.::REALITYRECALL::.

Photos still look great for web-viewing even when they’re at resolutions well below the optimal size for printing. Resize and resample your images down to a more reasonable size at Web Resizer.

Photo by docentjoyce.

Upload a photo to Web Resizer and you can not only resize the image to smaller dimensions, but tweak its appearance and image quality. You can round the corners or leave them square, add a border, crop, rotate, sharpen and adjust the image quality to push the image size down even further. If you’re unable to decide which image quality setting is best, you can check the “Compare Image Sizes” box and Web Resizer will lay out images in increments of 10 points on the scale for you to compare. You can also do basic adjustments to the contrast, exposure, and tint of the image.

It’s not a tool for batch conversion or heavy editing but for individual tweaking to optimize a handful of site images or adjust a profile picture to fit within the size and resolution requirements of a site you want to upload it to, it’s a handy and free tool. Have a favorite online editor? Let’s hear about it in the comments.

We’ve been proponents of standing desks and treadputers for some time, but we’ve also met with plenty of reader skepticism on the subject. The New York Times examines why sitting all day is so bad for you, whether or not you exercise.

Based on the results of several recent studies, the Times’ Olivia Judson writes:

It doesn’t matter if you go running every morning, or you’re a regular at the gym. If you spend most of the rest of the day sitting – in your car, your office chair, on your sofa at home – you are putting yourself at increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers and an early death. In other words, irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you.

Indeed, if you consider only healthy people who exercise regularly, those who sit the most during the rest of the day have larger waists and worse profiles of blood pressure and blood sugar than those who sit less. Among people who sit in front of the television for more than three hours each day, those who exercise are as fat as those who don’t: sitting a lot appears to offset some of the benefits of jogging a lot.

The post goes onto discuss why sitting for so long is such a problem, in two parts. First, sitting really is “one of the most passive things you can do,” and second, “when you spend long periods sitting, your body actually does things that are bad for you.” Head over to the NYT for more details, and see if you can’t find a place to stand up while you read. Thanks happygardeningmama002!

The Calgary Flames announced on Monday the signing of acquired forward Matt Stajan to a multi-year contract.

A domed stadium in Regina could be successful, a feasibility study released Monday says, although the question of who would pay to build the multimillion-dollar facility remains to be answered.

Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) copies will begin restarting every two hours today.
Microsoft officials warned of the prompts and bi-hourly shut downs in early February. A brief summary of the events can be found below:
Effective March 1, 2010, Windows 7 RC enters the next phase of expiration:

Windows 7 RC users…

Sidney Crosby took a pass from Jarome Iginla and scored just under eight minutes into overtime to give Canada a 3-2 win over the United States and the gold medal in Olympic men’s hockey on Sunday.

The closing ceremony of the Vancouver Games kicked off with typical Canadian self-deprecation, but quickly became a celebration of Canada and its athletic and cultural achievements – often with a twist of humour.

It’s unclear exactly what’s going on at the moment, but it appears that the PlayStation Network is down and causing a whole host of related problems for PS3 systems, including 8001050F error codes, game crashes, corrupted trophy info, and even the complete inability to launch certain titles. There’s no ETA on when things will get back to normal — looks like it’s gonna be a Blu-ray kind of evening for PS3 owners out there.

Update: Sony’s tweeted that it’s “looking into it,” and our boys at Joy say that owners of original PS3s are seeing their clocks reset and even data loss in some cases. We’ll keep you updated.

Update 2: Given that issues started to appear as February 28th became March 1st, it’s being speculated that the PSN woes are related to an improper handling of leap years. Similar to the issue that bricked those Zunes back in 2008. Sorry, manually setting your date doesn’t help, we tried.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

PlayStation Network down, so are lots of PS3s (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It may have taken eight years, but Kevin Martin took that next step up the podium he was seeking with a 6-3 win over Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud in the Olympic men’s curling final Saturday at the Vancouver Olympic Centre.

Canada has rocked the Vancouver Olympics in a way nobody anticipated.

A solid gold touch of redemption shone on Canada’s men’s long-track speedskaters on Saturday as they finished first in team pursuit at the Winter Olympics.

Google has added a new Location feature to their Options sidebar, allowing you to filter search results to find things near you. To access it, click the Show options link near the top of the search results page, then click the Nearby link. (You can also customize the location if your default isn’t right and tweak the search depth based on city, region, or state.) It’s interesting to watch as more and more web services incorporate location; part of the original importance of the web was its ability to make location irrelevant, but clearly location is an important part of the web’s future. [Refine your searches by location]

Marie-Philip Poulin scored twice in the first period and Shannon Szabados made 28 saves as Team Canada beat the United States 2-0 to win the gold medal in women’s hockey at the Vancouver Olympics on Thursday. It is Team Canada’s third consecutive gold medal.

The Flames have signed Rene Bourque to an extension.

On the verge of becoming an unrestricted free agent, the rambunctious left-winger is playing out a contract that pays him a salary of $1.4 million US.

Starting next year, Bourque, 28, will pull down $3.3 million US. The term is six seasons.

 

Windows: If you want to store your Windows profiles independent from your system drive and standard Windows directories to protect against loss and corruption, Profile Relocator makes short work of moving your profiles directory.

The best time to use Profile Relocator is after a fresh install of Windows when moving empty profiles poses minimal risk and the least chance of conflicts. If you’re set on moving your profiles in an existing installation it is possible and Profile Relocator won’t delete the old profiles in the old location so if the move causes any complications you can just switch things back.

Like with all tinkering under the hood in Windows it sounds simple enough to just move your profile directory but any number of complications can arise when it’s done on an established installation. Set a system restore point before making the move and read the included documentation carefully.

Profile Relocator is freeware, Windows only, and requires Microsoft .NET 2.0+. Have an application that’s handy for remodeling the guts of your Windows installation? Let’s hear about it in the comments.

Ryan Getzlaf, Dan Boyle, Rick Nash, Brenden Morrow, Corey Perry, with two goals, and Shea Weber scored as Team Canada thumped Russia 7-3 in their men’s hockey quarter-final at the Vancouver Olympics on Wednesday night. Canada will take on either Slovakia or Sweden in the semis.

Newborn Canadians may live to celebrate nearly 81 birthdays on average, a Statistics Canada report on life expectancy suggests.