Gone are the days when animated GIFs were just flashy stuff that would decorate your geocities page. With GIF being one of the most popular tags on tumblr, it is high time, that you try it out for yourself. And we have a step-by-step instruction manual to assist you.

Softwares required: 
#1. Photoshop CS5 (or any previous version, the interface will be a bit different. For this tutorial, we’ll stick to CS5). Aslo, my PC runs Windows XP, because I am too poor to upgrade.
#2. VLC Player (or any Media player, which allows taking screencaps from a video e.g. KMPlayer, SMPlayer. Pick your favourite)

Hit the Jump to see the step by step tutorial.

Step 1: Screenshot time:
Take the required screencaps for the GIF you want to make. Although Photoshop allows to make frames directly from a video source, it can often be limited to certain video formats. Using a Media player of your choice, allows you to make frames from any video source, irrespective of the format of the source file.

A few handy preparatory steps to make your screencapping process easier.

Go to VLC preferences by hitting Ctrl+P, and go to Hotkeys to edit keyboard shortcuts. Change screenshot to “S”, and Stop to “Shift+S”. This will allow you to take screenshots, just by holding down S key.
Set your directory, where you want your screenshots to be outputted, in the Video snapshot settings under Video tab.
And also decide whether you want high quality screencaps in png, or lossy jpg screens are fine for you.
Also give a nice naming convention, with a sequential numbering enabled. Photoshop likes order. Refer to the settings in the screenshot below.

For the purpose of this tutorial, we have chosen the latest trailer of The Amazing Spiderman.

Step 2. Prepare Your Photoshop
Open up Photoshop CS5. Now, click on the Bridge icon on the top toolbar, or press Ctrl+Alt+O, or go to:

File->Browse in Bridge. Now browse to your location where the screenshots are located. You should see something like this.

Pick all the images that you want to be in your GIF, and go to Tools->Photoshop->Load in layers on Photoshop.

Step 3. Import Images
Step 2, should import those jpg/png files as layers in Photoshop. If your images are labelled img001 – img050, it will show img050 (as it is the latest one to load). Go to the right hand corner of the animation bar, and click on the edge, and select “Make Frames From Layers”. This will import all layers as frames on the animation bar.

(If you don’t see the animation bar, it might have been unselected. Go to Windows->Animation, to enable the animation bar, and follow Step 3).

Step 4. Setting the order right
The images loaded are set in reverse order i.e. in our example, the animation will show from img050 to img001. Unless you want a rewind animation, you wuold need to reverse this order. Select the first animation frame, and hold down the Shift key, and the last animation frame to select all frames. Then, go to the right hand corner of the animation bar again, and click and select – Reverse frames.

Your animation is now chronologically correct. Also, do necessary changes, such as cropping, and setting your image size using the usual Photoshop tools – Rectangular Marquee, and Image->Image Size respectively.

Step 5: Modifications
If you feel your animation is moving too slowly, then you select alternate frames i.e. img002, img004, ..and so on, and delete them. This will make the animation faster, due to drop in frame count. Conversely, if you want to slow down the animation, select all frames, as mentioned in Step 4, and set the time for each frame, by clicking at the bottom right of any frame. You can also select individual time for each frame.

Step 5: Preview and Save
When you are happy with the animation, you can view the final image in the animation window. It is also advisable to preview it in a browser window, to actually view how it would look like an image (possibly, which is going to be circulated over the web, and viewed in a browser window). For this, go to: File-> Save For Web and Devices. Select GIF.

Now it is upto you to select the settings to save the GIF in. We’ll discuss the different settings in our next post. But for now, I’ll let you know that Dithered gives the lowest size for a GIF compared to Pattern or Noise. And lower the colour count, lower the size. But your GIF won’t look as pretty either. So, we’ll leave it to you to play around with the settings. Once you’re happy with the final optimised image, you can preview it in a browser by hitting the preview button. (You can select which browser you want to view it in as well).
There is another advantage of previewing it, as the time selected for frames, can appear differently in the animation window, compared to the final browser preview.

And that is it, you are ready to save your GIF now. Here is the final image, that we have prepared for this tutorial.

In our next tutorial, we will discuss the optimisation settings of GIF sizes, and also how to add text, like we have done in the following GIF.

Feel free to share this tutorial using the buttons below. Also, follow us on Facebook.

We all have our good days and bad days with Excel. But with these 40 keyboard shortcuts, you can be assured that your session with Excel will all mean business.

Here are 40 of the most awesome Excel keyboard shortcuts to enable you to sail through all your regular and reptetive tasks like an Excel Spreadhseet Ninja.

For your convenience, I have divided them into 5 broad sections viz. – Selection, Switching, Creation, Formatting and Formula.

So here it is: 40 Excel Keyboard Shortcuts

Selection

1. Ctrl+* – Select current region.
2. Ctrl+Home – Goes to the first cell of the sheet
3. Ctrl+End – Goes to the last active cell of the sheet
4. Ctrl+Spacebar – Select entire column
5. Shift+Spacebar – Select entire row
6. Shift+Up/Down Arrow – Select adjacent column
7. Shift+Left/Right Arrow – Select adjacent row
8. Ctril +Up Arrow – Select first active cell in a column
9. Ctrl + Down Arrow – Select last active cell in a column
10. Ctrl+Shift+Up Arrow - Selecting all rows from a particular cell to the beginning of the row
11. Ctrl+Shift+Down Arrow - Selecting all rows from a particular cell to the end of the row
12. Ctrl+Shift+Home – Select all cells from active cell to the first active cell in the sheet
13. Ctrl+Shift+End – Select all cells from active cell to the last active cell in the sheet

Switching

14. Ctrl+Page Up – Switch between sheets in the same worksheet from left to right
15. Ctrl+Page Down – Switch between sheets in the same worksheet from right to left
16. Ctrl+Tab – Switch between worksheets
17. Alt+F11 – Open VBA Editor

Creation

18. Shift+ F11 – Creates New sheet
19. Ctrl+F3 – Define name for a cell
20. F3 – Paste name for a cell
21. Ctrl+; – Pastes Current date in the active cell
22. Ctrl+Shift+; – Pastes Current time in the active cell
23. Alt+F1 – Creates a chart using the active region
24. Alt+F2 -Displays the Save as dialog box

Formatting

25. Ctrl+1 – Format cells
26. Ctrl+2, Ctrl+B – Bold
27. Ctrl+3, Ctrl+i – Italics
28. Ctrl+4, Ctrl+U – Underline
29. Ctrl+5 – Strikethrough
30. Ctrl+9 – Hides selected rows
31. Ctrl+0 – Hides selected columns
32. Ctrl+D – Copy formatting of top most cell
33. Ctrl+G / F5 – Go to box
34. Ctrl+K – Hyperlink
36. Ctrl+L -Create List
37. Ctrl+R – Fill Right / Copy content and formats of leftmost cell in a selection

Formula:

38. =+FunctionName+Ctrl+A – Inserts new function
39. Ctrl+Shift+Enter – Array formula
40. Shift+F3 – Opens Formula Dialogue Box

Fell free to share this post using the buttons below. Or just proudly show off your Spreadhseet Ninja skills on your own.

All of us whose work involves staring at a monitor for 6 out of 8 working hours in a day, are also aware that most organisations have PCs with Internet Explorer as the default browser. If you are unfortunate, this could well be something like the dreadful IE6. For us who love the flexibility, stability and customability of Firefox/Chrome on our home PC, settling for a stone-age browser like the IE6 is just very unsettling. After all, the sole purpose for IE over its life time is to download the other browsers. So you have decided which browser you want. But it is not always fully allowed to install them on your work PCs. There’s always that nanny IT dude restricting your admin rights on your work PC. But there’s always a sneaky way to dodge these.

Option 1: C:\Temp , or D:\Temp:

Most of the times, IT admin guys restrict you from installing files in the default applications folder, such as C:\Program Files etc. Installing it in a folder where write access is provided is an easy work around. Most importantly, it works like a charm.

Option 2: Portable Browsers:

There are lots of browsers available in the portable format. i.e. they can be installed on a removable storage device such as a USB stick. You can find more on this in this article.

Option 3: Convince/Bribe the IT dude or make friends with him:

Chances are, your USB drives are also disabled from use, since the organisation you work for is worried about data security etc. Hence, the next best option is to make friends with the IT dudes. This always works, provided you don’t get caught on ethical grounds. And possibly, IT dudes are well aware of the superiority of Chrome/Firefox over IE.

Those are the three options that I could think of. If you do have any other ideas/ options that could serve as a work around this problem, drop us a comment. Cheerio!

[Image Courtesy: Reddit]

Bill from Youtube channel engineerguyvideo has come up with an awesome tutorial video explaining the concepts of how fibre optic cables work and how they are used to send data/messages. In this short and concise, yet very clear video ( clocking at just 5:36 minutes), the primary concepts of the working of fibre optic cables have been discussed. Have a look at the video embedded below.

The brilliance of this video lies in the fact that how he has managed to capture the intuitive facts and bare-bone concepts of what could potentially be a complex topic of discussion replete with jargon et al.
It allows viewers to quickly grasp the concepts without being bombarded with unintelligible jargon.The mark of a great teacher if you ask me. He did more than enough explanation in those 5 minutes.

And there’s one thing that comes into my mind after watching this video – TUBES, I tell you. The whole internet is nothing but a series of tubes (or maybe complexly connected in series and parallel or a different arrangement in a different dimension).

The new Android 2.1, more popularly known as the Android Eclair, is now available to be downloaded on the Samsung Galaxy Portal on T-mobile UK. The catch is, this upgrade is not available over-the-air (OTA), but has to be initiated by the user using Samsung’s mobile PC suite – Samsung PC Studio.

This is ridiculous, since the Android is a modified version of the Linux kernel, and at its core, is Open Source. However, for the upgrade itself, it has to be connected to a Windows PC. More on that later. For now, let’s focus on the upgrading progress. And this process took me a good 4 hours to complete, until I found the easy and shortcut way to do it. Trust me, follow this process and the upgrade is done within 15 minutes flat!

What I did wrong before:

• Installed Samsung PC Studio which was on the CD that came along with my phone.[ This is version 1.4. etc, which is an old one ]
• Connected my phone via USB cable, and opened up Samsung PCS, and hit the Upgrade button.
• It goes to download the latest install, and then on to Step 3, which is actual upgrade on the phone, and then it goes on for ages, whilst the phone keeps flashing the Samsung logo.

Here’s the right way to do it.

• Install the latest version, just to be very sure. Go to Samsung Mobile UK website, and select Samsung Galaxy Portal-> Software, and download the 1.5 version of Samsung PC Studio.
• Once installed { i.e. after uninstalling the previous version and installing this one } , connect your Samsung Galaxy Portal using the USB Cable. Mount your SD card.

• Open Samsung PC Studio, and now it should detect your phone as GTi5700, and also should show – Firmware version on your phone, and the Upgrade Firmware version.
• Hit the upgrade. First it will download the BinaryUpdate file which is the new firmware that will be eventually loaded onto your phone. Once downloaded, it will go on to Step 3 – Upgrading the firmware on the phone.
• It will ask if you have backed up your data – i.e. contacts, SMS etc. ( I hope you have. This upgrade wipes all of it clean. Data on Memory Card is untouched ). Say yes, to that, and now it will start upgrading. PC Studio will ask you not to disconnect your phone from the PC. The phone will flash a Samsung Logo whilst in this process.
• A lot of people have complained about this process taking ages to complete. I personally experienced this 4 times, when the process did not progress at all for more than an hour.
• I found this shortcut on T-Mobile’s forum, and hence, thought to give it a go. When the Samsung logo is flashing, open the back case, and remove the battery.
• PC Studio will alert you of a critical fault in your cell, and advise you to reboot your cell in recovery mode.
• To do this, press these buttons simultaneously – Volume Down + Camera + Power. When you press these buttons, the home screen will show a Blue SIM logo and a Downloading status bar.
• In the recovery mode itself, hit Next on Samsung PC Studio, and it should go back to Step 1 and Step 2 – but it gets completed pretty soon. On to Step 3 of upgrading, this time around, the progress bar on PC Studio actually shows progress, and the process takes only about a minute to be 100%, and simultaneously, the Download bar on your phone also shows the progress.
• Once this is done, PC Studio goes to finish, and advises you to download Kies, as the new Android firmware is not supported by PC Studio. Ignore it.
• Your phone reboots on its own, and now has Android 2.1. Voila!
• All you need to do now is associate your Google account as you did the first time.

The entire upgrade process took around 15 minutes for me. I know it is quite sad that when the whole world of Android phones has been busy flashing off their Froyos, the Samsung Galaxy Portal has been struggling to get the Eclair. But still, it is much better than the 1.5 Cupcake. More on that later.
Do let me know if you face any problems in this upgrade.

In the past couple of months of working on Excel and VBA Macros, I have been exposed to a few challenges which in the course of time, I have overcome. So, I thought I would share them with my beloved readers. This section: Excel Tips aims at sharing the small tips and tricks that I have come across which makes life easier for anyone working with Excel or VBA Macros. Cheers!

Keyboard shortcuts are like the secret tools of every power Excel user. If we use too much of Excel in our day-to-day work, these handy Keyboard shortcuts on Excell cell selection will save a lot of time, and also save you from dragging the mouse into frustration land.

So here, we go.

Selecting entire Column (vertical ) : – Ctrl + Spacebar

Selecting entire Row (horizontal ) : – Shift + Spacebar

Selecting all rows & columns : – Ctrl + A

Selecting first active cell  : Ctrl + Home

Selecting last active cell : Ctrl + End

Selecting all columns from a particular cell to the beginning of the column: Ctrl + Shift + Left

Selecting all columns from a particular cell to the end of the column: Ctrl + Shift + Right

Selecting all rows from a particular cell to the beginning of the row : Ctrl + Shift + Up

Selecting all rows from a particular cell to the end of the row : Ctrl + Shift + Down

Selecting first active cell in a row: Ctrl + Left

Selecting last active cell in a row: Ctrl + Right

Selecting first active cell in a column: Ctrl + Up

Selecting last active cell in a column: Ctrl + Down

Do let us know if these simple tips helped you out, and leave your comments. Cheerio and happy exceling.

Yes, we have done quite a few YouTube downloading how-tos in the past. Some of them still work, some don’t. The one which continues to work is the ever-updating awesome tool – KeepVid.com. But remember the good ol’ days of the javascript bookmarklet which used to make life so much easier. Well, the bookmarklet is back again.

And it’s called – PwnYouTube. Go drag and drop it on your bookmarks bar just as I did.

PwnYouTube Bookmarklet

Now when you visit a YouTube video, on the page, when you hit the bookmarklet, the menu option appears on top of the screen. Its on a yellow background, so I don’t think you’ll miss it. For your convenience, it looks like this.

Right click, and save as shown. Voila! Easy peasy!

Else, there is another alternative. Just append ‘pwn’ before the youtube video URL.

e.g. To download video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66TuSJo4dZM, enter

http://www.pwnyoutube.com/watch?v=66TuSJo4dZM

You’ll be redirected to deturl.com, and there, you’ll find options to download it from SaveVid, YouDDL and KeepVid.

So there you go, happy downloading YouTube videos.

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Google Image search is one of the most visited search engines. Be it searching for normal images we want for a project, or something we want to grace our desktop/laptop as a wallpaper. And more often than not, it is the latter. So, it is quite cumbersome when it comes to searching on Google Images for the appropriate sized – or in other words, wallpaper sized images from the huge list of thumbnails. It is a further pain to sort out by clicking on each of them to verify if they are indeed good looking images in the full size, and if they are not pixelised.

The solution: a Google Image Search hack which allows Full size image results, no thumbnails whatsoever, for your full viewing pleasure. [ as shown in the pic above]

The link is here:

Google Image Ripper » Dear Computer,.

Enter your search keyword, choose your size – which ranges from icon to xxlarge to huge. Press “Rip Google” and voila. Just be prepared to be hit by a massive wall of wallpapers. And just for your viewing pleasure, I’ll attach a massive High Definition wallpaper of Inception. Of course, this one’s a thumbnail, so do click on it to enjoy it in full HD glory. [ The image below might take a while to load ]

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