Saturday, October 31, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Snap It!
Technical writers, researcher and bloggers usually surfs the web when searching for resources needed as additional materials for their document. When a particular page of interest is found, they “copy” it by pressing the “PrntScrn” button, open a graphic software such as Paint, paste the copied material, give it a filename and then save it.
The problem with this technique is its quite tedious and time consuming especially if you got a lot of materials to “copy”. You see, the “Print Screen method” captures the whole screen into your clipboard. If you’re interested only in a particular area of the picture, you have to do extra work of editing the file to remove the unwanted parts.
There’s another method, simpler and easier way of doing it. It’s called SnapIt from Digeus Inc. Once you have installed and set it up, the rest is straightforward as A-B-C.
For example, if you only want to “capture” the header title of this blog...
Just press the “PrntScrn” button and the cursor style will change into a cross-hair. Draw a rectangle around the area you want to grab by holding down the left mouse button while dragging it.
Release the mouse button and that’s it, the software will do the rest.
The problem with this technique is its quite tedious and time consuming especially if you got a lot of materials to “copy”. You see, the “Print Screen method” captures the whole screen into your clipboard. If you’re interested only in a particular area of the picture, you have to do extra work of editing the file to remove the unwanted parts.
There’s another method, simpler and easier way of doing it. It’s called SnapIt from Digeus Inc. Once you have installed and set it up, the rest is straightforward as A-B-C.
For example, if you only want to “capture” the header title of this blog...
Just press the “PrntScrn” button and the cursor style will change into a cross-hair. Draw a rectangle around the area you want to grab by holding down the left mouse button while dragging it. Release the mouse button and that’s it, the software will do the rest. It automatically assigned a filename, save it to what ever file extension you prefer (JPG, BMP, GIF, TIFF or PNG) then store it to a file folder you assigned in the SnapIt’s property box. It captures anything in your screen except a “freeze 
frame”.
A “freeze frame” is a “still picture” of a particular scene when you “Pause” a media player while playing a VCD, DVD, MP4 or AVI file. Other capturing software can’t do it too, but it would be great if only SnapIt has this added feature.
Bottom line is; if all you need is to capture a screen, SnapIt can do the job easily, without any hassle. But don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself. You can download a “trial version” here free to use for 14 days.
One more thing, before you install SnapIt; be sure your computer has Framework 2.0 installed. SnapIt won’t work without it. You may download an update from here, free of charge. If Framework 2.0 does not install properly you might need to upgrade your Windows Installer as well. You can download it too from here, also free of charge.
Good luck and happy capturing!
frame”.A “freeze frame” is a “still picture” of a particular scene when you “Pause” a media player while playing a VCD, DVD, MP4 or AVI file. Other capturing software can’t do it too, but it would be great if only SnapIt has this added feature.
Bottom line is; if all you need is to capture a screen, SnapIt can do the job easily, without any hassle. But don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself. You can download a “trial version” here free to use for 14 days.
One more thing, before you install SnapIt; be sure your computer has Framework 2.0 installed. SnapIt won’t work without it. You may download an update from here, free of charge. If Framework 2.0 does not install properly you might need to upgrade your Windows Installer as well. You can download it too from here, also free of charge.
Good luck and happy capturing!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
On Commercial Ads
The art of advertisement, has introduced into all our life such a lavish use of superlatives, that no standard of value whatever is intact. - Wyndham Lewis
I really think people who believed what commercial ads are saying don’t know better. Ads companies have staffs that do research to find what makes people “tick” or what social group prefers what commodity. They then designed their ads, for what ever product they endorse, to that kind of mindset or consumer demography. In a way we are being conned. They even have a term for us – target customers. It feels like we are in the firing range.
Take for example instant noodles. They claim it’s nutritious, pack with vitamins and minerals. For crying out loud, where’s the nutrition in that? Its noodles, made from flour mixed with artificial flavoring to make it edible. Not to mention what other chemicals are in it, if it’s carcinogenic or not. You’ll get more mileage and nutrients eating a stick of banana cue.
Cosmetic is another thing. Since most pinoys are obsessed with fair skin, light-skinned models are hired to push their products, therefore projecting an image that you’ll be “white” after several applications. I’ll believe this crap only if Wilma Dozen turns as white as Kris Aquino after using it. Worst comes to worst, you’ll look like a kabuki actor or that girl from The Grudge.
Car ads are also pretentious. They talk about how strong its engine going from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds or boasting a 12 speaker stereo system and other amenities not particularly related to driving or car performance. I don’t care about those specs except how far it will go to a liter of petrol. For an ordinary man like me, all I want is a ride to go from point A to point B without sweat dripping down my armpit from flagging taxis. And then see them roar away because I won’t agree to a “fixed fare”. In my opinion, in all practical purposes, a person who wants an expensive sport car or SUV has only two reasons for buying it. Either to show-off or get laid.
Political ads disguised as “humanitarian effort” are the same. Lately, Manny Villar’s ad, showing him helping distressed OFWs is on TV every commercial break. It’s redundant to a point of being pathetic. We see it now and then that my 4year old daughter have memorized and can sing its jingle. If he really wants to help, instead of spending money to pay in airing that phony ad, he could have used it to help the victims of Ondoy. I don’t care if he puts his name on every plastic bag containing relief goods. Nakakapantawid gutom yun, ang commercial, hindi!
I wish we become a little bit cynical and refrain from believing everything we see and hear. But from what I observed, we got a long way to go before we could distinguish fantasy from reality and truth from falsehood.
I really think people who believed what commercial ads are saying don’t know better. Ads companies have staffs that do research to find what makes people “tick” or what social group prefers what commodity. They then designed their ads, for what ever product they endorse, to that kind of mindset or consumer demography. In a way we are being conned. They even have a term for us – target customers. It feels like we are in the firing range.
Take for example instant noodles. They claim it’s nutritious, pack with vitamins and minerals. For crying out loud, where’s the nutrition in that? Its noodles, made from flour mixed with artificial flavoring to make it edible. Not to mention what other chemicals are in it, if it’s carcinogenic or not. You’ll get more mileage and nutrients eating a stick of banana cue.
Cosmetic is another thing. Since most pinoys are obsessed with fair skin, light-skinned models are hired to push their products, therefore projecting an image that you’ll be “white” after several applications. I’ll believe this crap only if Wilma Dozen turns as white as Kris Aquino after using it. Worst comes to worst, you’ll look like a kabuki actor or that girl from The Grudge.
Car ads are also pretentious. They talk about how strong its engine going from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds or boasting a 12 speaker stereo system and other amenities not particularly related to driving or car performance. I don’t care about those specs except how far it will go to a liter of petrol. For an ordinary man like me, all I want is a ride to go from point A to point B without sweat dripping down my armpit from flagging taxis. And then see them roar away because I won’t agree to a “fixed fare”. In my opinion, in all practical purposes, a person who wants an expensive sport car or SUV has only two reasons for buying it. Either to show-off or get laid.
Political ads disguised as “humanitarian effort” are the same. Lately, Manny Villar’s ad, showing him helping distressed OFWs is on TV every commercial break. It’s redundant to a point of being pathetic. We see it now and then that my 4year old daughter have memorized and can sing its jingle. If he really wants to help, instead of spending money to pay in airing that phony ad, he could have used it to help the victims of Ondoy. I don’t care if he puts his name on every plastic bag containing relief goods. Nakakapantawid gutom yun, ang commercial, hindi!
I wish we become a little bit cynical and refrain from believing everything we see and hear. But from what I observed, we got a long way to go before we could distinguish fantasy from reality and truth from falsehood.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)