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Tien Soon's Tech Blog

Sun Tech Days 2007 Kuala Lumpur

Posted: February 15th, 2007, 8:16pm MYT by Law Tien Soon

Though my career interest has always been surrounded with Java technologies, but I've yet to attend at giant Java tech event; in contrast, I attended the Microsoft Tech.Ed SEA 2006 hehe

When my colleague shared with me a link on the Sun Tech Days 2007 Kuala Lumpur, I straight away told to myself "I want to go" without second thought :p

The Sun Tech Days 2007 Kuala Lumpur is only a two-day event, scheduled to be held from 7th to 8th March at KL Convention Centre.

In addition to the interesting techie agenda, the father of Java - James Gosling, will also be coming to this event as keynote speaker!!! Ya James Gosling will be here! Well, to Java community, James Gosling is a big celebrity like the Bill Gates of Microsoft.

Immediately, I made a request to my manager, and he gives me a complementary pass. Hooray! I'm going to attend Sun Tech Days 2007 Kuala Lumpur.
Batch Photo Resize

Posted: February 15th, 2007, 5:06pm MYT by Law Tien Soon

After sharing the batch renaming utility, suddenly I can’t stop writing, and would like to share another tool serving the purpose of batch photo resize.

Every time when I would like to share some photos online, I will first resize them before uploading to Flickr. Similar to renaming the photos, resizing them is a simple task, but iteratively tedious and time consuming.

Resizing a photo is fine, but what about resizing a batch of 50 photos? Kind of a bored routine task isn’t it?

For this purpose, I love the Image Resizer, one of the useful and free Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP.

Image Resizer is a small utility, which enables Windows XP users to easily resize more than 1 photo in a batch. Assuming you need to resize 50 photos at one go, isn’t it convenient if this tedious task can be automated and completed within 30 seconds?

Just select the photos that you would like to resize, right click, and select Resize Pictures from the context menu. Then, a simple pop-up dialog will be displayed, with options for common sizes – small (640 x 480), medium (800 x 600), large (1024, 768), handheld PC (240 x 320). Advanced options are also available should you need to resize the photos to other alternative sizes.

Based on my finding, the Image Resizer is using JPG compression at 70% quality. In general, the end result still looks good for the purpose of online publishing, but finer details are lost, comparing to higher quality export such as 90%. But, the benefit derived in small physical file size.

I would prefer the tool to feature an advanced option which enables users to specify the export quality.

If you’re looking for a batch photo resizing tool to ease online publishing and sharing of photos, the Image Resizer is definitely a good one, provided if high quality image definition is not your priority.
Batch Photo Rename

Posted: February 15th, 2007, 4:32pm MYT by Law Tien Soon

Why Batch Photo Rename?

As always, after taking a batch of photos, I will be busy spending some time, not so much on post-editing, but renaming them. I'm quite choosey in terms of the file naming of my photos. I don't like the default meaningless file name format automatically generated by digital camera, which is basically named in incremental sequence, and that's it.

I prefer my photos to be named with prefix of event name, following by the date in ddddmmyy, and ended with sequenced number. For example, the first picture of my first day Siem Reap trip is named as SiemReap_20060901_01.jpg.

Sometime, I'll also append the specific location's name in addition to the event name prefix, such as SiemReap_AngkorWat_20060901_01.jpg. When I share the pictures with friends, they can absolutely know what the picture is about without my explanation :)

However, this simple but iteratively tedious task easily consumes significant amount of time. I've written a simple Java program on my own in 30 minutes, to address my personal needs. All it does is to prefix the files with a specific string, and append with incremental sequenced number. It's just a simple program, which renames all the files within a specific folder. No, I can't choose a set of selected files from a folder hehe.

I don't want to spend more time coding on my own, as I'm sure there are dedicated utilities out there offering better features.

Bulk Rename Utility

Searching at Google, I've found some utilities, but not impressive at all. Some are doing the job, but poor in interface and usability. Some performing the job well, but cost money hehe.

Looking for a recommended batch file rename utility that does the job without costing me a single cent in tangible sense :p, I stumbled upon David Liow's post, which recommends Bulk Rename Utility.

Bulk Rename Utility, also known as BRU, is really an excellent and impressive batch file rename utility. It does much more than what I'm looking for. But too bad it doesn't rank well at Google. Let me contribute a little effort hehe. Batch Rename, Batch File Rename.

As the BRU is heavily loaded with features, the interface is also cluttered with a lot of panels and controls. At one glance, it's like I'm looking at an engineering program - too many input fields, and the labels are mostly not fully spelled. However, if you spend about 10 minutes examining each of the control, then you'll find that it's not as complex as you thought. In fact, you can get it working by just filling up a fraction of the input fields.

Now, let's take a walk-through example. I have a batch of photos named by default from IMGP5012.JPG to IMGP5032.JPG. I want to rename them in sequence from CNY2007_Melaka_070215_01.JPG to CNY2007_Melaka_070215_21.JPG.

1. Configure RegEx (1)

Firstly, I want all my photos in this batch to be prefixed with CNY2007_Melaka. RegEx stands for regular expression, which is a powerful string replace technique in most of the modern programming and scripting languages.

I don't care much about the Match as I'm not intended to keep any part of the original file name, so just simply key in CNY2007_Melaka as Replace.

2. Auto Date (8)

Next, my preferred file name pattern is following by date. So I specified the following:
Mode: Suffix
Type: Creation (Current)
Fmt (Format): YMD
Sep (Separator): _

Note that I specified an underscore sign as separator, to ease readability of my file name.

3. Numbering (10)

Lastly, I would like to end the file name with sequenced numbering.
Mode: Suffix
Start: 1
Incr. (Increment): 1
Pad (Padding): 2
Sep (Separator): _
Type: Base 10 (Decimal)

Padding of 2 yields numbering in the format from o1 - 99. If you have more than 99 photos, you should specify padding of 3, which represents a group of numbering sequence from 001 - 999

Preview and Rename

BRU actually allows us to easily select any number of files from a folder to be renamed. Besides, I can also preview the new name, to check if my configuration and setting is correct.

Once everything is verified to be fine, just simply hit the Rename button, and done!

As I said, BRU is impressively powerful. It is feature-packed. If you would like to learn more about this utility, user manual is available as well. Best of all, the program creator is generous enough to offer it as free utility.
Valentine's Day - Just a Day, but Varying Feelings and Thoughts

Posted: February 15th, 2007, 12:15am MYT by Law Tien Soon

Practically, Valentine's Day is just another brand new day in the history of Earth; but, interestingly, it's a day which has stimulated varying feelings and thoughts among people from all walks of life.

The new love birds, especially couple who are celebrating their first Valentine's Day, are waiting for today with full of anticipation.

Lady: "What a romantic night would have? Will he buy a bouquet of flowers for me? Will he send the flowers to my office?"

The yet-to-be-married couples, whom have celebrated their Valentine's Day before, are instead waiting for today with hope for surprises. The ladies are most probably wondering what they will be getting this year, while the guys are cracking their heads thinking of new surprises ;)

Guy: "I've already given her plenty of gifts all this while, what else should I buy this year?"

In the initial stage of a relationship, bouquet of flowers is virtually a necessity if financially affordable, even at the hiking festive price. Well, naturally, most of the girls would like to have some sweet and unforgettable memories in their romance journey.

However, when the relationship has been on-going for years, couples might opt for practicality than following the crowd. Undeniably, the price of flowers is a few folds higher than normal days. The price for a last-for-few-day bouquet might be better spent on some other practical gifts.

To the married couples, some are still sweet enough to have Valentine's Day dinner, while some already taken it easy or for granted. Some couples married with child/children are bringing along their kid(s) to celebrate as a family day, which signifies a milestone in life, that the festival is celebrated from 2 persons to more than 2 :)

To the singles le, some are taking 14th Feb easy as a normal day, while some are envious or jealous of their attached friends, and others are simply sighing of their aloneness. To my friends falling in this category, there's nothing to be sighing about. Think of it as just an excessively commercialized day. I remember a friend of mine who said a meaningful statement before - "aloneness is not equal to loneliness".

If you are single, and already have someone in your mind, then you should take 14th Feb as a driving force for you to put in some efforts. A lot people like to say "just let it be". Well, partially true, you shouldn't force; but, how do you interpret the phrase "just let it be"? If you are waiting for a relationship to flourish without initiative efforts, do you think it's possible to work out in long run? Do you expect a lover dedicated to you falling automatically from the sky?

Nothing is effortless, and it's true in a relationship. Just let it be, naturally, but you still need to put in efforts :)

I've read an interesting piece of finding from Ziglar's book titled "See You At The Top", which discusses the reason behind increasing divorce rate. As written in Ziglar's book, a lot of married couples don't give each other surprises anymore, as how they did before marriage. The husband doesn't treat his wife like how he used to woo her, and treats a lot of relationship factors as "not important anymore". There's no need to hold hand, there's no need to give her good bye kiss, there's no need to buy her birthday gift, there's no need to praise her beauty, and bla bla bla … Well, this does not only apply to man, it takes both palms to make a clap.

Anyway, to everyone, no matter what your relationship status is, Happy Valentine's Day.

Special dedication to my dear, hope you're not depressing just because I'm not beside you on 14th Feb 2007 hahaha. Muaks!

By the way, though the purple flower shot at the top is not a Valentine's Day symbolic flora, but I like it for the fact that it was actually spotted to my surprise at a small vacant lake in Melaka. The purple tone can be further highlighted and emphasized, if I Photoshop it.