Get a really thin taskbar on the side in Windows 7

Most of us don't like the normal position of the taskbar in Windows 7, and we shift it to the left or right side of the desktop.

Reducing the size of icons on Taskbar can definitely give you more space, but there is a limitation on the thin-ness of the taskbar. You can only reduce the length to a defined limit.

What you get is this type of a taskbar.

The problem is that you feel cheated and there is some extra space on side of each of the active application.
Could there be a way to get rid of it?

Luckily, there is...

Step 1.>
Right-click on your taskbar and click on properties.

Step 2.>
Check the boxes- 'Auto-hide the taskbar' and 'Lock the taskbar'. Click on apply and then click on OK. The taskbar should now be hidden.

Step 3.>
Open up notepad and type the following commands as it is:-

@echo off
echo ThinTaskbar
echo Please wait a few secconds...
net stop "UxSms"
net start "UxSms"

Step 4.>
Save the file with anyname and add the extension .bat
Example:- thinBar.bat

Step 5.>
Run the file with administrator privileges. Right-click and select Run As Administrator.

Step 6.>
This should stop the Windows Aero and restart it. Your taskbar gets auto hidden by default.

Step 7.>
Again open the taskbar properties and uncheck the box 'Autohide the taskbar'.

This should now give you a really thin taskbar and some more space on your desktop. :)

How to remove people from photographs using photoshop.

Here is a sample tutorial that will give you a brief idea about how to remove unwanted people from a photograph.
Before proceeding further, make a note that this example is for a very specific scenario.

Scenario:- You want to take a photograph of a monument, but you are just unable to do so because so many people are getting in your way.

Here's how you can do this.

Step 1.> Mount your camera on a tripod stand and take 20 photographs of the monument keeping the exact same position of the camera and the settings. Take these photographs each with an interval of 10 seconds.

Step 2.> Open these photographs in Adobe Photoshop all at once. You can do this by
File-> Script-> Statistics

Choose "Median".

That's it. You are done :)

Here are the sample results.

The results obviously depends upon the number of photographs taken and I have assumed that all the people in the photograph are in a moving state. Suppose that there is a couple who is sitting throughout the photo shoot at the same location, they will still be included in the final result.

Try it for results.

Get the most out of VLC media player

Here are some tips to get the best out of your VLC media player.

Reduce Video Lagging
Old computers seem to have a problem while playing high resolution videos and certain formats. This can be fixed by using a simple trick. Go to Tools->Preferences->Inputs and Codecs. In the Codec section change the settings of the 'Skip H.264 in loop de-blocking filter' from None to All and save the setting.

Reduce Pixellation
Low quality videos can be enhanced by reducing pixellation and blockiness effects. This can be done by enabling post processing option by going to Video->Post Processing. A higher number denotes a higher level of post processing. What this option effectively does is employ a filter on every frame that smoothens the image . Hence you end up losing on image detail, but block effects are smoothened out. As this is computationally intensive, it is best applied on laptops with high processing power.

Video Effects
VLC has some really cool video effects options. You can tinker around with a variety of these by going to Tools->Effects and Filters->Video Effects. Ever wondered if Yuvraj's flick six off Brett Lee would look as elegant if he were right handed? You can check that out by flipping the video horizontally using Geometric Filters. Motion blur effect can be added in real time using Advanced Filters. There are a load of options for changing colour, contrast, brightness, sharpness, etc.

Snapshots
Want to tell a friend about a blooper that appeared in a movie? Well, take a snapshot. Pausing at the right moment for a snapshot is invariably difficult. In VLC, you can enable advanced controls by View->Advanced Controls. The right most button in the new row of buttons is the frame by frame playback button. Repeated pressing of the button will enable to play and pause your video playback frame by frame. That makes the task of taking a snapshot quite comfortable. You can take a snapshot of a frame by Video->Take snapshot. The picture is saved in the My Pictures folder of your home folder.