you like, just by selecting the background layer (layer 1 in this case) and filling it with color using the paint bucket tool.

[Photo Credit: SomewhereinAK]

Delete Only Selected Types Of Files From Multiple Folders 7 Sep 2010, 2:58 am

Folder Cleaner is a batch file deletion utility that has a list of useful cleaning filters to delete only specific type of files from multiple folders. The application also offers an extensive search option to let you remove files which falls under specified criteria. You can use build-in file analyzer to pre-analyze the cleaning process which is to be performed.

It encourages you to specify a list of folders rather than selecting a single folder. To bring ease in listing the folders, you can make use of search feature to find out the specific folders from local drives and removable media. The right-click menu also offers an option to select folders manually. All these tools and features can be accessed from the toolbar.

Once folders are listed, select the folders and set cleaning options to maintain uniformity in deletion process. You can apply filters to include/exclude file types from the process.

Before cleaning the selected folders, you can analyze the cleaning process to display number of files to be cleaned. Click Recycle bin imaged button to clean the selected folders.

It runs on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, our testing was done on Windows 7 x86 system.

Download Folder Cleaner

Batch Change Date / Time Attribute Of Files With File Date Changer 7 Sep 2010, 2:42 am

File Date Changer offers a simple way to change the date/time stamp of files in bulk. You can also change these attributes associated with read-only files. Previously we covered Restamper (that offers more or less the same stamping features while sub-directory/directory inclusion is only for NTFS drives.). File Date Changer can re-stamp folder/sub folders without any restrictions.

It comes with two modes; Base-Directory and Files in Listbox, which can be used exclusively or in combination with each other. You only need to specify the folder which is to be restamped. You can also recurse the sub-directories in the process. The Wildcard option is for specifying type of files to be included in the process. Furthermore, you can add as many files as you want (there is no limitation). A click on Change button will begin the process.

We would reckon you to manually check few restamped files/folders to ensure that all the sub-folders and files are restamped accordingly. It runs on all versions of Windows. Testing was done on Windows 7 x86 system.

Download File Date Changer

Baku Fixes Windows System Registry Errors, Removes Unneeded Files, And More 7 Sep 2010, 2:30 am

Baku is an advance system utility to locate duplicate files on your system, search & delete superfluous files and junk, locate & fix system registry errors, and find and remove application MRU lists. You can also compact the registry hives to the minimum possible size. It has an ability to backup and restore the entire system registry.

Having a simple interface, the application is dead easy to use. All you need is to specify the action to be performed. You can select one from following options; Search for unneeded files, registry errors, application MRU lists, and duplicate files. However, other options are located under Registry menu, from where you can compact (defrag), import and export the whole registry.

Each functionality comes with a long wizard to perform the operation(s). Once the operation is completed, it will display the results to let user analyze the upgrade in performance/disk capacity.

The registry export feature offers fast backing up of registry files in ZIP format. From Driver menu, you can export all the Microsoft drivers to the disk.

A very useful application, offers fast processing for performing important system-backup related tasks, cleaning junk files, clearing MRUs, removing duplicates, etc. It requires .NET Framework 3.5 and works on Windows XP, Vista, and 7. Our testing was done on Windows 7 x86 system.

Download Baku

Advanced File System Management Toolkit FlexTK Express 7 Sep 2010, 2:27 am

FlexTK Express is a toolkit developed to perform the most important operations and functions which are related with file management. It packages features like; searching and classifying files, scanning file system, file organizing and data migration, file/folder synchronization, analyzing storage utilization, and fault-tolerant copying of large files. The user-defined commands help execute any available function in the way user wants, allowing complete flexibility.

All these features and tools are present right up front on the main interface. The application requires no special guidance or knowledge, as usage is pretty simple and straightforward. The left sidebar acts as a navigator while the main window acts as a file explorer.

All the tools comes with the advanced options, for instance, synchronization needs only source and target files to begin syncing, alongside, advance synchronization options are available to choose modes, specify process threads, performance mode, exclude directories, etc.

Advance Synchronization Options

Disk Space Analysis Utility

Disk Cleanup Tool

Finding Duplicate Files

All the tasks (finished/un-finished) and their details can be accessed from Tools-> Manage Tasks. It displays the status of the tasks while letting you continue, stop, and view the task.

Lastly, user-defined commands enable you to add all the tools in any desired fashion to use them according to your needs. So in that way, you wont need to configure the tool over and over again, it will offer all pre-configurations aligning with user’s needs.

It is must noted here that not all the advance options are available with the Free (Express) version. Since the express version has ample features to wholly satisfy an average user, it is worth trying out.

It runs on all versions of Windows starting from 2000, testing was done on Windows 7 x86 system.

Download FlexTK Express

Enable Back The Disabled Show Hidden/System Protected Files And Folders 7 Sep 2010, 2:12 am

Some viruses and malwares will prevent user from opening Folder Options to make changes. Quick Hide is a small (218KB) application to let user enable the hidden and system files and folders. It can also enabled back file extensions with a single click.

All that is required is to run the executable and enable the required options. Now refresh the Windows Explorer to view hidden, system protected files/folders and file extensions.

If your system got infected with malwares and viruses which disabled Folder Options, along with Task manager, Registry editor, Control panel, Ms-config, Task Scheduler, etc., you can try out previously covered advanced tool called Re-Enable.

In our experience, Quick Hide works as intended. It runs on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. The application was tested on both Windows XP and Windows 7 x86 systems.

Download Quick Hide

The Era of Android [Infographic] 6 Sep 2010, 11:03 am

At AddictiveTips, we will bring you one infographic every week. Infographics or Information graphics, give a better insight into the current trend by depicting the information visually. We believe infographics can present complex information more clearly and comes useful where long articles have failed to provide a clear understanding.

Today we bring an infographic named “AndroidEra”, which shows the Android versions, features, and the total number of applications in the Android Market since February, 2009.

Click image above to enlarge

Enjoy!

A Basic Guide To Photoshop Filters [Tutorial] 6 Sep 2010, 5:53 am

Photoshop filters are plugins aimed to provide additional image effects which are usually hard to come in effect using Photoshop alone. New users, no matter what version they are using, do play with the available filters found right under the Filters tab in Photoshop. Today,we will look at the basic use of some these filters and the ability of these filters to provide great image effects.

This picture was taken from Flickr, and now we will show you some basic tips of placing some of the filters on this picture, gaining different tones and feels.

When you click the Filter tab, a drop down will appear and will show you all the filters like artistic, blur, brush strokes, distort, noise, sketch etc.. To see a preview of filters click the Filter Gallery tab (available in versions CS3, CS4, CS5).

When clicked, another window will pop up, titled Filter Gallery, apart from your Photoshop work window.

In versions CS3, CS4, and CS5 the filter gallery would have the following main features. A preview window where you will see your current picture (in this case, the landscape), available filters, where you can see all the available filters in your Photoshop version with which you can play with and an effect layer window in which you can create separate effect layers in the filter gallery and later on import them into your main Photoshop work window.

Once you click any of the filters tab, in this case the Artistic tab, a drop down appears with a number of sub filters. For instance, we can see filters like Colored Pencil, Cutout, Dry Brush, Film Grain, Fresco, Neon Glow etc..

Now click Color Pencil, your picture will get an instant effect as that of the selected Filter. You will also notice that some settings have appeared on your right hand side and a new layer has appeared in the effect layer panel.

In further settings like mentioned above, you can play with the pencil width, stroke pressure and paper brightness. Stroke is the border, pressure becomes the pressure as that of exerted by a paint brush or color pencil in this case and lastly, by paper brightness you can simply control the brightness of the picture.

By adjusting some pencil width, stroke pressure and paper brightness, the outcome should look like this. You get a nice color pencil feel to your picture in few clicks. The process speed also depends on the size of your picture. Naturally, if you have a higher quality picture taken with a better mega pixel camera, it is going to take a little bit more but definitely not forever.

The next filter, to be tried on the same picture is Film Grain. As soon as you click it, some settings will appear like Grain, Highlight Area and Intensity. You can increase the graininess of the picture, lit the picture accordingly by increasing highlight area and control the over all light intensity on the picture.

Apply the following settings, increasing the grain to 2, highlight area to 1 and intensity to 3 to get a decent film grain.

Final image would look like this on your left preview panel.

Lets try one of the great filters present in Photoshop namely sprayed strokes. You can find it under the Brush Stroke tab. As soon as you click it, you will find some new settings according to the filter. In this case, Stroke length, spray radius and stroke direction.

Set the stroke length to maximum which is 20, the area I want to spray being the spray radius to 3 and stroke direction to Horizontal.

When completed, the picture would turn out like this. Again, not to forgot you will get the preview simultaneously every time you make a little adjustment on your left side preview window in the filter gallery.

Here are some more filters applied to the same picture. There are many more and you can get third party filters as well. The default pre-installed filters are shown at the top of the filter menu and the third party filters go at the bottom.

More will be reviewed soon for the beginners to get the maximum out of this extra ordinary photo editing tool called ‘Photoshop’.

Enjoy applying the filters on your pictures!

Optimize And Resample Images With RIOT (Radical Image Optimization Tool) 6 Sep 2010, 4:45 am

Radical Image Optimization Tool or RIOT, is a free Image optimizer which offers a wide range of features and tools for image resampling while a staunch compression tool is included to compress image files. Its main usability revolves around optimizing images, you can adjust compression parameters according to your needs, edit image meta information and change image masking (offers basic transparency threshold, and let user blend image with solid background). To bring ease in manipulating images, it offers multiple re-sampling filters having different attributes, some of which are; Bilinear, Catmul Rom, B-spline, and lot more.

Whilst supporting simple drag & drag behavior, it allows user to apply batch re-sampling over images. The main interface has two panels side by side, one is for viewing original and other is for previewing changes.

You can navigate through different image-related options present at the bottom of the window, such as; Metadata, Mask, and Image adjustments. For instance, an image in JPG format can be converted into GIF, just select the GIF and perform the actions from aforementioned image manipulation tools.

You can see the compression rate over the Optimized Image. It make changes to image in real-time allowing user to properly customize the compression, and flip/rotate the image. The In-place compare feature allows you to display the original image over the optimized image to observe small pixel changes.

Batch optimization can also be done with all the re-sampling options, click its respective button in toolbar, populate image list, and select a task to perform batch conversion.

It runs on all versions of Windows, testing was done on Windows 7 x86 system.

Download Riot

You can also check out previously covered image converters and optimizers; ImageConverter, Modi, and Image Tuner.

Schedule Update, Backup, And Restore Hardware Drivers With SlimDrivers [Windows] 6 Sep 2010, 4:31 am

SlimDrivers provides a facility to update the installed hardware drivers. However, Windows 7 has an intuitive way of updating/installing all the build-in drivers but there are many manufacturers which are not catered by Windows Update. SlimDrivers comes useful when you want to schedule or need to manually update hardware drivers from non-supported manufacturers.

It displays all the basic system-specific information on the main interface. To begin scanning for all the installed drivers, click Start Scan button.

It will start looking up for updates (the scanning process can be aborted at any time). Once the scanning is finished, it will lead you to Update Review window, where you can choose only required updates to be installed. Click Download All to download the specified updates. While testing we found that it listed more hardware updates when compared with the default Windows Update.

You can backup and restore the installed drivers. Schedule feature is also included to keep a check on latest updates. From Options window, you can configure application-specific, Backup, Restore, Update and Schedule settings.

The application is in beta phase, so you may encounter some interface-related glitches. It supports Windows Vista and Windows 7. We tested it on Windows 7 x86 system.

Download SlimDrivers

For more, you can check out Easy Backup and Device Drivers.

DLFiles Is File Utility For Windows Power Users 6 Sep 2010, 4:22 am

DLFiles is a file utility for power users that carry a whole lot of useful tools, such as, Encryption/decryption, File shredding, Attributes changer, Icon image handling, Sorting, Cleaning slack bytes, Splitting file, Appending files, etc. According to the developer it offers some unique functions which are not present in other file managers.

The application interface is extensible, all the aforementioned functions are present at the top and a navigation bar is on the left side of the window. The pane beneath the navigation bar lists down all the files of current folder, just select a file from the list and perform any available function over it.

It is must be noted that some functions doesn’t support all type of files, for instance, you can not append two shortcuts (files) or extract icon image from a text file, etc. In our experience, the application worked without showing any aberrant behavior.

It runs on all versions of Windows, testing was carried out on Windows 7 x86 system.

Download DLFiles

For more, also check out FilerFrog.