Hacks bay

Multicolor Photo Search Tool

Kappithaan — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:24:59 +0000

Multicolor Search Lab

If you have read my post on finding images on the basis of colors and still thirsty for more colors, this should quench your thirst. Idée Labs who have comeup with this revolutionary multicolor search tool lets you to search among the best 10 million images on Flickr database and around 3 million images on Alami. They have 2 different tools for flickr and alami, both using a similar interface but with latter being a bit high on features.

Interface is simple, housing a color matrix on the right side and 5×10 thumnail matrix on its left. You can select upto 10 different colors and it simultaneously displays a maximum of 50 images per page. Choosing same color more then once increases its prominence. On clicking an image on flickr set leads you to its fickr page while on alamy set it gives you 2 options whether to view it on alamy or to search for similar images.

BYO Image Search Lab

The latter one leads you to the BYO Image search lab, powered by Tineye image search engine, thought not as accurate or powerful as the latter. It lets you to upload an image from web or your computer and displays similar images from alamy database. Similarity is limited only to color. You can see it below.

Visual Search Lab

An advanced image search tool,Visual Search lab based on alamy set is a visual cum tag search. You can search for images based on your tag, then click on required image to display similar images. Handy one indeed.

Speed up your PC by Efficient Memory Management

Kappithaan — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 09:55:40 +0000

Windows XP happens to be memory hungry when running several applications simultaneously. I being a Windows XP user was a bit impatient & decided to check windows registry for some memory tweaks. Viola! I found a memory management folder. Within no time I had a back up of registry and after some trial and error tweaks I could extract a significant amount of performance from my xp installation.

This is how to do it. Open the Run window (win logo +r) & type ‘regedit’. Next, navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management. On the right pane, find the key ’DisablePagingExecutive’ and set this value to ‘1’.Next find a key called ‘LargeSystemCache’, and change its value to ’1’.
Now right click and create a new DWORD called ’IOPageLockLimit’ and set it to a value of ‘40000’ if you have 512MB or more. If it’s under 512MB set it to ‘10000’. Remember that these should be HEX numbers.

Under Memory Management folder on the left, find a folder called PrefetchParameters. Click this and on the right pane find a key called ’EnablePrefetcher’. Set this value to ‘3’.In my case it was already set to 3.

After this tweaks Windows XP should be cruising. This tweak can be applied to Vista too.

‘DisablePagingExecutive’: This instructs Windows to keep programs in the memory for as long as possible before paging to the hard disk, resulting in quicker response if you have plenty of memory.

‘LargeSystemCache’: This instructs XP to load its kernel to memory, enabling it to run quicker. This tweak improves the system response

‘IOPageLockLimit’: This speeds up your disk cache.

Using PC as an Alarm

Kappithaan — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:28:51 +0000

Sound sleepers this one is for you guys. Yeah that includes me too. Normal alarm clocks & even my mobile are incapable of waking me up. So I decided to use my pc as my alarm, by playing back random titles from Nickelback & Greenday at a decent high volume. Windows task scheduler in conjunction with an audio playback application did the trick. In my case I went for winamp.

Here’s how you go about creating the loudest and most effective alarm clock in your house.First create a playlist of your favorite songs using winamp, wmp or any other player of your choice. Export your playlist as an M3U file, as it is most accepted by most players.
Next for the trigger go to ‘Start| Programs |Accessories| System tools| Scheduled tasks’.
Create a new task and choose the program as winamp and click next. Enter an indicative name for this task and choose daily under ‘perform this task’ section. Now set the time and start date.

Right click on this newly created task and check ‘run only if logged in’ checkbox. Now click properties and append the path to the playlist you created in the ‘Run’ textbox. It should look like “C:Program FilesWinampwinamp.exe” D:Playlistsalarm.m3u.
That’s it. Now all that is left is to remember to turn your pc on and logged in before you go to sleep.

If you are a win Vista user go to ‘Start| All Programs |Accessories| System tools| Task Scheduler’. Click ‘Create Basic Task’ in the actions panel and follow the above steps. Choosing ‘Create Task’ gives you more control over the settings ‘such as ‘wake the computer to run this task’ but the former way should suffice.

Editting right click menu

Kappithaan — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:40:57 +0000

A lot of programs you install will add themselves to the right-click menu of your files and/or folders. And most times, you have no choice in the matter and, as a result, your right-click menu can get very long with added items you don’t even use. The last person I was helping with this had a right context menu so long that the Rename option was no longer visible!
Fortunately, you can easily remove those unwanted menu items, if you know the registry values to edit. And it’s not at all difficult once you know the keys responsible for the additions.

For Files, the secret lies in the “context menu handlers” under the shellex subkey for “All Files” which, in the registry, is nothing but an asterisk – like a dos wildcard, which means the values entered apply to all files. It is at the very top of the Root key, right here:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT*shellexContextMenuHandlers

Click the the + sign next to the ContextMenuHandlers key, to expand it.
Now you will see some of the programs that have added items to your right-click menu. Simply delete the program keys you don’t want.
Yup! It’s that simple. If deleting makes you uneasy, just export the key before deleting it. Or, instead of deleting the values, disable them. Simply double click the default value for the program on the right hand pane and rename the clsid value by placing a period or dash in front of it.
ie; - {b5eedee0-c06e-11cf-8c56-444553540000}
Then exit the registry, refresh, and right click a file to see if the item was removed from the menu.
Some programs – like WinZip or WinRar – will add several items to your right click menu but all of them will be removed by deleting or disabling their one context menu handler.

Note that the above key only applies to the right click menu of files.
To remove entries from the right click context menu of folders, you need to navigate to the Folder and Drive keys:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTFoldershellexContextMenuHandlers
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDriveshellexContextMenuHandlers

All you have to do is follow the same procedure as for Files – either disable or delete items you wish to remove.
Adding Items
Adding Items to the right click menu of Files and Folders is also fairly simple using the Registry. It just involves the creation of a few new keys for each item you wish to add. You edit the same keys used for removing items.

Let’s use Notepad as an example of an item you’d like to add to the right click menu of all your files or folders.

For folders, go to this key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTFolder
Click the + sign next to Folder and expand it so that the Shell key is visible. Right click the Shell key and choose New>Key and name the key Notepad or whatever else you’d prefer (whatever the key is named is what will appear in the right-click menu). Now right click the new key you made and create another key named Command. Then, in the right hand pane, double click “Default” and enter Notepad.exe as the value.
Exit the registry, refresh, and right click any folder. Notepad should now be on the context menu.

For files, go here again:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT*
Expand the * key and see if a Shell key exists. If it does exist, follow the same procedure as for folders. If it does not exist, you’ll have to create a new Shell first.Just right click the * key and choose New>Key and name it Shell. Then right click the Shell key and continue on the same way you did for adding items to the right click menu of folders.
Once done, Notepad should appear as an option in the right click menu of all your files.

Delete an undeletable file

Kappithaan — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:30:50 +0000

Have you been presented with a “cannot be deleted” popup when trying to delete a file? If you have checked whether the file is in use and found it is not, then let us move on.

Press ‘win logo key+r‘. This brings up the run window. Type in cmd and press enter. In the command prompt window that shows up, navigate to the required folder (where the file is) using the command: “cd c:*****” (without double quotes). Stars stand for the address of your folder.

For example if the file you need to delete is fun.txt which is located in a folder mine in the C drive, then the address of the file is c:mine. So type the command: cd c:mine and press enter.

hint: If the folder name has spaces type in first 6 characters then put a ~ and then 1 without spaces. For example, if the folder name is ‘Norton Antivirus’ located inside ‘Program files’ under C drive type “c: Progra~1Norton ~1 ” (without double quotes).

Before continuing to the next step, close all the programs (save cmd prompt) and open task manager using the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Esc. Under the process tab, end the process ‘explorer.exe’. Now in the command prompt, type “dir” to list all the files in the folder. Now type “DEL ”, where “” is the file you wish to delete. For example, if the file name is bad file.jpeg type “DEL badfil~1.jpeg” (without double quotes). Now your file should be gone.

Now open task manager. Click new task under file tab, type explorer.exe and press enter to restart GUI shell.

or you can try this too

Open run type notepad and press enter. Click File>Save As>. Locate the folder where your undeletable file is. Choose ‘All files‘ from the file type box. Click once on the file you want to delete so its name appears in the ‘filename‘ box. Put a “ at the start and end of the filename(The filename should have the extension of the undeletable file so it will overwrite it). Click save, it should ask you to overwrite the existing file, choose yes. Now you will be able delete it the normal way.

Copying data from badly scratched CDs and DVDs

Kappithaan — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:02:21 +0000

Is Explorer interrupting the copy process with “File cannot be copied” message? Mate u probably got ur disc scratched up all at the wrong places. Lucky you, ‘Roadkil’s Unstoppable Copier’ is for you. This freeware copies and restores data from unreadable blanks. You can download it from http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=29

To restore data, select the source and the target drive in the ‘Copy’ tab using the ‘Browse’ buttons. Now in the ‘Settings’ tab move the handle to the required position. Moving it to the middle is a good compromise between best and the fastest data recovery…mmm…one last thing, checking the ‘Skip damaged files automatically’ option will save time, quite few hrs.
If the disc has a scratch on the upper surface itz game over.Still you can give it a try.

Finding pictures on the basis of its main colors

Kappithaan — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:55:02 +0000

Designing a brochure for your college fest? You probably are breaking your head searching pictures of a particular color combination. Read on to skillfully obtain the desired results as quick as possible.

Since Flickr is everyone’s obvious choice I’ll use the same. Manually flicking through pictures is madness. Search tool helps, but in our case it may lead us to nowhere. Krazy Dad is one such site which allow you to select specific pictures on the basis of certain colors and other criteria. I found this one accidently nevertheless it finally proved useful.

Here you a presented with a color selection diagram and an intensity scroll bar. For each color selection corresponding pictures from flickr database are displayed. On selection of a new color and intensity new pictures are displayed. Clicking the desired picture leads you to the flicker page of the pic.

Additional links for restricting search to further areas are provided below the selection area. For instance, to find flowers of a particular color, click on the link ’Flowers’ and then go through the color selection in the next dialog.

A new beta product from google has similar functions.A bit cutdown on certain features.A much powerful version can be expected in recent future.Check it out here: http://similar-images.googlelabs.com

Resizing Images in a batch

Kappithaan — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:59:05 +0000

Jus back from tour?? Want to make your friends envious by sharing your clicks? Well, you’ll definitely need to convert them to smaller file sizes b4 u can upload them to your social networking sites or email them across. If u have been doing the same file by file you‘ll find this interesting. In this workshop I used Irfan View, a popular feature rich image viewer available for free from www.irfanview.net. If you don’t have it on your PC, get it now. Don’t worry it’s just 1.3MB. STEP 1: Launch Irfan view. Click File>Batch Conversion/Rename. The batch conversion window is displayed which lets you set all options for conversion.

STEP 2: On the right side of the window, browse to the folder where the source images are located. Select the images you want to convert, use Ctrl key select multiple files. Click add or drag them into when u r finished.

STEP 3: Choose the output directory where the converted files have to be saved by clicking on ‘Browse’. Click on ‘Use this directory as output’ if u want to save the images in the same folder as the source files.

STEP 4: Make sure batch conversion is selected under ‘Work as’. Choose the output format of the images by clicking on the drop down under Output format.

STEP 5: Select the ‘Use advanced options’ check box, then click on ‘Set advanced options’. The settings window is now displayed. This is where u set what u wants to do with your images.

STEP 6: Select ‘Resize’ check box. Then click on either ‘Set new size’ or whichever u prefer. Enter the required figures. Selecting ‘Preserve aspect ratio’ would be wise. Click on ‘Ok’ and start to begin processing. In my next workshop I’ll help you do your regular Photoshop tweaks faster. To keep you posted click here to subscribe to hacksbay feed or email services.

Winlogo key Shortcuts

Kappithaan — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:57:13 +0000

Windows logo key is the one I use the most on my keyboard, often to bring up explorer using Windows Logo+E

Here follows the rest of the list..

Win Logo+BREAK – Display the System Properties dialog box
Win Logo+D - Display the desktop
Win Logo+M- Minimize all of the windows
Win Logo+SHIFT+M – Restore the minimized windows
Win Logo+F – Search for a file or a folder
Win Logo+ L -Lock the keyboard
Win Logo+R- Open the Run dialog box
Win Logo+U – Open Utility Manager
Win+Tab – Cycle through the Taskbar buttons
Win Logo+F1 – Display Windows Help
CTRL+Win Logo+F -Search for computers

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Leave the Mouse & stick to the Keyboard

Kappithaan — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:49:54 +0000

I’m keyboard dude n stick around with it more than with ma dirty lil mouse(may b coz i play too much ‘Most Wanted’).Here r some keyboard shortcuts that helps me around d day.

Ever used the run menu??I never used to ,unless i needed to access registry or config. files. Here r some handy shortcuts..mm..shortcut for ‘run’..yeah!

[win key]+r and then type in the follow’n

notepad , wordpad etc…U know what it’ s meant for.rht?
cmd..open command prompt
iexplore + “site address”..opens the required page in internet explorer
compmgmt.msc .. Computer Management
dhcpmgmt.msc .. DHCP Management
dnsmgmt.msc .. DNS Management
services.msc .. Services
eventvwr ..Event Viewer
dsa.msc .. Active Directory Users and Computers
dssite.msc ..Active Directory Sites and Services
devmgmt.msc .. Device Manager
msinfo32 .. System Information
cleanmgr .. Disk Cleanup
ntbackup .. Backup or Restore Wizard (Windows Backup Utility)
mmc .. Microsoft Management Console
excel .. Microsoft Excel (If Installed)
msaccess .. Microsoft Access (If Installed)
powerpnt .. Microsoft PowerPoint (If Installed)
winword .. Microsoft Word (If Installed)
frontpg .. Microsoft FrontPage (If Installed)
calc .. Calculator
msmsgs .. Windows Messenger
mspaint .. Microsoft Paint
wmplayer .. Windows Media Player
rstrui .. System Restore
control .. Opens the Control Panel
control printers .. Opens the Printers Dialog