Windows Photo Gallery: Photo Editing and Other Features
Almost everyone owns a Digital Camera these days and if your an enthusiast like me, you probably own a D-SLR. Many of us have a huge collection of photos and use Windows Photo Gallery to view them, but tend to overlook some of the additional features available within Windows Photo Gallery.
Let's take a look at some of these features.
Fix Photos – Editing Photos within Windows Photo Gallery
Simple photo adjustments such as adjusting exposure and color as well as cropping and red-eye correction can be performed by using the Windows Photo Gallery.
1.Click on the Fix button on the top menu and the editing options are visible on the right panel.
2.Choose the option required on the right panel.
3.Exposure is adjusted by modifying Brightness and Contrast sliders
4.Color is adjusted by modifying Temperature, Tint and Saturation Sliders
5.Pictures can be cropped to a specific size or to a custom size by drawing a rectangle as required
6.Red-eye correction is performed by drawing a small rectangle over the red-eye to be corrected
Rate Photos
Photos can be rated on a scale of 0 to 5 stars by clicking on a suitable number of stars for the photo. Ratings can be altered by clicking on a different star on the fly.
Note: Clicking the Info button on the Top panel will display the Rating & Tag information on the right panel.
Add Tags
Multiple Tags can be added to easily identify photos and add some metadata (data about data). Captions can also be added for each photo as can be seen from the right panel.
Burn Photos – Backup photos onto a disc
Selecting many photos in the Gallery view and clicking on Burn Photos, ejects the CD drive and prompts you to insert a blank disc so as to burn the photos onto a disc using Windows Vista. This is a very useful feature and can be used to backup important photos to external media to guard against a system crash.
Make a Movie – Create a video using photos with Windows Movie Maker
Selecting many photos in the Gallery view and clicking “Make a Movie” in the top panel automatically opens Windows Movie Maker, creates a new project, imports all the images and add them into a sequence. In order to complete the movie, one only has to add a title and an ending screen, along with audio if required and publish it.
Puran Defrag
Disk defragmentation has been an important part of our computer maintenance from a long time. Just to refresh things a bit, without going into the technical details, disk defragmentation is an important process that we should run regularly to keep our computer in a healthy condition.
That being said, many of us know that disk defragmenter comes with every installation of Windows, but the time it takes and the result it gives is usually less than desirable. Due to these and many other limitations of the inbuilt defragmenter, few software companies have come out with commercial defragmenters for both home and professional use.
On 28th January 2010, a new era of defragmenters began when Puran Software, the author of the excellent commercial defragmenter, Puran Defrag, announced a Free Edition with exactly the same features as of its commercial defragmenter except that it can be used for private and non-commercial purposes only. Puran Defrag Free Edition can be downloaded here
Today, we will learn how easily we can configure this defragmenter on our computer so that we never have to even think of defragmentation again. Once downloaded, double-click the file to start the installation. Now simply follow the instructions on screen to complete the installation.
Once installation is completed simply click Finish to launch Puran Defrag.
Now when you see the Puran Defrag window, follow the steps below:
- Click on the Automatic Defragmentation tab.
- Click on the Add button
- Now simply click Next
- Select all the drives and set the options as shown below
- Now click Next
- Finally, Finish
- You will see an entry in the Automatic Defragmentation window
Once again we will follow some steps and this time to setup Automatic Boot Time Defrag
- Click on the Add button
- Select Automatic Boot Time Defrag and click Next
- Select all the drives and set the options as shown below
- You can change the day from Monday to any desirable day
- Now click Next
- Finally Finish
Speedy Keys and Cursor
This might be of little to no use for most Windows 7 users out there, but you never know, the control panel heading in the list that will appear. Your keyboard properties windows is going to pop up.
Just adjust the Cursor blink rate to whatever speed you desire and hit OK. You can also adjust your character repeat delay and rate while you're in here, too!
What is a Wiki?
"wiki-wiki" means "quick". In web-speak they are sites where users can add and edit content. If you've ever been to the Wikipedia for information then you have some idea about wikis. At last check they had around 3,237,704 articles in English.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Each page in a wiki usually contains a large number of links to other pages .Vandalism and spam attacks are frequent, but the administrator can usually revert to the previous version or astute users can correct the intrusion.
Many businesses and corporations are using wikis as a way to make collaboration easier. Information can be kept up-to-date without the need for emails to the webmaster or meetings. The changes can be instant—and the more people involved, the more that can be added.
Here are a couple of interesting wikis--keep in mind that a wiki is only as good as its collaborators...
http://www.cookbookwiki.com/Main_Page
http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page
Yet another way that the internet is bringing people together to share ideas and information.
You would think that with school I’d get enough reading to satisfy my inner bookworm, and I thought I did – until I discovered this site. Now I can read a book in my e-mail as many times a week as I want. Pleasure reading ahoy! Best of all it is 100% free!
To get signed up click the Register link at the top of the page. This will take you to the registration form. There you’ll need to fill out the form by creating a username and password, and then providing a working e-mail address. This is the e-mail address that your reading will come to, so make sure you pick an address you check. You can also choose to instead link your account to one of the social networking platforms that are listed (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and then just choose your username for the site, and provide the e-mail address you want to read at.
After you register you’ll need to go check your e-mail address and click the confirmation link. This is will activate your account. You are now ready to setup your profile, choose the books you want to read, and how often you want them e-mailed to you, and at what time of day you want to receive them. Once you’ve selected a book to read you’ll need to go to your e-mail again, because they send you a confirmation e-mail for the book to make sure that your spam filters don’t filter your reading out.
Besides delivering great reading to your inbox, you can also keep a booklist, and use the site to share over social networking sites what you’re reading. I'm rawrpounce if you want to check out my profile and what I'm reading. Check this one out today, it’s a keeper!
http://www.dailylit.com/
This is an interesting weather site that mashes up your local weather with webcams from around town. I believe it said it only works for the US and Canada at the moment but if you’re planning an international trip to either of those countries it might be worth a look for you.
So not only can you see what the weather is going to be like, you can take a peek around your city to see what it really looks like out there. It’s a rainy day here and the weather cams show me that my house isn’t the only place in the city getting drenched!
This site offers a fun way to check out the weather near you!
http://www.weatherbonk.com/
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