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To provide the best screenshots for all my articles, I have to process them using a couple of tools. So far I was using RIOT to batch resize and compress my photos and SnagIt for basic annotation needs. However, sometimes when the canvas of the image is white, I had to add borders to them so that they look a bit more presentable. Even being an excellent tool, RIOT lacked the option to add image borders. SnagIt did have the option, but it had to be done manually for each individual photo.
Yesterday I had about 16 photos that needed a border and I was just not in the mood to do the manual work. I thought that it would be better if I utilize the time to look for an alternative and save the workload of future conversions. And IrfanView was my first and final destination in the search.
We have already seen a comprehensive guide to IrfanView and today we will be seeing how to use the tool’s batch convert option to convert almost any kind of image file without limitations.
After IrfanView opens up click on File->Batch Conversion/Rename to open up the batch converter.

You can also press the hotkey button ‘b’ to do it. Let’s now have a look at the number of things we can do with the IrfanView batch image converter.

Batch Convert Image Type and Compress Quality

The very basic thing that can be done using this tool is changing the file type and compressing the output quality of  the photos. The option is readily available in the basic batch conversion mode and you just need to select the output format of the images. You can even compress the images and reduce the size and overall quality of the photos.

When you are done, add the batch, set the destination directory and click on the Start Batch button.
That was an example of one of the basic tasks the batch converter can accomplish. Let’s now have a look at its advanced options.



Cool Tip: See how you can save bandwidth by batch compressing photos before uploading them online.

Batch Resize Images

Using IrfanView’s batch resize option, you can resize the image either by providing the exact width and height of the image or by mentioning the percentage reduction you would like to see in the processed photos. The first method can be useful when all the images in the batch are of the same dimension while the second option comes in handy when images are of varied height and width.

When you enter just the width or height, the tool automatically sets the corresponding value in order to preserve the aspect ratio. The new size can be in pixels, centimeters or inches. Before you are batch converting the images, check the option Use advanced options in the batch conversion window.

Change Color Depth

Sometimes while converting the images, we change the color depth from true color to 256 or 16 bit color, just to reduce the size of the photo without changing its dimensions. IrfanView batch operation to change the color depth provides the feature with a touch of excellence.
A user can not only change the color depth to standard 256 or 16 bit color, but can choose from a range of custom colors to get the best output file size result.

Rotate and Add Borders

You can also rotate photos using the batch convert mode. Simply check the related option to rotate the images and save the settings before starting a batch. The option to add a border is also there and can be accessed by checking the Canvas Size option. In canvas size settings select the canvas background color and select the size of the border on all the sides.

The very reason behind the discovery of the IrfanView batch converter was to use the image border option and trust me when I say that it’s the easiest option to get this done.
Cool Tip: See how you can automatically rotate camera photos to fix the orientation before uploading to the web.

Conclusion

So that was how you can convert almost anything and everything related to images using the batch image convert mode in IrfanView. Seriously, IrfanView for a free image editing tool is just extraordinary. You are missing a lot if you haven’t tried it yet. Do give it a shot.

If there is something that has changed radically in the past few years with the advent of new technologies is the way we consume news. News media has migrated from being delivered almost exclusively via TV, radio and newspapers to being consumed by many people via the web.
This tendency has increased dramatically with the boom of smartphones and tablets, doing together to print news what email did to traditional “snail” mail years ago.
However, while nowadays most people get their news via Facebook, Twitter and other similar online social networking services, these are more like “digested” or “summarized” news, which rarely elaborate or provide depth.
If you use news readers though, you know that you can get and consume your news on your iPhone in a way that resembles the more “traditional” methods, providing you with much deeper and better news articles. The problem is that news reader apps tend to be paid apps (at least the good ones used to be), but it wasn’t until recently that some noteworthy, free alternatives became available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
Let’s take a look at the two best of them.

What Exactly are News Feeds and Readers?

Despite every news site sporting its own Facebook and Twitter accounts, most, if not all relevant news channels still offer news feeds and RSS channels to which one can easily subscribe to using a service like Google Reader, which gathers all the news from the news’ sources that you like.

Important Information: News feeds and RSS channels are streamlined versions of news created specifically for reader to subscribe using news reader services. If you have a Google account, you already have what you need to start subscribing to some RSS feeds. Head over to Google Reader to learn more.

2 Best News Readers for iOS

Flipboard

The first of these is Flipboard, a self-proclaimed “social magazine” that gathers all the best news from the web from among a series of topics that you specify and that also allows you to pull news from your Google Reader account, making it perhaps the most varied and versatile free news reader out there.



 
Its interface is very simple and intuitive, with users needing only to “flip” through articles to scan across them. That said, it is not the most efficient reader due to its interface, since it doesn’t show as many news as other alternatives on one screen.
 

Feedly

Our other alternative is Feedly, a more recent contender in the news reader space that offers a more traditional interface, but keeping things still a bit fresh with some original navigations elements. Feedly also syncs with your Google Reader account, making it fairly easy to pull your news from Google’s service to read in the app.
 
Navigation within the app is ok, although you might need to adjust some settings in order to tailor it to your liking.
 

Conclusions

In both cases these apps allow you to save articles for later reading either within the apps themselves or through popular read-later services like Instapaper and Pocket (which we compared in this article).

This puts them on par even with paid news readers and makes them very important alternatives for anyone who likes to read news the way their writers intended. Make sure to check out both apps, since they offer very different experiences, which gives you even more to choose from. And best of all? You get all these choices at no cost!

Only problem with this offer for many users may be that to avail this offer, Skype needs your Billing details like credit card information etc., and you must cancel this unlimited world subscription within 27 days of start of trial otherwise you will be charged €10,49 for the next month.
To grab this offer, just visit the promo Page here and click on “Claim your Free Month” button. You will need to sign in using your Skype account details. On the next page, the confirmation page for the Skype Unlimited World subscription will appear which will ask you for the Billing details like credit card info. Just submit the details and you will have Skype Unlimited World subscription in your account.


This subscription will give you one month of free unlimited calls, Calls to mobiles in seven countries including USA, Canada and Hong Kong and Unlimited calls to landlines in over 40 countries. So grab this offer till Nov 15 if you are comfortable with provide your billing information and can cancel the subscription before they charge you.