Pete Posted September 19, 2011 Share Posted September 19, 2011 Hi folks As I had to reinstall my laptop last month, I was about to install a piece of software that I've used before to batch-resize photos which is useful when creating websites for clients where they're supplying huge photos (anything of a few MB or more is a pain in large quantities as I'm sure you'll agree). Before getting to installing it today though, I thought "there must be a tool that monitors a folder and any images you put in there get resized automatically..." - and guess what, I found one: http://www.dropresize.com/ Now obviously this might be a little over the top for someone who knows their way around a computer fairly well, but I liked the idea of something that sits in your system tray for clients to be able to use when uploading their own photos to a site. If you think about it, once it's set up all the instructions you have to give them are: "copy all your photos to this folder before uploading them to the website". Provided you've got the software set up correctly on their machine, that's all there is to it (and even if you're working with a client remotely, installation instructions wouldn't be too difficult to write!). All they've got to do is remember to run the program when they start Windows, but you could even just add it to their Startup folder. EDIT: Just noticed that once you set some options, they're saved as an XML file so you can even tweak that and supply it to your clients along with the .exe file for hassle-free setup. Neat - two files, no installer and you're done! EDIT2: Ah, nuts. You have to be careful though as it also enlarges images that are smaller than the specified dimensions. So, only useful for photos at the moment (was hoping to use it to convert a site with various image sizes, so will have to be careful or find another script). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted September 19, 2011 Author Share Posted September 19, 2011 And on a similar topic, if you ever do need remote access to client's machines then I can't fault this bit of software for its simplicity: http://www.teamviewer.com/en/index.aspx It passed the "mum test". She installed it fine and I was fixing her PC in no time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryan Posted September 19, 2011 Share Posted September 19, 2011 Thanks Pete these are great links! Dropresize sounds perfect for a few clients I have in mind. I will definitely use both Dropresize and Teamviewer... just wish I had them in the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Kiss Posted September 19, 2011 Share Posted September 19, 2011 I have teamviewer set up on all of my computers, even the virtual ones Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted September 19, 2011 Author Share Posted September 19, 2011 @adamkiss - which license do you have or are you using the free version for "personal" use like I am currently? I only came across it about a month ago but I was definitely impressed with it's simplicity in terms of the client end, and compared to other similar software it certainly is much cheaper for the commercial licenses. Besides, it does seem like a great investment when you think that you can share an idea with someone without having to go to them (thinking site design concept revisions as a quick example - "and you would click here to view page X") or waiting for them to come to you, or you can bug-track something on their screen or... well there's lots of neat possibilities where it can save money in the long run @ryan - yeah, that DropResize does look good, but there are two issues on the developer's to-do list that are quite big and he doesn't update it very often it seems. The first is it will resize small images to be larger as previously mentioned, but the big issue is if you resize using Bicubic Sharper it seems to add a weird black border on two edges. I did email the guy though and ask him if he'd consider fixing just those two things if I paid him (assuming it's a hobby project, makes him no money and that's the reason why he can't devote much time to it), so we'll see if he comes back with something - thought it couldn't hurt to ask. Annoyingly, after an hour or so of searching I couldn't find anything else as simple and elegant as that solution. Maybe it's time I learned some .NET. Wait, did I just say that? I feel dirty... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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