Pictures! Pictures!

Sometimes, we look for pictures to enrich or presentations. But we are not able to find them. Internet has some professional databases that has many thousands of pictures. The best is that you can also query these databases with simple text based queries (Ex: if you need a picture of a child crying, you can enter the text 'child crying'). Two such good database are Corbis and Getty Images. You can locate them in:

http://pro.corbis.com/
http://creative.gettyimages.com/source/ListingService/SearchAS.aspx

DVD Vs. VCD

Recetly there was a discussion about VCD and DVD. Here's a summary of what you ought to know:

VCD's look like a regular CD. Using special compression (1:30), VCD's offer picture quality footage/images that is far superior to the standard CD ROM's or VHS tapes. Each VCD can support up to one hour of playing time with full CD-quality stereo sound. VCDs can be played on a VCD-aware CD player, on most DVD players, and on any Macintosh or PC with MPEG software installed. (MPEG software, Active Movie Control, is a standard multimedia component within Windows, or you can download it free.) DVD's also look like regular CD's. However, DVD's can hold more than 4 G.B. of data vs. VCD's 650 MB. Thus, DVD's offer the best audio and video quality.

On-line PDF

PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file format that has captured all the elements of a printed document as an electronic image that you can view, navigate, print, or forward to someone else. It is an industry standard to create and share secure documents across the web or among your team members. Once a PDF document is created, it cannot be edited. Adobe PDF solves many common file-sharing problems, from preserving the look-and-feel of the original document to allowing anyone, on any platform, to view and print documents. To view and use the files, you need the free Acrobat Reader, which you can easily download. Once you've downloaded the Reader, it will start automatically whenever you want to look at a PDF file.

PDF files are created using Adobe Acrobat or similar products which require license which means you need $. Recently, there have been some websites that offer this service free of charge: creating PDF documents on-line.

I found 2 sites that offer free service of converting various documents to PDF format:
1. http://www.primopdf.com/

2. http://www.gohtm.com/

Adobe Reader can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Translations / Transliteration Software and Website

Recently I have been on the look out for translation tools from English to Sinhala and Tamil. I cam across two interesting tools that I would like to share with you today. When I went to http://www.lanka.info/dictionary/EnglishToSinhala.jsp, I found an interesting on-line tool that can translate English words to Sinhala or Tamil. Another interesting feature of this website: It gives you random word of the day for every search you perform to improve your Translations / Transliteration skills! I thought this is wonderful for all those who need to do translations.

I think there are also similar tools to do translations/ Transliteration in other languages. Please contact me, if you have other language requirements.

Free Bible Software - Theophilos

Bible software is good when you want to look up for references. For example: if you want to look the verses where Moses is referred in the new testament, you have to trust your memory and keep looking at the verses that you remember. With the bible software, you can enter the string or verse that you are looking for and the results come out very fast.

You can download this free bible software called Theophilos from http://www.theophilos.sk/download/theoinst.exe

This free package comes complete with the latest full version of Theophilos program, King James (Authorized) version of the English Bible, Matthew Henry's Commentary and Easton's Bible Dictionary. Try it out and you will like it.

Faster search with Google Desktop

Some times, even if you have organized your documents carefully in folders, locating them is not easy. Now, there is a software called Google DeskTop that can help you to search for information in your hard disk quickly and easily. It’s a free software downloadable from http://desktop.google.com/index.html.

Google desktop can search for documents from your email, computer files, music, photos, chats and web pages that you've viewed. You just have to enter a set of characters that you have used in the document that you want to search. Google will return a set of documents that will match with you search criteria.

Once the Google desktop is installed, it will appear on the right hand side of the Windows Taskbar. Later, you can right click and choose ‘Floating Desk Bar’ which is a very good mode to search for documents.

Using BookMarks

If you have been browsing the internet extensively you may be 'book marking' your favorite sites to access them quickly. You can also book mark your folder locations in the computer hard disk where you have stored your different documents. In this example you'll see I have crated a book mark for 'Dissertation'. When I want to see all the work related to my dissertation:
1. I open the Windows Explorer
2. Select 'Favorites'
3. Then select 'AALAPTOP' (which is a 'root' book mark for all the important folders in my Note Book computer)
4. Lastly, click on 'Dissertation'.

This is one click compared to making many clicks and delays dollowing them. I have attached a screen capture with details.

Organizing your documents

As your computer hard disk size grows, it's important to keep your information organized. I have seen many people spending even hours to locate a document in their computer. You would normally open the Windows Explorer to locate a document. It's a good practice to create a folder under 'My Documents' for different kinds of activities related to your work. That makes is easier to locate a document. An example is given above. I have created a folder called 'Dissertation' and under that I have created sub-folders to arrange related work to my dissertation. I can located any item related to my dissertation in a breeze. Try this out and you'll save a lot of time.

Introduction

Dear all,

I just thought of starting this blog with the focus of sharing some practical IT knowledge with Lord's people who are in the mission field. As they focus on bringing people to the Lord, it's important that they need to work smarter on the IT side of things like sending emails, look for a relevant document. As time goes along I'll focus on the cosmetic stuff to make the pages look better. Please bear with me.