Stephen also commented:
For quick and dirty format conversions, resizing and cropping I use IrfanView. Does the trick for most simple tasks and is quick to start up.IrfanView is also brilliant, a fast viewer that also does many of the most commonly needed editing tasks. I have not yet tried out any of the plugins, so up to now I cannot comment on video in IrfanView, but for graphics it is great!
If anyone has tried the video plugins please comment about how well they work - is this program a substitute for Windows Media Player as well?
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I use Irfanview a lot and my kids like it too. We don't use it for video or as a substitute for WMP. But it's great for cropping, resizing and conversion which I seem to do a lot. My kids are quite artistic with plain old Paint and have created entire adventure games full of graphic soldiers, snakes and monsters using that program plus a little HTML.
By 
David Ker, at
July 26, 2008 2:20 AM
Here's the list of graphics programs I've used:
http://bibleandtech.blogspot.com/2007/04/regarding-images-and-such.html
By mgvh, at
July 26, 2008 6:15 AM
David, are the games online for others to see?
By Tim, at
July 26, 2008 1:37 PM
You might want to look at VLC for video playing tasks too. The transcoding wizard (and the fact it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux) makes it invaluable for me. You can add codecs to it too.
By Stephen G, at
July 26, 2008 11:09 PM
So, I installed Gimp, it is a few years (as the MX designation on my Macromedia - remember them? - software may hint) since I last tried Gimp. It has improved beyond recognition, back then it was ugly, difficult to use and crashed the machine often - in short, no advert for open source software. Now it is good looking, stable, and most tasks (once I began to learn different menu structure and keystrokes) are fairly easy. Brilliant!I just wish I could find a good way to export a picture as JPG, but then Gimp is not designed as a Fireworks replacement, but one for Photoshop, I guess... Does anybody know a better freeware way to adjust photos and export them for the web? Or a quick way to export JPG and GIF from Gimp?
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Hi Tim, I use GIMP all the time. Simply do a save as and change the extension to jpg.
By 
Graham Doel, at
July 21, 2008 11:39 PM
Hi, Graham, that's what I am doing, but since Gimp then asks me to export the file first it is a multi step process. Also I miss the information Fireworks gives about the filesize as I change the quality.
But I recognise that I am once again examining the teeth of donated equines - Gimp is an all purpose graphics tool and brilliant as such. Firefox is aimed at web use and brilliant at that more restricted task.
By Tim, at
July 22, 2008 6:44 AM
When you change the extension to .jpg (or .jpeg) and click Save, the Gimp wants to know what JPEG quality to use---this extra step is understandable. If you then tick the box to "Show preview in image window", you get not only the filesize, but also (as the words suggest) a preview of the image at the quality you've chosen (but you might have to move other windows out of the way to see it). Moving the Quality slider will update both the filesize and the preview.
<><
By , at
July 22, 2008 2:24 PM
Oops, sorry, stupid of me, yes there it is ;)
Blame my oversight on it being the start of a new semester and trying to get pics ready for the first class as well as blogs... Now I am even more sold on Gimp!
By Tim, at
July 22, 2008 4:30 PM
Actually, I think that bit's a bit unintuitive---if you want to know the filesize, you have to ask for a preview---so I can't blame you for missing it at first.
<><
By , at
July 22, 2008 5:33 PM
For quick and dirty format conversions, resizing and cropping I use IrfanView. Does the trick for most simple tasks and is quick to start up.
By Stephen G, at
July 23, 2008 9:08 PM
Thank you both, Irfanview is also brilliant! Now I do not need to install ANY of the graphics programs I have bought and used over the years ;)
By Tim, at
July 25, 2008 6:27 PM
Labels: software
¶ 10:51 AM
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OK, we've all done it - even those who don't admit it - overwritten the version we need of some vital document and lost hours of work. Barbara suffered this just the other day, from the dreaded "I saved the attachment when I finished editing it" syndrome (which is also my most common cause). I am not bad at finding the backup copies that Word scatters liberally round one's hard-drive, but I've bookmarked "How to recover lost Word files"? from EaseUs software people (even if it does advertise their shareware products) because it suggests some wrinkles I did not know or often forget... (HT to the usually interesting LifeHacker for the tip.)
Labels: software
¶ 5:32 PM
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Argh! Saved attachments in MS Entourage on the Mac and MS Outlook on the PC have both devastated me. I'm hoping that Apple's "Time Machine" feature might help that if I upgrade the laptop.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/features/timemachine.html
By Stephen G, at
June 29, 2007 5:44 PM
» PortableApps
Labels: software
¶ 3:44 PM
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