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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.

imagesize.gif

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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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.

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