LightRoom TreeExporter plugin offers the ability to export a complete folderstructure with contents to a new location with i.e. JPG files while preserving the folder structure.

When you store all your photos in RAW format you might run into the situation that your family members want to view or use the photos without using Lighroom or other RAW capable program.  

Beside my ‘My Pictures’ folder where I store all my RAW photos in a hierarchical folder structure I wanted to create a seperate folder like ‘My JPG Pictures’ where I can store a JPG version of all my RAW photo’s. (this folder is located on a network drive so my family members, but also the Xbox, Mediaplayers, and so on, can access the photos).
The structure of the folders below ‘My JPG Pictures’ should be equal to the folder structure in ‘My Pictures’.

To achieve this in Lightroom you have to create and export each folder (with RAW files) individually which can be a time consuming job. The Lightroom TreeExporter plugin is the solution to do this quickly. You can select a parent folder like ‘My Pictures’ and tell the plugin to export it to ‘My JPG Pictures’. Set the regular export settings like compression, format and so on. It will export all the RAW files to the new location as JPG (when JPG is chosen as export format).

 

Today I had to create a manual on how to maintain a website. Although there probably are many documents available, it is sometimes very useful to create a tutorial which is specific for a specific website, customer or tool.  I had to make many screenshots, draw arraws to point to the buttons and edit boxes, write a lot of information and actually, it did not became very customer friendly. I needed a better solution and I found it on Camstudio.org.

CamStudio is a freeware application to record (part of) your screen and record audio. It saves the video and audio to an AVI file which can be played on almost any device or save it as a Flash movie for publication on websites. It worked perfectly and I created a 30 minute video on how to maintain a specific website for the customer. At first it’s a little weird to talk to a screen but the result is great. CamStudio has some additional features which you can find out yourself.

 

LastPass is a password manager that makes web browsing easier and more secure. Although I’ve never been enthousiastic about using a password manager, I’m completely convinced now! My main concerns were usability and reliability of the application. One of the main benefits of using a password manager is that you are able to use unique passwords for different websites and you can use much stronger passwords because you don’t have to remember them anymore.

LastPass stores the passwords encrypted on their server so it’s possible to synchronize the information amongst all of your PC’s. Your passwords are also accesible using a webbrowser (SSL) in case you need them on a public PC.

There is a beta version of LastPass Application which enables managing passwords for applications like Skype and so on.

In case you are still using the same password amongst several websites, use weak short passwords, then I advice you to take a look at lastpass.com and invest some time in upgrading your passwords and making your online live more secure !

The application is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome. It also works on mobile devices (when you buy the premium version for $1,- / month) like the iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Symbian and Android.

 

Speed up the way you work with your PC. I use fingertips to quickly enter notes, tasks and calendar items into Outlook but also start other tasks on my PC. It will speedup your daily work. Download it for free at http://www.getfingertips.com/

 

I use Gladinet Cloud Desktop which enables you to access your free skydrive.live.com account from the Windows Explorer. It also offers some other nice features like backup.
For some reason I had to delete all the settings of Gladinet Cloud Desktop. This fixed some issues I had with using the application (like chunking files for Skydrive). To delete all settings and even go back from Pro to Free version (so you can register it again) is done by deleting all files in: C:\Users\<your windows login>\AppData\Local\Gladinet (For Windows 7). Now the application is working like a charm with the 25Gb free online storage of Skydrive.

www.gladinet.com

 

A free collection of 32 and 64-bit RAW image decoders for Windows 7, Vista and XP.
Windows Vista introduced a modern and extensible imaging framework called Windows Imaging Component (WIC). The operating system comes with built-in support for several common image formats including jpeg, bmp, png, gif, tiff and HD Photo. WIC makes it possible for 3rd parties to add first-class support for image formats to Windows, complete with thumbnails in Explorer, preview and slideshow support in Photo Gallery / Photo Viewer and metadata search integration.

The FastPictureViewer WIC RAW Codec Pack provides such platform support for additional formats and turns Windows Explorer into a raw viewer, through read-only image decoders, simultaneously available in both 32 and 64-bit flavor for Win7, Vista and XP SP3. The codec pack contains 32-bit and 64-bit NEF and 64-bit CR2 codecs, along with 64-bit DNG and a lot more!

WIC-enabled image viewers such as Windows Live™ Photo Gallery, Windows 7′s Media Center and our own FastPictureViewer Professional “automagically” gain the ability to open and view new image formats, play slideshows etc, so does all .NET 3.x and WPF-based applications.

http://www.fastpictureviewer.com/codecs/

 

Have a look at Xmind website and download their free mind mapping software. It works great and offers you a way to visual structure your thoughts, projects and ideas. Use google to find much more about mind mapping!

 

Are you always busy processing your emails? Look at this small tool which I use for a couple of years now. It still helps me archiving my email quickly. And it works with outlook 2007!

www.claritude.com

 

Are you using multiple internet browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and / or Safari? You might run into the issue how to synchronize your bookmarks between all your browsers and computers. You can easily synchronize and backup your bookmarks online using www.xmarks.com. Have a look at the website. It’s free!