We like to share our knowledge at Thoughtbox. Here you will find articles written by Thoughtbox staff and links to other interesting web pages that we think will be of interest to our customers. This is always changing, so remember to check regularly.
DNG or RAW?
Chances are, if you own a digital camera purchase in the last couple of years, your camera has an option to save your photos in a camera RAW format. This format is the highest quality your camera can produce and is usually read by custom software that comes with your camera.RAW files are much larger than JPG files but if it's quality you're after, RAW is the way to go. Let's fast forward five years and you have a new wiz bang camera and new computer - different brand and different software. There is an old photo you want to crop and print that you took in RAW but you can't find the disk with original software for your old camera.
Imagine your friend has Photoshop and wants to 'fix' one of your photos, but doesn't have your software.
With DNG, these problems are a thing of the past. Converting your RAW photos to DNG is like converting your documents to PDF - smaller, universally recongised and great for archiving.
Head on over to www.adobe.com/products/dng/ for more information.
Posted on Friday, 23-Jan-2009 09:31 AM
How to Sync Outlook calendars - for free
Here’s the situation – you have a desktop in the office, a laptop and a home PC all running Microsoft Outlook and you want to sync ‘em up. And you want it for free. Don’t we all.There are plenty of ways to sync Microsoft Outlook calendars – for a price. But when it comes to free solutions, it’s fairly slim pickings. Well, with the introduction of Google Calendar Sync, your prayers have been answered.
Google’s software is used to sync between Outlook and its own Google Calendar – an online scheduling solution. It’s this simple;
- Sign up for a free Google Calendar account
- Download the Google Calendar Sync software
- Set up the software for 2-way syncing
- Install the software on all computers that need to be sync’d
Now, the next time your various computers turn on and can get on the internet, the sync will take place.
There are more benefits than pure syncing, Google Calendar is a great web 2.0 application and it’s web based, meaning you can add appointments from any internet enabled pc that will appear in Outlook next time you sync.
As it stands, it will only sync calendar events but Google have indicated that they may provide an update that includes to-do lists and notes in the near future.
Posted on Monday, 03-Nov-2008 18:10 PM
OpenOffice 3 released
OpenOffice.org version 3 has just been released and when their servers are up to it (the download demand broke their servers!), Thoughtbox will give it a go and let you all know what we think.For the uninitiated, OpenOffice.org is a free, open source alternative to Microsoft Office. It’s highly compatible with MS Office and is a very powerful, cross-platform suite of programs. If you are considering buying MS Office and total compatibility is not an issue, give OpenOffice.org a go.
Just because it’s free doesn’t mean it’s not professional or powerful, it’s just fantastic. Check out www.openoffice.org for more info. Be warned, it’s a fairly big download, about 150 mb, but if you have a broadband plan that suits or your ISP has it as an unmetered download of the suite, there’s nothing stopping you.
For a more reasons why OpenOffice.org is worth a look, check out this article by The Houston Chronical.
Posted on Monday, 03-Nov-2008 17:34 PM
Blu-Ray the unofficial winner
Well, it looks like the next generation format war is all but over with Blu Ray the winner. With Toshiba, one of HD DVD’s principal designers, abandoning the platform, it looks like it’s all over.Thoughtbox’s advice – go with Blu Ray. The PS3 has a Blu Ray drive as standard this will help weight the numbers further to Blu Ray’s advantage. But remember, without a high definition (HD) LCD or plasma, Blu Ray will give you no quality benefit.
Posted on Wednesday, 27-Aug-2008 18:59 PM