Are you an animator, a short film maker or a video maker?

If you produce your own videos, animations, short clips, ect and want to distribute it over internet, it is a great idea to have them licensed under your name. It will enable you to set your own rules for people who will be using and distributing them after you have released it to the world.

Well, but licensing in the sense seems like a big deal.. isn't it. But now it has become so easy with this new cool site called mdistribute.com, which provides you mobile content licensing on free registration. It will give you opportunity to license your content for mobile distribution, set prices for buyers who may be interested in your content and of course showcase your content for the buyers.

Sounds like cool to me.

Diabetes foot care - continued..

Another important thing is your shoes. They can easily damage your skin and predispose you to infections.

• Don't wear shoes without socks.
• Don't wear sandals or other open-toed shoes.
• Avoid high-heeled shoes and shoes with pointed toes.
• Wear well-padded socks or stockings that are 1/2 inch longer than your longest toe. Don't wear stretch socks, nylon socks, socks with an elastic band or garter at the top, or socks with inside seams.
• Don't wear uncomfortable or tight shoes that rub or cut into your feet. If you've had problems before because of shoes that didn't fit, you may want to be fitted for a custom-molded shoe.
• Talk to your doctor before you buy special shoes or inserts.
• Shop for new shoes at the end of the day when your feet are a little swollen. If shoes are comfortable when your feet are swollen, they'll probably be comfortable all day.
• Break in new shoes slowly by wearing them for no more than an hour a day for several days.
• Change socks and shoes every day. Have at least 2 pairs of shoes so you can switch pairs every other day.
• Look inside your shoes every day for things like gravel or torn linings. These things could rub against your feet and cause blisters or sores.

Diabetes foot care

Diabetes is a chronic debilitating condition which predisposed you to become immune compromised. Its' macroangiopathic and microangiopathic effects render some areas of the body ischemic. This makes these areas of the body unchecked by the immune mechanisms that are there to protect you from infections. Diabetic neuropathy results in reduced sensory perception of some areas of the body, making you unaware of the damages occurring to those areas.

High levels of glucose in blood will reduce the efficiency of the immune system components, by making advanced glycation end products (due to glycation of the components of the immune system). Also in diabetes ketoacidosis neutrophillic functions are reduced. All in all immune system of a diabetes patient will have a lesser efficacy than a normal healthy person.

Lots of people with diabetes loose one of their feet or both due to negligence. This can well be prevented if you care enough.

First controlling your blood glucose levels is the main stay of tackling the problem. Proper diabetic diet, Regular exercises, avoiding smoking and alcohol, getting your medication as prescribed and getting your health status checked regularly will ensure proper glycemic control.

At the same time foot care should be given utmost importance.

• Wash your feet every day with lukewarm (not hot) water and mild soap.
• Dry your feet well, especially between the toes. Use a soft towel and pat gently; don't rub.
• Keep the skin of your feet smooth by applying a cream or lanolin lotion, especially on the heels. If the skin is cracked, talk to your doctor about how to treat it.
• Keep your feet dry by dusting them with nonmedicated powder before putting on shoes, socks or stockings.
• Check your feet every day. You may need a mirror to look at the bottoms of your feet. Call your doctor if you have redness, swelling, pain that doesn't go away, numbness or tingling in any part of your foot.
• Don't treat calluses, corns or bunions without talking to your doctor first.
• Cut toenails straight across to avoid ingrown toenails. It might help to soak your toenails in warm water to soften them before you cut them. File the edges of your toenails carefully. When cutting nails, it is better to get it done by someone else, if you can not properly do it. It will ensure, your foot is not damaged while cutting nails.
• Don't let your feet get too hot or too cold.
• Don't go barefoot.

I got paypal negative balance

Today paypal sent me a message saying they have reversed one of the transactions sent to my account. But the amount sent back was greater than the amount that was there in my account. So i got a negative balance. Cool isnt't it. hehe

an easy way of Adding water marks to all your site images

Basically what we have to do is to have .htaccess file in the location where images reside and forward the request to a PHP script that will combine the requested image with the pre defined water mark using phpGD library and out put the new image. (here we use phpGD library there are other libraries that you can use.)

First of all you need add a .htaccess file into the location where your images are stored. here i have images in /images folder. This will get all the http requests going to the folder, where htaccess resides and direct them into /watermark/image_full.php file.


RewriteEngine     on 
# watermark big pictures with own watermark image 
RewriteRule    ^([0-9]+)_(.*).jpg        
/watermark/image_full.php?%{REQUEST_FILENAME} 
RewriteRule    ^([0-9]+)_(.*).gif        
/watermark/image_full.php?%{REQUEST_FILENAME} 
RewriteRule    ^([0-9]+)_(.*).png        
/watermark/image_full.php?%{REQUEST_FILENAME}  


Then we create a folder called, /watermark. Then put your water mark image in a png format in to that folder. Then we have to build the php file that will out put the image requested, with the water mark added to it.

We will be using phpGD library to merge two images and create a new image. Check the following PHP code. php file is in the same directory as the water mark file (/watermark)



// out put the result as a image
header("Content-type: image/jpeg"); 

//File name of the water mark file
$wmark='watermark_copyright.png'; 

// get the image name into a variable
$mimage=$QUERY_STRING; 

// load water mark image into a  new image object
$watermark = imagecreatefrompng($wmark); 

// get water mark width and height
$watermark_width = imagesx($watermark);
$watermark_height = imagesy($watermark);

// load requested image into a image object if it is a gif image
if(eregi('.gif',$mimage)) {
$image = imagecreatefromgif($mimage);
}

// load requested image into a image object if it is a jpg image
elseif(eregi('.jpeg',$mimage)||eregi('.jpg',$mimage)) {
$image = imagecreatefromjpeg($mimage);
}

// load requested image into a image object if it is a png image
elseif(eregi('.png',$mimage)) {
$image = imagecreatefrompng($mimage);
}


// get the width and height of requested image
$size = getimagesize($mimage);

// here we calculate new width and height for our watermark.

$WM_N_W = $size[0]/2;
$WM_N_H = ($WM_N_W*$watermark_height)/$watermark_width;

// create image holder object for new water mark
$nw_watermark = imageCreate($WM_N_W, $WM_N_H);

// resize the water mark
ImageCopyResized($nw_watermark, $watermark, 0, 0, 0, 0, $WM_N_W, $WM_N_H, $watermark_width, $watermark_height);

// set x and y co-ordinates for placement of the watermark
$dest_x = $size[0] - $WM_N_W - 10;
$dest_y = $size[1] - $WM_N_H - 20;


//make the watermark transparent
imagecolortransparent($watermark,imagecolorat($watermark,0,0));

// merge two images
imagecopyresampled($image, $nw_watermark, $dest_x, $dest_y, 0, 0, $watermark_width, $watermark_height, $watermark_width, $watermark_height);


// out put image
imagejpeg($image);

// destroy image objects and free the memory
imagedestroy($watermark); 
imagedestroy($image); 

Check the comments for explanations. If you are copying and pasting this, make sure, comments are escaped with // or /* and */

Removing Vocals from a Sound Track

Today i came across some work of one of my friends. To remove vocals from a sound track. Actually for it to be used as a karaoke. There is no easy ways to do this. This requires removal of frequency range of the voice of the singer. But always, it will overlap with the music frequencies. So you can not really get what you really want. But you can try and try and get close to what you want.

Here are some of the software i came across.

blazaudio - less controls of what we can do with the clip. But reduce the voice level of the vocals.

analogueX winamp plugin - They they, it reduces the vocals sound level, but i couldn't get working.

Adobe Audition 3 - An advance piece of software for professionals. Complex controls. But get's closer. With some experience with this software, you should be able to get what you need done.

Hope this helps if you also run into my problem.