Let's get some fun in editing pictures

Every time when I upload my new profile picture on Facebook many friends will ask me did I edit my pictures? Usually my answer is no, I din. Not because I proud and confident about my look, but is because I don’t have the Image editing software. >.<

Image editing software seems like has become ubiquitous or common in this digital age as it really give you a big help in cropping, editing and enhancing every pictures you took. Not only for that, you can also use it to create web graphics and help you manage your workflow. Among the image editing software, Adobe Photoshop is the No.1 best selling software in the market throughout the world. Nowadays, most of the posters, magazine covers, book covers, brochures, and ads all been created or edited with Photoshop. With the powerful tools that Photoshop offers, there are a lot of features that can be used to create, even the most complex digital art in a breeze. Since 1982, the year of Adobe founded, it has been creating outstanding software programs for photography and design ever since. This time, Adobe once again produced the most powerful and latest photo editing tool, Photoshop Elements 9 to allow the users to archive a higher level of results.

Photo editing or photo manipulation actually is a difficult task if without the right tool. But now with the presence of Photoshop, you can easily edit a photo with little effort and lesser time required. Photoshop comes along with powerful tools that can be utilized to perform photo-editing tasks. For instance, you can crop or resize the pictures without losing the quality of an image. If you found that the picture’s background is not nice or not ‘interesting’, you can easily remove it with an eraser tool. With Adobe Photoshop, you can select any precise parts of an image that you like with the use of the magic wand and lasso tools. The software also built in with advanced tools such as brightness and contrast, colour balance, hue and saturation, levels, curves, and many more features which can help you in enhancing or changing the colour of an image. Another great feature about Photoshop is it consists of a user-friendly interface that is very easy to navigate. All the tools are well-organized into groups of palettes, which provide you with more option customizing according to your working preference.

In addition, Photoshop will come with a sub program called Adobe ImageReady. This added program is basically used to create graphics and enhance the web designing. It can reduce the file size so that the website can load even faster. The software is also capable in making animated graphics or GIF. With Adobe ImageReady, you can design interesting JavaScript rollover without writing any complicated programming code.

All Adobe Systems products support layer effects. When working with both Photoshop and ImageReady, you can easily apply effects to an image or text such as drops shadows, inner and outer bevels and other layering effects. A great advantage of the layering effect is that you can preserve the original state of an image while manipulating another version of it through another layer. There is no limit on the adding layers as you can add as many layers as you like. All these layers are independent, which mean that if you edit one of the layers, it does not affect the other layers.

The pictures above actually are from the same person which is me. >.< I had edited my pic with my friend’s computer Photoshop so that you can have a look at it and see what is the difference before and after editing.

After watching the video and the result of editing on my pic, don’t you think Adobe Photoshop is just amazing and powerful? Actually there is a lot of video showing the extreme makeover with Photoshop in YouTube such as fat become thin, ugly become sexy and so on. After watching it, it made me feel everything will become possible with Adobe Photoshop.

Actually it was quite fun when you editing the pics, so why still wait? Let’s get started with Photoshop from today.

Happy editing =D

Have a nice day =D

Zip file? Unzip file? File compression software?

Last week one of my lab group members was sending her lab report for me to check through. During the time I downloading her attachment, I didn’t notice that she was sending me a file. After the downloading, as usual I will sit in front of my lappie with my spec (sound like so professional XD muahahaha) and prepared to go through the work. When I was clicking on the file, it didn’t show any responds (can’t open). I click and click and click until I feel so annoyed. At this moment, my brother came back from work, he saw me non-stop clicking the mouse at the file so he stand behind me and said:

Brother: B (since I was a child he always cal me B, B= baby), what are you doing ar?

Me: Wah... scared me... When you came back de o? Doing my lab report lor... So annoyed de lor

Brother: I just got back nia... Why you keep clicking on the mouse? =] doing some finger exercise ar? Lol =D

Me: (Finger exercise?! I was like ‘sweat’ at that time.) No lar =.= I can’t open this stupid file (annoyed till want gone crazy ady). Don’t want do liao!!

Brother: So fast give up meh? Can’t open the file? Where? Let me see see.

I almost forget my brother is an IT engineer, so I just wake up and let my brother sit at my place. After few seconds, my brother smile and look at me.

Brother: Baka (is a Japanese word mean stupid), of cause u can’t open the file because it is a zip file. You need the software to extract it 1^st then only can open it.

Me: @@ zip file? Extract? Apa itu? (If you were there, you can see a lot of question mark showing on my face).

Brother: After I take my shower then only help you download the software. Problem solves. Hahaha (he feel so proud after helping me. 1 word to describe him à syok sendiri =P)

After my bro took his bath, he came out and helps me download the file compression software and extract the file.

So, at 1^st what is zip file? Zip file is a single file that contains one or more compressed files. Usually the compressed files contain large data of file. Peoples used zip files to compress the data, make it easy to keep all the related files together into a single zip file and send them out by e-mail. It not only can save time and space, it also make downloading software and transferring email attachments much faster.

Now I am using the WinRaR 4.0 Beta 5 in my lappie. According to my bro, he said this is the most popular file compression software brand using in the society now. WinRaR also been known as the powerful archive manager. It is a product of RARLAB; it help backup the user’s data, reduce the size of email attachments, decompress the RAR, ZIP and other files which downloaded from Internet and even can create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. Actually, all file compression software supports compression for common file types and extensions including Word DOC(X), Excel XLS(X); photo JPEG, GIF, TIF, BMP; music MP3, WMA, text TXT; executables EXE, PDF, rich text RTF, PowerPoint PPT and more. But the amazing part about WinRaR is it can support files and archive up to 8,589 billion gigabytes in size! The number of archived files is, for all practical purposes, unlimited. User can create self-extracting and multivolume archives. The recovery record and recovery volume feature allows user to reconstruct even though there is physically damaged archives.

Actually, there is nothing special about WinRAR’s basic features. Like most of the file compression programs, WinRAR includes the ability to create self-extracting files, split archives into multiple volumes and repair damaged files. But, there a special feature about WinRaR where it can convert archives from ZIP to RAR and vice versa. WinRAR is fully functional under Windows Explorer. As it is quite surprised to find that a folder can be compress and email using Windows Explorer as the others file compressor software can’t work well under Windows Explorer. However, that is not an option to email an archive or compress and email directly within the application.

When come to unique features, WinRaR include automatically detecting the type of files you are compressing and adjusting the compression rate accordingly. It also helps you in organizing the compressed archives. What made WinRAR so unique is it is one from the two file compression programs that included a built-in virus scanner. Whenever there is a file, WinRAR will scan through your archives for viruses before you extract the files.

When come to compression format, to tell the truth WinRAR’s compression options are limited as WinRAR can only compress files into ZIP and RAR archives. But, these 2 types of file are the most popular file archives in the world and it is unlikely for a computer user to compress their files into anything else other than a ZIP or RAR. Although WinRAR only can compress certain type of archives but it can extract a number of different archives. WinRAR can support the extraction for a total of 13 archives and files including 7Zip, TAR, ACE and CAB (not to mention RAR and ZIP). WinRAR’s extraction support is more than adequate for almost all levels of computer users.

Others benefits about WinRaR included:

· authenticity verification

· NTFS and Unicode support

· strong AES encryption

· command line and graphical interface

· drag-and-drop facility

· wizard interface

· theme support

· folder tree panel

· multithread support

· Windows x64 shell integration

As the conclusion, WinRAR is a very popular program among those who need an archive alternative to ZIP. Although it is found the file compression program is less efficiency than its competitors such as WinZip and ALZip, but WinRAR is arguably and believe by many users that it is the powerful program and better suited for power-users.

No music = No life

As a student, a teenager and a human being, for me if live without any music it is not consider as a life. For an example, if you are rushing on an assignment, feel so stress and some more without any music, don’t you feel more tension and easily get angry. At least when you listen to the music, you can sing all the stress out and it can make you feel relax and less tension in rushing the assignment. With media players software it can help in converting our computer into a great media device where we can listen music, watch videos and do many other task which no other media device can do. There is plenty of media player software available to download for free from ton of browser such as QuickTime player, Window Media Player, Real Player and so on. But today I am picking QuickTime Player as my topic.

With very clean and simple interface QuickTime player has successfully become one of the top media players by Apple. After 10 years and with millions of users worldwide, Apple's QuickTime player still provides one of the best solutions for digital media. QuickTime is designed as multimedia framework where it can play almost any media (included audio, digital video, panoramic images, pictures, text, VR, chapters and even alternate languages) within a single movie.

QuickTime 7 Player is a powerful multiplayer technology where it takes advantage of the latest video compression technology which known as H.264 and had gained a lot of supports from all around the world.

Why choosing QuickTime 7 Player?

It’s a multimedia platform. No matter what you are watching or where you are watching such as the videos are from digital camera, mobile phone, a movie on your computer, a media clip on a website, QuickTime technologies made it all possible for viewing.

It’s advanced video technology. QuickTime features have enhance with build-in video compression technology called H.264 where it can deliver brilliant, crisp HD video using less bandwidth and storage. Therefore, you can view any movies and videos with high image quality.

It is a sophisticated media player. With its simple design and ease-to-use controls, QuickTime Player makes everything you watch even more interesting, clean and clear as it is design to provide enjoyable in watching to the users. Want to speed through a movie (forward) or slow things down? This can be done by just setting the playback from 1/2x to 3x of the normal speed.

It’s a flexible file format. QuickTime lets you do more with your digital media. With QuickTime 7 Pro, you can even convert your files into different formats, record and edit your work. Third-party plug-ins allows QuickTime technology extends in many different directions. Besides, QuickTime streaming solutions also let you stream your media across the Internet.

The other benefits of QuickTime 7 included:

• Improved with MPEG-4 compliance

• Support for Core Audio, a set of Application programming interface that supports high resolution sound and replaces Sound Manager

• Support for using Core Image filters in Mac OS X v10.4 on live video

• Support for Quartz Composer (.qtz) animations

• Support for distinct decode order and display order

• QuickTime Kit Framework (QTKit), a Cocoa framework for QuickTime

Overall, QuickTime 7 can consider as the ‘must-have’ for anyone who surf the Web or looking to experience the best in digital media

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The Antivirus Software ---> Kaspersky Rocks!!!

Since my blog’s theme is about the most popular and favorite software used by the student, therefore this time I am going to write about the antivirus software. Antivirus software is a computer program that used to detects, prevents, and delete the malicious software programs such as Trojan and worms. Some antivirus software even can detect and remove the spyware and adware. It just acts or functions as like in our body’s immune system. In human body, when there is harmful or foreigner pathogen, our immune system will automatically send out the ‘soldier’ to fight against with the pathogen, if possible they will kill the pathogens. The same concept is applied and goes on with the antivirus software in our computer, when there is unknown malicious virus, the antivirus software will immediately fight against the viruses. So, what are computer viruses? Computer viruses are some type of software programs that are able to interfere or harm our computer operation. They record, corrupt, delete the computer data and they can even erase everything in your hard disk; more terrible is they seems like known how to ‘hack’ your email account and using your e-mail to spread themselves from one computer to another and throughout the Internet. These are several common types of computer virus that we always face:

• Computer viruses: When heard of ‘virus’, they always behave in a similar way where they can generate many copies of themselves, spreads out to the nearby and made the other files or programmes get infected and become ‘sick’. It just acts like the biological viruses where the virus inserts itself into the living, healthy cells and infects them. Usually, it is written by the ‘mean’ people and it is consider as the dangerous program where it can perform some harmful task.

• Computer worm: A self-replicating Malware computer program where it can ‘reproduce’, execute completely independently and travel across the network connections.

• Trojan horse: A non-self replicating malware where it seems like harmless computer virus and look and ‘innocent’ but actually it can turns out become extremely destructive and become the most serious threats to computer security. Trojans usually are executable programs which means when you open the file, it will immediately take its action. The file can be anything from downloaded such as a free game, movie, song and etc.

Therefore, never ever look down or pay less attention to the antivirus software as it played a vital role in protecting your computer system against those dangerous, unknown ‘visitor’. There are many brand of antivirus software are selling at the market now, such as Kaspersky, NOD32, ZoneAlarm, McAfree, Norton and so on. If you ask me which is the best brand of antivirus software, actually it is depends on individual’s opinion. But for me and most of my friends (include my cousins and uncles), we are the supporter of Kaspersky (as my title mentioned ---> Kaspersky rocksssss!!! Haha =D) as it never fail its missions so far. Besides, Kaspersky is also the top10 reviews award winner for the entire virus software. Therefore, today I’m gonna to discuss about the Kaspersky antivirus software.

Kaspersky is co-founded by Natalya Kaspersky and Eugene Kaspersky in 1997 and it provide a wide range protection for all the users. It has 3 categories which is For Home, For Small Office and For Business.

Kaspersky always follow its 5 main protection and it never fail to do it:

1. Protection against viruses, Trojans, worms, bots, botnets

2. Protection against spyware and adware.

3. Real-time protection of computer's file system: before the users open, download or save any files, the Kaspersky will scan through the files to ensure it is safe to carry for the next action.

4. Scanning technology iSwift: with the latest technology, Kaspersky now can reduce the time in computer scanning process. This is because only new and changed after last scan files are scanned

5. Anti-virus databases and modules updates from Kaspersky Lab update servers: Kaspersky Lab specialists now have successful detects about 17,000 new threats and their modifications every day. In order to ensure the systems are fully under protection, the Kaspersky Lab provides the ability to update anti-virus databases regularly.

When come to Internet and Network Security, it always:

1. Checks the internet downloads for presence of malware code: it will scan any file which is downloaded from Internet with any web browser, in order to detect any files containing malware. When a file is detected or found to be contains malware, an alert will be displayed to warn the users.

2.Scans through any e-mail messages and also its attachments: Most computer users now are aware with the popular and high rated criminal case- the cybercriminal activity through Email. For instance, receive a Trojan horse from others. But with Kaspersky, it can reduce the users’ worries as it will scans through all the e-mail body and also the attachments. When there is a malware transmitted from e-mail to computer, it will immediately blocks and alerts the user in real time.

While for the Self Protection in computer or laptop:

The self protection contains special mechanisms where it can prevent any changes or deletion of its own files from the hard drive or from memory. It also will block any attempt to manage or run the application unauthorized. Besides, it also contains Password protection of settings. By using the password protection settings’ system, it can possible to protect the application from modify its settings by the malware as well as by another user.

For my personally, I Love Kaspersky so muchie besides of its protection I listed above, its update rates are also amazing as it update automatically hourly + it will show the data of the Application Data by chart. From there, you can know the number of malware has been detected =)

For more information, you can visit their main website http://www.kaspersky.com/ in order to get a better understanding of their products as they have designed and provide variety antivirus software packages for the users. You can choose according to what your pc or laptop needs ;-). By the way, when you visit their website, you can check this out where the Kaspersky recently has launched the latest antivirus package.

That all for my today’s topic. Hope you like it. C Ya. =D