Photoshop CS3 Watermark / Frame Action

Ever since I started uploading photos onto the Internet I needed a way of 'protecting' my images. I could choose to upload a very small photo, with terrible JPEG artifact, but that's not the way you want to be remembered. Especially today. Today we have the bandwidth and the online storage to upload large images, so why not do that.

If you don't want that other people (or companies) to (financially) benefit from your hard work (1, 2, 3), you may want to 'tag' your photos. Just to make sure who created the original image.

When you shoot lot's of photos and share them with others on the Internet, you don't want to manipulate each photo. You would want to automate this.

Thankfully, there are numerous programs out there that can do such a thing. Some are free (free as in speech, and free as in beer), and others are commercially available.

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SMS Costs

Not every cellular provider gives unlimited SMS for free. Some of them have dataplans in which you buy unlimited SMS for a price. More and more contracts have so-called unlimited dataplans. This means that you can surf / e-mail all you want on your phone, but this doesn't mean that SMS is for free as well.

When you think about the costs of SMS, it is probably more expensive than a barrel of oil, or even more expensive than a bottle of printer ink.
A single sms costs about 10 to 20 cents a piece (depending on your SMS 'plan'). This SMS contains a maximum of 160 characters (=160 bytes). This makes 1 Megabyte of SMS messages costs about 650 euro (@10 cents a SMS).... So, why even sms at all?

Updating Capture NX on Mac

When I bought my Nikon D300, I got a free copy op Capture NX (v1.3.0). After installing, the application reminded me to update. There were a couple of new versions available (current version is 1.3.3).
This is were the quest began......

The Nikon Update application kept crashing on me. 50MB downloads took over three hours (before crashing), while a single download from the support pages would take 5 to 10 minutes. So I needed to get the files from the web instead of using the updater.

First, the D300 was bought in the Netherlands, so you might think that the software would also be the Dutch version. I wouldn't know this because I install everything in English (if there's a choice). So I downloaded the Dutch updates from the Nikon support pages.

Note: I used the 'Dutch' CD which came with the camera.

None of the updates worked (Error: No version of Capture NX was found)....

I literally downloaded 12 different versions from different continents. Finally, I found a 1.3.1 update (a file called cnx131_en.dmg) which worked. So I needed to get English versions of the software. Not US, or Canadian versions, but English versions.

After this it was easy; Created an account on the UK Nikon support website and found Nikon Capture NX v1.3.3 for OSX. This update worked. So finally, after a gazillion downloads, multiple crashes, and 5 hours well spend, I got Capture NX v1.3.3 up and running.....

So, even if your camera is officially purchased in the Netherlands, you need to get the updates from the UK.

UPDATE: It seems that I'm not the only one who ran into this. I keep getting referers from some fora around the Internet.
I think that if you're running Windows instead of OSX you might have similar problems. So yet another crossplatform solution :)

CiscoVPN Error 51 Annoyance

The CiscoVPN client (v4.9.01.0100) for Apple OSX throws an error every once in a while. Mainly when I just rebooted, or when I was forced to quit some hanging application (which also occurs on Macs). The error is:

Error 51: Unable to communicate with the VPN subsystem

Somehow, the VPN software looses contact with the network adapter (wired AND wireless). After this there are two things you can do;

1. Reboot
2. or restart the Cisco VPN Service manually.

The first is kinda obvious (it's almost a MS Windows strategy :)). The second one is done via the Terminal (Finder -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal). Just type the following command (followed by your password);

sudo /System/Library/StartupItems/CiscoVPN/CiscoVPN restart

The thing I don't understand is; Why hasn't Cisco incorporated this in the VPN client?

IF (Error 51 == TRUE)
DO CiscoVPN.restart

It seems that this 'bug' is present since the release of the Mac OSX version of the software.

Adobe Coldfusion MX on Ubuntu Server

Ever since I went 'Apple', the urge of moving away from Microsoft Windows operating systems is getting bigger and bigger. A couple of weeks ago I installed a two Ubuntu servers (v7.x) at work. Mainly for testing , and educational purposes.
The installation went extremely smooth on old Compaq ML370 server hardware. So, as a test I tried to install Adobe Coldfusion MX (Coldfusion 8 ) on the Ubuntu server (with Apache, and MySQL).

There are several postings on the Internet suggesting that it should be possible. Even though Ubuntu isn't on the supported platforms list for Adobe Coldfusion MX.

Click to read more ...

All Comments Held For Moderation....

Ever since I upgraded to Wordpress 2.5 I had to moderate every comment posted on this blog. Note that I hadn't turned this on in the Wordpress settings.

Some research showed that it might have to do something with 'older' plugins. After a trail and error period I found out that the WP Hashcash plugin was to blame. Ever since I de-activated it, the problem seems to be gone.

Authentication Required While Printing on OSX 10.5.2

Since I upgraded from OSX 10.5.1 to 10.5.2 I haven't been able to use my shared printer on on my Windows server. Every job I submit gives me an error saying On Hold (Authentication Required).

There's no way that I could submit the printjob to the server from my Mac.

It seems that there is a bug in the authentication mechanism on OSX 10.5.2. If you add a (network) printer by using the System Preferences, you get to browse to find the actual printer.

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Awesome Screensaver

I listened to the latest 'This Week in Tech' podcast today. They mentioned a screensaver called FlickrFan. This screensaver can connect to flickr account and images to use in the screensaver. But it also downloads current Associated Press images in high quality and more. This results in awesome pictures from around the world covering the news in HIGH-RES. B.t.w. it's much more than just a screensaver, but I liked the screensaver-part best.

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Display Full Path in Finder

One thing I hate is not knowing where I am. I had this in Windows, and I still have it OSX. By default OSX doesn't show the full path in the finder. This is annoying as hell. Especialy when you're having shares called 'Pictures', and the chances are quite big that you might have a local directory called 'Pictures'. You can't tell the difference. Using the following terminal command, you get the full path in the Finder. So no more 'Pictures', but '/Volumes/Pictures/' Terminal command: defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES killall Finder Simply replace the YES for NO to disable the feature. This is OSX 10.5 or higher only!!

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Symcaimport and Windows Mobile Devices

It seems that my little upload / download page for adding root certificate authorities Symbian phones is also a big help for those who use Windows Mobile Devices.

Very strange that there are millions of smartphones on the market, and that everyone, regardless of the phones they have, experience the same problem. Why won't Microsoft (Windows Mobile) and the Symbian people simplify the interface of adding root CA's?