Last update: 6/9/01; 19:44:13.
Thoughts and ideas as they occur to me.
Sunday, December 24, 2000
QuickNailer 1.7.1 - Contact sheets and thumbnails. (12/24/2000 14:35 EST) Stephen Baber created an outstanding program (Macintosh only) for managing images and creating contact sheets, thumbnails for web pages, and entire linked groups of thumbnails and images that can be directly uploaded to your website.
From the website: Do you have more images than you can comfortably manage? Or, do you need an easy and flexible way to make image indexes for your web pages? Maybe you just want to know what is taking up all the space on the server right now and print a report.
"QuickNailer gracefully combines an intuitive image thumbnailer, font viewer, contact-sheet maker, and media cataloger with a flexible and complete tool for producing HTML image indexes with image maps, frames, or linked pages.
"Try out QuickNailer today and you'll find it the easiest and most powerful way to view and organize media with an unbeatable price, outstanding performance, plenty of features, and an uncluttered, finely crafted user interface. Made by hard working artists and engineers who care passionately about the Macintosh."
Much more information about the program is available by clicking on the title, above. You can download a full working version and registration costs only $18.00 US.
Available in English, German, and French languages.
What's even better is that this outstanding program will run on older Macintoshes and is still PowerPC accelerated and makes use of some of System 8.5's features. Minimum requirements are: 68020 or better CPU, 4MB RAM, System 7.1 or newer, QuickTime 2.5 or newer.
** JD ** 2:47:44 PMSmaller Animals ThumbNailer. (12/24/2000 14:16 EST) Have you ever wanted to show a group of graphics images on your website? Have you wondered how to create a page of thumbnails that linked to full-size pictures? Are you looking for an easy way to do this for your website?
From their website: Smaller Animals ThumbNailer is a Windows utility that allows you to create thumbnail images a folder at a time. you can use it to convert between one graphics format and another, change image color depth, resize images, and more." Registration is $25.00 U.S.
Note that there are some issues with using GIF images on websites with this program. This is discussed briefly at the bottom of the product's page.
Click on the title, above, to go download the full working version of the software and give it a spin.
** JD ** 2:22:51 PMSASheet - Contact sheet creator. (12/24/2000 14:03 EST) Have you ever wanted to take a group of photos and create a collage in a single picture? Smaller Animals' SASheet will automate that task for you. (Windows only)
From their website: "In photography, a 'contact sheet' is a photograph made by exposing a group of images onto a single piece of photographic paper. It is cheaper and faster than printing each photograph individually and it allows you to compare images side by side so that you can decide which of them you want to print full-size. SASheet performs a similar task, using image files.
"You can download the full working version of SASheet by clicking on the title, above, which will take you to the product's information and download page. You can use SASheet for as long as you want, with one restriction: you are limited to 10 objects per layout. If you register the program, this limitation goes away. The cost is a mere $15, US."
** JD ** 2:24:37 PMTemporary programming glitch. (12/24/2000 13:39 EST) I've run into a bit of a programming glitch at John Dilbeck's Ramblings. I expect to have it sorted out in the next few days.
The problem manifests when you go to a new page and receive a server error. In almost all cases, you can resolve the problem by clicking on your browser's Refresh button. Usually the page will load with no problem on the second attempt.
The problem does not occur every time you go to a new page, just sometimes.
We're attempting to isolate and resolve the problem, and I apologize for any inconvenience. (After all, this whole site is built on software that is still in the beta development and testing stage, and a certain number of errors are expected now and then. That's the price we pay for working with the extremely creative programmers at Userland to develop innovative ways of presenting information right out in full view of our readers.)
Some of these tools didn't even exist one month ago, and already, they're incredibly reliable and useful.
** JD ** 1:49:56 PMSuperOpenDirectory. (12/24/2000 13:28 EST) SuperOpenDirectory is a project to create a new kind of Web directory, one that's open in ways that no directory has ever been.
The brilliant folks at Userland Software have come up with another tool that allows all us plain folks to create and maintain a directory using their Radio Userland product that's currently in beta testing. SuperOpenDirectory builds on this by providing a site where multiple directories, created and maintained by potentially thousands of individuals, can be linked into a large directory.
Now, if you want to take the time to maintain a directory on your favorite topic, hobby, region, author, or just about anything else, you can have it linked into the SuperOpenDirectory. Right now, it's a place for developers to test their products, but it has the real potential for growth and usefulness.
It's a brand new site using brand new tools, and it could use some features such as searching and the ability to register a directory with other directories such as DMOZ.org or search engines, and perhaps we'll see these in the future.
For now, you can step through the hierarchy and find sites of interest maintained by a variety of people.
For more information, click on the title above, and then click on the About link when you get to the SuperOpenDirectory.
** JD ** 1:38:53 PM
© Copyright 2001 John L. Dilbeck, jd@johndilbeck.com.