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I’ve recently started using my Macbook Pro a bit more to do some web development stuff, and I quickly ran into an ongoing problem. In a rare case of design failure, the scroll ball on the Mighty Mouse just doesn’t work after extended use. The most common cause of this is a buildup of dirt and gunk around the scroll ball and its surrounding sensors. After some google searching, I found a few different methods for cleaning from the hardcore to the basic (push down and rub). In the end I went with a slightly modified version of this kid’s method which has thus far worked a treat.
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A little while ago I took some RAW images with my DSLR. Having never used a DSLR or dealt with the RAW format before, I had no idea how to view or use the files. After a brief search, I discovered a most useful program called UFRaw. It’s free (and I think open source), and allows you to open and edit a variety of RAW image formats. Not only that, but it also acts as a GIMP plugin and a batch converter, so you can load your images directly into The GIMP for editing. All of these features appear to be documented on the UFRaw site, although to tell the truth I really haven’t used it all that much.

Today I wanted to convert about 45 RAW images to JPEG. Obviously this is a job for the batch conversion tool that comes with UFRaw, however, the batch conversion program converts images to .PPM by default. In order to batch convert images to JPEG, an additional command line argument must be passed to the program.  Having to get into the command line removes the drag-and-drop simplicity you get with the default behaviour, and I knew I could do better. It quickly became apparent that it was time to get my batch file on. Below is my example script that allows you to drag-and-drop any number of files onto it and have them converted to JPG. This same script could be re-applied to any other program that works in the same way by simply changing the program and command line arguments.


@ECHO OFF
START "converting RAWs to JPEG" "C:\Program Files (x86)\GIMP-2.0\bin\ufraw-batch.exe" --out-type=jpg %*


The first line of the script just turns off printing to the command line. The second line is where the magic happens. Breaking up the second line we have:

• START - used to start a program
• the title of the command line window that opens to run the command
• the path to the executable we’re calling (in this case, ufraw-batch.exe)
• the command line arguments passed to ufraw-batch.exe to convert images to JPEG instead of PPM
• finally, the “%*” at the end passes all of the arguments/files passed to the script, onto the ufraw-batch.exe command we’ve just defined

Obviously if you want to use the script yourself you may need to change the path to ufraw-batch.exe.

For the really geeky amongst you, here’s a pretty good article explaining some of the issues and approaches relating to floating point comparisons in C/C++.

On a side note, I’m almost done with my uni assignments for this semester. I’m hoping to post a few articles based on stuff I’ve encountered this semester once I get into exam period/holidays.

That is all.

This is just a quick post for anyone having difficulties getting Chrome to run on Windows 7 RC1. After installing Chrome, as soon as I tried to load a page it would either do nothing, or show me an “Aw Snap” page telling me something had gone wrong. As a result, the browser was completely useless. A quick search revealed that users can subscribe to one of three different Chrome channels. These channels are basically the three main builds of Chrome at a given time, which are: stable, beta, and dev. The quick solution to my problem was to switch over to the beta channel, which immediately fixed my problem. As proof, I’m currently writing this post using Chrome =D. Given that Windows 7 is still only at RC1, it’s not surprising that the stable build of Chrome doesn’t work with it (at least not for everyone).

As a side note, you should definitely check out Chrome Experiments to see some of the funky stuff people have done in browsers. The examples I’ve looked at also work in Firefox, so don’t worry if you don’t have Chrome installed.

After hearing a few people mention Windows 7 RC1 over the last week, my curiosity was piqued. I had heard and seen a bit about Windows 7 up until this point, however my busy schedule forced me to ignore the prospect of playing with it. I’m now glad to say that this post is being written with the aid of Windows 7 RC1. Not only that, but it is now the sole operating system on my main machine at home. That’s right folks, I blew Vista away yesterday without so much as a kiss goodbye and I haven’t regretted it for a second.

I don’t plan on doing a lengthy review or how-to now (or probably ever), I just wanted to share how easy it was to move to Windows 7 from Vista. First things first, you need to get yourself a copy of RC1. To do that, visit Microsoft’s download page and follow the links to download it. You’ll have to choose between the 32 and 64-bit options (I chose 64-bit) and you will also be asked to sign-in with a Hotmail, Messenger, Passport or Live account to proceed. Once you’ve jumped through the hoops, you’ll be given a product key and can start the download. At just over 3GB, you may be waiting a little while. Once that’s done, you’re ready to install!
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