Guide: Batch watermarking photos in IrfanView 4.20

Cut the crap & get to the point:
File > Batch conversion… > Advanced > Add overlay text > Settings
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Numero uno: Get IrfanView and its plug-ins. <–clickety click!
(note: Download the “ALL Plug-Ins as one large EXE” as recommended by IrfanView.)

Now install IrfanView. Then install the plug-ins. Very simple process.

Why IrfanView? I’ve mentioned a little about it in my ‘killer softwares I use‘ post.

IrfanView has been one of the most powerful but simple softwares out there. It’s only 1.3MB + another 8MB of codec plug-ins. With this, it can almost play any media there is out there. From various photo format including RAW to videos to MP3s. If I have an unknown media that I want to play, I always run IrfanView first. Though its prowess and main function remain in photo viewing and editing. There is just so many neat tricks that it can do. All there is to do is search the web, or explore it yourself.

Back to batch watermarking. (Here’s for you, Debbie and other debutantes)
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Run/start/open IrfanView.

File > Batch conversion/Rename…  B (or just press the ‘B’ shortcut button)

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This is the batch conversion dialogue window.

Top right is to select the photos you want to process. Bottom right is the photos added that will be processed.

On the left side now. The top: ‘Batch conversion’ is to do the conversions and replacing the original file. ‘Batch rename’ will copy the files with new names into the folder you specified (it will replace your original file if you choose to use original name in the same folder). ‘Batch conversion – Rename result files’ will do whatever conversion you specified, and then put them into a folder you choose with a new name.

Looking at screenshot 2, the file name I used was ‘xw$N’… ‘DSC_4754 Viennese Ball KL 08 – 62’ —> ‘xwDSC_4754 Viennese Ball KL 08 – 62’.
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Google Chrome: n00b review

I created this list while reviewing Chrome. I’m too damn lazy to rewrite. This post will be updated with more screen shot and more points as I use Chrome.

Do check out Marktrix’s personal review of the Chrome too! <–clickety click!
He’s a nerd. Nerd’s review is different from a n00b’s review. And he’s totally into Safari, so a different point of view.
Why would anyone want to use Safari in Window or Linux is so beyond comprehension & logic. Seriously, like… WTH?! (Heh heh, can’t resist taking a sarcastic swipe at you, Mark!)

—FIRST LOOK—
The layout is clean and easy to look at. The colour used is contrasty and easy to distinguish from one menu/panel from another. I like it more than Safari’s (and Mac’s) default layout which lacks contrast, every darn thing is in some shade of grey. It ran Grow Cube (a Flash game) magnificently, probably due to Flash being ran in a separate process.

—TABS—
-Links clicked appears next to the original tab, while new empty tabs appears at the end of the row. This makes surfing easier because links from one tabs are grouped together.

Nice shiny gold

I opened a Gold Investment Account (GIA) with Public Bank on Monday 6 Oct 2008. 20 grams of gold at the price of 95.20 Ringgit per gram. Today it’s 100.79 Ringgit/gram. Maybe I should deposit another 10-20 grams seeing that it’s on a bullish trend. Clickety click for PBB’s gold price.

Of course, there are other ways of trading gold, such trading futures in COMEX, trading in spot gold in London, buying physical gold or buying gold coins (e.g. Canadian Gold Maple Leaf, Krugerrand, US Gold Eagle Coin, Chinese Panda, etc…)

What prompted me to invest in gold is that I read around the net and those-in-the-know advised to put money in gold during this time of crisis.

I read around and the reason is that people will flock to gold when there is inflation, stock market crisis, bank failures and political instability (war).

[From this point onwards, it’s purely me typing out based on my limited understanding of economics and trading. So, caveat emptor — let the buyer investor/reader beware.]

1) US had just printed tonnes of money to finance the bailout. Printing more money will cause inflation. 2) Next the stock market is in terrible state. Especially bad at this time of writing. So people flock to safer investment vehicles. 3) And there are lots of bank failures in the US and everywhere else right now. In fact, Iceland just went bankrupt. But then I’m investing indirectly through a bank, janganlah PBB goes belly up.

Another thing I found out was that central banks sometimes manipulate the gold futures price, to limit the price. The reason is not to make gold shine too much compared to the cacated stock market (pun intended). If gold performs too well, then no one will want to invest in the stock market. Consequently, the doomed financial houses will not be able to get new capital from the stock market.

However, the price of physical gold is still pretty high, as evident from the price of gold coins that had not dropped much. Suggesting that the demand for gold is still pretty strong, and further implicating that gold price is being manipulated.

“So?!” you asked.
So, this is an opportunity to buy when gold price is manipulated down. Central banks don’t really care much for gold price. They are just trying to save their banking system. So once habis manipulating, they cabut lah… and gold will continue to move as usual… which I hope is up. Well, at least ‘up’ is what many people are saying lah.

the GOldDigger/
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A few references (do take note of the date the articles are posted):

1. 8 thing everyone should know about gold — James Turk in goldprice.org
2. Crude oil vs gold — www.bhcinvestment.com
3. Quick update by BHC Investment about gold
4. Gold price manipulation by central banks — www.bhcinvestment.com
5. Gold rush 21 – Video about gold price manipulation — www.bhcinvestment.com
6. Keep Your Eyes on the Horizon, the Long Term — goldprice.org
7. This period of suppressed prices is a gift, an opportunity, to load up — goldprice.org

Violent dream

I had a weird dream last night. Well, actually all of my dreams are weird-ass. I can never understand any of my dreams and how my dreams progress from one ridiculous scene to another totally unrelated, but equally ridiculous scene. Something like the Scary Movie series, but weirder.

I dreamed that I was in my grandma’s old house. The details remain fuzzy, but I remember escaping from a battle/fight… then I end up at the lawn at the back of the house.

Then I started fighting/sparring with my friends (huh? WTH?). I was doing Brazilian jiujutsu (BJJ), kyukushin karate, savate and some weird ass self-defence moves I created myself. Then I was discussing with my friends about which martial arts is most effective and which one I prefer and all those crap.

I woke up and was like WTF?! But it was a nice dream. Better than wet dreams =P. I so totally enjoyed dream-sparring with other people. I like sparring and fighting. It’s my idea of fun, thrashing and being thrashed around. My dad didn’t allow me to learn martial arts as a kid because I was too small size. I am like WT-CCB-FH?! (I can never understand my father. Nothing he ever does to me ever makes any sense or benefited me.)

Sh1te! I must have been watching too much of Fight Quest on Discovery channel recently. It was a damn nice show, and I love it! All those martial art stuff Jimmy and Doug do looks like so much fun.

Given the chance, I’d like to learn taichi chuan, wing chun and savate… and be really good at all those, then maybe a little hapkido or kyukushin karate or muay thai or krav maga or kajukenbo or Amok knife fighting. I’m so bl00dy greedy — wanna learn everything. =P

Taichi because it is the most graceful and dance-like. I like graceful stuff, like how I like dancing… or watching other people dance.

There’s only one reason to learn Wing chun… Bruce Lee. Also because of its economical and fast moves (wing chun was originally designed for women, according to one version of history. And it fits me being a small guy).

French savate because it’s precise and dance-like moves. Savate’s hits are all on sensitive+vulnerable body parts e.g. solar plexus, liver, Achilles tendon, arm pits. I saw Jimmy kena kicked in the liver during training. It wasn’t even a hard kick, just a light tap by the savate champion. And he was squirming on the floor macam nak mati. Fulamak, I’ve gotta learn it!

But all those I want to learn does not complement each other very well. All 3 are only effective if you’re standing. If you fall, you’ve got no choice but to grapple. Then Brazilian jiujitsu becomes useful — only when grappling on the ground.

Overall most well rounded are krav maga and kajukenbo. Both are no holds barred, very violent and main objective is to survive in real situations. You learn to fight standing up and how to keep standing, and in the event you go to the ground — how to fight on the ground. Krav maga takes it further… everything goes including gouging the eyes, kicking the groin, breaking bones, etc. The more I talk about it, the more I feel like I wanna punch something right now. X^D

the MArtialArtist/

P.S. from Fight Quest website, my fighting style is…

My fighting style is :

Take the Discovery Channel Fight Quest Challenge to learn your style

Corrupted card… lost memories

I just had my trusty Sandisk Ultra II CF died out on me. The bl00dy card decided it was a cute idea to corrupt the files inside. Diu. Maybe I bought a fake Sandisk, or maybe I put the card on top of a HDD and kena all the magnetic damage.

I sometimes don’t download files into the PC after a photo shoot. Hey, there’s still lots of space in the card… so I malas lah.

One find day, I removed the card for a few days. When I re-inserted it into the camera, there was no photos in it despite it showing less memory space. I suspected some thing wrong… but the heck with it, I was rushing off to the Viennese Ball practice. So I went ’round shooting the practice session. Setibanya di rumah… I couldn’t open the files. Had to connect through the camera and copy each file one-by-one. Then try to open them to check their integrity.

Well, the Viennese Ball practice photos are all A-OK. But photos taken during Hui Shan’s wedding was corrupted beyond my salvage. Arrrrgh…!!

In desperation, I connected my Nexto back-up HDD to the PC and check if any of previous photos were backed-up. Nasib baik I’ve downloaded the files. I tell you… the Nexto is a superb device.

— Neat trick: I used the laptop’s screen to light up the Nexto beautifully. —

See the CF card being inserted into it for back-up/transfer purpose? There’s another slot at the left side (of the device) for Memory Sticks and SD Cards; and a USB port at the bottom to back-up from cameras or USB sticks. And look ma… only one button. Every thing is done through that 1 button! One Ring Button to rule them all!

I’ve tried backing-up files from my phone into it. It works! Though it only backed-up the MicroSD in the phone. It can even transfer files from the HDD (inside the device) to USB sticks or memory cards — saves me the trouble of burning CDs for everyone.

Beside wiping your arse after you poo, there’s nothing the Nexto can’t do. As long as the other device has a USB plug, it will work its magic. (If your arse has a USB port, it’ll gladly back-up your arse too! X^D ) And, oh… the speed in which it would back-up your arse…

It’s a d@mn useful device, considering that flash memories are very prone to data corruption. While other external HDD casing will only cost about 80 Ringgit, the Nexto will burn a 499 Ringgit hole in your wallet for the SATA version (without HDD) from Shashinki.com.

the AMnesiac/

P.S. Have I mentioned that the Nexto M1 is a heck of a beauty too?

Grow Cube

For those with time to kill, here’s a Flash game that will kill a few brain cells. Grow Cube.

*Clickety click –> www.eyezmaze.com/grow/cube

It’s a simple game, and very cute to watch. It’s like watching cartoons! I love it! Even now that I know the correct order, I still play it just to watch the Cube grow. =)

You simply click on the items on the side. Those items will develop/grow as the game advances. The objective is to find out the order to grow the items. Each item can possibly affect the growth of other items depending on the order of your choice. Get the correct order and all items will grow to max level (each item’s max level is different).

It took me a few days, I think, to solve this game. D@mn nice! Go play Grow Cube now!
And oh… do try out other Grow games by Eyemaze too. They are just as fun.

the CErealGamer/

P.S. The 2 screenshots above are inserted using the ‘Insert Polaroid Pictures’ plug-in in Windows Live Writer. Not bad, aye? You guys MUST try Live Writer if you write blogs.

Teresa Kok and eggs

She was released from ISA recently. Then she mentioned about the food in prison being terrible and that the food was ‘like dog food’ (or something to that effect).

This statement pissed off some people and sparked off some nasty rebutts.

UMN0 Youth went and made a police report claiming that she insulted the eggs (she was given only two eggs for a meal).

Then some mofo idiot threw a molotov cocktail into her parents’ home for whatever reasons only god knows.

These people deserve to be driven a cactus up their arse. They’ve got nothing else better to do than to tarnish Malaysia’s reputation and waste the air that we breathe. Heck, throw these idiots into ISA and let them have a feel of how the food is like.

If the food is terrible, then there’s no wrong in saying that the food is terrible. It’s actually worse than dog food. My neighbour’s dog gets better food than just 2 eggs per meal, ok?! 2 eggs is barely 12g of protein. Total energy is around 120 calories. Mana ada cukup to sustain BMR?

To those who talk cock a lot and b!tches about Teresa’s statement, please get your arse arrested into a prison and try eating those junk before you start spewing dog sh!te out of your mouth.

the PRisoner/