Image Related Utilities

Stumbled upon these while pondering over how to simplify technology further for teachers. Just posted a relevant post on my other blog (http://postingfacts.blogspot.com). The technology challenges faced by teachers prompted me to explore some good short and crisp image related utilities. Mentioning two such utilities below :

Shell Extension ( http://free.firmtools.com/shellextension/) is a very handy utility
( just about 520 KB in size) which adds capabilties to the right-click menu

Once you right-click on any image, it displays a thumbnail of the image along with the option"Convert to". Once you click on "Convert to", it shows you the various fomats available for conversion ( a good number of image formats) and allows you to save it. Quite a handy utility to add more power to my right-click. A must try !

PIXresizer -Image Resizer (http://bluefive.pair.com/pixresizer.htm)

A useful utility for resizing images, individual and in groups. A very intuitive and si mple to use interface for using the tool. Through tab change, one may work on either an indiv idual image or a group of images. While working with multiple files, remember to mention the corr e ct folder(s) for loading or saving the files.

The above two utilities can help the starters to get more comfortable manipulating th e images as compared to working with a heavy/ comprehensive image related tool/ software.

Best of try !

Screen Capture Utility - Snippy

Snippy ( www.bhelpuri.net/Snippy) is a very cute screen capture utility. A very simple to use tool that can capture the screen with so much ease and provides some basic formatting facility as well like choosing freehand/ rectangular region, different border types, colours, etc.
i enjoy using Snippy.

PPT to Flash Converter - iSpring

While conducting e-teaching workshops, one important thing that we focus on is ensuring that we deliver some tool or startegy that aids the teachers in making use of resources previously created by them in some other popular fomat s (likt ppt, etc.). These really help the teachers in making use of what they have already created. One such free ppt to swf conversion tool is ispring (www.ispringsolutions.com). By clicking on 'Run Powerpoint', a toolbar gets attached to Powerpoint toolbar menu and directly from there one may publish the file in flash format (.swf format). This tool has helped get away with the need to install Open Office and then convert the presentation to flash. Quite a handy and easy-to-use tool.