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Chopping big emails down to size

Posted by MN Farani at 5:58:00 pm

During the summer, Gmail increased its maximum attachment size to 25MB, up 5MB on its previous limit. Great news, I hear you cry - now you can squeeze a few more photos into that email or send an album in 2 parts rather than 3!

Well yes, you can, but does that mean you should?letter2.png

One thing you have to remember about email is that it’s old. Really old. Although it mightn’t feel it, email has been around for more than 30 years and, unlike other technologies, it hasn’t been updated much. This doesn’t have much of an impact on our day-to-day use, but like they say over at the Google Operating System blog, “…sending a large attachment via email is relocating using the U.S. Postal Service as your moving company. It is painful, limited, and expensive.” It will get the job done, but it’s not the most efficient way.

So what’s the alternative? Well, if you are in physical contact with your recipient, you could just put the file on a memory stick. Once you follow the basic security principles, it’s a very simple way of transferring data. Obviously, this only works if you are geographically close to the recipient. In fact, email’s ability to overcome this problem is one of the reasons it became so popular. Just because it’s popular, though, doesn’t make it the best, so have a think about using free web hosting services instead. Don’t worry if it sounds complicated - you’ll get the hang of it quickly.

Go to a free hosting site - Mediafire and Hotshare are two well-known ones - and upload the file in question, just like you would attach it to an email. With 200MB of space usually available, it has a significant advantage over the now elderly email. Once it is uploaded, the service will give you a link, which you email to your friend. Your friend clicks on the link, and downloads the file that you uploaded. If it sounds complicated, it’s only because I have detailed every step - do it once or twice and it will become second nature.

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Even though it’s not the most efficient way, you might still have your reasons for wanting to send larger files by email. If you do, you’ll need to make them smaller, and there’s two ways of doing this. You can compress (or ‘zip’) them, or divide them into smaller files. Either way, you’ll need a tool to do this, and the recipient will need a similar tool to decompress or re-join. IZArc and 7-Zip are two reliable - and free - file compression and decompression utilities. Likewise, in the area of file splitting, you’ve got plenty of choice. Even though they’re not pretty (and show little imagination in the name stakes), HJSplit and Gsplit are both fuss-free methods of chopping those unwieldy files down to size.

Special Thanks to: Niamh Lynch

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5 stress-free alternatives to Photoshop

Posted by MN Farani at 10:00:00 am

Adobe Photoshop is a legend of a program. Unfortunately, it is also legendarily complicated and expensive, which makes things difficult for the average user. Even if you get past the intimidating price tag, Photoshop’s maze of layers, masks and magic tools can make even the bravest prospective user doubt their ability. Surely there’s an easier alternative?!

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Luckily for us, there is. Most people don’t actually need a photo editing program of such epic proportions, which is why developers have created a raft of alternatives that area easier on your wallet AND your blood pressure.

Photoscape - Photoscape has to be number one on any list of free and easy alternatives. Full of features, simple to use and, best of all, completely free, this program is pretty much freeware’s image editing poster child. Come on, with over three MILLION downloads in the last two years on Softonic alone, it has to be doing something right!gimp_final1.png

GIMP - In second place comes GIMP. Somewhat of a giant, despite the odd name (it’s actually an acronym of GNU Image Manipulation Program), GIMP scores slightly below Photoscape because its installation process can be a little scary. Since we’re looking for stress-free alternatives, this means it loses a few points, but once you get GIMP safely installed on your computer, you’ll find it’s full of features and has an impressive range of cool plug-ins that are almost sure to meet your editing needs.

Photofiltre - Photofiltre scores high in terms of price - it’s free - but a little lower on ease of use. Like Photoshop, its interface is a bit overwhelming at first glace, but the learning curve isn’t half as steep and it is an ideal starting point for budding graphic designers who might well move on to Photoshop in years to come.

PhotoImpression - ArcSoft PhotoImpression come in at number 4 because its major pro is counterbalanced by a major con. This Photoshop-like program is full of features, but way, way easier to use than the original. It’ll give you good practice for the ‘real thing’, helping you to learn the basic concepts of more advanced image editing. The major con? Well, it’s not actually free, but you can try it out and get used to the basics. When you have them down, you can move onto the more complicated tools.

Before looking at the last program in our run-down, ask yourself a question. Do you really need a tool like Photoshop? Although you might want to crop a few photos, tweak color balance or create a fancy slideshow, you probably don’t need to go as far as seamlessly adding an image of Bigfoot into the pictures of your family’s last camping trip in the woods. Photoshop is for professional level photo editing, and most people really don’t need such power.
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Picasa - If you need a simple and effective photo editor, but not exactly an alternative to Photoshop, give Picasa a try. The newest version of the Google tool is better than ever, and provides some really slick features for ordinary photo editing. It has none of the headache-inducing options of the more advanced editors, but will still give you fantastic results.
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