Naveen's Blog

I was scanning a book and wanted to make a PDF from all the scanned images. I searched the SourceForge and found this tiny software, which worked perfectly. I was able to turn all the images into a nice PDF.

This tool is called “Image2PDF,” a project on SourceForge. It is a free software. It is a Java-based command line tool. It also has option to rotate the image to best fit the image. You can specify if the images be turned to landscape or portrait while converting into PDF.

Usage: img2pdf [options] {image file name} [[options] {image file name...}] {output PDF file name}

Options:
-landscape        Force subsequent pages to landscape orientation.
-portrait         Force subsequent pages to portrait orientation.
-noimagerotate    Don't rotate the image orientation to best fit on the page.
-autoorientation  Force subsequent pages to portrait orientation. (Default)
-autoimagerotate  Rotate the image orientation to best fit on the page. (Default)

For example, if you have put this single .exe file into a “Test” directory in “C” drive, you need to put all images into that and supply the below command (of course, you need to be in the command line window and change the directory to C:\Test):  Assuming here all are jpg files.

img2pdf *.jpg MyBook.pdf

The above command will convert all jpg files in the C:\Test directory into MyBook.pdf

If you have trouble with this command line stuff, post queries in the Comments and I will answer them.

I am a fan of tiny tools.  I wrote about few feature-rich tiny tools including tiny screen zooming software, tiny browser, tiny ISO mounting software, etc.

Today, I was searching for a tool to edit mp3 tags and embed album art into the files and found this tiny tool with amazing features.  “Mp3 Tag Tools” with a project name of “massid3lib” on SourceForge, is a tiny tool, just 281 KB, to batch edit mp3 files and embed the album art and lyrics directly into the mp3 file.

Features:

• You can edit ID3V1.1 and V2.x, copy from one to another, and sync them.
• Embed album art (album picture) and lyrics into the files.
• Batch edit the tags and embed album picture.



• At just a click of button, you can correct the case automatically.



• “Clean Filenames” option will remove excess whitespace, capitalizes after symbols & prefixes.
• Batch rename the files using a custom format.
• Sort all the mp3 files into artist, album, genre or in combination formats.  Very useful option to sort the songs according to artist or genre.



• A lot more other features.  Visit the project page to discover all the features.

Get it from the project homepage on SF | Direct Download @ Ziddu

My post on downloading videos from video-sharing sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Metcafe, etc. using Real Player has become more popular as it was an easy way and supported almost all video-sharing websites.  When I learned this feature in Real Player, I have ignored every other trick and stick to Real Player to download the videos.

Now downloading these streaming videos has become even more simple and easier with FlashGot.  Install this tiny plugin in Firefox and you are done.  Now go to any streaming video site and play the video and you will see a video frame icon in the status bar prompting you that it has got the link to the video.

Actually, FlastGot is used to download multiple files from the webpages at a single click.  FlashGot sends all the files and images in a webpage to an external download manager or to the Firefox’s internal download manager.  This video downloading facility is an extra feature it has.

FlashGot instantly recognizes the streaming video we are playing in the browser and shows a video frame icon in the status bar.  When you hover the mouse onto it, it shows available formats of the video along with the FLV file.  Just click on one of the format you need.  Keep in mind that FLV files downloaded using FlashGot will not have the extension.  You can just drag and drop it into VLC Player or Wimpy to play the video.

Get FlashGot and start downloading your favorite videos.

You might not be knowing that there is an excellent MS Office alternative exists called OpenOffice.  OpenOffice is a free open-source office suite.  I have been using OpenOffice lately as I have been working on creating some PDFs.  The new OpenOffice 3.1 version is equipped with lot of features and it has been improving day by day.  Lot of excellent extensions making it fun to work on OpenOffice.  It has the features that are not available on MS Office like exporting the documents to PDF, presentations to flash files, spreadsheets to XML files, etc.  Also, you can import the MS Office documents directly into OpenOffice and save them in their original MS Office format.

OpenOffice is lacking one useful option in OpenOffice Writer (Word in MS Office), which is “initial caps”.  I don’t know why they are not including it, but it is the widely used option in my work.  As I started working with OpenOffice Writer, I have started getting trouble.  I had to manually do the initial capitalization.  So, I have searched the OpenOffice forums and web to lean how to get that functionality in OpenOffice writer.  So, this post combines those all tricks in one place and gives step-by-step information on how to get that functionality in Writer.

You can achieve this functionality by using macros and assigning it to a keyboard shortcut, which is Shift+F3 in MS Word.

Download the macro code first.  Then, open the OpenOffice Writer.  Go to Tools>Macros>Organize Macros>OpenOffice.org Basic

On the left side, you can see a folder “Standard.” Expand it and you can see Module1.  Select it and then click the button “Edit” on the right side.  It opens a code window.  Now select the code already there and delete.  Now paste the macro code you have downloaded from the above link.  If you want to rename this macro, then go to the bottom of the window and right click on the tab, which reads “Module1.”  Then, close the window.

Now your macro is ready.  You need to assign a key to it.  Click on “Tools” from the menu bar on the top and select “Customize.”  You can alternatively press Alt+T followed by C to open the customization window.  Select the tab “Keyboard.”  Below that in the “Shortcut Keys” section select a short key, normally it is Shift+F3 in Word by default.  Then in the “Category” section, expand OpenOffice.org Macros>User>Standard>Module1(if you have not renamed it earlier).  Then click the button “Modify” on the right side.  You are done!  Now you can initial capitalize the words same as you were doing in MS Word.

My brother works as a service engineer in a company involved in electrification projects.  He has seen a company using project management software handling the projects and wanted to do the same in his company.  So, we spent time on searching free alternatives to MS Project and found these interesting alternatives, which have the same functionality as MS Project.

What is MS Project?

MS Project or any Project Management Software will help the project managers to create plans, assign resources to tasks, track the progress of the work, and manage budges and workloads.  The following is the description taken from Wikipedia:

“Project creates budgets based on assignment work and resource rates. As resources are assigned to tasks and assignment work estimated, the program calculates the cost equals the work times the rate, which rolls up to the task level and then to any summary tasks and finally to the project level. Resource definitions (people, equipment and materials) can be shared between projects using a shared resource pool. Each resource can have its own calendar, which defines what days and shifts a resource is available. Resource rates are used to calculate resource assignment costs which are rolled up and summarized at the resource level. Each resource can be assigned to multiple tasks in multiple plans and each task can be assigned multiple resources, and the application schedules task work based on the resource availability as defined in the resource calendars. All resources can be defined in an enterprise-wide resource pool.”

Below are the three alternatives I found.

OpenProj: OpenProj is a free open-source project management solution.  This is the first one I found and even I read some blog posts stating that small companies are using this software successfully as an alternative to MS Project.  OpenProj is available in Windows, Mac, and Linux versions.  Site also says that OpenProj has been translated into French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, Galician, Persian, Russian, Korean and Chinese.  Even, my brother selected this for his projects.  It is just 6 MB approximately.

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When my system crashed in the last month, I sent it to the servicing center for repair and when I returned the next day to collect the system, servicing people were watching the movie, which was stored on my hard drive.  It also contained all my bank account details, e-books I purchased, lot of important documents, and approximately 50 usernames and passwords stored in Firefox using “Remember Password” option.  I was lucky that it was a small service center with less-educated technicians who are just interested in copying music and movies, rather than looking at what others files the system has.  But, just imagine, if it has gone into the hands of a smart tech guy who can just copy all the information and use for illegal things.

These are the steps I have taken to protect the data:

• I have been saving all the software, e-books, and important documents on an external hard drive, so that if something happens to my system, I can just disconnect the external hard drive and send the system for repair.
• Using “Use Master Password” in Firefox options.  Without entering the master password while starting the Firefox, it will not show the usernames and passwords automatically. Also, taking regular backups of Firefox using FEBE.

But what about the important files that I use regularly.  I cannot keep the external hard drive connected all the day.  So, just wanted to create a folder that is password protected so that when I need, I just enter password and use. There are number of commercial softwares available to lock folders using passwords.

As an open-source lover, I just searched the net and found this interesting application, which does exactly the commercial folder locking or encrypting softwares do.

TrueCrypt, free open-source application for encrypting the folders or drives available for Windows, Linux, and Mac flavors.  Using TrueCrypt, you can have a virtual folder or drive created using complex encryption algorithms, which is almost hack-free.  Without knowing the password, no one can decrypt it and open the files.

TrueCrypt Main Menu

The virtually created folders are of cross platform and can be accessed on any operating system. You can use this software to encrypt the entire USB too.

Install the software and open it.  Click the “Create Volume” button.  Select the drive name to assign, choose volume type, hidden or normal, volume location, algorithm, volume size, and password.  That’s all, a secured folder is ready.  Whenever you need to open that folder, just open the file using “Select File” option from TrueCrypt and click “Mount.”  You will see a new drive appears with the drive letter you selected while creating the volume.  Do your work and when you work is complete, just close the application by right clicking and choosing “Exit” on the TrueCrypt button in system tray.  You can also set the option of dismounting the folder automatically at a given time in “Preferences.”

Opening Encrypted Folder

TrueCrypt System Tray Options

Get the TrueCrypt here: http://www.truecrypt.org/

TrueCrypt FAQ: http://www.truecrypt.org/faq.php

TrueCrypt Documentation: http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/